Stormont unites against car bomb plot

Published Monday, 19 October 2009
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The Assembly has united to condemn last week's car bomb attack on a police officer's partner in east Belfast.

The 38-year-old was reversing the vehicle out of the driveway of a house in Kingsdale Park at about 7.30am on Friday when the device exploded.

She was taken to hospital with a minor arm injury and ringing in her ears.

UUP leader and east Belfast MLA Sir Reg Empey said it was sad that a new generation felt violence was acceptable.

"That people still believe that that is the way forward is I think the sobering fact that is confronting everybody in this house," he said.

He added: "There are a number of young people who are being misled and abused into going down this track.

"They are brainwashed into believing that by destroying their fellow human beings they are going to achieve some political goal here."

East Belfast DUP's Lord Wallace Browne said it was a vicious attack.

"We must all redouble our efforts to ensure that these evil people are not permitted to thwart the democratically-expressed will of the vast majority of both communities here in Northern Ireland.

"I think it is important that we must make it clear that violent intimidation can't be permitted to destabilise our democratic institutions and hinder progress."

North Belfast SDLP MLA Alban Maginnis endorsed Lord Browne's call for politics to overcome the efforts of the gunmen.

Upper Bann Sinn Fein MLA John O'Dowd said they had to make politics work.

"It is my strong view and the view of my party that the conditions for conflict do not exist and nobody should try to recreate those conditions on the streets," he added.

Alliance MLA Naomi Long said: "It was an attack on all of us who are committed to a peaceful shared future and that should be a message going out. It is a move backwards."

© Press Association
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1 Comments
Martin in Belfast wrote (948 days ago):
No good them condeming it, it's about time they done something about it. They have nothing to offer the decent people from this whole country.
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