Thursday, November 11, 2010

East Belfast Spoke Out

Panellists at 2010 East Belfast Speaks Out

East Belfast Speaks Out packed out the hall at Ashfield Boys School last night as more than 400 people turned up to the town hall event, more than tripling last year's attendance. This year Mark Devenport chaired the panel of Liam Clarke (journalist and commentator), Peter Robinson (DUP), Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein), Dawn Purvis (independent) and Hugo Swire (Conservative Minister of State).

It was probably only the second time since Peter Robinson took over as First Minister that he's appeared (as an MLA rather than a minister) on a panel alongside Martin McGuinness.

The detailed write-up of the evening is over on Slugger O'Toole. If you're curious you can listen to the debate which covered a wide range of topics: the size of local political institutions, Historical Enquiries Team, CSI, the future of NI, corporation tax and the Azores ruling, why Owen Paterson was missing for the second year in a row, university fees, capital cuts and public sector job cuts.

I got the reaction of some of the panellists afterwards.

2 comments:

Norwin said...

Either you need to check your subtitles, or you haven't reported the biggest story.
"Peter Robinson, Sinn Fein"?

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

Fixed!