No matter her reason or excuse, there is no justification for the behaviour of the DUP councillor Ruth Patterson.
Patterson was elected Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast last night and was offered congratulations by the newly elected Lord Mayor, Niall Ó Donnghaile of Sinn Fein. Patterson ignored the Lord Mayor refusing to acknowledge his gracious gesture.
The basis of this insult (for that is what it is) appears to be that Niall is from Sinn Fein. Patterson has form for being disrespectful - in the past she has made a show of coughing loudly when Irish is spoken in the chamber.
The DUP have, inexplicably, decided to defend her. It's inexplicable because her party are fully in bed with Sinn Fein in govt. What they should be doing is reprimanding her for displaying such appalling behaviour.
I imagine this is no skin of the new Lord Mayor's nose but then it wasn't just he who was insulted. Patterson has shown massive disrespect to the people of Belfast who elected Niall to council and to the chamber itself who have chosen to elevate him to the Lord Mayor position.
Democracy means not always getting the result you want but it also means you have to respect the result regardless, for it is the will of the people.
The DUP have moaned about there being a change of rules in the chamber designed to deny them and their Unionist pact partners from getting the Mayoral posts they feel they're entitled to. To some extent this is true but quite how they feel they can moan about it is beyond me. The DUP have no problem using whatever means they can to maintain or gain advantage - the petition of concern to defeat Dawn Purvis' double jobbing bill a prime example of this.
What is really embarrassing for Northern Ireland though is that we still have people in senior political positions who refuse to acknowledge the validity of other peoples political beliefs.
Firstly I would like to say that Ruth works very hard for the people that elected her .... BUT .... I do agree that this futile gesture of not acknowledging congratulations is not just ignorant but does not bode well for the mayoral office. I get bored of the Irish speaking too ..... I tried to watch the Sinn Fein political conference on RTE about a year ago and I found their speeches interesting but when you hear them prattle on in another language it does start to grate on your nerves and leads to absolute boredom and instead of coughing I switched off. Unfortunately one cannot do this in the council chamber!!
ReplyDeleteRuth does not have to acknowledge him in any situation bar professional, in the Council meetings (which it appears she will do). Otherwise, she has to right to ignore the child sitting next to her.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt Sinn Fein have chosen this to annoy the DUP and take some light off their Special Advisor Situation.
Sarah - a looooonnnng time ago my mother was briefly in France (just once) and she spoke of the way the people 'gabbled in their language'. She was a woman of limited education and experience, poor, and born at the start of the twentieth century. I think today we shouldn't speak of people 'prattling in another language' - there's a slight implication that there's something inferior about it compared to OUR language. As to Ruth Patterson's failure to respond to a civilized gesture: I agree with you. The word is indeed 'ignorant'. Or maybe 'childish'. (Good blog, btw, Ed)
ReplyDeleteNot embarrassing at all! Whats embarrassing is unionists getting cosy with these murderers
ReplyDeleteMurderers? The subject in question is Niall O'Donnghaile. Unless you are aware of something that no one else is, he isn't a murderer and has committed no crime.
ReplyDeleteJude - thanks.
Gaelic, I was sure we spoke English in this country. Am I wrong? I am sure there are countries, one very near indeed, that would welcome foreign speakers to go and live there amongst their own. No one is stopping anyone heading South that I can see, so perhaps those that want to debate and or gabble and or waffle in a foreign language should move along and do it where everyone understands them.
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