SAOIRSE32

Sinn Féin

Senator’s remarks unhelpful to efforts to re-build the peace process

Published: 16 March, 2005

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams MP speaking following a press conference in Washington with the sisters of Robert McCartney and Senator Ted Kennedy said:

“Sinn Féin welcomes support for the McCartney’s campaign. This is about getting those involved in the killing of their brother into a court of law. And they have Sinn Féin’s support in this.

“Other remarks which focused on the issue of IRA disbandment may have been intended to be helpful - they are not. The singular focus on this issue when there are other key parts of the Good Friday Agreement, which also need to be implemented, is unhelpful.

“I have already set out very clearly Sinn Féin’s efforts to create the conditions in which the IRA ceases to be. It is my conviction that we will be successful.

“Sinn Féin is determined to resolve all of these difficult issues and to put the peace process back on track.”ENDS

IRA2

Finucane inquiry ‘will be stymied’

Irish Independent
16 Mar 2005

THE fully independent inquiry into allegations of security force
collusion in the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane, promised by
British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Weston Park in 2001, will not be
independent following new UK legislation, the House of Commons has
been told.

The British Government’s Inquiries Bill, which had its second reading
in the Commons, will allow government ministers - over the wishes of
any inquiry chairman - to exclude sensitive evidence and intelligence
material, bar the public from hearings and conceal the identity of
government witnesses.

It has been criticised by Amnesty International, and England’s Lord
Chief Justice Lord Woolf. SDLP MP Seamus Mallon predicted that under
the new law evidence will be withheld in the inquiry into the murder
of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.

Bernard Purcell
London Editor

IrishExaminer.com

SF denies US ban on fundraising

By Mary Dundon, Political Reporter in New York
16 March 2005

SINN FÉIN denied last night that the Bush Administration had banned it from fundraising in America after US Justice Department figures revealed it had raised more than $7 million (€5.26m) since 1995.
The US administration told Sinn Féin weeks ago to avoid fundraising in the US this year in the wake of the Robert McCartney murder and the IRA bank robbery, one US State Department official said yesterday.

“We made clear that it was a good thing if they decide to do that (not raise funds) at this juncture,” said the US State Department official.

Since 1995, when the ban on Sinn Féin fundraising in the America was lifted, the party has raised $7m (€5.26m) up to 2003, according to the official accounts it lodged with the US Justice Department.

These accounts also reveal that Sinn Fein raised at least $100,000 (€75,144) during previous St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the US.

But Sinn Féin yesterday denied it was told by the State Department to avoid US fundraising this year.

“The visa Sinn Féin was granted allows us to fundraise in the US, but we decided ourselves year that fundraising would have become a distraction and detract from the political meetings,” said a Sinn Féin spokeswoman.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher agreed this was the case.

But this St Patrick’s Day Mr Adams finds himself in the political wilderness following the refusal of US President George Bush not to invite him to the White House and Senator Edward Kennedy’s cancellation of his meeting because of the “IRA’s ongoing criminal activity and contempt for law and order.”

Mr Adams meets today with Mr Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, who has said, “There is no place in 2005 in Europe for a private army associated with a political party.”

Daily Ireland

Public inquiry call for Nelson

A commemoration to mark the sixth anniversary of murdered Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson yesterday heard calls for the findings of the inquiry into her death to be made public.
Mrs Nelson (40) was killed by an under-car booby trap bomb outside her home in Lurgan on March 15, 1999 in an attack claimed by the Red Hand Defenders. No one has yet been charged with her murder.
Yesterday’s commemoration in Belfast was attended by friends of the murdered human-rights lawyer as well as members of women’s welfare groups, loyalists and republicans, who all gathered in Belfast’s Linen Hall Library.
Belfast solicitor Pádraigín Drinan said the inquiry’s terms of reference would result in key information about Mrs Nelson’s murder being withheld from the public. “This inquiry will come under the terms of the 1998 Police Act and that gives the secretary of state the final say-so as to what information is released to the public.
“So what we have is not a public inquiry but a private one that can conclude that everything is all right, and the public will not have the chance to scrutinise that.
“It makes a mockery of the term ‘public inquiry’,” she said.
Representatives from Relatives for Justice, the Rape Crisis Centre and the Children’s Law Centre also attended.
There have been consistent allegations that there had been state collusion in the death of Rosemary Nelson.
Her case is one of four that the Canadian judge Peter Cory said should be investigated by the British government through a public inquiry.
Mrs Nelson had given legal advice to the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition and also represented the family of Sam Marshall, a Lurgan republican murdered just metres from an RUC barracks in the town.
Before her murder, she had complained that RUC men had issued death threats to her.
After her funeral, hundreds of nationalists marched to Lurgan RUC barracks with placards proclaiming “Rosemary Nelson — murdered by the RUC”.
Letters were read out yesterday from African National Congress representatives and human-rights groups from the United States. They criticised the British government’s handling of the murder and called for a full public inquiry.
Ms Drinan said, “We lost a good friend and a good solicitor in Rosemary Nelson. Her murder was a blow to all those who work for justice.
“We must ensure she is not only remembered but that her murder is fully and thoroughly investigated.”

Daily Ireland

Letter to the Editor

O’Rawe was wrong

As someone who took to the streets before, during and after the hunger strikes, I would like to comment on the assertion made by Richard O’Rawe that the IRA leadership controlled the hunger strikes and allowed the last six of the hunger strikers to die.
I was, at the time, a member of ‘Youth Against Oppression’, which was set up in response to the prison campaign, and was made up of young people from all over the Derry area and which always had one representative attending all of the meetings held by the local Relatives’ Action Committee.
At these meetings, young people would sometimes get carried away with the emotions of the hunger strikes and demand more radical responses to deal with what was happening to our prisoners.
The response from the committee was always one which stands out in my mind to this day:
“The prisoners are the most important people in this campaign, and it is their request that nothing is done on the outside which will detract from their campaign.
“They have asked that young people on the ground be allowed to campaign on their behalf but that they should also be disciplined in their responses to news coming from the prisons.”
We were also told that we should always take our lead from the Relatives’ Action Committee, which represented the prisoners on the outside.
So what does that tell you, Richard? I myself, in hindsight, have also interpreted that what the prisoners were saying was they did not want any young people hurt on the outside.
A lot of young people gave their lives during the hunger strikes at the hands of the British Army and RUC child killers – Gary English, Jim Browne, Paul Whitters, to name but a few, killed in our own city.
I was being held in Strand Road Interrogation Centre on the day Paul Whitters was seriously injured, April 15, 1981, and grown men, (‘policemen’ - that’s what they called themselves) were laughing and joking about a 15-year-old child lying defencless in the street after being hit at point-blank range (five feet) by a plastic bullet.
Paul Whitters died on April 25, 1981, no doubt a few more laughs and cheers went up in Strand Road barracks. These incidents happened at the start of the hunger strikes and carried on right through with many more young people murdered by British forces and so-called policemen.
My point, Richard, is this: the British government’s policy in Ireland then was to break us at any price, the lives of children on our streets did not matter to them.
So what is it that makes you think that they had principles when it came to the prisoners, without reassurance being guaranteed?
Put British rule on the rack, Richard, or fall in behind all of the other begrudgers from the SDLP and Irish establishment in their rewriting of Irish history.
These people stood idly by and allowed Irish people to die at the hands of the Brits and now you have let them off the hook.
With respect Mr O’Rawe, I will not be buying your revisionist paperback.
Cathal Beag
Derry City

Relatives For Justice

Paul Whitters 15 years, Derry City, struck on the head by a plastic-bullet fired by a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary on 15 April 1981. He died in hospital ten days later on 25 April.

Paul was the second oldest in a family with three sons. He was born in Scotland and brought up in Clydebank and Glasgow, where his father worked in variety of jobs. Paul was eleven years old when his parents decided to move to Derry City, their hometown. Paul’s parents described their son ‘as a bright, intelligent and cheerful lad who was always busying himself with newspaper rounds, or visiting and helping his grandparents.’ They said he enjoyed soccer and was a fan of Glasgow Celtic. He was a member of Markey Toland’s Youth Club on the Foyle Road, and often went to discos there.

During April 1981 tension between the nationalists community and British forces in Derry City was running high. In the H-Blocks at Long Kesh prison camp republican prisoners were on hunger strike for political status, while on the streets tens of thousands of people expressed their support for their cause in demonstrations and protests. The British military forces responded by banning, harassing, and attacking the protesters, which resulted in street violence. Much of the street violence in Derry at this time was on a minor scale and involved mainly small groups of children ambushing Crown force patrols or their positions with bricks and bottles.

On the day he was fatally injured Paul and a number of other teenagers had been throwing stones at RUC members in the Bogside area of Derry. The stoning was of a minor nature, and had all but ceased when an RUC member from close range shot him in the back of the head.

Eyewitnesses to the shooting all agree Paul was wearing a green mask and was with a group of ten youths throwing stones at RUC members in the Great James Street area. The RUC then left the street and entered a bakery, also in Great James Street, and took up positions inside the building. A witness who spoke to Paul after the RUC had gone into the bakery described what happened. ‘The boys started to stone an electric shop which was above the bakery and broke several windows. They got disinterested and then moved back over the lower road, all except one boy, who had a green mask over his face. He was standing in a stooped position as though looking in the gate of the bakery. Suddenly the little side-gate of the bakery opened and an RUC man stepped out with a plastic bullet gun and fired it directly at the boy at a distance of 20-21 feet. The boy fell forward. At this time all was quiet; there was nobody left but this boy. He fell in a heap and another constable came out from the bakery and the two of them took an arm and a leg and dragged him along the ground and into the bakery.’

Other witnesses to the shooting gave similar descriptions of the incident, although some witnesses put the distance between the RUC man who fired the fatal round and Paul at ten feet or less. All the witnesses agreed that the RUC members in the bakery were wearing protective body-armour and that an RUC back-up force of armoured vehicles arrived at the scene of the shooting within minutes.

The plastic bullet struck Paul in the head, causing massive brain injuries, and leaving him unconscious. Because of the seriousness of his condition he was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where he died on April 25.

An inquest into Paul Whitters deaths was held in December 1982. The RUC member who fired the plastic bullet that ended his life did not attend the hearing. Another RUC officer read out his statement. An RUC Inspector who carried out an investigation into the killing and later submitted two files to the Northern Ireland Department of Public Prosecutions, admitted during questioning he did not make any door-to-door enquiries in the street near the scene of the shooting while carrying out his investigations.

The RUC member who shot Paul said in his statement he fired his weapon from a distance of 20-25 yards. Witnesses who attended the hearing contested the RUC member’s version of the incident. One witness said she had tried to persuade Paul to leave the area, as she feared he was going to be shot by one of the RUC members in the bakery. She said when she saw the youth he was on his own and he had nothing in his hands. She said she thought the police could have grabbed him instead of firing a baton round. She also said he was shot from a distance of about five yards.

A pathologist told the hearing that severe brain damage, resulting from a fractured skull caused by a plastic bullet, led to the youth’s death.

The coroner addressing the jury said there was great conflict in the evidence and that it was hard to reconcile the different accounts of what happened. The jury in their verdict more or less accepted the RUC version of the shooting. The dead youth, they said was a ringleader of a crowd of stone throwers. They did not specify how many were in the crowd, but they did accept the RUC warning might have been inaudible, and that the plastic bullet gun was fired from a distance of 15-20 yards.

The father of Paul Whitters said that the inquest was nothing more than a cosmetic exercise, therefore the verdict was therefore no surprise to him.

No members of the RUC have ever been charged in connection with the killing of Paul Whitters.

Daily Ireland

Army victim inquest opens

THE Inquest into the death of a man crushed by a British army vehicle during disturbances in Derry nine years ago will begin today.
Dermot ‘Tonto’ McShane died in Altnagelvin hospital after being crushed during serious rioting on the streets of Derry on July 12, 1996.
Derry court will hold a preliminary coroner’s hearing this morning, with a view to opening an inquest probing the circumstances of Mr McShane’s death.
Mr McShane’s brother, Feargal, told Daily Ireland last night: “We are not building our hopes up about anything here. It’s just a case of wait and see.”
It will be one of the first inquests to be held since the inception of the Freedom of Information Act, raising hopes among campaigners, and the dead man’s family, that new evidence will be made available.
On the day Mr McShane died, street violence had erupted in the city in the wake of an Orange Order parade being forced down Portadown’s Garvaghy Road in the midst of the Drumcree crisis.
A British army Saxon vehicle rammed a hoarding Mr McShane had been sheltering behind and crushed him during a second night of street fighting.
The incident happened outside Mullan’s Bar on Little James’ Street after hours of intense rioting.
The soldier driving the vehicle was not interviewed by the RUC investigating team until six months after the event.
In the wake of Mr McShane’s death, Tom Craig, the then RUC acting assistant chief constable for north region, explained that the Saxon was making its way to “clear” a skip which was being used as cover by people firing petrol bombs.
“At this time police discovered a seriously injured man,” he said.
The following week RUC Chief Constable Hugh Annesley announced that a senior detective had been appointed to lead an investigation into Mr McShane’s death.
The RUC then appealed for witnesses to come forward to assist in the investigation.
Witnesses gave testimony the day after the tragedy to the Pat Finucane Centre.
The late man’s wife, Theresa, took the case to the European Court of Human Rights in 2002, which concluded in the case, McShane versus the United Kingdom, that the British Government had violated Mr McShane’s right to life as a result of a failure to properly investigate the circumstances in which he was injured.
The European Court found that the investigation into Mr McShane’s death had not been independent and that it had not been conducted expeditiously. It also concluded that the driver of the vehicle which had fatally injured Mr McShane could not be forced to testify at the inquest.
Speaking to Daily Ireland last night, Paul O’Connor from the Derry-based Pat Finucane Centre, said, “Nine years later, it beggars belief that the inquest is only getting underway. Justice delayed is justice denied and, for the sake of the family of Dermot McShane, we hope that this process is properly convened as soon as possible.”

Daily Ireland

Hugh Orde challenged

**click to view

Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness has angrily attacked the PSNI over its handling of the investigation into the murder of Robert McCartney.
The Mid-Ulster MP also hit out at sections of the media for misrepresenting his view that Mr McCartney’s family could be politically manipulated or exploited.
Speaking outside his party’s Belfast headquarters yesterday, Mr McGuinness expressed astonishment at yesterday’s Daily Ireland revelations that earlier this week the PSNI turned away a solicitor acting for a key suspect in the murder who wished to present himself for interview.
“I think it is absolutely incredible,” Mr McGuinness said.
“I think it is unprecedented and I think, never in the history of the troubles over the course of the last 30 years, would you ever have had someone who was regarded as a chief suspect in a murder investigation, effectively turned away and told to come back in a few days time… absolutely unprecedented.
“I publicly challenge Hugh Orde to explain the handling of this investigation and why charges have not been brought.
“Quite clearly I am alleging, for everyone to listen to, that the PSNI are managing the investigation into Robert McCartney’s murder in order to try and do as much damage to Sinn Féin as possible,” he said.
Mr McGuinness also heavily criticised sections of the media for acting in a “malicious” way following a series of news reports alleging that he had issued “warnings” to the McCartney family.
“I didn’t issue any warning to the McCartney family,” he said.
“From my perspective, I am both angry and disturbed at the way in which my remarks were taken up.
“Effectively what I was doing was explaining a debate that I think is going on within nationalist and republican circles in the North of Ireland, and I was advising the family, in their own interests, that they should not allow themselves to be in any way politically manipulated.
“I absolutely accept that the McCartney family are very dedicated towards having those people who murdered their brother brought before a court.
“I am fully in support of them and I believe that that is their sole motivation.
“I also believe that there are people around the McCartneys who are malicious in their intent.
“I think the McCartneys need to be careful with people like that around them,” Mr McGuinness said.
Reacting to Mr McGuinness’ comments before flying out to the United States, Robert McCartney’s sister Catherine stated that her family “is not stupid”.
“We have to be very careful that we’re not being used by anybody and that includes Sinn Féin and all political parties, we’re not stupid women.
“We get the impression that someone thinks out there that somebody’s behind this, pulling our strings. The only person behind this is our Robert and he is the person pulling our strings,” Ms McCartney said.
During their trip to America the McCartney family intend to meet key Irish-American leaders like Senator Ted Kennedy, as well as attending tomorrow’s White House celebrations on St Patrick’s Day.
Throwing her party’s support behind the McCartney family, SDLP Chairperson Patricia Lewsley said that Irish-Americans will unite behind their campaign.
Speaking from Boston yesterday, Ms Lewsley said:
“The arrival of the McCartney sisters and Bridgeen Hagans in the States is further testament to the powerful role that woman can play as influencers and forces for good in society.
“The example of bravery and honesty that they have set in their quest for justice should raise the bar for all involved in politics.
“We must all strive to match their level of commitment and courage and their drive for the truth.
“People across the world rightly look at them as an example of the extraordinary things that ordinary people can achieve.
“I know that Irish America will unite behind the McCartneys in their campaign for justice in the same way that our community here has in the last six weeks.”

Daily Ireland

Letters to the editor

Disarm the unionist terrorist alliance before the IRA

I am a 60-year-old Belfast resident. I lost my home in 1969 as a result of the pogroms. I saw my home being burned by unionist terrorists, with the help of the RUC. I also saw my neighbours being machine-gunned by RUC using armoured cars. In January 1986, I lost my home again when the RUC refused point-blank to come to the assistance of my family and home.
We lived only 200 yards from the local RUC station.
When I went there, the senior officer refused me any assistance. To be fair, they turned up one hour after the attacks.
I would now like to make a few comments about our situation. Recently I watched a Prime Time programme on RTÉ.
It was about the recent incidents in Belfast. One member of the audience asked why the IRA did not disband.
The answer is very simple. The need is there for the IRA as long as the guns of the unionist terrorists are not silenced and removed.
Why are all the people who are calling for the IRA to disband not squealing their heads off about the many tons of arms held by the unionist terrorist organisations?
I call these unionist groups the unionist terrorist alliance. The representatives of the groups in this alliance are welcome at Irish and British government meetings.
Most people in the South who make comments about the situation in the North have never had a gun pointed at them in anger and are not living in that situation.
This is thanks to the many brave Irish people who gave their lives in the fight for our freedom and for the right of the Irish people to determine their own future, free from outside influence.
It is only right that we in the North want that right also.
It must also be remembered that, since the Good Friday agreement eight years ago, there have been many hundreds of attacks by members of the unionist terrorist alliance against many Catholic homes, mainly using pipe bombs.
Attacks by those in the unionist terrorist alliance against their own communities are very regular occurrences. Why are so many people using blinkers?
I have yet to hear or see any reaction from the public in the South or the Irish government in support of groups going to the United States to meet the US president to have these attacks stopped.
Why anyone wants to involve America in anything involving Ireland beggars belief, as the United States is now recognised by many countries and people throughout the world as a world leader of international terrorism.
In the future, I would love to see the removal of all arms from all groups. The PSNI should be allowed to retain a number of firearms for normal policing, as in the Garda.
As regards people presenting themselves at police stations to assist with inquiries into certain incidents, it is incorrect for the news media to say that they are under arrest.
To be arrested means to be deprived of one’s liberty.
Assisting with police inquiries is not being arrested. I write as a person who has little interest in politics but great interest in security of human life.
JD,
Belfast

Daily Ireland

An Fhírinne hits out at SDLP snub

Relatives groups have slammed the SDLP after local party members snubbed an event designed to highlight RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitary groups.
Members of the relatives group An Fhírinne were guests of Magherafelt District Council chairman Patsy Groogan this week and hoped to highlight the issue of collusion. However, none of the council’s three SDLP representatives turned up to support the event.
Those in attendance included relatives and friends of former Magherafelt Sinn Féin councillors John Davey and Bernard O’Hagan, who were both gunned down by loyalists in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Mid-Ulster MP Martin McGuinness and assembly member Geraldine Dougan also attended.
An Fhírinne spokesman Mark Sykes, who survived the 1992 massacre at the Sean Graham bookmaker’s in Belfast, accused the SDLP of double standards.
“All the other parties were invited but none of them turned up,” said the campaigner. “We are particularly disappointed that the SDLP failed to turn up.
“We wanted to talk to them about collusion and we wanted them to hear what people had to say. Two members of that particular council were killed by loyalists, and the fact is that RUC people were involved in their murders.
“The SDLP have said they will raise the issue of high-profile collusion cases when they go to the USA for Saint Patrick’s Day but yet they won’t meet the families of lesser-known cases at small events back home.
“An Fhírinne has members from across the political spectrum and yet the SDLP continue to refuse to meet us.”
Sinn Féin Mid-Ulster assembly member Geraldine Dougan said, “Special Branch and British intelligence were responsible for organising, arming, resourcing and directing unionist death squads in a state policy of political assassination and terror.
“These same people in the PSNI, British intelligence and the British state at its highest levels continue to cover up state involvement in the deaths of hundreds of Catholics, nationalists and republicans.
“Recently we again saw the use of public [interest] immunity certificates to hide the role of Special Branch.
“The British state continues to hide evidence, as was clearly exposed in their approach to inquiries into the Dublin/ Monaghan bombings and Bloody Sunday. South Derry and indeed mid-Ulster is sadly no stranger to this policy of collusion, and the families deserve better.”
A spokesperson for the SDLP declined to comment. An Fhírinne also met members of Derry City Council yesterday as part of the group’s campaign to highlight collusion.

Belfast Telegraph

PSNI fury at NYPD union slur
I don’t consider them police officers, says pro-republican leader

By Sean O’Driscoll in New York and Brian Hutton
16 March 2005

A transatlantic row erupted today between the union leaders of the PSNI and New York’s police department over remarks that police here act like soldiers, keeping Catholics down.

The Policing Federation for Northern Ireland has reacted furiousily to comments by New York’s policing union chief Patrick Lynch at a meeting attended by Gerry Adams.

The head of the 36,000 member police union was introducing the Sinn Fein leader at a transport workers union meeting in New York when he said that Northern Ireland did not have a police force that respected people’s rights.

He said that New York citizens had a professional police force while Northern Ireland had a military group controlling its people.

“I don’t consider them police officers, they are soldiers who are trying to keep our people down for standing up for what’s right,” he said.

He said he was making a public pledge to help Mr Adams seek police reform in Northern Ireland.

A spokesman for the Policing Federation for Northern Ireland today poured disdain on the comments.

“We’re surprised and disappointed at the ignorance of the police officer about the quality and professionalism of policing in Northern Ireland.”

He added: “Obviously someone needs to brief this union leader.

“It’s not a view that has been expressed by other policing union leaders in the US when we have held meetings with them in the past.”

Mr Lynch, who was reelected as president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association in 2003 by a landslide, was an invited guest as a former member of the Transport Workers Union. His father had served 30 years with the same union.

Without mentioning Robert McCartney murder directly, he said that he would stand fully behind the Sinn Fein leadership while its enemies tried to blacken its name.

“Gerry, remember you are on the right track when all others are saying you are not, when the people you are fighting against are trying to get the masses to fight against you,” he said.

Mr Adams was speaking at the Transport Workers Union Local 100 as part of a day long celebration of James Connolly and Michael Quill, two Irish republican leaders who were also involved in setting up unions in the US.

Quill, a former IRA man, helped found the 38,000-strong Transport Workers Union.

Mr Adams told guests Sinn Fein would not be put off by one terrible event in Belfast, but did not discuss Mr McCartney’s murder.

BreakingNews.ie

Unionists ‘hypocrites’ over McCartney death: Victim’s father

16/03/2005 - 14:41:04

Unionist political representatives have been outrageously hypocritical over the Robert McCartney affair, a loyalist paramilitary murder victim’s father claimed today.

Raymond McCord launched a blistering attack on the two major unionist parties, accusing them of condemning the IRA killing yet ignoring the pain within their own community.

Mr McCord, whose son Raymond Jr, 22, was beaten to death and his body dumped in a north Belfast quarry in 1997, believes Special Branch blocked the police inquiry into the murder to protect a high-ranking Ulster Volunteer Force informer.

An investigation into his allegations is being carried out by Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.

But as Mr McCartney’s five sisters and partner prepared for White House talks with President George Bush in their quest to bring the knife gang to justice, Mr McCord hit out at his own representatives.

He said: “Myself and other victims are absolutely disgusted over the stance the Democratic Unionists and Ulster Unionists have taken on Robert McCartney. Why can’t they look at things closer to home? They have failed the people who voted them in.”

Mr McCord, who has spoken out against the UVF men he insists were behind the merciless attack, praised the McCartney family’s tireless campaign.

“I totally support what the sisters are doing. I went to visit them at their house, I’ve been on the phone to them and I hope they get justice,” he insisted.

“But why have people within unionism stayed silent on the murders of our sons? The UVF has murdered something like 30 Protestant people since their so-called ceasefire.”

Even Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has publicly called for the McCartney killers to come forward and give statements to Mrs O’Loan’s office, he added.

“It seems to me that nationalist MPs have no qualms about fighting for their community but within unionism it’s the complete opposite. The stance they have taken, and their hypocrisy, is staggering.”

BBC

Husband denies attempted murder

A 46-year-old west Belfast man has appeared in court charged with the attempted murder of his estranged wife at the weekend.

Desmond McAteer of Norglen Parade replied “no” when the charge was put to him.

His estranged wife Philomena remains critically ill in hospital after she was stabbed in the chest at her home also in Norglen Parade on Sunday.

The accused appeared before Belfast Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Belfast Telegraph

Almost 4,000 children are now learning through Irish

By Claire Regan
16 March 2005

The number of children being educated through the medium of the Irish language in Northern Ireland is set to hit an all-time high of 4,000, it was revealed today.

Up to 300 teachers and assistants from 80 Irish medium schools and nurseries were given the encouraging news this morning at their sector’s annual conference in Belfast.

The conference, held in the Hilton Hotel, heard that the rapid growth of recent years in the sector has been maintained with the number of children in Irish medium schools now approaching 4,000 for the first time.

There are now 3,731 children being taught through Irish - a startling growth from just seven children in 1971 and a rise of over 500 in the past two years alone.

New schools and nurseries are planned this autumn for Newry, Magherafelt, Omagh, Ballymena and possibly other towns.

A ten year plan for future development of Irish medium schools in Northern Ireland, launched three years ago, outlined plans to develop up to 60 Irish medium schools and nurseries.

That plan is currently being revised and it is expected that the target figures for new schools will be revised upwards.

Pilib O Rúnaí, of Iontaobhas na Gaelscolaíochta, the funding body for Irish medium schools, said the figures heralded a “great time” for the sector.

BreakingNews.ie

Taoiseach gets US award in recognition of smoking ban

16/03/2005 - 07:43:06

The American Lung Association has presented the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern with an award to mark Ireland’s workplace smoking ban.

The hugely popular ban was introduced almost a year ago, despite strenuous objections from the hospitality industry.

Speaking after he received his award last night, Mr Ahern reiterated that the ban would have long-term health benefits for bar workers and customers who are no longer forced to inhale second-hand smoke.