Republican News · Thursday 13 March 1997

McLaughlin calls for Denton's resignation

Sinn Fein Party Chairperson and Foyle Westminster candidate Mitchel McLaughlin, called on Fair Employment Minister Baroness Denton to resign following further revelations of employment malpractice in her office.

``Every day she remains is a day in which US investment and aid and in particular the IFI allocation is put in jeopardy,'' said McLaughlin, who was speaking at a Sinn Fein press conference in Belfast on Monday 10 March before travelling to the US on a joint economic and political mission.

McLaughlin pointed out that this month sees the twenty-fifth anniversary of the introduction of Direct Rule, yet there had been no significant improvement of structural disadvantages against Catholics, and that it was an issue the British government had never seriously addressed.

``The British government are responsible for the ongoing discrimination,'' he insisted. ``The disgraceful behaviour of Baroness Denton not only highlights the dismal failure of existing fair employment legislation but sends out the message to employers that they too can discriminate against nationalists with impunity. I will argue this week at a Congress hearing into the IFI that the allocation should go ahead but with new safeguards to ensure it is allocated fairly. Baroness Denton should put jobs and investment before her last few weeks in office by resigning. This must become an issue.''

Bernadette O'Hagan also struck out at David Trimble's declaration that the Orange Order will march down the Garvaghy Road, which means that attempts at mediation have been undermined. She said his behaviour in 1995 is proof there has been no progress for nationalists in the north in twenty-five years.

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