Alliance Party’s Stephen Farry defends decision not to attend Ireland’s Future unification event in Dublin with Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald and SDLP’s Colum Eastwood

The event is titled ‘Together We Can’ and is organised by the campaign group, Ireland’s Future.

Mr Farry previously took part in an Ireland’s Future event, joining Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond, the SDLP’s Claire Hanna, Sinn Féin’s John Finucane and the SNP’s Ian Blackford on a panel at Westminster in May this year.

Irish Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald and SDLP leader Colum Eastwood are among the politicians and public figures due to speak at the event on Saturday.

The move has been criticised by Ireland’s Future board member Brian Feeney.

Mr Feeney said the Alliance decision was “wrong and a mistake” and claimed that it meant the party was “aligning itself with unionists who are sticking their fingers in their ears”.”Alliance didn’t have to make a call on a united Ireland – they could have gone along on Saturday and set out their position,” he told the Irish News. “There will be ten parties there and five party leaders – they don’t all agree on what to do next. I think it does a disservice to Alliance supporters and voters because you can’t be agnostic about the future, they’ll have to take a position at some stage.”

But Mr Farry firmly defended his decision this morning.”We are not snubbing Ireland’s Future we have engaged with them in the past and will continue to do so in the future as well,” he told the Nolan Show.”We are a cross community party and we are proudly so. We have people who are pro... a united Ireland and many people like myself who are open minded on the issue.” But he added: “The very particular event on Saturday has been billed as support for constitutional change so in that context it means us going along will be seen as us

as a cross community party endorsing a united Ireland and that is not where we are as a party at this present moment in time.”

The Irish News reported that Saturday’s event is the largest Ireland’s Future gathering to date, and expects attendees to exceed those that attended the civic nationalist group’s ‘Beyond Brexit’ at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall in January 2019.

Ireland’s Future CEO Gerry Carlile said Alliance was invited to send a speaker for the event at the same time as all the other political participants but declined.

“The invitation for Alliance representation remains open should it decide to attend,” he told the Irish News.

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