Attacks on the SDLP for abstaining in a council vote on a wider review of memorials without planning permission in Belfast are a “deflection”, a party spokesperson has said.
The party has released a statement after a decision by SDLP reps to abstain during Thursday’s emergency full meeting of Belfast City Council on the Bobby Sands statue in west Belfast prompted harsh criticism.
A Sinn Féin amendment to the DUP’s motion on the statue, which was erected last May without planning permission, had called for a review of all memorials in the city, but was defeated by 27 votes to 23.
The Bobby Sands statue in Twinbrook PICTURE: MAL MCCANN
The DUP motion for an examination of the decisions relating only to the IRA hunger striker’s statue passed by 27 votes to 23.
The SDLP’s three councillors in attendance abstained from both votes.
The SDLP had earlier proposed its own amendment, which called for the Stormont Executive to “recommit” to proposals on memorials made by the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition (FICT) in its 2021 report, but this was defeated in a vote.
An emergency full council meeting was held on Thursday at Belfast City Hall (Alamy Stock Photo)
Sinn Féin’s group leader on the council, Ciaran Beattie, said the DUP motion was a “one-sided attack” on the rights of communities to remember their dead, “and it was disappointing that the SDLP, through their absence, allowed this attack to succeed”.
Bobby Sands Trust secretary Danny Morrison said the SDLP’s abstention was “cowardly and craven”, and was reminiscent of the party dismissing one of its councillors in 1981, the late Tommy Murray, after he signed Bobby Sands’ nomination papers ahead of his successful by-election bid in April of that year to become Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP.
Sands died on hunger strike in the Maze Prison 26 days after the by-election.
Mr Morrison said the SDLP had “disgraced itself”.
Meanwhile, Belfast People Before Profit councillor Michael Collins said the DUP motion would not have passed “had so-called progressive parties like the SDLP not shown political cowardice by leaving the meeting early and refusing to vote”.
However, a spokesperson for the SDLP said it “recognises the complexity of legacy and identity, and has consistently supported the all-party FICT proposals as a framework for addressing the past in the present day”.
“Once again major parties on council have focused on distraction and conflict issues, and SDLP councillors offered an amendment to resolve the matter,” the spokesperson said.
“If it had passed, the issue would have been closed and the DUP motion never would have come to a vote. It is for Sinn Féin to explain why they opposed the SDLP proposal.
“Planning laws exist to ensure consistency, fairness and public buy-in and we believe that system should be used where available.
“Comments by others to blame the SDLP on any aspect of this issue should be seen for what they are, a deflection.”