Responding to new Culture Minister Nelson McCausland’s announcement that he will not attend GAA grounds named after republicans TUV leader Jim Allister said:

“Mr McCausland’s position defies all logic. Why would he be happy to sit round the Executive table with convicted terrorists Martin McGuinness, Gerry Kelly and Connor Murphy but have a problem attending a ground named after a dead terrorist?

“The mind boggles at the DUP’s ability to adopt totally contradictory positions. Mr McCausland got thrown out of the Assembly for making allegations about Gerry Adams’s connections with the IRA a few short months ago and now he is taking up a position in a terrorist inclusive executive!

“Nelson McCausland really does need to get real. The Unionist people – as the European election result illustrated – can see right through the DUP’s hypocrisy.

“You cannot partner Martin McGuinness and pretend to be opposed to Republicanism. Remember how just before the election the Joint First Minister reminded us that every Monday morning he looks round the Stormont chamber and sees “former hunger-strikers and freedom fighters” staring back at him.

He went on to say:

"So when you see the Assembly on TV, or look at Gerry Adams or Bairbre de Brun or myself in the media, always remember this: standing at our shoulders are the women and the men who stood at the front of the struggle when there was no alternative option but war”.

“Unionists would do well to remember that when Mr McCausland poses in the Executive photograph standing at his shoulder will be those who played an active role in the IRA’s terrorist campaign.

“No true Unionist should ever put themselves in such a position”.