Commenting on the granting of Planning permission for the development of a Conflict Transformation Centre at the site of the former Maze Prison, Ulster Unionist Leader Mike Nesbitt has said that that means the Centre will place undue emphasis on prisoners rather than victims.  

The Strangford MLA said:

“Jeffrey Donaldson made clear yesterday he opposed the retention of parts of the former Maze Prison. The Ulster Unionist Party still does oppose keeping an H Block and the Prison Hospital. We invite Jeffrey Donaldson to join us in calling for the buildings to be de-listed and destroyed.  

Edwin Poots tells us that the DUP has made a “corporate decision” to support the redevelopment of the Maze site. Just who all were they trying to bind in by that “corporate decision?” We know Nigel Dodds famously said that “However it is dressed up, whatever spin is deployed, the preservation of a section of the H-Blocks - including the hospital wing - would become a shrine to the terrorists who committed suicide in the Maze in the 1980s”.

Yet Jeffrey Donaldson assures us that there will be no terrorist shrine. The fact is that people decide what constitutes a shrine, not politicians. Whatever the DUP may say now, there is nothing they will be able to do to stop the Maze Prison Hospital for example, being treated as a shrine to the Hunger-strikers.

With regard to a Conflict Transformation Centre, three questions need to be addressed. Firstly, should we have one? Secondly, if so, what should be in it? Finally, where should it be located?

As we have stated previously, the Ulster Unionist Party acknowledges the merit in a conflict transformation and resolution centre. We believe the story of the Troubles needs to be told but we are convinced that the site of the former Maze Prison is absolutely the wrong location. As a location it places an undue emphasis on prisoners rather than victims.  

How can the families of the victims of the Troubles, plus the families of those who served in the RUC, UDR and Regular Army be expected to organise a family day out to see the site where terrorists were held? The Maze Prison is NOT a shared space. The Unionists community has no emotional capital invested in it and would shed no tears if all traces of the Prison were to be removed from the face of the earth.”