Prof Mary McAleese's repeated assertion that she has support in the unionist community in the North was described yesterday by a prominent unionist councillor as misleading and a fiction. Mr Chris McGimpsey, an Ulster Unionist Party member of Belfast City Council, said the election of an Irish President was solely a matter for the people of the Republic and he had no wish to interfere.
"However," he said in a statement, "I find it completely unacceptable that she should mislead the electorate of the Republic with statements designed to create the impression that she has huge support within the unionist community in Northern Ireland for her candidacy.
"In her attempts to woo the voters of the Republic of Ireland, Prof McAleese should not, and must not, be allowed to create the fiction that she has the support of the unionist community. She clearly does not. I call upon her to desist from using the unionist community as an electoral prop in her efforts to win the Presidency of the Republic of Ireland."