He said Alliance would insist on a meaningful shared future strategy and dismissed the deputy First Minister’s claim that Alliance had a poor attendance record by saying: “The fact is that Chris Lyttle, the MLA who I asked to lead on this, has attended all but one of the meetings that have been held, and at that meeting my Special Adviser attended in his place”. He stated that the real reason that they were annoyed with Alliance was becasue the Party would not accept a watered down strategy.
He summarised that Alliance will publish its minimum requirements to secure its support for a new Shared Future strategy and set out a number of proposals that they had already tabled. These include:
public spending tests to promote sharing on every public investment;legal acknowledgement that all space is shared space with, no compromise on territorialisation, including a strong protocol on flags;a comprehensive Interface strategy which promotes openness and tolerance.;a landmark Review of Equality and Sharing in public housing;serious investment in integration in teaching, including shared education and teacher training;a comprehensive youth strategy to combat sectarianism; andan independent delivery system for community relations, with enough clout to challenge government when it isn’t doing enough.
David Ford also stated that if the talks over a revised CSI fail and the DUP and Sinn Fein agree a strategy between themselves that they “think would find maximum acceptability within the community”, then this would only be a watered down strategy that would only have the lowest common denominator between these two parties and so would not achieve a genuine shared future.
He stated that for any strategy to be effective there would need to be an action plan. And that only the two Alliance Ministers in the Executive were actually delivering on shared future projects such as opening peace walls and shared future proofing their Department’s policies.
Alliance Leader David Ford MLA said:
Let me say at the outset of my remarks that I believe that the work of building a shared society – a society with “No More Them and Us?” – is the biggest single challenge facing Northern Ireland. For the first time in many generations we have an opportunity to address not only violence but to ensure that we address the underlying pattern of exclusion, discrimination and threat. History will not forgive us if we squander the opportunity presented by an end to violence to tackle the underlying divisions of this society.
This must become a truly shared society where nowhere is out of bounds to anyone because of their creed, colour, gender or sexuality. Above all we must move past preening ourselves for moving on from the disaster of the 1970s and face the challenge to act to make change.
I was invited this morning to talk about the work in which the Department of Justice is engaged, but I want to make some broader remarks too.
I am as frustrated as many, if not all, of the people in this room, at the failure of the Executive, over six years, to produce a strategy for taking that work forward. Even more frustrated, at the fact that the strategy that did exist – the Shared Future strategy – was binned in order to create that six year vacuum. Whatever the rhetoric and the spin and symbolism of recent months, what will make a real difference is substance – an effective strategy, policies and actions, combined with the funding and political leadership to make it happen.
In the days following the Assembly elections last year, out of frustration at the failure of the First and deputy First Ministers to provide any response to the overwhelming criticism of their misleadingly titled Strategy for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration, I agreed that my party would participate in a five-party process aimed at producing a better alternative. We agreed, at their request, that this process should be confidential.
So it was with disappointment that I heard at the weekend of the deputy First Minister’s remarks about the process. Bad enough that he chose to breach the confidentiality that he demanded and we had respected; but much worse to claim, dishonestly, that Alliance attendance at the meetings “leaves a lot to be desired”. The fact is that Chris Lyttle, the MLA who I asked to lead on this, has attended all but one of the meetings that have been held, and at that meeting my Special Adviser attended in his place.
But while our attendance has been beyond reproach, I can understand why Alliance’s participation in the process may have caused some frustration within the DUP and Sinn Féin. Because Chris has been persistently, doggedly, insisting that any strategy that is produced has to reflect the criticisms that poured down on the First Minister and deputy First Ministers’ previous attempt.
He has been submitting papers, flagging up inconsistencies, insisting that words have to be accompanied by actions; he has refused to see the sectarian and intimidating use of flags pushed off for consideration at some future point; demanded that the nettle of shared housing be grasped; and pleaded that the unwarranted criticism of our young people in the previous draft not be repeated.
Chris Lyttle has proposed, and I agree, that the strategy must include:
public spending tests to promote sharing on every public investment;legal acknowledgement that all space is shared space with, no compromise on territorialisation, including a strong protocol on flags;a comprehensive Interface strategy which promotes openness and tolerance.;a landmark Review of Equality and Sharing in public housing;serious investment in integration in teaching, including shared education and teacher training;a comprehensive youth strategy to combat sectarianism; andan independent delivery system for community relations, with enough clout to challenge government when it isn’t doing enough.
Whatever about the wholly unwarranted attack on Chris’s attendance, on issues of substance – on the issues that will make the difference between fine words and concrete actions – his input to the process has undoubtedly stretched the DUP and Sinn Féin’s patience, and their political limits. And I am very proud of him for that.
Because that’s what we need a new Shared Future Strategy to do – to stretch us to do better than we have ever done before; to stretch us beyond “them and us”, not just in words and symbols, but in actions and delivery.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me all of the time, and on every political issue. I accept that being on coalition requires compromise. I compromised when I committed my party to supporting the budget. I compromised when I committed us to supporting the Programme for Government. But my party and I won’t compromise on a Shared Future. If that stretches the patience of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, so be it. It’s not a matter of insisting on Alliance getting everything we want – it a matter of insisting that Northern Ireland gets what it needs if we are to move, as a community, “beyond them and us”.
Now that the CSI process is out in the open, it’s time that Alliance set out, in public, the minimum standards against which we will judge a new Shared Future strategy, and we will be doing so in the coming days.
In the deputy First Minister’s interview on Saturday he suggested that if agreement can’t be reached among the five parties, he and the First Minister would move forward with something that they “think would find maximum acceptability within the community”. My fear is that kind of language suggests a strategy that is the lowest common denominator between the DUP and Sinn Féin.
But we won’t bring about “an end to them and us” by settling for the lowest common denominator – we’ll only achieve it by setting the bar high, and working in every Department to reach it.
That’s what I am striving to do in the Department of Justice, a department which has a key role in dealing with many of the issues arising out of the divisions in society.
There is a wide range of issues I could mention, but I want to use my time to focus on a few.
To ensure that we take shared future considerations into account at the outset of policy making, in both my Department and in the Department for Employment and Learning, we are introducing a procedure for assessing all significant policy and capital spending decisions against the impact that they will have on building a shared future. Where they are seen to support it, we will consider how we might go further; where they are found to have a detrimental effect, but are nonetheless considered necessary, we will examine what steps we can take to mitigate that effect. Given this community’s past, the question has to be asked – why has this not been an essential component of policy making before?
Some of the most obvious manifestations of division, and an area where shared future policy proofing might have made an enormous difference in the past, are our interface structures – I choose not to refer to them as peace walls.
Space is shared when people experience a sense of common ownership and individual belonging, in other words they feel at home there. But these structures reinforce the divisions within society and greatly restrict the sharing of space, services and facilities.
It is one of my priorities that we strive to ensure the safety and security of all our citizens without needing to build or retain permanent physical structures which separate people and neighbourhoods, which deter investment and economic development and which condemn those living up against them to a permanent sense of threat.
My approach to dealing with interfaces places at its heart comments received in response to the consultation on the Community Safety Strategy, where the resounding message was that the local community must be centre stage in efforts to promote safety at interfaces. A joined up approach by all sectors was also emphasised.
That’s why our Programme for Government commitment is to “actively seek local agreement to reduce the number of peace walls”. Community engagement is vital to enable us to understand the concerns of communities, and work with them to address these concerns. To address them in a way that can give local people the confidence to make adjustments to, or seek the removal of, interface structures.
Putting this policy into practice has involved the building up of relationships with key people in communities. I believe this process is growing, we are reaching people we haven’t previously had contact with. And I am grateful for the assistance received, especially through CRC, and also for the support of the International Fund for Ireland, Belfast City Council and other statutory agencies that have supported us to do so.
We are now engaging with communities on issues around interface structures at a number of locations. These include; Newington Street, Brucevale Park, Alexandra Park and Northumberland Street. More will follow.
The aim is to work with communities and to address their concerns and bring about the conditions where they can agree to change. We want to work to build confidence that change can bring benefits, and that community concerns over safety and security can be addressed.
In developing a framework for change at interfaces I recognised the need for a co-ordinated approach within the relevant Departments, Agencies, and Police. To facilitate this, and support the commitment in the PfG, I have established an interface inter-agency group, building on the work of the interface working group developed in conjunction with CRC. This brings together representatives from the key organisations to work collaboratively in addressing the concerns of local people, and build action plans to address those concerns.
This group will benefit from the inputs from the community, and will also look to start conversations with communities and help them identify opportunities for positive change.
Working within the current economic climate is one of the most difficult challenges in trying to support change at interfaces. One of the most important aspects to the Inter Agency Group’s work will be to identify funding gaps and seek partnership funding opportunities.
In doing this we will look to align our work with that of other groups, such as Belfast City Council and the International Fund for Ireland, as well as look to utilise existing funding streams, such as the Strategic Investment Fund.
When I consider this work in the context of good relations and equality I believe that what we are trying to achieve with the community can help bring about improved community relations, as well as promoting equality for people living in these areas, in terms of their access to services and facilities.
There are considerable challenges in taking this work forward. I acknowledge there are areas where communities are not yet ready to engage on such issues. We will continue to build dialogue with these communities and demonstrate to them that by working with us we can collectively make a difference to their community.
For those communities who are engaging with us, I believe the framework that we have in place can help to address their concerns, to make them feel safer, and to support them through change. I accept that it will not always be easy and there could be sizeable gulfs to bridge. In some areas that will take time.
But if we can build confidence through collaborative working then I believe there is willingness in communities to embrace change.
On a wider front, the Community Safety Strategy, which I hope to be in a position to publish in the coming weeks, has at its core the need to build safer, shared and confident communities. Community division creates tension and prejudice, which can manifest itself in criminal behaviour, not just at interfaces where anti-social behaviour remains a major problem.
Within the context of the Community Safety Strategy, we will work with communities and across Government to tackle such problems at source, prevention will be key to delivering positive change for people living at interfaces.
We will work to build confidence in the Police and agencies working to improve community safety, and foster increased community participation and engagement with those agencies. For example, I believe that the work of PCSPs will enable communities to develop solutions to local problems.
The Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium recently published a research paper entitled Community Safety: A Decade of Development, Delivery, Challenge and Change in Northern Ireland. In it they noted that “the next decade of community safety and policing is about building upon existing practice and partnerships, and aligning those with the DoJ’s new vision for safer, shared and confident communities”. The Community Safety Strategy sets out that vision, and seeks to build a long term strategy.
So government can take steps – with a strategic approach, thought-through policies, working alongside voluntary and community sector partners – to move our community away from “them and us”.
But it takes more than words, more than symbolism; it will be a stretch; will require reinvestment of resources and a radical approach on the part of all Departments. Settling for the lowest common denominator won’t make the kind of changes that we need. While we can continue to make progress in individual departments, we won’t make the step-change that would come with an effective, genuine, Shared Future strategy.”
ENDS