Editorial: The Royal College of Nursing is just ignoring our queries about terrorism

The Royal College of Nursing is at risk of doing grave damage to its reputation by not answering questions that flow from Pat Cullen.

The former head of the organisation has refused to answer whether or not she thinks past IRA violence was justified and, specifically, whether or not she condemns the IRA Poppy Day massacre in Fermanagh in which three nurses were among the civilians massacred. Ms Cullen stands shamed by this failure to make her position clear.

But the RCN was asked its own view on the matter, given that it was led by Ms Cullen only weeks ago. It could have said that it wanted to make crystal clear its abhorrence of any such attacks in which nurses are killed. Indeed its abhorrence of any terrorist violence in which emergency are put at risk, as they always are when they have to rush to bomb scenes and to the aftermath of a blast or attack in which there might be fire or gunfire. In other words, terrorist violence is not just a matter of attackers and victims, but also a matter of tiers of emergency personnel – police, army, firefighters, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses – who are put at risk responding to attacks and who are also diverted from other vital health duties.

Then there is the matter of an RCN web page in which Ms Cullen gushed about King Charles being seemingly removed for most of yesterday afternoon, until the News Letter asked about it. Was this just a peculiar coincidence, in which that page alone was affected but not other pages on the same site? Or an attempt to spare a Sinn Fein candidate’s blushes?

We do not know for sure because the RCN has not even acknowledged our queries on Ms Cullen, let alone answer them, and we have been in touch as per their instructions by email and phone.

This is a disgraceful refusal to answer elementary questions, but there is still of course time for the RCN to explain things to us.