Thursday, 13 October 2011 Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement Debate ..Dail Eireann. Comhchoiste um Fhorfheidhmiu Aoine an Cheasta…Chairman/Cathaoirleach Dominic Hannigan,TD/FD
Chairman: I invite Mr. McDonald to respond first.
Mr. Jackie McDonald: I thank the committee for the opportunity to come and talk to and listen to people. We have heard all these questions before and they are obvious questions. Mr. Murray, I and others have been working together for years and have visited places many in our communities have not agreed with. Some of them cannot accept that I trust Sinn Féin and some people in Mr. Murray’s community cannot understand why he would trust the likes of me. It is not a done deal between the two communities and we are still working on it.
I come from south Belfast, but we would say our constituency goes from Sandy Row down to Newry or the Border. The people in all these different areas have many different views and opinions. People from the Shankill or east or north Belfast cannot understand the criticism in any way. They are closer communities that live close together and socialise together and their views are mainly much the same. As one goes out from Sandy Row through Belfast, Lisburn, Dromore and Banbridge towards the Border, however, there are many different opinions. These people feel threatened in different ways and triumphalism will be a major problem as the centenaries approach. One of the main reasons for this is because the loyalist working class people I represent do not feel as if they have been included in the Good Friday Agreement and do not see the benefits of it because it is a middle class agreement. If one were to talk to anyone in any of these areas, they would ask what they have got out of it or what it has done for them – very little.
Integrated schools were mentioned. An old Protestant school near where I come from, near Dunmurray, is closing as we speak and there will no longer be a Protestant school between Belfast and Lisburn. The children will be forced to go to integrated schools. I am neither for nor against integrated schools. Some people swear by them and I have an open mind on them. It is not enough just to have children in an integrated school because when their school term is over, there is nothing for them. They go back into their areas and there is nothing for them only frustration and despair. We need something for them after school. There should be apprenticeships or some sort of job facility where they can continue the friendships they made in school during their late teens and early 20s. They should even be able to continue that friendship in later life, when they get married and have families. They should be able to share that experience. This moves the experience of integration on from 11 or 12 year olds to forever. It should not stop at 16 and just allow them continue doing as they are doing. There are many problems.
If the Good Friday Agreement is to reach people on the ground, it must happen soon before we start getting into centenaries. If people could appreciate each other’s perspective and feel some sort of equality, they could then agree that what was one group’s major event would be the other’s non-event. They need not necessarily share the experience but at least should not be annoyed by the other’s experience. In west Belfast, there is a small Protestant area, Suffolk, which I call “the animal”, where there used to be thousands of families but where there are now only approximately 260 families. This area is completely surrounded by Nationalist west Belfast. In the past five or six years, together with members of Sinn Féin and the PSNI, we have sat with local residents from both communities and negotiated an agreement. Now, Sinn Féin stewards 40 bands up the road into Suffolk. This causes some upheaval in the Nationalist community because traffic must be diverted and rerouted. It is also an added danger to children playing on the streets. However, we have managed to reach an accommodation with both communities. This event is now a given. People from the Nationalist community take it as a non-event and for the loyalist people of Suffolk it is a major event. It is like their 12 July, but takes place on the first Saturday in June every year. When it is over, it is a non-event.
What we are trying to do is to have other events the two communities can share, whether a fair, a street market or anything else. It should be something the two communities can share and to which they can come and go as they please. Other areas will feel threatened by this. People on the Shankill Road and on Sandy Row will feel threatened because they do not do the things we do. They do not mix. There is too much interface action and not enough interaction. We need to provide a facility where people can meet each other and understand that Paddy and Billy are both, if given the chance, the same sort of person. There is a lot of hard work to be done. Bringing the two communities together is a major problem, but getting the Good Friday agreement on the ground and appreciated by everyone could kick-start this.
To be continued