The Workers’ Party have contradicted tributes to Northern Ireland’s First Minister Dr. Ian Paisley, saying that Mr. Paisley was a divisive figure for more than five decades and had been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation for all that time.

Workers’ Party General Secretary John Lowry said that Dr. Paisley would be remembered as a firebrand and troublemaker who opposed every single initiative towards reform, political accommodation of all views and reconciliation.

Mr. Lowry said the fond and gushing praise for Dr. Paisley from Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness was incredible.  “Between them, the DUP and Sinn Féin have been at the heart of divisiveness and confrontation for the last four decades”.

“Dr. Paisley stood in the way of every single attempt to move forward in Northern Ireland.  He led angry gangs that attacked peaceful civil rights marchers in the 1960, was a cheerleader for the UDA’s sectarian strike to bring down the Sunningdale agreement in the Seventies, marched in the hills against the Anglo-Irish Agreement in the 1980s and was the chief obstacle in the face of move towards normalisation of society and the establishment of devolved government in the 1990s and early this century”, said Mr. Lowry.

“The firebrand Dr. Paisley was the voice that gave succour to loyalist gangs and was the bogeyman for the IRA.  Their murderous campaigns which claimed thousands of lives got oxygen from his bombastic speeches”.

“The Workers’ Party welcomes the devolution of power to the Northern Assembly. However the love fest between Dr. Paisley and Mr. McGuinness is no substitute for a genuine effort to end sectarianism which has thrived under the Assembly, which itself is built on institutional sectarianism”, said Mr. Lowry 

“I believe that history will judge Dr. Paisley a lot more harshly than those who have come forward to eulogise him on his departure”.