As NI21's Tina McKenzie prepares to contest her first election, John Manley hears why a west Belfast Catholic is a supporter of the union and why we all need to talk more about sex
Having been raised in west Belfast during the 1970s and 80s and seen her father imprisoned for IRA-related offences, you would expect Tina McKenzie to be sympathetic to the republican cause.
Likewise, as a regular Mass- going Catholic, you could easily assume the 41-year-old business-woman shares the Church's view on abortion.
However, the ni21 European election candidate has an understandable aversion to being pigeon-holed, as she tends to contradict many of northern Ireland's stereotypes and common assumptions.
Her political heroes are nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Angela Merkel -- "because she's a strong woman".
She objects to the media making a fuss over her father Harry Fitzsimons' background, insisting she's a "grown woman with my own views".
He carried out a bombing in 1971, before she was born, and divorced her mother shortly after leaving prison. Another label the party chairwoman takes exception to is the term 'unionist'.
"For a lot of people in northern Ireland the word unionist is associated with certain images and some people have actually tarnished the word," she says.
"If i think of unionists i think of flags and flag waving."
Ms McKenzie cites the case of her English husband, who she says is "stunned by some of the things he sees being done in the name of the union".
"I myself am neither unionist or nationalist -- i'm northern Irish over and above all else," she says. Nevertheless, in keeping with the
ni21 perspective, she describes herself as "pro-union", believing the best place for the north -- "economically socially and politically" -- is within the United Kingdom and within Europe.
Her belief that the link with Britain should be retained is to some degree informed by her time living in England and Wales, where from the late 1990s onwards she forged a successful career in the recruitment sector.
"For me, being in the UK is about being part of a diverse, equal society -- not a society where one group of people try to override another." It was her distaste for the "binary" nature of the north's politics that prompted her to help launch ni21 last year.
She reckons there's a substantial number of people out there who share her view.
"People are unhappy that 16 years after the good Friday agreement we have two parties in government that time after time are banging against each other.
"Sinn Fein and the DUP won't work together -- they can't work together."
She believes the assembly's two biggest parties are equally culpable and turn "language, sport and everything" into issues of contention.
"They should stop lying to people by telling them they are in government together when clearly they are not ," she says.
"They are there for party politics, nothing else."
not only is she disparaging about the main partners in the executive but she also criticises the Ulster Unionists for lurching to the right as well as alliance, arguably the party closest to ni21 ideologically.
"To be a true moderate you need to stand up to and oppose the extremes," Ms McKenzie says, insisting that her party's MLas would only join the Stormont government in the event of ni21 gaining a majority.
"We'll go into opposition and challenge the executive," she says.
Ms McKenzie concedes, however, that apathy is the greatest threat to the fledgling party as it contests its first elections, and with no previous polls to benchmark its performance, she won't commit publicly to any targets for May 22's European and local government votes.
"The way we're looking at it is that it's going to take years," she says of the task facing ni21.
"Anybody getting elected is a success for us -- getting 47 candidates to stand in the council elections is a success."
On social issues, ni21 is decidedly liberal by northern Ireland standards. Although Ms McKenzie rejects the label (again) of pro-choice, she does believe that it's a woman's right to choose whether she has an abortion, although only up to a point.
She argues for greater awareness around sexual issues and discounts the suggestion that anybody has an abortion as a "lifestyle choice".
"We need to have a better conversation about sex and sex education," she says.
"Let's remember we've got a majority of men in Stormont and i don't think those stuffy old men are comfortable talking about sex."
McKenzie is an advocate of same-sex marriage, supports a living wage and believes in retaining grammar schools and the transfer test.
However, in a notable departure from alliance, she does not believe in a single, integrated education system but looks forward to a time when schools welcome children of all denominations and none, regardless of the school's educational ethos.