Statement by TUV North Belfast representative Ron McDowell:
“The report into Belfast City Council’s handling of the funeral of convicted IRA terrorist Bobby Storey is highly unsatisfactory. This is hardly surprising when we consider that the report’s author had no power to require evidence on oath, no power to compel witnesses and no power to cross-examine witnesses. All that happened was a process of collecting self-serving statements. This is down to a failure of Belfast City councillors to set up a process which was robust and serious enough to deal with what was and remains a major scandal.
“Grieving families told Mr Coll that they felt their loved ones had been treated as a “nobody” and that there was “one rule for them, one rule for the rest of us”. I very much doubt that they will find any comfort in a report which effectively says that while the Storey family didn’t ask for preferential treatment they got it anyway. There is no answer in this report, produced at ratepayer’s expense, to the simple question of why this was.
“It is, however, clear that there were “negotiations” around the funeral. It is not clear as to what they were, who exactly they were with and what was agreed.
“It is clear that the council plans to bury this and move on. That simply isn’t good enough. Frankly, the report raises more questions than it answers and some who wave it around as if it amounts to a clean bill of health for the council need to think again.”