Ms Brady was advised that “there should be engagement at a political level before a final decision is taken” on a press statement.<\/p>\n
In separate emails, the Executive Office official advised having a “conversation with FMdFM (first minister and deputy first minister) and the finance minister” before finalising a statement.<\/p>\n
The official drafted a “holding line” which said the NICS would have internal discussions before making a decision on this year’s Pride parade.<\/p>\n
But a senior Department of Finance (DoF) official responded: “For a number of reasons I don’t think we should say that.”<\/p>\n
The official added that NICS participation “as an employer” was “different to political attendance”.<\/p>\n
A note of a meeting in June said the finance minister – Sinn F\u00e9in’s John O’Dowd, whose department has responsibility for civil service matters – was “content for NICS to retain a presence at Pride”.<\/p>\n
Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) criticised the continued involvement of NICS in the parade.<\/p>\n
The party’s equality spokesperson Ann McClure, who submitted the FOI, said the NICS was “fully aware of the political sensitivities” but “pressed ahead regardless”.<\/p>\n
She questioned whether deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly, of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), was consulted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ms Brady was advised that “there should be engagement at a political level before a final decision is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-284725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114901576923744128","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}