Staff "demoralised" by school attack - Long

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 9th Apr 2006

Alliance Deputy Leader and East Belfast Assembly Member Naomi Long has slammed an apparent burglary on a Belfast school in which sixteen classrooms were vandalised, saying that staff and children alike would be demoralised by having to find the time and resources to recover from the attack.

Responding to the attack on Strandtown Primary School, Cllr Long, who leads the Alliance Party Group on Belfast City Council, stated: "This is another appalling incident in a society where too many people are still struggling with the basic difference between 'right' and 'wrong'. It is utterly unacceptable that a place of education is attacked in such a way.

"Given the current financial constraints in education budgets, finding the money and resources to put this right will be demoralising. Staff, children and parents simply do not deserve this.

"It is not enough merely to condemn such attacks. We have to get at the symptoms of the problem in our society which leads some people to believe such attacks are clever or worthwhile. This is all too difficult in a society where it appears violence is rewarded, and trying to reach across the divide constructively is punished.

"I would call on anyone with even the slightest information about this incident to pass it on straightaway to the police."

ENDS