Hyperbole will only hinder future: Parsley

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 13th Oct 2005

Young Alliance Chairman Ian James Parsley has branded remarks made by a Belfast priest comparing the behaviour of Unionists to Nazis 'thoroughly unhelpful', and stated that it is time to move on from grievance and hyperbole about the past. Father Alec Reid stated at a meeting in Fitzroy Presbyterian Church on Wednesday evening [12 October] that Catholics 'were not treated like human beings. It was like the Nazis' treatment of the Jews', and that Nationalists would have acted in the same way given the chance.

Speaking in Holywood, the North Down Councillor stated: "Clearly we still live with the consequences of majority rule, which led to blatant disparities in our society, as well as with the consequences of appalling terrorist campaigns. However, it is frankly wildly inaccurate to make any comparison between the systematic extermination of one people by another, and anything that has happened in the history of Northern Ireland.

"Suffering in Northern Ireland is widespread and has gone on too long. But engaging in nonsensical hyperbole about past injustices -- whether real or perceived -- will get us precisely nowhere. The facts are that we have a fundamentally divided society in Northern Ireland that we need to unite through consensus and compromise. Branding people 'Nazis' - no matter who does the branding - is thoroughly misleading and unhelpful to our task.

"The simple fact is that, on all sides, the 'grievance culture' is now well out of hand. It is time people wised up and realized we cannot change the past but we can change the future."

ENDS