Debate contribution: Maze/Long Kesh Redevelopment and Investment

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 23 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

23 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Maze/Long Kesh Redevelopment and Investment

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4485706

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am on the Back Benches, which are much more comfortable than the Front Bench, although Mr Nesbitt is keen to get to the Front Bench. It is more comfortable here, Mike; trust me. However, the challenge is always better on the Front Bench. I thank Sorcha Eastwood for securing the Adjournment debate. It is tricky for Emma or me to do so in our ministerial capacity, and the debate gives us a chance to speak as MLAs for Lagan Valley. Thank you for that. It is an opportune time to talk about the Maze or Long Kesh. I am comfortable with either, and I will outline why in due course. It is important that we seek to unlock the potential that we have in the Lagan Valley constituency. Colleagues have touched on the strategic importance of the location: 350 acres sitting beside the 400-acre Blaris site. The total amount of ground that could be unlocked as part of the opportunity would have huge economic benefits not just for Lisburn but for Northern Ireland. Its accessibility, east-west and north-south, is critical. Some 60% of our population can get to the Maze site within 30 minutes. Some 80% of our population can get to it within one hour. It is accessible to so many people, and we need to find ways to create opportunities for it. Long before it was known as "HMP Maze", locals called it "the Long Kesh". The Kesh Road sits right beside the site. It was a home and a base for the Royal Air Force, known as "RAF Long Kesh". I appreciate that, in more recent times, it is associated with the time when prisoners were there, but the history of Long Kesh and the Royal Air Force existed long before it became the Long Kesh of the prisoners. Interestingly, important visitors came to RAF Long Kesh. President Eisenhower visited the site; as did Winston Churchill during the Second World War. Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II took her first flight and landed at RAF Long Kesh. There is a great history to Long Kesh and the Royal Air Force, and that is important.

Thank you. That neatly takes me to my family and personal connections with the site and its association with the prison, HMP Maze. My father served in the Maze in loyalist and republican wings as a prison officer for 36 years. We lived that life, which was very much different to the lives of prisoners. As a son of a prison officer, I remember going with mum to pick up dad as he walked through the steel gate and the door opened. I remember distinctly the smell of tobacco on his uniform. Dad never smoked, but it was something that I recall as a child. Obviously, it was because of the environment that he was in. I also remember him coming home with snooker balls that had been thrown at him. I know from when I was growing up that he kept his personal protection weapon close. He checked under the vehicle. We had bulletproof windows installed in the house because his name was on a list that the Provisional IRA had. He was sent a letter bomb that arrived within weeks of him starting in the Maze, a parcel bomb delivered to the house as the prisoners let him know that they knew where he lived. As the son of a prison officer, I know the story associated with the impact that it had. My uncle served in the Maze. The IRA put 13 bullets in his car as he drove up the motorway. He was a principal officer in the IRA wing when they broke out. They wore his uniform; he was hooded and stripped. So I come to this from the perspective of knowing what it was like to be a part of that family, the trauma that prison officers went through and the pain that they endured. My dad worked with prisoners with whom, as a councillor in Lisburn, he now works at a community level. They were loyalist prisoners, and I see at first hand the contribution that they make to my community, which is improving it. It is important that we look forward to the future, as well as remembering that awful period in the past. We need to find a way to navigate that space, and I think we can. We should be able to do that.

The Balmoral show is there. I remember when the Ulster Aviation Society (UAS) was based at Langford and needed to be relocated. Edwin Poots was a member of the Maze panel at the time, and, to secure the UAS's future, he was able to get it into the aircraft hangars. There are also the retained buildings. We just need to navigate the space sensibly. We need to make sure that we can unlock the potential of the Maze site — it has huge potential — so that it becomes something of significance for not just the Lagan Valley constituency but Northern Ireland. We need to see progress be made in the weeks, months and years ahead. I hope that, with the Executive having been restored, we can do that in a sensible manner that unlocks the potential of the Maze/Long Kesh.

883 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:20 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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