Derry told to be Quiet!

Stormont officials have been accused of attempting to “bully Derry into silence” in the run-up to today’s local government elections.

Following this week’s announcement Magee, which is already the North’s smallest university campus by far, is set to lose up to 300 students, the Department for Communities (DfC) is ordering the Derry University Group to remove a billboard highlighting the urgent need for fairness for the North West.

The hoarding on the Strand Road, which has been sitting amid many other billboards and election posters on the same stretch of road, protests the consistent failure of government to deliver for the North West over the last five decades.

Derry University Group campaigner Conal McFeely said the billboard fittingly illustrated the “the ongoing and systematic running down of the North West”.

Speaking to Derry Now, Mr McFeely said: “Stormont is seeking to silence the North West in the week when the DfC and other departments are cutting funding to vital services across the region.

“This is the week when we learned university student fees here are to be raised by over 50%. This is the week health spending cuts were announced which will decimate courses such as physiotherapy and nursing at Magee.

“And recent months have also seen the outworking of the BBC’s decision to dramatically reduce radio programming from Foyle, a station which will be going on strike tomorrow (Friday), while it fights for its survival. Indeed, this week the BBC even silenced a BAFTA winner who challenged the ‘indignities, ignorance and stupidity’ of those governing Derry.

“This is the week we are being told to shut up and go away. But we will not be bullied.”

Mr McFeely said that the government wants to quieten any noise or protest coming out of the North West.

“They know that cuts disproportionately impact us here because our economic baseline and structural provision is so much lower than that of Belfast,” he said.

“The DUG campaign was contacted by the DfC on Monday indirectly, despite us having several social media, and other, channels which allow for direct contact. It is clear that government wants us to go away quietly without a fuss.

“The North West simply cannot absorb any further hits to its socio-economic infrastructure; our communities and economy are at rock-bottom, and here is government handing us a shovel. As a community, as a city, as a region – we need to stop digging and start building.”

The DUG argued the billboard challenged everyone in power to reflect critically on the lack of progress and failure to deliver for the North West. It also platformed the growing concerns of all those citizens in the region who feel completely worn down by the inequitable and seemingly endless cuts in services and provision for the region.

“We won’t do this quietly,” said Mr McFeely. “The system telling us to sit down and shut up didn’t work in the past and it won’t work now. Free speech in the North West will not be silenced.

“We call on everyone to make their voices heard. We cannot let the demands and needs of the North West be silenced.”

Derry News requested a comment from the Department for Communities on the request to remove the DUG billboard. However, at the time of going to press none had been received.