Motions passed on PSNI and race attacks

The conference passed just two motions, one calling for retention of the PSNI full-time reserve and another denouncing racist…

The conference passed just two motions, one calling for retention of the PSNI full-time reserve and another denouncing racist attacks and welcoming hate crime legislation. Both were passed without dissent.

Mr Ian Paisley jnr led the party's assault against the 50:50 recruitment policy of the police which ensures that equal numbers of Catholics and "Others" are selected. Comparing the policy to the Test Acts he condemned the policy of "justifiable discrimination".

"It is right for Roman Catholics to aspire to join and to join the police. But it is wrong that Protestants are discriminated against in order to make that possible," he said.

He claimed that to facilitate the selection of 600 recruits, some 1,000 Protestants have been turned down.

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Mr Paisley also condemned the fact that 1,600 members of the police full-time reserve do not have job security beyond next April.

The commission headed by Mr Chris Patten into the future of policing in the North recommended that the reservists be phased out.

The second debate centred on the spate of race attacks and plans for the British government to introduce hate crime legislation.

Assembly member Mr David Simpson said such attacks were contrary to Protestantism.

"Protestantism holds that it is of one blood that God has made all men. All mankind was originally created in the image of God," he said.

"The place of one's birth or the colour of one's skin does nothing to lessen that."

He added: "Such attacks are wrong. We are against them. They must stop."

Mr Patrick Yu, a member of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities , addressed the conference as an invited guest. He called for support for the motion saying racial attacks were fuelled by ignorance and fear.

The conference was also attended by members of the Conservative Monday Club, a group of Tory MPs and supporters who back a strongly British nationalist and right-of-centre agenda.

The conference also heard from UUP defectors Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, Ms Norah Beare, Ms Arlene Foster and Mr Peter Weir. Their speeches denounced the Trimble leadership of the Ulster Unionists and called on members of that party to join the DUP.

The North Belfast MP Mr Nigel Dodds, denounced reports that the Irish Government had conceded the release of the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe as part of the agreement involving the UUP and Sinn Féin which was designed last October to reinstate the Stormont institutions.

He called on Mr Trimble to tell unionists what he had agreed to in full last October.