DUP refuse to condemn attack

At a council meeting, Mayor Jim McCammick condemned the attack in which Cllr Curran was shot in the arm neck and thigh - but Cllr Yvonne Calvert disagreed.

She declared: “Sinn Fin uphold the actions of the IRA and this action on Brendan Curran is just one more casualty in a war which they started.

“It is our official policy on this council to ostracise Sinn Fin and I think we should do so on this occasion.”

Mrs Calvert, whose husband and former councillor David Calvert was shot by the INLA, said Sinn Fin should never have been allowed into Northern Ireland’s council chambers in the first place.

She criticised the British government for not having the will to combat terrorism and for allowing ‘bullyboys and thugs’ to have local government representation.

Alderman McCammick said Cllr Curran’s plight may be explained by the bible quotation: “Whatsoever a man soweth; that shall he also reap.”

The Mayor’s condemnation of the murder bid on Cllr Curran came after he condemned the murder of RUC superintendent Alwyn Harris, who died in a car bomb attack in Lisburn.

He said: “I feel that I should call, especially at this time, to right thinking people in this community to stand together and fight terrorism and weed out those responsible for these acts.

“We have had 20 years of terrorism in this Province and as we approach the 1990s, I would call in Sinn Fin to speak against the bomb and bullet and to place those responsible for these vile deeds in the hands of the security forces and make this a better place in which to live.”