Pat Doherty Sinn Féin Vice President on motion 37
Published: 29 February, 2008
Pat Doherty is party Vice President he is proposing motion 37 on behalf of the Ard Comhairle.
This Ard Fheis calls on the British government to honour commitments made in the joint Declaration to hand back former British military sites for use by the Executive for the benefit of the local community and calls on the party negotiators to make this issue a priority in the time ahead.
The British government, through the MoD, has been acting with great haste in recent times in trying to sell off as many sites as possible across the six counties- that its forces occupied from the early 70s until their recent demilitarization.
Many of these sites were appropriated through compulsory vesting orders and despite having incurred little financial outlay in the intervening years the British government are now determined to sell off these vacated military sites at full market value so as to maximise financial gain for the MOD and the British Exchequer.
Putting it bluntly-Land appropriated on Irish soil is now being sold off to fund the latest escapades of British imperialism in Iraq, Afghanistan and other far flung corners of the world.
In May 2002, under the Reform and Reinvestment Initiative negotiated by David Trimble and Mark Durkan we were told- with great fanfare- that Long Kesh, Ebrington Barracks, Magherafelt Barracks in Derry, Crumlin Road Gaol and Windsor Park Barracks in Belfast and were being 'gifted free of charge', from the MoD and the NIO to OFMDFM for social and economic regeneration.
Gifted free of charge my arse-in return for the transfer of these sites Trimble and Durkan agreed that they would burden the people of the six counties with additional revenue creating measures for the coffers of the British exchequer including the introduction of Water Charges.
Sinn Fein's position has been that the British government deliver a genuine Peace Dividend to compensate for the year of neglect it presided over in the six counties and as part of this to transfer demilitarized sites free of charge.
Following talks in 2003, a Joint Communiqué was issued by both governments, in which the British government intimated that it would favourably consider the transfer of additional MoD sites to the Executive of a re-established local administration to engender regeneration of areas worst affected by the conflict.
Sinn Fein has been and will continue to press the British government to deliver in terms of this declaration.
In my own constituency, Sinn Fein has been to the fore of the campaign to force the British government to transfer the vacated military sites at Lisanelly and St Lucia in Omagh for the development of a unique secondary level Education Village Campus.
For this visionary project, in which a space which was used for such negatives purposes in the past would to go on to be used for such a positive purposes would provide an inspirational beacon to the world in terms of conflict transformation.
Despite this British Defence Minister Des Browne told me in a meeting that he is determined to get "his pound of flesh" not only out of the Omagh but out of all other vacated British Military sites across the six counties.
This stance is an insult to everyone on this island. The British government must be exposed and forced to change its stance on the transfer of vacated military sites.
Support Motion 37
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