Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Arts funding a ‘DUP & Sinn Fein carve-up..’
Alliance wants resource allocation probe
FUNDING for several arts festivals is set to be delayed amid a row over how resources are allocated.
The Alliance Party is using a “call-in” procedure to question how hundreds of thousands of pounds was to be handed to events including the Feile, Belfast International Arts Festival and the Maritime Festival.
It labelled the funding the “latest financial carve-up between the DUP and Sinn Fein”.
The allocation at the Council’s City Growth and Regeneration Committee saw cash given to groups in West and East Belfast.
The DUP dismissed the call-in as showing “complete disregard for arts organisations”, while Sinn Fein accused the party of being “prepared to block funding” for council-organised events.
The move allows councillors to request an issue be revisited if they feel the original decision was handled incorrectly. Alliance’s Nuala Mcallister said: “One of council’s objectives is to help strengthen and grow our arts sector through annual funding. That funding is vital for many groups, who had the door slammed in their face by the DUP and Sinn Fein, who decided between themselves to award organisations without due process.”
DUP councillor Lee Reynolds said the move was “an attempt to distract from their years of TWO major Emmerdale storylines will come to a head next week in emotional scenes set in Northern Ireland.
The episodes, filmed this month in Belfast see Paddy
Kirk and Marlon Dingle at the heart of the action.
Mark Charnock, who plays Marlon, said: “Just going to work’s fun, but when you come to a location it feels like bonus.
“The scripts for the Belfast episodes are brilliant, it’s a gift.”
The episodes, screening next Thursday, follow Marlon and his new wife Jessie, played by Sandra Marvin, as they take their honeymoon to Belfast.
The cast also filmed scenes in Newcastle, Co Down, and visited the Titanic Museum and a peace wall.
Paddy, played by Dominic Brunt, decides to tag along for a showdown with the man who could be his dad, legendary wrestler Bear Wolf, played by Joshua Richards.
Dominic said: “We’ve got family over here so we come over twice a year. I’ve loved it it’s a fantastic place to be.”
The scenes will be broadcast on ITV on March 7. running the council as a progressive coalition with Sinn Fein and the SDLP, Alliance have attempted to create a series of faux fights”.
Sinn Fein’s Ciaran Beattie added: “It’s ironic Alliance talk about openness when they carved up a deal last month with the SDLP and unionists to exclude expressions of nationalist/ republican identity inside City Hall grounds.”