Call to suspend Derry name-change
The Equality Commission has recommended that Derry City Council suspends its plans to change the official name of the city from Londonderry to Derry.
The Council recently carried out an equality impact assessment on the proposals.
But Bob Collins, the head of the Equality Commission, said there were flaws in the way it was carried out.
“We thought the correct thing to do was to recommend that the decision not be taken at the moment,” he said.
“We think that there were a wider range of options open to the city council in terms of the way in which it would take its decision than those which were formally addressed within the equality impact assessment,” he said.
Sinn Fein councillor Kevin Campbell, whose party first proposed the official name-change, said the Equality Commission should not have made their recommendation while the process was still ongoing.
“The Equality Commission has the right to make a submission, but for them to come out with this intervention comes across as an attempt to skew the whole process.
“I think it’s absolutely and totally wrong.”
