Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“On Saturday 28th March 2014 Belfast City Council’s Whiterock Leisure Centre was the setting for an IRA Terror Fest, celebrating their dead “volunteers”. Why did the City Council allow its premises to be used for such purposes, who booked it, what fee was paid? These are all questions I will be pursuing with City Hall. Also, was a licence obtained for the consumption of alcohol, which is evident in several photographs of the event?
“Or, was this the product of allowing anything Sinn Fein types want to happen at any time on this council property?
“Since the DOE minister has oversight of the councils I intend asking him this Priority Question:
‘To ask DOE, as local government minister, will the minister investigate how a civic community facility under the control of Belfast City Council, namely Whiterock Leisure Centre, came to be used for paramilitary displays and commemoration of terrorists on 29th March 2014, and what resulting action does the minister propose.’
“The ugly culture of Sinn Fein wallowing in the terrorist exploits of the IRA is not new, but misusing publicly funded Leisure facilities for that purpose is more than the ratepayers of a Belfast should have to bear.”