Reflecting on the death of prison officer, David Black, Trevor Ringland has emphasised that the appalling murder will serve only “to intensify efforts by the vast, vast majority of people in Northern Ireland to strengthen relationships across our community and build a genuinely shared future”.
“Not only is the type of evil action which took place yesterday completely futile, it is also self-defeating”, Trevor explained. “The acts of a handful of deranged fanatics, who want to drag Northern Ireland back into the violent past, can only focus the determination of everyone else to build a genuinely shared future. Our reaction should be to work even harder to strengthen relationships within Northern Ireland, across this island and on an east-west basis”.
“I would urge anyone who has any information which could help the investigation to come forward. The police will continue to work to stamp out this menace but there is always more which can be done to aid their work. Perhaps we need to look at the kind of multi-disciplinary approach which has had results in other areas of the justice system, safeguarding civil liberties, but restricting known dissidents’ abilities to operate within our communities.”
“At the same time as this tiny group of republicans were planning to murder Mr Black, the GAA, IFA and Ulster Rugby were working together to arrange the ‘Match for Michaela’, which will take place this Saturday night to raise money for the Michaela Foundation. That’s just one example of people in Northern Ireland working constructively with each other to build a better future, in such stark contrast to the destructive activities of the dissidents”.