Ulster Unionist Party Leader, Mike Nesbitt MLA has called on the Executive to make funding available so that the story of the Somme can be used to promote reconciliation and understanding amongst future generations.

Speaking at the Ulster Unionist Party’s Annual General Meeting in Belfast on Saturday, Mr Nesbitt said:

“We are in a decade on Centenaries. We are not far off the 100^th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. So, we are also close to the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

 Let us encourage every primary school in Northern Ireland to study the story of the Somme.

The 36th Ulster Division. The 16^th Irish Division. Standing shoulder to shoulder. Dying – shoulder to shoulder, in common cause against a common enemy.

 And then let us send a delegation of our children to the Somme on the 1^st of July next year, 2014.

 Put a million pounds aside from the budget and get matched funding from business and elsewhere to make it two million.

 And then let us repeat the process in 2015, but bring as many schoolchildren as possible from the whole island of Ireland to the Somme.

 And then, in 2016, for the Centenary itself, let us run that process again for as many schools as we can manage.

 Let us send schoolchildren from England, Scotland and Wales .... from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the Somme, to share that common bond, and common understanding of the human cost of conflict.

 Let that be part of our contribution to Reconciliation.

 Let that be part of our contribution to strengthening the Union.

 Let that be part of our contribution to fostering better relations with the Republic of Ireland.”