Alliance slams DUP for City Hall hypocrisy

12.10.44pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 19th Feb 2007

Belfast Alliance Councillor Tom Ekin

Belfast Alliance Councillor Tom Ekin has branded comments on the closure of City Hall by DUP Councillor Jim Kirkpatrick as hypocritical. Cllr Ekin said that only Alliance acted to minimise the damage of the closure of City Hall and all the other parties voted against measures to decrease the impact of the closure.

Cllr Tom Ekin said: "These comments are totally hypocritical because when he had the chance, Cllr Kirkpatrick voted against Alliance's proposal to minimise the impact of the closure.

"Only the Alliance Party voted to make the closure on a phase basis. We wanted to keep the City Hall as open and accessible as possible during this period.

"Alliance proposed this amendment to try and keep areas of important tourism value open where possible, yet the other parties did not have the vision to back us. Only now are they changing their tune.

"Unfortunately, because of the tribal parties Belfast is losing out on of its key tourist attractions for the next two holiday seasons. This shows the total lack of imagination among the other parties as regards maximising the tourism potential in Belfast

"I am, however, delighted at the fact that one of the other parties has finally woken up to the fact that we should be trying our best to keep City Hall open.

"Alliance has been consistently campaigning for months to keep key areas of City Hall open and it seems that other people are keen to jump on our bandwagon, now that they have fully realised the impact of this closure."

ENDS