Ulster Unionist Leader Mike Nesbitt has responded to comments by Martin McGuinness in which the deputy First Minister said that there can be no development of the Maze jail site unless it is involves the building of a peace centre, in line with previous Programme for Government commitments.

 Mr Nesbitt said:

 “For nearly thirty years republicans waged economic warfare against the Northern Ireland economy. Repeated bombings of city and town centres were nothing less than economic sabotage and thankfully stopped when the IRA finally accepted the inevitable failure of their campaign to remove Northern Ireland and its people from the United Kingdom.

 It is scarcely believable that not content with holding back economic development for decades through the IRA’s terrorist campaign, Martin McGuinness and Sinn Fein would now seek to hold back 5,000 jobs and £300 million of pounds of investment at the Maze site.

 It is rather curious that Martin McGuinness seeks to hide behind the PfG commitment.

The actual commitment within the Programme for Government is to ‘Develop Maze/Long Kesh as a regeneration site of regional significance’

That can obviously be done without the Peace Centre. In threatening to block economic development at the Maze site it is actually Martin McGuinness who is breaking the PfG commitment.

One wonders why Martin McGuinness is getting so irate over this supposed PfG commitment and isn’t quite so vocal when it comes to the failure to implement genuine PfG commitments such as delivering the Desertcreat joint services training college, spending the £80 million allocated to the Social Investment Fund, delivering the Education and Skills Authority and agreeing changes to the post 2015 structures of Government. 

One has to ask just why the Peace Centre at the Maze is so important an issue for Sinn Fein to be prepared to pull the plug on the development of the whole site? It is clearly a strategic priority for them as a Party and the Ulster Unionist party has been vindicated in its stance to support Victims groups in their opposition to the establishment of what would inevitably have become an IRA shrine at the Maze.”