B.B.C. under fire over Ulster plan

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32801, 29 December 1971, Page 13

B.B.C. under fire over Ulster plan

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright

BELFAST, December 28.

As the violence in Ulster resumed after a Christmas calm, the provincial Government appeared today to have won a victory on another front.

A special British Broadcasting Corporation television programme in which the Northern Ireland crisis was to be debated, has been strongly criticised by both the British Home Secretary (Mr Maudling) and the Prime Minister of the province (Mr Faulkner); and a 8.8. C. statement last night indicated that the programme might never be shown.

A spokesman for Mr Faulkner said that the Ulster leader had made personal representations to the 8.8. C., asking it to abandon its plans for a "live” debate, due to take place on January 5, among controversial figures, including the Rev. lan Paisley, Miss Bernadette Devlin, and representatives of opinion in the Irish Republic. In what appeared to be a carefully - phrased statement the 8.8. C. said of the programme: “As far as we know, it may still be shown on January 5. If we are unable to transmit it on that day,

we shall do another pro-1 gramme on Ulster at a later I date.” It is known that members! of the Westminster and Stormont Governments have refused to take part in the programme. The Stormont spokesman said: “The Northern Ireland Government believes that such a programme would have little to contribute, and , in fact could be quite harmful.

“For some time it has been felt in Northern Ireland that a tribunal of this! kind is not quite the appro-: priate thing at the present! time. “We have quite enough problems without a public scrutiny of this sort.” The 8.8. C., State-financed but largely autonomous, has been accused of giving the

insurgents’ point of view too little and too much time in recent months; its directorgeneral (Lord Hill) has had talks with Mr Maudling about the presentation of Northern Ireland news, at the Home Secretary’s request. The Christmas peace in Belfast ended yesterday, when a youth aged 17, was shot in the back in a Roman Catholic area of the city, and a British soldier was shot in the chest while he

was guarding an officer giving a television interview to I journalists representing Britjish commercial television. ! A warehouse was badly ! damaged by a bomb at Newry •30 miles south of Belfast, and another bomb exploded I near a mobile patrol in i Cookstown, 30 miles west of : the capital.