No 2012 elite training facilities for NI

I asked the Minister for Culture Arts and Leisure earlier about the lack of any plans to progress elite training facilities in advance of the 2012 Olympics. My question and his reply is at 11:08.

A bad week for a shared future

This week has turned out to be a bad one for anyone interested in building a shared future based on respect between our two communities. Last month we saw the ugly under belly of prejudice here when several hundred members of  the Roma Community were targeted for being different.

At the time of the attacks many pointed to the direct links between sectarianism and racism and the DUP and Sinn Fein committed themselves to bringing forward the long delayed community relations policy.

Today the new Culture , Arts and Leisure Minister, Nelson McCausland says he will not be attending any events in a Catholic Church and points out that he does not know Tyrone are the current All Ireland Football Champions. Earlier in the week the First Minister, Peter Robinson MP, MLA, in responce to a questions about who could become the Minister for Justice said that if he nominated a UUP MLA for the job SF would veto that and if SF nominated an SDLP member then he would veto the nomination. This leaves the Alliance!

So  the executive has been reduced to a zero sum equation. The politics of boycott and veto appears favoured to one based on respect and shared ambitions.

Getting serious about a Shared Future is not about diluting our respective nationalisms  but about facilitating a new relationship of respect between them. This has been a bad week for a shared future because at the very centre of power in our region there is clearly no relationship of respect. Nor is there much evidence of any serious attempts to create one. And as long as this continues we will remain in the prison of aging ideologues who seem only able to define themselves in terms of what they are against rather then what they are for.

Nationalism and Unionism can work together. The question is whether SF and the DUP want a shared future or are more happy perpetuating a divided past?