Alliance to demand meeting with Prime Minister over integrated education

9.23.00pm GMT Fri 3rd Mar 2006

Alliance Party Vice Chair Michael Long will be joined by Young Alliance Chair Ian James Parsley at Party Conference in demanding the Department of Education's decision to refuse to fund four integrated schools, despite parental support for them, be overturned.

Speaking ahead of proposing an Emergency Resolution on the issue, Castlereagh Councillor Long stated: "For the second year in a row, our Conference meets in the wake of a Government decision refusing to fund the expansion of integrated education in Northern Ireland.

"The Government talk about a shared future, and yet when faced with people so committed to sharing their future that they are prepared to stake their child's education on it, and the Government leave them stranded and force them into segregated schools against their will.

"They talk about parental choice, but yet are refusing to properly fund a sector which is heavily over-subscribed.

"They talk about effective use of resources, but won't fund a system where all children, regardless of religion, social class, and ability, can be educated to a high standard in a single school.

"They talk about fairness and transparency and yet when the proposals for schools meet the criteria, as Rowallane in particular more than did, they turn it down anyway.

"They talk and talk, but that's as far as it goes.

"These decisions are nothing more than a sop to bigotry of the DUP -- another tacky trade-off in the political side-deal side-show over which this Government presides.

"We in Alliance won't tolerate integrated education and our children's futures being sacrificed on the altar of political expediency."

Councillor Ian James Parsley, who sits on North Down Borough Council, will second the motion.

ENDS