SAOIRSE32

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
c.barnes@dailyireland.com

Twenty-eight youth workers in Belfast are to lose their jobs as part of cost-cutting introduced by the debt-ridden Belfast Education and Library Board.
The decision to axe the posts will halve the number of youth workers employed by the board. It came on the same day that the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children announced that a quarter of all suicides in Ireland involved children.
The job losses are to begin taking effect at the end of August. Most of the jobs being lost are in north and west Belfast, the areas with the highest rate of suicide among young people.
Phil McTaggart of the group Public Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide and Self-Harm said: “Axing youth worker jobs when suicide and self-harm rates among young people are so high is madness.
“Youth workers are often the first people kids with problems turn to. They are an essential service and we need more of them, not less.”
West Belfast youth worker Stephen Hughes said: “This will have a massive impact on the most deprived areas in the city. It is these communities where youth workers are needed most, keeping kids away from drugs and crime.
“To come in and suddenly tell 28 people, who have been doing a great job that they are not needed any longer is scandalous.”
Sinn Féin education spokesman Michael Ferguson has been meeting youth worker representatives for the last two days.
“At the end of August, half of the entire workforce from both the statutory and voluntary youth sectors in Belfast will be gone. The British government needs to get real about educational provision and provide a real budget that supports learning from the nursery and school to the youth club,” he said.
An education board spokesperson said: “The board has been in discussion with the Department of Education for some time regarding ways of continuing to fund this work, and a deputation met with the Department of Education in June to discuss this matter. These positive discussions are continuing.
“The Department of Education has made money available and the board is hopeful that further funding can be found to continue with this important work.”

Daily Ireland

By Jarlath Kearney
j.kearney@dailyireland.com

Young nationalists in east Belfast are encountering high levels of physical stress and mental health problems as a result of sectarian attacks, a Short Strand interface worker said yesterday.
Paul Brennan was speaking to Daily Ireland ahead of a conference being organised by the anti-collusion lobby group An Fhírinne, due to be held on August 4.
The Youth for Truth conference is billed as the first stage in a new all-Ireland strategy highlighting the negative impact of state agencies on young people from nationalist backgrounds.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams will be one of those addressing the conference. Speakers at the event will also include Deirdre McAliskey, who witnessed a loyalist assassination attack on her parents Bernadette and Michael at their Tyrone home in 1980.
A representative of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombing victims is scheduled to attend.
Paul Brennan will address the event about the ongoing difficulties around interface areas.
He told Daily Ireland yesterday that the importance of the conference “should not be underestimated”.
“For eight continuous months in 2002, homes and houses in Short Strand were constantly attacked, day and daily.
“Because of its locality and size, the threat to the area has always been there, but the intensive and relentless nature of the siege had a profound effect on young people,” Mr Brennan said.
In May 2002, the Short Strand area was “subjected to a physical and psychological siege by loyalists from across east Belfast, aided by state forces”, he said.
During the first days of the incident, Sinn Féin Belfast chairman Paud Devenny had his skull fractured in two places after being attacked by PSNI riot squads that had invaded the area.
Throughout the following eight months, residents were prevented from freely accessing medical, social and even educational facilities outside the immediate area. On one occasion, Short Strand residents were physically assaulted and ousted from a clinical surgery on Bryson Street by loyalists.
The main area of sustained conflict in the Short Strand was at the loyalist Cluan Place and nationalist Clandeboye Gardens interface. As the interface violence escalated, more than 100 pipe and petrol bombs were thrown into the Short Strand. Both republicans and loyalists fired weapons across the interface.
Mr Brennan said this catalogue of events must be seen in the context of British government assurances in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that every citizen should be allowed to live free from sectarian harassment.
“While there is a focus on the direct impact of collusion and state killing on young people through the experience of older family members, the indirect impact of loyalist activities, which frequently have the support of the state, at interface areas also needs to be heard,” Mr Brennan said.
“In 1994 when the ceasefire was called, many of today’s teenagers were only toddlers and so have had a totally different sense of politicisation from that which young people in the 1980s and early 1990s experienced.
“Today’s teenagers growing up in interface areas are seeing sectarianism with their own eyes, particularly in incidents like the siege of Short Strand.
“However, because of the localised and low-intensity role of the state, there is not necessarily the same opportunity for public discussion that may have existed for young people previously.
“For state agencies like the PSNI to acquiesce over recent years as young nationalists and their families were prevented from accessing essential services like doctors or shops leaves an ongoing and deep-seated legacy.”
Mr Brennan said significant work was being conducted through interface networks, cross-community activity and single-identity projects.
“Despite that positive community work, the reality is that many young people in Short Strand are now suffering from depression, anxiety, fear, insomnia and even an inability to sleep in their own homes as a direct result of the siege.
The media also have significant questions to answer about their attempts to portray interface violence as merely tit-for-tat, Mr Brennan added.
The Youth for Truth conference is one of the key events in this year’s Féile an Phobail and takes place at St Mary’s University College on west Belfast’s Falls Road on August 4.

Daily Ireland

By Conor McMorrow
c.mcmorrow@dailyireland.com

A leading Queen’s University academic and author of books on the IRA maintains that members of the Provisional movement will not defect to dissident groupings after the forthcoming IRA statement.
Professor Richard English said a positive statement would be truly historic and rank alongside Eamon de Valera’s moves in the 1920s.
In recent weeks, particularly around the Twelfth, there has been a marked increase in dissident republican activity across the North.
Daily Ireland revealed last week that the Continuity IRA was responsible for throwing blast bombs during the riots at Ardoyne shops in north Belfast on July 12.
However, Professor English, author of Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, said: “When mainstream Irish republican organisations end their violence, there is always a danger that some of their former members will carry on violence in other groups, but the Provisional movement has been very successful at keeping republicans on side with its peace process initiatives, and I think the same will happen here,” he said.
“Some volunteers may defect but there will not be sufficient numbers or sufficient support to make dissident groups able to act at the kind of level at which the Provos used to operate militarily.”
Professor English added: “Any statement which genuinely signifies the end of the Provisional IRA violence will be truly historic. It will rank alongside the significance of the kind of move made by de Valera in the 1920s or the ceasefire declaration of 1994.
“What happens next has tended to fall just below what unionists want, and I suspect that — in the short term at least — that might happen again now. In other words, even a significant IRA statement might still leave us in political stalemate for the present.”
Professor English, who also wrote Ernie O’Malley: IRA Intellectual, said a positive statement from the IRA in the coming weeks would see republicanism move in a new direction.
“There’s no doubt that republicans have been able to achieve things after the ceasefires which they would not have achieved if the armed struggle was still ongoing. In this sense, republicanism has already gained much from the shift towards more conventional politics,” he said.
“For example, in terms of the kind of votes Sinn Féin now win, there have been great gains. A final ending of the IRA’s violence will allow for the further broadening of this support base, since there are many nationalists who would not vote for the political wing of a movement still killing 50 people a year who might well vote for a post-IRA Sinn Féin.”
The academic concluded: “International conditions are also worth considering. Just as the attacks of 9/11 hastened the IRA’s first decommissioning gesture, so the context after the recent London bombs tends to point serious political movements away from violence.”

Irish Independent

Isn’t this special???

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Ms Larkin has insisted she has the necessary skills and experience - Yes, I bet she has…

THE controversy over Celia Larkin’s nomination by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to a State board brought fresh calls yesterday for the setting up of an independent body to make such appointments.

And the Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) stepped up its criticism of the appointment of the Taoiseach’s former partner to the interim board of the National Consumer Agency, saying this was done at the expense of one of its representatives.

It said its work on behalf of consumers should have entitled it to a place on the board. The Government said on Tuesday that at least five of the 12 board members are closely linked to consumer groups. Green Party leader Trevor Sargent led the campaign for the setting up of an independent Public Appointments Commission “to, at minimum, assess appointments to State boards”.

“In the past, successive governments have used the practice to reward party supporters, many of whom have little or no expertise. It is equally unfair to leave a competent person open to a charge of political cronyism by appointing a person in this manner,” he said.

“We believe it is time to end the practice and hand the job over to an independent body. There are many able leaders, not only in the private sector but also at non-governmental organisation and civil society level who would make excellent contributions to State boards but who are denied because of the present unfair system.”

Mr Sargent said he was extremely disappointed that the CAI, “which has represented consumer interests in Ireland for nearly 40 years”, had no representative on the new National Consumer Agency.

“Effectively, this has now left a political cuckoo in the new NCA nest. The system is old-fashioned, archaic and rightly open to charges of political cronyism. . . . the Green Party want to ensure appointments are open, transparent and independent of political interference.”

Mr Sargent said that before the cabinet reshuffle in late September last year there were reports that six ministers rewarded supporters with nearly 60 State posts before they were moved or left Cabinet jobs.

The original 12-member interim board was named by Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Micheal Martin on June 6.

But it was only a fortnight ago that Mr Ahern made the nomination from the Taoiseach’s Department.

Ms Larkin has insisted she has the necessary skills and experience.

Gene McKenna
Political Editor

BreakingNews.ie

21/07/2005 - 14:29:59

Thugs who attack firefighters in the North face up to two years in jail under tough new plans, it was warned today.

Public safety minister Shaun Woodward announced a zero-tolerance approach to gangs ambushing crew members on a near daily basis.

He pledged: “I am not prepared to tolerate such attacks and intend to punish those people who think it is acceptable to endanger the lives of firefighters.

“Those who continue to carry out these mindless attacks will now face the threat of going to court and a possible prison sentence.”

The government revealed last month there had been more than 2,500 attacks on the emergency services over the past 12 months, including 301 on Fire Service members.

Under the Draft Fire and Rescue Services legislation it will be an offence to assault crews as they carry out duties.

The draft plans, which will go out to consultation, also requires the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service to provide assistance at road crash scenes.

But it was the heavy punishments for vandals that drew the greatest response.

The most serious offenders could be jailed for up to two years and face unlimited fines, while penalties for the less severe would be six months imprisonment and/or a £5,000 (€7,200) fine.

“Firefighters work to protect us. I want to ensure that they are also given every protection while they work,” added Mr Woodward.

His announcement was praised by Jim Barbour of the Fire Brigades Union.

Mr Barbour, who met the minister to express concern at the attacks, said: “This is a daily problem.

“Only last night we had another attack on firefighters in north Belfast, and at the weekend in the sleepy village of Killyleagh there were three separate attacks.

“The FBU raised this issue with the Minister at Stormont and we are pleased to see he has listened to us.

“It’s a step forward and seems robust, but legislation was already long overdue.”

BBC

The Tube has been plunged into chaos and several stations evacuated after minor blasts on three trains and a bus.

>>>READ

BreakingNews.ie

21/07/2005 - 08:41:38

Police in Belfast were today investigating the possibility that an overnight murder attempt at a house in the city may have been part of a bitter loyalist paramilitary feud.

A number of shots were fired through a bathroom window at the rear of the house in Avonorr Drive in east Belfast shortly after midnight.

A man in his 30s was on his own in the house at the time of the attack.

A dark-coloured Rover car was found burnt out in nearby Bendigo Street one hour later.

Detectives were investigating a possible link between it and the shooting.

While police said they were keeping an open mind on the motive for the attack, they were looking at the possibility that the shooting was part of a feud between the Ulster Volunteer Force and the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force, which has already claimed two lives in the city.

Last week Craig McCausland, 20, was shot dead at the house he shared with his partner and two children in north Belfast.

His family has denied he had any link to the LVF or any other terror group.

It was the second tragedy to hit the family. Mr McCausland’s mother, Lorraine, was believed to have been beaten to death by members of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association in March 1987 near a drinking club.

Earlier this month 25-year-old Jameson Lockhart was gunned down as part of the feud as he worked on a building site in east Belfast.

The attack was also blamed on the UVF.

There have been a number of other incidents, including the shooting several times of a man walking two dogs on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast on the same night Mr McCausland was murdered.

The UVF was also blamed for a gun attack on a house in east Belfast on Monday.

The feud has once again put the links between the Progressive Unionist Party, which has one Assembly member, and the UVF and Red Hand Commando, under the spotlight.

Northern Secretary Peter Hain said yesterday he was considering withholding the party’s Assembly allowance for another year following a report in May which indicated the UVF and Red Hand Commando remain involved in organised crime, violent and active.

Mr Hain gave the PUP a week to make a case to him for the allowances to be given to them.

PUP leader David Ervine described the fine as unjust and challenged the British government to have him arrested if it believed his party had a say over what the UVF and Red Hand Commando did.

The East Belfast Assembly member said no member of the PUP’s leadership had ever been accused of being on the governing authority of the UVF or Red Hand Commando.

“That allegation has never been put in our direction,” he said. “So why should we punished?”

The PUP leader said he wanted to hear directly from Mr Hain why exactly the British government was thinking about taking further action against the party.

He was also dismissive of the four-member Independent Monitoring Commission which monitors paramilitary activity and which is made up of former Northern Ireland Assembly Speaker Lord Alderdice, retired Irish civil servant Joe Brosnan, ex-Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad chief John Grieve and ex-CIA deputy director Richard Kerr.

“I want to hear what are his (Peter Hain’s) intelligence services telling the IMC?

“The IMC is an annoyance, a trial by four horsemen riding Shetland ponies.”

BreakingNews.ie

21/07/2005 - 10:35:38

The McBrearty family demanded a public apology today from Minister for Justice Michael McDowell after he accused them of trying to blackmail and bully him.

The family was involved in a heated debate with Mr McDowell at the Magill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal.

Frank McBrearty Jr said Mr McDowell was now using the same tactics as the corrupt Garda officers who attempted to frame him for the murder of cattle dealer Richie Barron in October 1996.

“I would ask him to withdraw the allegations that we blackmailed and bullied him because we didn’t blackmail anybody. My family will not stand back and let Mr McDowell bully us,” he said.

He added that his family had been bullied by the State for nine years.

The Morris Tribunal is to investigate the campaign of harassment conducted against the McBrearty family during the Richie Barron investigation, which included defamatory posters and graffiti in their home town of Raphoe in Co Donegal, inspections by gardaí of their pub night after night and bomb scares.

Mr McBrearty and his father Frank Senior became involved in an argument with Mr McDowell at the Magill summer school yesterday, when they asked him why he had not guaranteed his legal costs at the Morris Tribunal.

Mr McDowell said: “I have to stand up for the authority of that tribunal.”

Mr McBrearty Jr: “You have to stand up for the people of Ireland who you represent.”

Mr McDowell: “Yes exactly, and when it came to Superintendent Kevin Lennon (who was sacked from the Garda last year) and others, they went to the High Court demanding I pay their fees in advance.”

Mr McBrearty Jr: “We’re no Supt Lennon. We’re innocent people.”

Mr McDowell: “Just listen to me. They went to the High Court demanding that I write out cheques to their lawyers in advance.”

Frank McBrearty Sr: “They should have been jailed, the people who broke the law.”

Mr McDowell denied claims from the McBreartys that he was lying to them and added: “I will not be blackmailed out of that position. I will not be bullied by you in these circumstances.”

The McBrearty family has vowed not to return to the Morris Tribunal, which still has to investigate the circumstances of their arrests by gardaí, until their legal costs are guaranteed.

BreakingNews.ie

21/07/2005 - 09:48:17

The Irish Human Rights Commission is to examine an agreement which will allow CIA agents to secretly question Irish citizens on Irish soil, it emerged today.

The bilateral instruments, signed by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell and the US Ambassador to Ireland James C Kenny last week, provide for sweeping powers to be given to the US authorities on request, including the right to seize documents, check bank accounts and carry out searches of property.

The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said it would be examining the agreement, which was drawn up to assist the US “war on terror” in the wake of September 11.

“When we establish the facts, we will be looking to see if there are any implications for breaches of human rights,” said president Dr Maurice Manning.

He said that one of the IHRC’s functions was to examine any proposed legislation for breaches of human rights.

Mr McDowell has said that legislation will be required to give effect to some elements of the bilateral instruments on “Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters”.

The instruments, which were published on the Department of Justice’s website last week, clearly state that the requested party (Ireland) shall allow American representatives (such as CIA agents) to sit in on interviews of suspects arrested on Irish soil and ask questions.

BreakingNews.ie

21/07/2005 - 10:19:24

Unionists in Ballymena have condemned republican plans to stage a march to commemorate the 34th anniversary of internment in the Co Antrim town.

The organisers have submitted an application to the Parades Commission for a march on August 9.

Sinn Féin has insisted that the nationalist community just wants a peaceful parade, but the DUP has claimed it will lead to trouble if allowed to go ahead.

Party spokesman Ian Paisley Jr said: “This will turn into a pro-IRA march which cause only resentment.

“That’s just being stupid and it will cause problems and turmoil.”

BreakingNews.ie

21/07/2005 - 07:48:55

The Democratic Unionist Party has criticised a decision by the British government to approve three new Irish-language schools in the North.

Party spokesman Sammy Wilson said there was no need to create new primary schools when there were already 45,000 surplus school places.

He said the problem was part of the legacy of the Ulster Unionist Party’s time in government with Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin and the SDLP have both accused him of using the Irish language as a political football and have insisted that parents should have the right to choose the type of education they want for their children.

BBC

The UVF has been linked to a number of attacks

The feud between the UVF and LVF is to be examined by the body that oversees the ceasefires of Northern Ireland’s paramilitary groupings.

The Independent Monitoring Commission has told the two governments the murders resulting from the feud will be a particular focus of inquiry for it.

It comes as loyalist sources link the UVF to a gun attack in east Belfast.

Shots were fired into a house at Avonorr Drive in the lower Newtownards Road area.

A man, who is in his 30s, escaped injury when bullets came through the bathroom window of his house.

Police said they are treating the shooting as attempted murder.

A car was found burnt out nearby in Bendigo Street about an hour later.

East Belfast assembly member Robin Newton said paramilitaries “who pretend to represent the people,” should be listening to what they are saying.

“They are saying, they don’t want violence on their streets.

“They are concerned about the welfare of the children, they are concerned about the welfare of the elderly,” he said.

A police spokesperson said they were keeping an open mind about the motive for the attack, but it is understood one line of inquiry is that it is linked to the loyalist feud.

Tensions

The incident comes two days after shots were fired at a house in the Sydenham area of east Belfast, in an attack also linked to a row between the Ulster Volunteer Force and Loyalist Volunteer Force.

Escalating tensions between the loyalist paramilitary groupings has already claimed the lives of two men.

Craig McCausland, 20, was shot by the UVF at his girlfriend’s house in north Belfast last week - he later died in hospital.

The UVF believed he was a member of the rival LVF, but his family have strongly denied he had links to any paramilitary group.

Earlier this month, Jameson Lockhart, also from north Belfast, was shot as he sat in a lorry in east Belfast.

The UVF was also linked to that killing.

The Independent Monitoring Commission was set up by the British and Irish Governments in 2004.

Its role is to report on activity by paramilitary groups; the normalisation of security measures and on claims by assembly parties that other parties, or ministers in a devolved executive, are not living up to the standards required of them.

It can recommend that the government impose sanctions on those it feels are not fulfilling their role.

Scotsman.com

EBEN HARRELL

Key points
• 28,000 pacemakers worldwide suffering quality control problem
• Seals can degrade, causing moisture to build up and the pacemaker to fail
• Many fitted with device face difficult decision on how best to proceed

Key quote
“The health and safety of patients is paramount. Our innovative technologies have saved and improved millions of lives. Guidant works diligently to create the most reliable products and services, enhance patient outcomes and limit adverse events to patients.” - RONALD W DOLLENS, GUIDANT

Story in full SCOTTISH heart patients are at the centre of a new alert over life-saving cardiac devices after a US company said nine of its pacemaker models are prone to failing. Many patients may now need to have the units surgically replaced.

The alert from the Guidant Corporation follows a six-week barrage of recalls and product alerts that have now seen health warnings on around 20 different Guidant models, affecting more than 100,000 patients worldwide. Guidant patients in the UK are already having surgery to replace devices. Thousands more face a difficult decision on how to proceed.

Aberdeen cardiologist Dr Paul Broadhurst said: “At our hospital, we’ve already surgically replaced two [devices] based on previous alerts. Now we’ll go through it again with pacemaker patients and make the decision on how to proceed.”

The current alert covers 28,000 pacemakers made from November 1997 to October 2000. Guidant said the pacemakers’ seals could degrade, causing moisture to build up and the devices to fail. The company said this may have contributed to several patients’ deaths.

Guidant said doctors should consider replacing the affected pacemakers in patients who are “pacemaker dependent”.

While some patients use a pacemaker only in times of abnormal heart rhythm, around 20 per cent of patients have no underlying heart rhythm at all and so depend on the device for life.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) - the UK government body that regulates the industry - confirmed it is evaluating the problem. “We are in contact with Guidant,” a spokeswoman said.

The MHRA could not confirm how many UK patients are fitted with the pacemakers, but Guidant said 10,000 devices are fitted in patients outside the US, many of whom are in Scotland.

The pacemaker alert follows recalls in recent weeks of tens of thousands of implantable heart defibrillators. A Scotsman investigation revealed a delay of three years before the company told British doctors and health watchdogs about problems with one of those models.

Around 2,200 UK patients with internal defibrillators were told by MHRA to see their doctor and consider what to do. One option, already taken by many patients, was to have the device surgically replaced.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently escalated its recall of four Guidant device models to class 1 - its most urgent alert - saying flaws in 42,000 defibrillators could be deadly.

Both pacemakers and defibrillators are implanted under the skin. A pacemaker, about the size of two 50p pieces held together, regulates a heart that is beating too fast or too slowly. A defibrillator, three times the size of a pacemaker, emits an electrical shock to jolt a stopped or abnormally beating heart back to rhythm.

Nine older pacemaker models are involved in the current alert. They are the Pulsar Max, the Pulsar, the Discovery, the Meridian, the Pulsar Max II, the Discovery II, the Virtus Plus II, the Intellis II and the Contak TR. The company said the units have not been implanted for the last four years.

Guidant said it had identified 69 devices that may have had the seal problem, out of some 78,000 devices manufactured. In 20 known cases, the problem caused pacemakers to fail, and in five such instances, patients lost consciousness. The flaw may have also caused a pacemaker to keep pacing at a high rate, putting a potentially fatal strain on a weak heart.

Because pacemakers need replacing every seven to ten years, many of the pacemakers at issue will need to be replaced soon anyway, since their batteries are nearly drained. The company will reimburse the NHS for any replacements and also reimburse patients up to £1,438 for medical expenses.

In June, The Scotsman revealed that Guidant did not notify British doctors for three years about a defect in one defibrillator model, the Ventak Prizm 2 Dr. The device tended to short-circuit when needed to save a patient’s life. Two US patients died when Ventak Prizms failed during cardiac arrest.

Dr Broadhurst said: “What you really want is not to rely on what the company tells you. But then again, you don’t want to know about every little problem that isn’t significant. I think the Guidant recalls have shown that something needs to change.”

The MHRA is investigating how Guidant handled reporting its products’ performance rates. Since the Ventak Prizm recall in June and under scrutiny by The Scotsman, the company has issued alerts or recalled 11 models of defibrillators.

The deluge of Guidant recalls have led many cardiologists to question when and how device makers alert physicians, patients and regulatory agencies to product flaws.

Although medical devices must initially pass testing by agencies such as the FDA and MHRA, neither body tests devices after approval.

Ronald W Dollens, CEO of Guidant, said in a statement: “The health and safety of patients is paramount. Our innovative technologies have saved and improved millions of lives. Guidant works diligently to create the most reliable products and services, enhance patient outcomes and limit adverse events to patients.”

BreakingNews.ie

20/07/2005 - 19:17:11

Animal rights activists from around the world were in Dublin tonight to encourage Irish people to change their lifestyles and end cruelty to animals.

Speakers from Ireland, the UK and the US addressed a gathering organised by the Dublin Animal Rights Collective with the aim of raising public awareness of animal rights issues.

Robin Webb, press officer for the UK’s Animal Liberation Front, said there were a number of areas which needed to be addressed in Ireland.

“Animal rights is beginning to take off as a concern in Ireland, and it was felt that this kind of gathering or conference would help the seeds to germinate.

“Irish people are generally a kind, caring people, and once the facts are put before them, once they become aware of how animals are treated, I feel sure there will be both a change in their lifestyles and an increase in campaigns,” he said.

Mr Webb said there were concerns that with the ban on hunting with hounds in the UK, both hunters and hunt saboteurs would come over to Ireland and campaigners wanted to nip the problem in the bud in this country.

“Apart from the hunting issue, the case for vegetarianism and veganism needs to be put, as it doesn’t appear to be something that is very high on the agenda here,” he said.

“Although there are not many commercial research stations, there are of course animal testing facilities in various universities, and customers and suppliers of places like Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Mr Webb said that aside from the moral argument against abusing animals there were practical reasons not to exploit other species, for example the irrelevance to humans of medical tests performed on animals.

Emeritus Professor at North Carolina State University Tom Regan said people in businesses such as the food industry and the fur industry who claimed they were being humane weren’t telling people the truth.

He said there were examples of keeping animals in cages where they couldn’t turn round or spread their wings, and of subjecting them to medical or military research, where they were subjected to bio-chemical experiments, burned or had their bones broken.

“Animal rights advocates have a bad public image, and are looked at like they’re either slightly crazy, or extremists, or terrorists, but the people who paint that picture are those in the business of abusing animals,” he said.

Prof Regan, who was inspired by Gandhi to become involved with animal rights philosophy, said he believed the most important thing he could do was educate people.

“I hope that people will understand advocates are just ordinary people who do one small thing differently than most people.

“They take their compassion and they go past their families, past their neighbours, past their associates, past their nations and extend it to animals.

“I think there’s a growing responsiveness to it in Ireland, but it all comes in increments,” he added.

BBC

A 46-year-old Liverpool man has been charged in Manchester under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Roy Barwise, from Cardigan Way, Anfield, was charged with the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism

Mr Barwise was arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation into Northern Ireland loyalist terrorism said a Greater Manchester Police spokesman.

He is due to appear at Manchester Magistrates Court on Thursday.