ULSTER'S FUTURE

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 17

ULSTER'S FUTURE

Reaction to U.K. plan

(N.Z. Preu Attn —Copyright) BELFAST. Oct. 31.

Militant Protestant and Roman Catholic organisations have denounced Britain's outline for a future peaceful Northern Ireland, but moderate political leaders in both Ulster and the Irish Republic have expressed approval of it. The Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Provisional wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, said it regarded the British document on posi sible Ulster solutions as "a ; further example of the inability of British politicians to I understand the problems in the North.” | The Ulster Defence Association, a Protestant counterI force to the 1.R.A., said: "We will not accept any Stormont ■ Government which does not handle internal security.”

The document, published by the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr William Whitelaw) says, in part: “Northern Ireland must, and will, remain part of the United Kingdom for as long as that is the wish of the majority of the people.” But it adds that a future Ulster regional government must give the Roman Catholic minority an effective role in the affairs of the province, and that Britain must retain responsibility for security for as long as the violence persists.