East Belfast Alliance Councillor Naomi Long has branded today’s special meeting of Belafst City Council as “a disgraceful fiasco, funded at the rate payers’ expense”.
The meeting, held to discuss a controversial Sinn Fein motion on policing, had to be adjourned as councillors heckled each other and shouted abuse across the Council Chamber.
Councillor Long said: “The conduct of certain councillors in the chamber was utterly disgraceful. On one hand there was the schoolboy acting of the DUP and on the other the complete hypocrisy of Sinn Fein. There is never any excuse for shouting people down and disrupting a debate.”
“Earlier this afternoon, the Council’s Good Relations Working Group, set up to address sectarianism in Belfast, heard from representatives in the community relations sector how behaviour in City Hall has a direct influence upon the stability and peacefulness in Belfast.”
“But within half an hour, a full Council debate degenerated into a slanging match – all paid for by the rate payers of Belfast.
“At a tense time for the political process, people are fearful about the future and councillors should be giving proper civic leadership instead of indulging in cheap theatrics and loutish. The people Belfast have a right to demand better.”
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