Trimble slammed over 'sectarian ramblings'

The SDLP leader has accused David Trimble of engaging in "puffed up sectarian ramblings" whilst on a tour of the US Mid-West last week.

The UUP leader and former first minister has been heavily criticised from all sides after he made a controversial reference to the Republic of Ireland during a scheduled meeting with the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday.

In the interview, Mr Trimble is reported as saying: "If you took away Catholicism and anti-Britishness, the State (the Irish Republic) doesn't have a reason to exist."

Mr Trimble has since distanced himself from those remarks and a spokesperson for the UUP leader has said that the quote was "completely wrenched out of context".

However, the SDLP leader – and his former ministerial colleague – Mark Durkan said today that it was "very hard to see in what context those remarks would be warranted or deemed in any way worthy".

He said that while these comments were "gratuitously offensive" it was not the first time that Mr Trimble has made such statements.

Mr Durkan said: "It is puffed up sectarian ramblings and most of us see it for that. What David needs to recognise is that when you engage in those kinds of put downs, you don't put others down you just show yourself up.

"This isn't the first time that David Trimble has come out with things like this, I just wish I could believe it was the last time."

On March 8, the UUP issued a press release following a meeting of the ruling executive in which Mr Trimble is quoted as describing the south as a "pathetic, mono-ethnic and mono-cultural state". He later claimed that the word "pathetic" had been inserted by a press officer and was not his own – but he stood by the substance of the comment.

Less than a week later in Washington, the Nobel Peace Prize winner defended the statement again, as it was "self evident" that the south was a "sectarian" state over its stance on abortion.

(GMcG)