2 October 2001

---

Two unionist parties vying to take credit for pulling down the institutions

Sinn Fein Deputy Chief Whip and Newry and Armagh MLA Conor Murphy has said that both the DUP and UUP are now vying to take credit for pulling down the political institutions - after both succeeded in having motions seeking the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the Executive accepted onto the order paper for Monday's Assembly plenary session. Mr. Murphy said:

``Both the UUP and DUP are vying to take credit for pulling down the institutions. They have both tabled motions that are not about excluding Sinn Fein but are about about wrecking the Good Friday Agreement. While this has been the stated aim of the DUP since the Agreement was signed, it is the outworking of strategy adopted by David Trimble in October 2000.

``David Trimble has now thrown his lot in with anti-Agreement unionists in seeking to renegotiate the Agreement. His strategy of perpetuating instability and undermining the credibility of the institutions which are the bedrock of political change has fed into the agenda of those elements within violent unionism that are active on the streets of north Belfast, Larne, Lurgan and Coleraine.

``Both the DUP and UUP motions represent the failed policies of the past which are about excluding nationalists and republican from institutions of all sorts and from positions of equality.

``Sinn Fein will not be knocked off course by the attempts of rejectionists within unionism to obstruct the required changes in society.''

---

Sinn Fein Press Office, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1
Tel: +353-1-8726100 and +353-1-8726839   ·   Fax +353-1-8733074
E-mail: sinnfein@irlnet.com   ·   Website: http://www.sinnfein.org

---

Sinn Fein   ·   Sinn Fein Documents

---