SAOIRSE32

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin makes historic breakthrough in Údarás na Gaeltachta elections

Published: 3 April, 2005

Sinn Féin General Secretary Mitchel McLaughlin has described the election of Gráinne Mhic Géidigh as Sinn Féin’s first representative on the Board of Údarás na Gaeltachta as an’historic breakthrough’ for the party. Mr. McLaughlin is in in Dungloe this afternoon for the election count.

Mr. McLaughlin also congratulated Seán Mac Donnchadh and Colm Ó Ceannabháin who ran for the party in Meath and Galway.

Mr. McLaughlin said:

“The election of Gráinne Mhic Géidigh as Sinn Féin’s first representative on the Board of Údarás na Gaeltachta is an historic breakthrough for the party. Our strong showing in the three constituencies of Donegal, Galway and Meath shows that support for Sinn Féin in growing and I want to thank all those who voted for our party.

“Sinn Féin stood in this election on our agenda for change in relation to the role of Údarás na Gaeltachta, re-building the peace process and campaigning for Irish re-unification.

” Sinn Féin will use our mandate for change and our priorities on the Board of Údarás na Gaeltachta will be job creation, reform of Údarás na Gaeltachta to make it relevant, accountable and democratic and an integrated strategic plan, which would look at all the language needs of the Gaeltachtaí.

Sunday Life

New chief exec for UUP

03 April 2005

THE Ulster Unionist Party has appointed a new chief executive - the third in just over two-and-a-half years.

William Corry, a former businessman who was mainly based in North America, will take over the reins tomorrow, just weeks ahead of an expected General Election.

He succeeds Lyle Rea, who quit last September after just four months in the post.

Mr Rea was appointed when Alastair Patterson stood down as chief executive, after being charged by police in his role as a former election official.

Patterson (59) a former deputy returning officer, was given a suspended jail term in February after admitting receiving cash and alcohol in return for electoral count contracts.

Until his appointment as the top UUP official, Patterson was best known for declaring IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands the new MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone in April, 1981.

A UUP spokesman said last night that he could not discuss the appointment of Mr Corry. “A press statement regarding the post will be made on Monday,” he said.

Sunday Life

Fears for birth of new loyalist Crime Inc.

03 April 2005

THERE are fears a new loyalist crime empire could emerge in east Belfast.

Loyalist sources claim that some of the local UDA leadership had been planning to link up with a senior UVF figure to create a new team dealing in drugs and extortion.

“There is a family link and these people were discussing a crime venture that would have been one of the most powerful in Northern Ireland, bringing together elements from the two loyalist organisations,” said the source.

“The individuals may go ahead with that, but there’s no formal crime link possible now between the UDA and the UVF, the ‘inner council’ won’t allow that.

“The criminal activity that the previous leadership in east Belfast promoted is now ended.”

Sunday Life

Ulster Museum mural’s message to terrorists: Up against the wall…

By Pauline Reynolds
03 April 2005

IT MAY at first appear sinister - but this huge mural tells paramilitaries that they stand alone.

Young human rights campaigners have interwoven images to make a bold statement urging terrorists to put violence behind then.

The artists - two from the Shankill in Belfast and two from Galway - have used ’snapshots’ of symbols of conflict, which are now ‘decommissioned’ and put in their boxes.

And, set apart from this, is the image of two gunmen.

The 20ft x 8ft mural was painted at the Ulster Museum and forms part of the Conflict: The Irish At War exhibition.

And the artists have used images from this showcase, to form the backdrop to the paramilitary characters.

They’ve also taken inspiration from the Throne of Weapons exhibition, on tour from the British Museum.

It was created on the theme of guns exchanged for tools, after the end of the civil war in Mozambique in 1992.

The Belfast mural was managed by 80:20, a non-governmental human rights organisation, which works, in the main, with young people.

Northern Ireland co-ordinator, John Johnston, explains: “I would agree that some might find it sinister, but they need to take it in the context of the two exhibitions, already at the museum,” he said.

“There is a recognition that a lot of the weaponry exhibits have been put beyond use, but there are issues which are current and constant -the paramilitaries.

“They are present at the moment and the message this mural is sending out, is that they too must confine themselves to the history books.”

The mural was the work of Dylan Haskins and Dan Carey from Presentation College, Bray, Co Wicklow; Sharon Rose McClure, Shankill Alternatives Restorative Justice Project, Craig Chapman, Castle High School, Belfast and John Johnston.

The exhibition runs until September.

Sunday Life

Dublin must guarantee my safety: Fulton

03 April 2005

AN Army spy - who is prepared to name a former Garda officer as an IRA mole - wants the Republic’s Justice Minister to guarantee his safety before he travels to Dublin to give evidence.

The man, who uses the pseudonym ‘Kevin Fulton’, is expected to be the key witness in an inquiry into alleged Garda collusion in the 1989 double-murder of RUC superintendents Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan in south Armagh.

Four IRA gunmen blasted the two senior police officers to death near Jonesborough, as they were returning from a meeting with their Garda counterparts in Dundalk.

Fulton said yesterday that he was prepared to reveal to the tribunal announced by Michael McDowell his knowledge of ‘Garda B’, and the officer’s alleged links with the IRA.

He said: “I could - and will - tell a lot more, too, but as yet neither I nor my solicitor has had contact with the Garda or the Department of Justice in Dublin.

“I am absolutely prepared to go to Dublin and give in public the evidence, but I have to have assurances about my safety because of very real threats to my life, and I need watertight arrangements put in place to protect me.”

Sunday Life

LVF ‘would have stood down if deal was done’

03 April 2005

THE LVF terrorist group was poised to disband three months ago, it has emerged.

The loyalist gang, which has been linked to widespread criminal activity, was set to stand down, if the IRA had agreed before Christmas to visibly decommission its arms, and announce a end to its activities.

A source close to the LVF leadership said the group would have disbanded within seven days, if the Provos had taken the initiative.

The same source also dismissed as “complete rubbish” a recent newspaper report, that a senior LVF figure, in north Belfast, had quit the organisation.

He said the LVF had been discussing the possibility of reacting to any IRA moves on disbanding, as early as the autumn of last year.

“An end to the IRA’s war removed the need for any loyalist paramilitary group to exist, and the LVF recognised that,” the source said.

“If the IRA announcement had come about in December, last year, as many expected, the LVF would have followed suit within a week, and become the first loyalist paramilitary organisation to stand down in total.”

Security sources suspect that the LVF’s intention to stand down may have led to increased tensions between it and the UVF recently.

The sources claimed the recent spate of ‘taxi wars’, in north Belfast, was directly linked to the possibility of the LVF standing down.

Sunday Life

Day the ‘Boys in Green’ met Pontiff

03 April 2005

AN Ulster bishop has recalled how he helped make a magical ‘match of the day’ happen - between Pope John Paul II and the Republic of Ireland’s giant-killing soccer side.

For Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Anthony Farquhar, was a key ‘player’ in arranging the historic meeting between Ireland’s 1990 World Cup stars and the pontiff.

Said Bishop Farquhar:

“I watched the Ireland versus Romania match, with the famous 5-4 penalties win, in the Irish College in Rome on the Monday night.

“A phone call came through from the team on Tuesday morning to ask if there was any way they could meet the Pope?

“Archbishop Brady of Armagh was rector of the Irish College in Rome at the time. So, he and myself went over to the Vatican and just knocked on all of the doors we could think of!”

Bishop Farquhar said that the meeting took place in a packed audience hall - with the Republic side, led by manager Jack Charlton, on a raised platform.

Added the bishop: “His secretary came over to me and told me to get the goalkeeper (Packie Bonner) to the front. I told Packie, but he gave me a look as if to say: ‘Now bishop, a joke is a joke!’.

“The Pope came over, went straight past me, and took Packie by the two hands and smiled, saying: ‘You are the goalkeeper’.

“He was happy meeting Packie because he had kept goals himself for his university team.

“Then he turned around to Jack Charlton and said: ‘You are the boss’!”

He always had a marvellous sense of humour and a lovely warmth to him.”

Bishop Farquhar added that he had met the Pope several times

“He showed a wonderful sense of concern for people who had suffered in the Troubles here - those who cared for them and those who ministered to them.”

BreakingNews.ie

Family to challenge restrictions to inquest evidence

03/04/2005 - 12:05:19

A family is to take a court action against the State questioning the legality of the restriction of medical evidence during an inquest, it has emerged.

Relations of 29-year-old Stephen Keeler are taking a case against the Attorney General claiming part of the Coroners Act 1962 is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has ruled that, under the provisions of the existing Coroners Act, a coroner may not take evidence from more than two medical witnesses.

The family’s solicitor Michael Finucane said this case was the only to establish what led to the 29-year-old’s death at the inquest.

He said: “The inquiry that the family are anxious to have conducted would mean calling more than two doctors.”

Mr Keeler, who was just 29 and from Dublin, died unexpectedly after a short illness on July 10, 2002. He had attended a general practitioner and visited a number of hospitals in the short time before his death.

“Expert advice from an accident and emergency consultant from the UK advised that a number of doctors would have to give evidence to explain the sequence of events,” Mr Finucane, who informed the Dublin City Coroner’s Court of the impending case, said.

The Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, has previously called for the legislation to be changed and highlighted during many inquests the limitation of section 26 (2) of the Coroners Act has for medical cases.

Dr Farrell has said that it means he has to choose just one medical practitioner in cases where many might also hold key evidence.

Currently the legislation restricts the number of doctors that can give evidence before the Coroner’s Court to one – unless the majority of jurors request a second expert to give information to explain the case.

The Justice Department said the drafting of a new Bill to reform the current Coroners Act of 1962 is underway.

The constitutional review, which is being taken by Mr Keeler’s brother, Anthony, against the State and the Attorney General, challenges that the current legislation guiding inquests violates Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and is unconstitutional.

“We are challenging this on the basis that it is incompatible with the Right to Life as stated in the Constitution,” Mr Finucane said. “We argue that part of the Right to Life guarantee encompasses an effective investigation of an untimely death.”

The solicitor said the case would hopefully come to the High Court before the end of the year.

Mr Finucane said that leading law in the UK had shown that the inquest must satisfy certain standards and it could not due to the current restriction in Irish legislation.

“It causes real problems in the Keeler case there are several hospitals involved,” Mr Finucane said.

“The way medicine is working these days you can easily get through two doctors in a hospital visit.

“It is not just pie in the sky legal argument, it has real consequences.”

BreakingNews.ie

Snack equipment confiscated from sentry duty gardaí

03/04/2005 - 11:14:35

Kettles, fridges and microwaves have been confiscated from gardaí working on sentry duty at a high-profile station, it emerged today.

Within the last month, senior gardaí have carried out two raids on the north and south sentry towers at Harcourt Square station in Dublin.

The everyday items taken were used by officers to prepare and store snacks and drinks for their sentry duty shifts.

The first raid took place in the early hours of the morning when a Garda Inspector confiscated kettles, a stand-alone fridge and a microwave and took them away in a Garda van.

In the second raid, another kettle, a newly delivered mini-fridge and padded office chairs were confiscated. Garden seat-type chairs were provided for the gardaí on sentry duty instead.

No reasons were given for the confiscation of the items, which were taken away in Garda vans. They had all been officially requested last year from Garda management and authorised and delivered in the New Year.

A source said the raids had affected the dignity, welfare and morale of gardaí on sentry duty. They saw them as an indirect form of bullying and resented the implication that they were not entitled to take a break for food during their entire shift.

There have also been internal complaints that the confiscation of the fridges could lead to gardaí on sentry duty getting food poisoning from perishable snacks and sandwiches.

There is a constant Garda security presence outside the red-bricked Harcourt Square station, which is seen as the nerve centre of Garda operations in the Dublin region.

Its command and control unit handles all 999 calls made in the capital and is responsible for dispatching Garda units to crime and accidents.

Harcourt Square is also the headquarters for the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the Garda Racial and Intercultural Office.

The Garda Representative Association said it had received complaints from its members about the raids and would be taking them up with Garda management.

“All entitlements for gardai as negotiated over the years apply to all posts and positions within an Garda Siochana, regardless of where or how or when their duties as a police officer are carried out,” said a spokesman.

A Garda management spokesperson was unavailable for comment.

BreakingNews.ie

Family to tell Adams of ‘IRA murder trial threats’

03/04/2005 - 16:43:37

Gerry Adams will face demands for alleged IRA threats against a murder victim’s family to be lifted during talks in Belfast this week.

Relatives of Jimmy McGinley will also urge the Sinn Féin President to use any influence he has to get the man convicted of his manslaughter expelled from the Provisionals.

Derry man Bart Fisher, 43, was sentenced to three years in jail in February over the killing.

Mr McGinley, 23, was stabbed through the heart during a fight in the city in October 2003.

Even though Fisher has denied being in the IRA, the dead man’s family refuse to believe him.

They allege that members of the paramilitary organisation intimidated them throughout his trial.

The victim’s mother Eileen today disclosed she is to meet Mr Adams at his west Belfast offices on Tuesday.

Mrs McGinley will be accompanied by her son Eugene and her sister Kathleen, who she claims were summoned by the IRA to clandestine meetings during the trial to be told which family members could attend the court hearings.

Despite Sinn Féin insisting this did not happen, she said: “I want Mr Adams to hear from Eugene and Kathleen themselves what happened.

“He’ll be told the names of the men who were at the meetings and he’ll be told where they took place.

“My family are not lying. These meetings did take place.”

The McGinleys’ demands have piled new pressure on republicans as they attempt to regroup from the Robert McCartney murder case.

Mr McCartney’s sisters have pledged to continue their campaign until the IRA men blamed for battering the father-of-two to death outside a Belfast bar are brought to justice.

After Fisher was sentenced he issued a statement confirming he was an Irish republican but denying any links with the Provos.

Yet his victim’s family remain unconvinced.

Mrs McGinley added: “I want the IRA in Derry to apologise for treating us like this.

“We’re a grieving family and they’ve no right doing this to us.

“I want them to state whether or not they consider my Jimmy’s killing to be a crime and I want Bart Fisher expelled from the IRA.

“I want the IRA to leave us alone to get on with rebuilding our family.”

A Sinn Féin spokesman said Mr Adams had always declared his willingness to meet with the McGinleys.

He would not be drawn on Fisher’s status, other than to point out his denial of membership.

The spokesman added: “You can’t go around publicly speculating about who’s in the IRA and who’s not. I don’t know.”

BBC

Man beaten in ’sectarian’ attack

An assault on a man at his east Belfast home is being treated as sectarian, police have said.

The man opened the front door of his house in Jocelyn Street at about 0100 BST where he was confronted by four men dressed in black and armed with sticks.

The gang dragged him into his living room and beat him repeatedly. He suffered bruising and a facial injury as well as broken ribs.

Police said one of the attackers may have sustained a hand injury.

Local DUP councillor Robin Newton said the attack should be condemned by the entire community.

“It is totally unacceptable in a civilised community that someone opens their front door only to be viciously attacked because of their perceived religion,” he said.

Detectives have appealed for anyone who noticed suspicious activity in the area to contact them.

Sunday Business Post

Anger at McDowell inaction on Garda Fallon killing

03 April 2005
By Liz Walsh

The family of a garda shot dead in Dublin in 1970 has accused Minister for Justice Michael McDowell of having double standards over his refusal to hold an inquiry into the killing.

The comments from the family of Garda Richard Fallon come after the minister’s announcement of an inquiry into the IRA killing of two RUC officers in 1989, which happened outside the state.

Finian Fallon, youngest son of Garda Fallon, expressed “profound disappointment’‘ at the minister’s decision. He said the killing of RUC officers Robert Buchanan and Harry Breen in south Armagh “appeared to reflect badly on Sinn Féin/IRA’‘, while aspects of his father’s death “may reflect badly on the Irish government’‘.

The Sunday Business Post can reveal that newly uncovered Department of Justice files suggest that illegal arms consignments linked to the murder of Fallon were smuggled into the country with the knowledge of some senior Fianna Fáil figures at that time.

However, at a recent meeting between McDowell, Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy and Finian Fallon, the justice minister ruled out a tribunal of inquiry primarily on cost grounds.

“Yet again, I am profoundly disappointed that I and my family should have to scratch around to get some sort of inquiry into my father’s murder and yet an incident which is outside the jurisdiction should receive this attention,” said Fallon, a former PD candidate.

At the meeting, McDowell divulged information that strengthened the Fallon family’s belief that the gun that killed their father was part of an illegal consignment smuggled into the country in the knowledge of senior Fianna Fáil figures.

Richard Fallon was shot dead during a bank robbery at Arran Quay carried out by Saor Eire, a republican splinter group, in 1970.

According to notes of the meeting, McDowell accepted that allegations of state involvement in Saor Eire’s gun running operation “was not an impossible theory’‘.

Jock Haughey, the late brother of former taoiseach Charles Haughey, was specifically mentioned. Assistant Garda Commissioner Tony Hickey and senior Department of Justice officials were present at the meeting, along with human rights lawyer Michael Finucane, who was representing the dead garda’s family.

The minister said he had come across a note made by Peter Berry, former secretary of the Department of Justice, which had been missed in an earlier departmental trawl of the files.

This reference mentioned “small consignments’‘ of arms which had entered the jurisdiction “without custom checks’‘.

These importations, it was said in the note, were timed for particular customs officers to be on duty who would expedite the importations.

It was also stated in this note that Jock Haughey and a former top Fianna Fáil politician were aware of these importations.

The minister said this note was cross-referenced to a note on the cover of a manila file by Des O’Malley, Minister for Justice in 1972, which mentioned importations through Dun Laoghaire.

McDowell added that no one would be happier than him to see the record put straight in relation to a “particular individual’‘.

Hickey read extracts from a letter dated “9/11/71′‘ from Tony McMahon, then a senior garda, stating that a consignment of weapons had been stolen from the Parker Hale munitions factory in Birmingham.

The theft consisted of 25 9mm Star pistols and 10 .22 Star pistols, the type of guns used in the killing of Fallon.

The letter went on to say that when Saor Eireman Martin Casey was killed while carrying a bomb, a 9mm Star pistol was found on him.

Casey was also involved in the arms and ammunition theft from the Birmingham factory.

The go-between in the operation was a notorious Dublin criminal, whose name was also mentioned at the meeting.

The Fallon family maintain that the state had ample warning that illegal arms consignments were coming into the country, but that little was done until their father was killed.

Irish Independent

Clinton to fly in on mercy mission to fight suicide

LARA BRADLEY

THE former US President, Bill Clinton, is to visit Ireland next month in an extraordinary effort to boost a major campaign for suicide prevention, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

Touched by shocking statistics that show 444 people committed suicide in Ireland in 2003, President Clinton has agreed to lend his support to a new service from RehabCare.

The intervention of the former president is a remarkable coup for RehabCare, which is launching a programme to target adolescents, who are the most vulnerable to suicide.

One of the main aims of the three-year plan is to reduce the stigma associated with mental illnesses.

And a number of celebrities - including stars from the world of sports and television, musicians and top DJs - are being lined up to partake in a nationwide advertising campaign aimed at promoting a new attitude of openness about mental health issues.

A helpline will be set up and counsellors made available in A&E departments to provide support to those who have attempted suicide. President Clinton learned of RehabCare’s work from his friend John Hume who is patron of the charity.

More than 1,000 people, including the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste, are expected to attend a gala dinner in the CityWest Hotel in Dublin on May 23, where President Clinton will be guest of honour.

RehabCare refused to comment on details of the visit which is sensitive for security reasons, but a spokesman said: “We are deeply honoured that President Clinton is lending his support to this much needed and valuable service to young people.”

Rumours were circulating last night that President Clinton had scheduled his visit to coincide with the British general election, which is likely to happen in early May.

President Clinton has been made aware of the huge scale of the problem of suicide in Ireland. Some 80 per cent of suicide victims are young men, and it is the primary cause of death among males aged 15 to 24.

Experts estimate that 50 people are affected by each suicide, and a National Task Force said the financial cost to the country over a four-year period was €96m.

RehabCare will pilot a number of school and community based prevention programmes in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon.

These programmes will be rolled out nationally after one year. An internal RehabCare memo, seen by the Sunday Independent, states: “School settings provide immediate and accessible locations within which to reach the highest-risk group for suicide.”