Trevor Lunn MLA said: “While I do welcome comments from anybody in support of the integrated education sector, I do wonder how genuine Peter Robinson is. Apart from the odd high-minded assertion that he supports integration in our education system, I have never heard a constructive suggestion from him on the subject.
“I believe that his vision of integrated education is not that of the Alliance Party or those who are actually working in this sector. His idea of bringing it about appears to be as part of an aim to abolish the Catholic school system.
“These types of comments appear to be an annual occurrence every autumn. Just as the first frost begins to take hold, Peter Robinson dresses up his true intentions in these fake messages of goodwill in advance of his party conference.
“If he truly supported integrated education and a shared future then he would have supported us over our concerns at the weakness of the revised version of the Executive’s Cohesion, Sharing and Integration strategy. Will he ever publish it and will it be worth anything? Evidently not until it becomes effectively a DUP document. We left the process, not because we wanted to pick up the ball and run away, but because we could no longer take part in something that would not deliver a genuine shared future.
“If he has now decided to fully support cross community policies, I wonder if he will apologise for the bogus leaflet his party distributed attacking Alliance over our shared future policy in relation to the flying of the Union Flag at Belfast City Hall.”
ENDS