DUP defends not attending Ireland's Future event

The DUP has defended its non-attendance at the Ireland's Future conference in Dublin at the weekend.

The party said "the focus should be on making Northern Ireland a better place".

"As a unionist my job is to try and convince people of the benefits of the union," Northern Belfast MLA Phillip Brett told View From Stormont.

"Rather than uniting Ireland, they weren't able to unite those in the room," he said.

The Ireland's Future event took place in Dublin over the weekend, featuring politicians from nationalist parties north and south of the border. Over 3,000 people attended the event.

Sinn Féin's John Finucane defended said all section of society were represented.

"This is not a conversation that is divorced from cost of living...this is about presenting an alternative. There were speakers from all sections of society," he said.

Meanwhile, the Alliance party said the "rally type format" was not the best place for such a debate.

Nick Mathison said: "We have made our position clear, we're very much up for having the conversations around keeping the status quo or moving towards a border poll...we have members that are of a nationalist persuasion and we have members that are of a unionist position, and we don't believe it's our place."

The UUP described the conference as a "cold house for unionists", with Tom Elliott saying "we saw Leo Varadkar was treated, we saw the Green Party leader booed, if it was someone from a unionist community how would they be treated?"

The SDLP's Matthew O'Toole added he doesn't believe the event was a "quick march to a border poll," but was a positive event to flesh out ideas on what a United Ireland may look like in practice.

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