Shamefully, Belfast City Council closed Roselawn and blocked out other grieving families to facilitate a terrorist chief

It emerged that, shamefully, Belfast City Council closed Roselawn cemetery early and blocked off cremation slots for the terrorist leader.

This was a man who never held elected office, but was famous only because Sinn Fein feted him, which they did because he rose to a senior level in the IRA. He was implicated in a range of its terrorism, was questioned over the murder of Jean McConville, and latterly is believed to have masterminded the Northern Bank robbery — a decade after the IRA ceasefire, It was both a very serious crime and a grievous breach of the trust given to that terror organisation on the basis that it had put illegal ways behind it.

Yet Belfast gave this man special treatment, when other people across Northern Ireland have in lockdown had to accept severe restrictions in saying farewell to loved ones.

That he was cremated in the east of the city underlines the calculated nature of the breach in west Belfast, when thousands of people came on to the streets.

It is important to acknowledge that the DUP has been put in an intolerable situation, but the party can’t let the matter blow over. Normality at Stormont is not an option while Michelle O’Neill remains deputy first minister.

Her statement yesterday reaffirmed that she is entirely unfit to issue advice on Covid-19, let alone hold such high office.

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