McCarthy launches scathing attack on UUP for hypocrisy on free personal care

Alliance Party Health Spokesperson Kieran McCarthy has hit out at Ulster Unionists for their hypocrisy on free personal care for older people. In the Assembly in 2002, Alliance’s Kieran McCarthy put down an amendment calling for free personal care and his demand was turned down by the UUP and the three other tribal parties, yet the UUP’s Strangford candidate Cllr Angus Carson yesterday said that free personal care must be the next Assembly’s number one priority.

Strangford representative Cllr Kieran McCarthy said: “Whenever the Ulster Unionists had the chance to introduce free personal care in 2002, they chose not to.

“It is gross hypocrisy to say they want it now, yet when they had the chance to introduce it they didn’t bother to.

“On the day that the free nursing care bill was being debated in the Assembly in 2002, I put in an amendment calling for free personal care to be included in the bill. This was disgracefully rejected by the Ulster Unionists, SDLP, DUP and Sinn Fein.

“Alliance has been consistent and strong campaigners for free personal care for older people. The four tribal parties were against it in 2002, yet now they have changed their tune and this is hypocrisy of the highest order.”

ENDS