TUV vice-chair Keith Harbinson has hit out at Sinn Fein after the party criticized plans to erect a monument to Lord Mountbatten and the other victims of an IRA bombing 30 years ago.

Mr Harbinson said:

“The reaction of Sinn Fein/IRA councillor Padraig MacLochlainn to suggestions that a monument be erected to Lord Mountbatten, Baroness Bradbourne and teenagers Nicholas Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell reveals clearly that the party’s attitude to violence remains unchanged despite their current elevation to government.

“To say that it would be “wrong” to erect a monument to such an infamous atrocity illustrates yet again that Sinn Fein/IRA remains wedded to its terrorist past and are continually being driven by a warped perverse recollection of what was perpetrated throughout the troubles by them and in their name.

“How could any supposedly democratic party find fault with plans for a monument to boys and pensioners who were brutally murdered in such a manner?

“Yet again we can see that the Sinn Fein of today remains unaltered from the one who in October 1998, in scenes reminiscent of those that welcomed home Abdel Baset al-Megrahi last week to Libya, organised a party for Tommy McMahon – the man convicted of planning the bomb-when he was released from prison.  In this instance however McMahon was not freed owing to terminal illness.  Further instead of worldwide condemnation as we saw last week, at the party for McMahon, the present Joint First Minister, Martin McGuinness, cheered and applauded him without any due notice being taken.

“Councillor MacLochlainn’s comments are yet another reminder of just how unfit Sinn Fein are to hold office in this part of the United Kingdom. The claims of those Unionists who say Republicans have experienced a Damascus Road conversion to constitutional politics have been exposed once again as folly”.