5
That's how many of the Stormont security guards, officially known as "doorkeepers", are Catholics. Sinn Fein's Martina Anderson asked the question. The Assembly Commission told her that of 27 directly recruited doorkeepers, 5 or 18.5% were Catholic. There's a secondee whose religion cannot be revealed as it would break his or her privacy rights under the data protection rules, and the Commission doesn't keep any information on 19 agency staff employed on the Assembly doors.
But will Martina enquire how many are indigenous Catholics and how many are migrant Catholics?
I'm 
颁辞尘尘别苍迟蝉听听 Post your comment
And what relevance has this got? Nobody who either works in the Assembly or any visitor could say anything bad about the doorkeeping staff who treat everyone equally and just get on with doing their day's work (heck, even ask Michael Stone). If she really wants to get into a divisive sectarian headcount of Assembly workers, she might want to check the religious makeup of the Implementation Team, who have a lot more power than the humble doorkeepers (hint - 100% 'one side'). Given your earlier post Mark about Anderson's bee in the bonnet about the religion of migrant workers, it isn't too hard to see who the real bigot is here.
As someone who has had a lot of dealings with the Doorkeepers in Parliament Buildings over several years i can assure you and Martina Anderson that these helpful, professional and courtious folk up on the hill always come across as UNBIASED. Surely Martina is not hopeing to have a 50/50 workforce within the Doorkeepers directrate? Hopefully the New Year will see an end to these silly notions or she will be asking for 50/50 membership in the DUP and SF next.
Mark
DEVENPORT DIARIES CHRISTMAS PARTY 鈥︹︹︹︹︹ WELL, SORT OF
Having failed as Sinn Fein鈥檚 Director of Unionist Outreach because she couldn鈥檛 disguise her inherent antipathy to Unionists, Martina Anderson is using a new tactic to play out her hostility. She is now fixating on statistics relating to the employment of Catholics (鈥淜ethleks鈥 as she calls them) in trying to show that discrimination against her co-religionists in the employment field is just as prevalent now as it was in the bad old days. In thrall to the notion of Catholics as victims, she espouses her doctrine with Jesuitical zeal at every opportunity. She drones on ad nauseam about equal rights, human rights, gender rights, rights this, rights that. But every thing she does and says is Catholic-centric and totally off-putting and irritating to Protestants. The net effect is that prejudice is reinforced on both sides of the religious divide. In effect, she has now created a virtual, one-man Department in which she is the self-appointed Minister for the Promotion of Bigotry. That being the case, if she can appoint herself as a virtual Minister I now appoint myself as a virtual MLA for the Devenport Diaries Christmas Party. As a virtual MLA I am entitled to table the following virtual multi-part Assembly Question for Written Answer.
Let鈥檚 observe Assembly Protocol for Written Questions as we try to flush out the actualit茅 of Ms Anderson鈥檚 and Sinn Fein鈥檚 commitment to a fair, equitable society.
QUESTION FOR WRITTEN ANSWER
ON MONDAY 14 JANUARY, 2008
Question to Martina Anderson, the Self-appointed Minister for the Promotion of Bigotry
Ms S Flood (Carryduff North)
To ask the Self-appointed Minister for the Promotion of Bigotry to detail the number and percentage of people from (A) a Protestant Background, (B) an ethnic background and (C) a Gay/Lesbian background (D) a Traveller background who are:
(i) Sinn Fein MLAs in the Assembly;
(ii) Sinn Fein Councillors in Northern Ireland;
(iii) paid-up members of Sinn Fein;
(iv) employed as Special Advisers to Sinn Fein Ministers;
(v) employed as Party Officers by Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland;
(vi) employed in the Sinn Fein Press Office(s) in Northern Ireland;
(vii) employed as Researchers by Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland;
(viii) employed as administrative/support staff by Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland;
(ix) employed as Car Drivers for Sinn Fein Ministers and MLAs;
(x) employed in any capacity not covered by any of the above.
[AQW 0001/08]
Mark, no doubt you鈥檒l want to Blog Ms Anderson鈥檚 answer to my AQW. I suspect it鈥檒l be easy to summarize, mostly using words such as: nil, none, nought, zero and zilch.
Right, back to preparing my Vegetarian Xmas Dinner!
Susie
Carryduff