East Belfast
Sinn Féin Representative
For many of us who live in the Short Strand, Mountpottinger Barracks has been a symbol of all that was wrong with policing in the past, and in the present, an indication of what needs to change in order to get policing right.
No community should have to live with such blight in the middle of their home. The base, which started life as an RIC Station, acts as a constant reminder to us all of how this state has been policed. Throughout the conflict it has been a site of collusion, of intimidation and even murder. When the Short Strand area was attacked on the 27th June 1970 no response emerged from the base and in the summer of 2002 while the area was put under siege the base stood a number of feet away from many of the incidents and prevented nothing. In 1983 an RUC man leaving Mountpottinger opened fire on three local people shooting 18 year old Tony Dawson dead. Weapons from its arsenal were taken and passed on the UDA, and many people have passed through its gates en-route to the notorious Castlereagh interrogation centre.
These are all reasons why Sinn Féin and the Short Strand community has wanted to see this base dismantled and gone and these are some of the reasons why we continue to campaign for its removal.
The PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde and the Policing Board all need to accept that within the new political dispensation that exists’ barracks like Mountpottinger do nothing in building trust or confidence in the PSNI and that no area should be policed from what is essentially a military base. The community is moving on, the PSNI need to catch up. Alex Maskey has raised the future of the barracks at the Policing Board and I have asked a number of times from the floor of the East Belfast DPP Sub-Group when the barracks will be removed and the land utilised for the benefit of the local community. The current PSNI logic is to use Mountpottinger as ‘storage space’ while Strandtown Barracks is renovated! They tell us a consultation on its future has been re-opened yet no residents in the Short Strand have been contacted. This simply is not good enough and is not accepted by our community.
Recently we heard the news that a number of Fermanagh PSNI barracks are to close, we have also seen the removal of fortifications throughout the rest of Belfast and this is to be welcomed. The Short Strand is ranked as being within the 9th most socio-economically deprived ward in the North of Ireland; the need for a military base in an area like this is minimal, the need for its replacement with social housing and community usage is essential.
Our call throughout this campaign has been ‘HOMES NOT FORTS!’ I reiterate that call and Sinn Féin’s commitment to achieving the removal of Mountpottinger. We are moving on and Sinn Féin is to the fore in making sure our communities get the high standard of policing that we all deserve, because that is the task with which our people have entrusted us. Mountpottinger and relics of the past like it have no place in the Ireland of the future. Sinn Féin will continue to join with the community in the time ahead in lobbying for the removal of Mountpottinger.
The PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde and the Policing Board all need to accept that within the new political dispensation that exists’ barracks like Mountpottinger do nothing in building trust or confidence in the PSNI and that no area should be policed from what is essentially a military base. The community is moving on, the PSNI need to catch up. Alex Maskey has raised the future of the barracks at the Policing Board and I have asked a number of times from the floor of the East Belfast DPP Sub-Group when the barracks will be removed and the land utilised for the benefit of the local community. The current PSNI logic is to use Mountpottinger as ‘storage space’ while Strandtown Barracks is renovated! They tell us a consultation on its future has been re-opened yet no residents in the Short Strand have been contacted. This simply is not good enough and is not accepted by our community.
Recently we heard the news that a number of Fermanagh PSNI barracks are to close, we have also seen the removal of fortifications throughout the rest of Belfast and this is to be welcomed. The Short Strand is ranked as being within the 9th most socio-economically deprived ward in the North of Ireland; the need for a military base in an area like this is minimal, the need for its replacement with social housing and community usage is essential.
Our call throughout this campaign has been ‘HOMES NOT FORTS!’ I reiterate that call and Sinn Féin’s commitment to achieving the removal of Mountpottinger. We are moving on and Sinn Féin is to the fore in making sure our communities get the high standard of policing that we all deserve, because that is the task with which our people have entrusted us. Mountpottinger and relics of the past like it have no place in the Ireland of the future. Sinn Féin will continue to join with the community in the time ahead in lobbying for the removal of Mountpottinger.
3 comments:
We need more people like Niall on the DPP.
The RUC charged and convicted the off duty police officer with murder. He served life in prison for this. The facts are that this off duty police officer was drunk, not attached to MOUNTPOTTINGER, nor did he just leave the station prior to the shooting. Tony Dawson was a lovely lad popular with young people on both sides of the divide and the RUC ensured justice was done regarding his killer. Niall needs to update his knowledge about events in the Strand and speak with the vast majority of the good people who live there so he can start to appreciate the good work that was carried out by security forces in that area during the bad times. Come back to the future Niall.
ANONYMOUS THE ONLY REASON HE WAS CONVICTED OF MURDERING TONY IS BECAUSE I WAS ALONG WITH TONY AND WAS A MAIN WITTNESS AT HIS TRIAL .A UDR PATROL LET THIS MAN GO PAST ON THE RAVENHILL ROAD HE WAS THE FIRST RUC MAN TO GET LIFE .I HOPE NIALL WILL GET ON THE DPP AND MAKE POLICING ACCOUNTABLE
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