We may remove Ruane: Elliott
Pacemaker Press 14/4/2011 UUP Leader Tom Elliott at the party Manifesto ahead of the Assembly elecctions on the 5th of may with party member in The Linen Hall Library Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker
ULSTER Unionist leader Tom Elliott has given a strong indication that his party will attempt to take control of education from Caitriona Ruane.
The UUP manifesto, launched yesterday, gives four pages to the party’s education commitments — more detail than for any other policy area, with its second most detailed commitments in agriculture.
Every party is coy about which portfolios it will attempt to take after the election and, speaking after the launch, Mr Elliott refused to commit to making education the UUP’s first choice when departments are divided out.
However, the UUP leader told the News Letter that education would be a “key issue” for the party and said: “The public is frustrated — and we are hearing this a lot on the doors — that education has not moved forward [over the four years of the assembly].”
The DUP and SDLP have also indicated that they want to take over the education department from Ms Ruane but Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has refused to say whether his party will seek to retain the portfolio, arguing that it would be a “poor negotiator” who did so.
The DUP has said that its first choice will again be finance, meaning that Sinn Fein is almost certain to have the chance to re-take education should it wish to do so. However, there has been speculation that the party is instead eyeing up the department of enterprise, trade and investment.
On education, the UUP manifesto says: “The last four years have been too horrific to detail here. Change is required, and quickly.”
It argues that resolving problems in education is central to issues of poverty, health, crime and “a lifetime on benefits”.
It commits to free pre-school education for every child, devolving more power to head teachers and making teaching a more desirable profession.
The manifesto also says that the UUP supports academic selection, but not a return to the 11-plus and promises a “quiet period of certainty” by not bringing any statutory changes for a period of two years.
Speaking at yesterday’s launch in Belfast’s Linen Hall Library, Mr Elliott accused the DUP of “doing everything it could to undermine [the UUP’s efforts]” to work the Belfast Agreement and “assuring unionists that there were ‘no circumstances’ under which it would ever be acceptable to have Sinn Fein in government”.
Given the electorally disastrous decision of Lord Trimble to stick with the Agreement as the party haemorrhaged votes, Mr Elliott said that his party could not be accused of taking decisions “for personal interest or electoral advantage”.
“We have done it because it was the right thing to do in the circumstances,” he said.
Mr Elliott again called for a “game-changing” decision to decide the executive’s priorities before it is decided which party would run each department.
DUP finance minister Sammy Wilson responded: “Before Tom Elliott sets his sights on uniting the Northern Ireland executive, he should set a goal of uniting his own party.”
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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