Sinn Fein set to support Belfast Diamond Jubilee events

 

Belfast is due to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee from 2 – 5 June

 

Sinn Fein members on Belfast City Council are set to support plans to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in the city.

The celebrations are due to take place from 2 June to 5 June.

The planned events have been discussed by a special council working group.

Meeting minutes show that two Sinn Fein members of the group said that “they would be supporting” the plans when they come before the council’s strategic policy committee.

Events planned for the Diamond Jubilee include the planting of commemorative trees, a tea dance to be held in the Ulster Hall and a ‘big Sunday lunch‘ event at City Hall on Sunday 3 June.

A beacon will also be lit on Monday 4 June on top of Cave Hill.

There will also be a council-run grant scheme to help community organisations in the city organise their own jubilee events.

The projected cost of the celebrations is £56,000.

TricolourThe events were discussed by the Joint Group of the Party Leaders Forum and the Historic Centenaries Working Group.

That is a group of councillors from all parties who were selected to look at how the council should approach the forthcoming decade of centenaries and commemorations.

The working group also heard a suggestion that the Irish tricolour be flown at Belfast City Hall

Sinn Fein councillors Jim McVeigh and Conor Maskey are members of the working group.

At a meeting on 27 January they abstained from the group’s decision to agree the Diamond Jubilee events.

However, at a subsequent meeting last Friday the Sinn Fein members supported the plans.

The minutes read: “The Sinn Fein members indicated that they had now had the opportunity to discuss within their group the Diamond Jubilee report which had been presented at the last meeting and they would be supporting the report at the next meeting of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee.”

In a statement, a party spokesperson said that they were not in a position to discuss these matters as talks are at a sensitive stage and there are a number of important issues to be resolved.

Meanwhile, the working group has also examined issues around the flying of the Union flag on council buildings.

The 27 January meeting received a presentation from Ms Denise Wheatley, an expert in equality policy.

She had researched equality issues around council policy on the flying of the Union flag.

She found that it was “acceptable and appropriate” for the council to fly the flag at City Hall, but suggested that there should be no Union flag flown at the Ulster Hall and the council’s Duncrue complex.

With regard to City Hall, she put forward four options in descending order.

The fourth of these suggests that “both the Union flag and the Tricolour” be flown at City Hall.

Ms Wheatley stressed that these suggestions were her own professional opinion.

Any change to the current arrangements for flying the Union flag would have to be approved by council and issued for public consultation.

NOW ON THE SAME STORY HEADLINED IRIS MEETS QUEEN..AGAIN

Iris Robinson will get her second chance to meet the Queen in a year – thanks to $hame £ein !

Image via Wikipedia

Sinn Fein aim to snub the Queen when she comes here on a Silver Jubilee visit early that month. The current Belfast Lord Majyor is Niall O’ Donnghaile of Sinn Fein. We can reveal that he was due to step down from his post of First Citizen at the Council’s next annual meeting due to be held on Wednsday, June 6th. but the Queen is due on a Silver Jubilee Royal vist to Belfast on either the Monday or Tuesday of the same week, altough, as usual, plans are still hush-hush. And sources say the Shinners at City Hall didn’t want their man in the top post to have to officially meet and greet the Queen at City Hall. So they’ve worked out a still secret compromise with the other parties.

SPATS

Revealed one City Hall insider yesterday : ” There have been behind closded-doors negotiations. ” The plan is for the annual meeting to be moved forward to the Friday, June 1st.

” That would mean Niall O’ Donnghaile will have finished his term as Lord Mayor when the Queen visits on either June 4th or 5th. ” And very conveniently for Mrs Robinson and the party she once represented, the next Lord Mayor of the city will be from the DUP !

” Unusually for the City Council after recent bitter spats,” the source added, ” this seems to be have been a very diplomatic  sidestep engineered by Sinn Fein -and accommodated by the DUP.”

 

 

 

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