Dublin South West TD and member of the Committee for the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, Se\u00e1n Crowe, attended the\u00a0Belfast: A City of Equals in an Island of Equals\u00a0<\/i>conference.<\/p>\n
The groundbreaking conference was organised by Sinn F\u00e9in and it was attended by PSNI Chief Matt Baggot, members of the Unionist community,\u00a0Church Groups,\u00a0Business Representatives, Human Rights Advocates and Community Interface workers.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s conference was organised by Sinn F\u00e9in so it could engage with and listen to the aspirations and apprehensions of Belfast\u2019s Unionist and Protestant community.<\/p>\n
\u201cA wide range of society were invited to the event and the discussions were very positive and informative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Peace Process cannot be taken for granted and this conference enabled participants to engage in uncomfortable but necessary discussions. The conference focused\u00a0on the areas of identity, equality, mutual respect, and parity of esteem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difficult challenges of removing sectarianism and ending segregation in the North still\u00a0remain, fifteen years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. We need new approaches and thinking to enable us to\u00a0overcome these challenges, which are undermining the positive work being carried out in communities throughout the North.<\/p>\n
\u201cReconciliation and multiculturalism are the basis of an agreed Ireland, and that is the best alternative to sectarianism, segregation and racism in\u00a0our country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also the need for politicians of all parties and none to work together and tackle poverty, disadvantage and social injustice in the North, and conferences like this open up the space to allow this.<\/p>\n
“I look forward to the day when the small number of loyalist protesters outside today’s conference, will realise that meetings like this are no threat to them and they will feel comfortable enough to take part in discussions on issues that we all need collectively to address.”<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD and member of the Committee for the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, Se\u00e1n Crowe, attended the\u00a0Belfast: A City of Equals in an Island of Equals\u00a0conference. The groundbreaking conference was organised by Sinn F\u00e9in and it was attended by PSNI Chief Matt Baggot, members of the Unionist community,\u00a0Church Groups,\u00a0Business Representatives, Human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-friday-agreement","category-reconciliation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}