Ford welcomes changes at Antrim Council

6.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 13th Jun 2008

Alliance Leader David Ford said after Antrim Council's Annual General Meeting:

"My colleague Alan Lawther and I have spent considerable time in recent weeks in discussions with the other parties. We wanted to see what we have never had in Antrim before - a reasonable sharing of responsibility across all parties in the chamber.

"It was also important to us that Cllr Oran Keenan was given the opportunity to step up from Deputy Mayor to Mayor. Oran has been a councillor since 1985 and fully deserves the office of Mayor.

"I believe that Oran and Adrian Watson will continue as a good team in the top two posts, but the symbolism of the change at the top is very significant to all the people of the borough.

"I am also pleased that my proposal which sees members of four different parties chairing committees in the council was accepted. For the first time ever, Cllr Henry Cushinan has been elected to chair a committee. I do not think that Antrim people will be impressed by the synthetic rage coming from the party that shares power at Stormont with Sinn Fein.

"The choice for unionists is clear. Either they share power willingly at local level, or they have it imposed in future by a crude mathematical formula. I am pleased to see this movement forward on voluntary power-sharing."