Actions, not lectures, needed on "compromise"

11.48.15am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 14th Aug 2006

Belfast Alliance Councillor, Tom Ekin

Former Belfast Lord Mayor Tom Ekin has said talking about compromise is easy, but questioned whether the political leadership really exists to deliver it.

Responding to Gerry Adams' speech at Casement Park, the Alliance Belfast Councillor stated: "We in the Alliance Party have made the need for compromise central to our philosophy since we came into existence, and received precious little reward for it. So it is pleasing to find now, at this late stage, that our struggle has been noted!

"However, it is one thing to talk to your people about compromise. It is quite another to make them fully aware of what compromise means.

"Since 1998, Nationalists have sold the Agreement as a stepping stone to a 'United Ireland', and Unionists have sold it as an assurance of our place within the Union. Those cannot both be right. That is the nature of compromise. Is Mr Adams more willing than Mr Paisley to accept that he may not get his own way in the end?

"Compromise, like leadership, is a very straightforward word, but it is extremely difficult to deliver. One trusts our leaders will deliver a compromise before 24 November, because if they do not, they will have no one to blame but themselves."

ENDS