The Ulster Unionist Party Leader, Steve Aiken OBE MLA, has said that the Economy Minister Diane Dodds has serious questions to answer following confirmation by the National Museum of the Royal Navy that HMS CAROLINE will remain closed until 2021 because an operations and funding agreement could not be reached with the Department for the Economy.

Steve Aiken OBE MLA said:

“Today’s announcement that the future status of HMS CAROLINE is uncertain, is a debacle that the Minister of the Economy needs to address urgently. 

“When we became aware of the circumstances of the shutting of this historic ship - which saw service in WW1 - as a Visitors attraction, just at the same time that the rest of the National Museum of the Royal Navy’s(NMRN) is planning to reopen, we wrote to the Minister and also raised the issue in the Assembly.  

“Serious questions are raised by the fact that this crisis has apparently been created by the failure of the Department to make payments due to the NMRN, and an operating agreement on how the ship is managed being allowed to run out, again by the Minister’s department. That the Minister is even considering shutting the ship down for ‘6 months’, with the paying off of staff, at the same time as her own department attempts to maintain and bolster our NI tourism and visitor attractions, simply beggars belief. 

“There is no doubt that despite the support that Arlene Foster gave personally to the Royal Navy Museum, that DETI and now DfE have failed to follow up on agreements made.  It is regrettable that rather being part of a globally leading set of Maritime Attractions in Belfast’s historic Titanic quarter, 2021 will probably be marked by HMS CAROLINE being towed away to Portsmouth – not the start to Northern Ireland’s centenary year we hoped for.”