THE Treasury and Resources Department has been threatened with political humiliation if it takes on the Foulon Friends. The pressure group has begun lobbying the department to allow appropriate memorials at the cemetery.

It has sent an 11-page document to each political member of the department outlining its case in the row with the former Board of Administration.

And Friends president Trevor Kirk claimed that it would have enough political support successfully to defeat any department attempt to uphold the board’s decision to ban unapproved memorials from graves.

‘The board failed to sort out the issue of gravestones and so, in essence, the question for the department is whether it upholds the board’s decision or backs our stance,’ said Mr Kirk.

‘If they decide to uphold the board’s decision, I think we have enough backing to take a requete to the House and win.’

Contained in the document are the results of a Friends survey of election candidates and sitting deputies.

It shows that 66 out of 82 candidates backed its stance and 38 of 45 sitting deputies were in support of the group’s campaign.

Treasury and Resources Minister Lyndon Trott said that it would discuss the matter at its meeting today.

‘We will be discussing the issue [on Tuesday] at a political level. While we are aware of the issue, at the moment we are in a process of familiarisation, but we will be speaking to the Friends in due course.’

The Foulon row erupted last September when the board told the relatives of those buried there that they had to remove unapproved memorials, even if they were not a health and safety hazard, because the cemetery was supposed to be lawned.

Almost two months later, the board indicated that it would suspend indefinitely the deadline for relatives to remove unapproved memorials. A final decision was put on hold until the new department was formulated.

Mr Kirk said that while there were several issues to be discussed, the central problem about memorials was the most significant yet to be settled.

‘Throughout the debate there has been a lot of information bandied around which is not accurate and true; we want to put the new team in view of all the facts and get them up to speed.’