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Arlene Foster: Loyalist concerns cannot be dismissed as ‘nonsense’

Foster said some claims of unfair treatment were not true but she said perceptions must be addressed.

LOYALIST CONCERNS THAT the peace process has only delivered for the nationalist community in Northern Ireland must be both listened to and challenged, DUP leader Arlene Foster has said.

Foster said some of the claims she had heard about politics failing loyalism were not true, but she acknowledged they were still “very strongly held perceptions”.

The DUP leader’s comments came as deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill urged the UK and Irish governments to get more involved with efforts to return stability to the region after this month’s street disorder.

Anger at post-Brexit trading arrangements that have created economic barriers with the rest of the UK has been cited as one factor behind the violence that has erupted in loyalist areas.

Another is the outrage felt by some loyalists at a decision not to prosecute 24 Sinn Fein members, including O’Neill, who attended a huge republican funeral amid lockdown restrictions last year.

But many within the loyalist community have also pointed to more long-standing concerns the peace process, particularly the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, has handed them a raw deal.

They cite underinvestment and deprivation in loyalist working-class areas as further proof that they have missed out on the gains of peace.

Nationalists and republicans reject this premise, insisting their communities have experienced just as many problems with poverty and unemployment since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Last week also saw violence flare in some nationalist areas.

britain-northern-ireland-unrest People walk past a burnt out bus on the Shankill road in West Belfast AP / PA Images AP / PA Images / PA Images

On Saturday, DUP chairman Maurice Morrow told the News Letter that the authorities had shown a “total and absolute capitulation to the demands of militant republicanism”.

Today, O’Neill described Morrow’s claims as “nonsense”.

Foster, who described the deputy First Minister’s reaction as “disappointing”, said concerns within loyalism could not be ignored.

“All of those things have to be tackled head on and not dismissed as nonsense because, you know, one person’s nonsense is another person’s absolute belief in what is happening at this moment in time,” she said.

“And therefore I will not dismiss what people have to say as nonsense.”

Foster told BBC Radio Ulster: “I fundamentally believe that responsible leadership doesn’t ignore views from the community because you may not agree with them or they may be difficult to listen to.”

She added: “I’m not going to go through all of the things that I’ve heard over this past week, some of which are not true or they are perceptions, but they are very, very strongly held perceptions.

“And how do we change perceptions?

“We change perceptions by engaging, by listening, by actually saying to people ‘well, actually here is what the case is in terms of the loyalist community’.”

O’Neill said she did not think loyalism had been left behind.

“I actually see the same challenges in working class loyalist communities that I do in a lot of working class nationalist communities,” she told Radio Ulster.

Poverty isn’t picking and choosing a religion, poverty is happening across the board, so what we need to see delivered upon are anti-poverty strategies, what we need to see is good housing for people, what we need to see is opportunity for a job for people, and that’s across the piece and we only deliver that by working together.

The Sinn Fein vice president accused the UK and Irish governments of taking a “hands-off” approach to the peace process.

“That’s been demonstrated that doesn’t work, our peace process was not an event at a point in time and that’s it done,” she said.

“It needs to be nurtured and looked after and the two governments have a role to play as the co-guarantors of the (Good Friday) agreement.

“So yes, both governments should be very much engaged.

“I’ve made that point to the Taoiseach (Micheál Martin), I’ve made that point to (Northern Ireland Secretary) Brandon Lewis and I do believe that it’s time for both governments to get engaged again to be properly engaged in an ongoing way and to ensure the political agreements that were made are delivered upon.”

Reacting to suggestions that a summit could be convened to discuss the ongoing issues, O’Neill insisted more sustained engagement was required, rather than a one-off political set piece.

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    Mute I invented the @
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    Oct 9th 2018, 7:26 AM

    Sure. The same Bellingcat that’s run by Eliot Higgins, the same Eliot Higgins that’s a fellow of the Atlantic Council….

    67
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    Mute Philip Exley
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    Oct 9th 2018, 7:49 AM

    @I invented the @: ahh, in the face of all the evidence that keeps tumbling out and in the face of the utterly ludicrous sightseeing cover story with which the Russians insulted everyone’s intelligence…..you choose to believe it’s a frame up.
    I hope you get a good exchange rate for your roubles.

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    Mute Donnacha Bhoicaire
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    Oct 9th 2018, 8:29 AM

    @I invented the @: dont be talking nonsense now. Caught out end of…

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:18 AM

    @I invented the @: one thing is for certain, in that if it was a Russian operation the last people they would have used would have been Russians. If you believe this garbage from Bellingcat I feel sorry for you.

    22
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    Mute Boyne Sharky
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    Oct 9th 2018, 10:29 AM

    @I invented the @: So, if I understand your logic, a truth can’t be considered a truth unless… what exactly?

    18
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    Mute Philip Exley
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    Oct 9th 2018, 2:15 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: they should clearly consider recruiting idiots like you then. I assume you’re not Russian?

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    Mute Mark Jones
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    Oct 9th 2018, 7:38 AM

    Maybe it was the Russians maybe it wasn’t, who cares. It’s not like MI5 or the CIA don’t send assassin’s into other countries to murder people. Pretty sick of all this “The big bad Russians” stuff at this stage.

    103
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    Mute Noel James Doherty
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    Oct 9th 2018, 8:20 AM

    @Mark Jones: all the big boy’s have blood on they’re hands down through the year’s, no more so than the UN & their late intervention in the Balkans not so long ago. It was these lads surely, but what’s going to happen now? An elite crack group of operatives into Russia to get these two, pfft not a hope

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    Mute Liam O’Conchubhair
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:12 AM

    @Mark Jones: that’s blatant whataboutism, you’re deflecting criticism of Russia by bringing up the CIA and MI5

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:36 AM

    @Mark Jones: They sent spies into the IRA to join the IRA and used this to kill British soldiers with the blessing of the head of the IRA and other times without. In British intelligence even their own citizens are expendable for a result? Have people forgotten the Gilford 4 or Birmingham 6 or the Monaghan and Dublin bombings or even their shoot to kill policies? Even the British Intelligence trained the CIA in torture as well as created the term “Black Propaganda”.

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:43 AM

    @Liam O’Conchubhair: Remember that it was the CIA who trained and put into power Bin Laden, the Taliban, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, the birth of Isis and the replacement of 50 so called Communist South American governments after WW2. They also created the Iran mess in the mid 1950′s in Iran that has created the Iran of today. How many times have they tried to kill Castro and how many times has the CIA been caught working with the mafia in the US as well as drug running?

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    Mute Seán Ó Briain
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    Oct 9th 2018, 8:33 AM

    Watch all the Putinbots swarm here trying to spread doubt and lies. They’ll attack the source or deflect and say it doesn’t matter. It does matter. A highly dangerous poison was used which killed and innocent woman. If it happened in Ireland wed think differently.

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Oct 9th 2018, 1:32 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain: If it had happened in Ireland nothing would have been done. Since time began intelligence services from all countries have used whatever methods nessecery to protect their country. C.I A., British intelligence, K.G.B. have been responsible for thousands of deaths for years.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Oct 9th 2018, 10:49 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain:
    Although it’s notable that as facts have been uncovered and the “Russia didn’t do it” line has become untenable, the narrative for many of them has shifted to “Well so what if Russia did it, every government does it”…..

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    Mute mattoid
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    Oct 9th 2018, 10:52 PM

    Sometimes it’s hard to tell the Putinbots apart from the useful idiots on here.
    Some are deliberately spreading disinformation and some are just deluded, but they sound much the same in practice…

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:40 AM

    Bellingcat lol. Might as well be reporting the ‘Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’.

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    Mute Diaspora'd
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    Oct 9th 2018, 2:29 PM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: apart Putin himself announcing it was a GRU operation what source or agency’s evidence would you believe?

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Oct 9th 2018, 3:07 PM

    @Diaspora’d: not one that was directly set up for propaganda purposes might be a start.

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:30 AM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: Bell*ndcat as some call him?

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    Mute Diaspora'd
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    Oct 10th 2018, 1:45 AM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: I take it then none apart from Putin himself would convince you..

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    Mute Liam O’Conchubhair
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:17 AM

    All the deflection and whataboutism done by commenters here. Ridiculous.

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    Mute Barry O Toole
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    Oct 9th 2018, 12:56 PM

    @Liam O’Conchubhair: dont think its deflection liam people are merely questioning elements of this a lot of it doesnt add up

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    Mute Philip Exley
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    Oct 9th 2018, 2:58 PM

    @Barry O Toole:
    Answer me this…
    Were the Skripals attacked?
    Did another innocent individual die?
    Were two Russians filmed visiting the area?
    Do you think they flew all the way from Moscow to see Salisbury cathedral?
    Do you think, having gone all that way they went back to London on the first trip because it was too slushy in Salisbury (clue..it wasn’t).
    If you think it doesn’t add up because they were so amateurish I’d say this. They know full well that once they were back in Russia they’d be untouchable and that they could rely on gullible fools to give credence to their ridiculous protestations of innocence and cries of “there’s no evidence” in the face of….all the evidence.
    Do you also believe the Russians just kicked out of Holland were innocent? Maybe they’d gone to have an extended look at the tulips?

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    Mute Barry O Toole
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    Oct 9th 2018, 5:44 PM

    I am sceptical of the narrative being peddled thats all there are many actors in this drama who knows what the truth is

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    Mute Mark Mc Steve
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    Oct 9th 2018, 1:36 PM

    Who actually believes this ha

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:26 AM

    How and why was it Bellingcat who discovered this and no one else as in government bodies???

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    Mute mattoid
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    Oct 10th 2018, 8:38 AM

    @TamuMassif2019:
    What makes you think government bodies didn’t know it from a relatively early stage?

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