‘Intimidating people  can never be justified, nor can forcing them to leave their home’s , the Workers Party in south Belfast has said.

The condemnation follows the sectarian intimidation of a number of families from the Cantrell Close area.

‘Shared housing development initiatives are an essential part of securing a single united community’, the Party said.

‘Everyone must have the right and the opportunity to live where they wish. Every political party must state that clearly and publicly condemn these recent incidents.

Those who have made these threats should retract them immediately’, the statement concluded.

The Workers Party has condemned threats levelled at Probation staff by nationalist terrorists.

The  threats, identified as ‘substantial’ by the PSNI, follow previous bomb attacks on Probation service staff and offices and numerous threats against other public sector workers in recent years.

‘These are yesterday’s men’, the Party said, ‘ and their actions represent an attack on workers , an attempt to heighten sectarian tensions and division and are repugnant to the concept of class politics’.

‘At a time when public sector workers, providing valuable services to the community, are already facing pay freezes and cuts, they also face physical attack from people who won’t even show their faces’

‘No one should have to live with is type of threat and anyone with any information about those responsible or their actions should contact the police without hesitation’, the Party statement concluded.

‘There was absolutely no need to take this unaccountable decision ‘, Gemma said ‘Northern Ireland has many urgent and pressing problems which  need immediate action but this is not one of them’.

‘I have written to the Department of Infrastructure asking that it immediately suspends its approval for this project. I am also calling on both Sinn Fein and the DUP to live up to their responsibilities,form an Executive and allow us all to get on with taking our own decisions on our health, our environment and our waste management’ Gemma concluded

‘The restoration of a fully functioning Executive remains the absolute political priority”.the Workers Party has said.

‘Health, education and other public services are in crisis, budgets cannot be set, projects signed off or jobs and funding secured”, the Party said.

‘Some parties are happy to find reason after reason why a new Executive should not be formed but there are more pressing reasons why it should: hospital waiting lists, school budgets, housing schemes, eliminating unemployment, infrastructure projects, jobs, wages, benefits and quality of life are but a few’.

‘Sinn Fein won’t take their seats at Westminster and since last January  they haven’t taken their seats at Stormont. They continue to display an arrogant and contemptuous disregard for working class people, families and children’.

‘While those people bear the brunt of crumbling public services Sinn Fein’s undisguised disdain continues to place their own political ambitions front and centre regardless of the price paid by working class people’.

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