SAOIRSE32

BreakingNews.ie

27/11/2005 - 11:52:21

Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern is to meet with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington DC this week to discuss the peace process in Northern Ireland and the plight of the estimated 25,000 undocumented Irish in the United States.

Mr Ahern will also meet US Northern Ireland special envoy Mitchell Reiss to brief him on re-establishing the power sharing government in the North, and talks he and Northern Irish Secretary Peter Hain have recently had with the main political parties.

A meeting has also been arranged with Senator Ted Kennedy.

The discussions in Washington DC on Thursday will follow a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York on Wednesday to pledge Ireland’s continuing commitment to the UN, in particular the supply of troops to serve as international peace keepers.

Ahead of his trip to the US, Mr Ahern said securing rights for the thousands of Irish people living in America without legal status was of top priority for the Government.

“The concerns of our community in the US, and the particular problems of the undocumented, have the highest priority for the Government.

“Estimates on numbers of undocumented Irish vary. The very nature of their circumstances means that they tend to stay below the radar. A figure close to 25,000 appears reasonable.

“The real issue is not the size of the undocumented community, but is that of the stressful personal experiences: the strain and anxiety of living in the shadows, the sadness of being unable to return to visit Ireland to be with ageing or dying parents, or to attend wakes and funerals – or, indeed, happy family occasions such as weddings,” he said.

The Foreign Minister said he would be asking for the the Kennedy/McCain bill - an immigration programme which provides for temporary residency and a path to permanent resident status – to be given positive consideration.

He said he hoped the passing in Ireland of an all-party resolution supporting the Kennedy/McCain bill would encourage US legislators to amend the immigration law.

“We know that there is some way to go in the debate and we will continue to support any measures that benefit our community in the US,” he said.

Mr Ahern said that during his meeting with Ms Rice he would also be stressing the close relationship between Ireland and the US, and the administration’s important and supportive role in the North’s peace process.

In addition, he will also be discussing the Middle East peace process and a number of bilateral issues between the two countries.

BBC

Nelly (pictured) is said to be inseparable from her friend Blaney

The owners of four donkeys who were stolen from a shed in County Armagh have appealed for their safe return.

It is thought the four animals, who are all in foal, were driven away from premises at Laurel Vale Road, Tandragee, in a steel and blue trailer.

The owners are said to be devastated by the loss of Maggie, Nellie, Blaney and Tessa. The theft was reported to police at about 1000 GMT on Sunday.

Two of the animals are dark brown, one is grey and brown, the other is grey.

Maggie is described as a dark brown, long-haired donkey.

Nellie is also long haired, grey and brown in colour and is said to be inseparable from her friend Blaney.

Maggie is a long haired donkey

Blaney is short haired with dark brown hair which is nearly black in colour.

The fourth animal, Tessa, is a rescued donkey, who had been nursed back to health by her owners.

She is grey, short haired and has a distinctive cross on her back.

The animals were driven off in a trailer used by their owners for transporting them.

The police have urged anyone who is offered a donkey for sale that matches any of these descriptions to contact detectives at Tandragee.

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
27 November 2005

POLICE officers who are reinvestigating murders during the Troubles have described aspects of the British government’s on-the-run legislation as “unfair”. They say it should be amended so that suspects they charge are forced to answer questions publicly at a tribunal.

They have also predicted that no member of the security forces will be charged with the murder of the solicitor Pat Finucane, although it has been established that members of the army colluded in his killing.

Dave Cox, a former Metropolitan Police commander, and Phil James, a detective superintendent on secondment from the Met, are leading the Northern Ireland Historic Cases Review team, known as C8, which will review 1,800 unsolved murders and 320 disputed security force killings during the Troubles.

They are building up a team of 50 detectives, forensic scientists and other staff throughout Britain and Ireland. One garda is among the applicants.

The Northern Ireland Offences Bill, which passed its second reading in the House of Commons last week, will allow anybody guilty of a security force or terrorist killing before the signing of the Good Friday agreement to be dealt with by a special tribunal, with no need for them to turn up in person.

In contrast, witnesses and victims can be subpoenaed to attend and can be cross-examined by the accused’s lawyers. Any suspects found guilty will immediately be released on licence.

Cox and James worked for the Stevens inquiry, which investigated security force collusion in killings. The remaining elements of that inquiry have been subsumed by C8. Stevens will retain an oversight role on parts of the inquiry where collusion is suspected.

Cox says he agrees with comments made by Paul Murphy, the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, that the legislation should be amended.

James said: “Anyone who gets to the point where they are going to be charged for one of these historical offences can then also apply to be dealt with by this tribunal. We have been cops a long time and we are used to working with the law as it is, but it would seem unfair that a defendant doesn’t have to appear while a witness does. There is unfairness in that.”

Their criticisms reflect widespread concern in political and security circles about the legislation. Hugh Orde, the PSNI chief constable, has proposed that, rather than being allowed to wait to see if they are charged, suspects should be given a fixed time in which to apply for the concessions.

“There is no incentive at the minute for anyone to come forward,” he said.

Lord Rooker, the Northern Ireland Office minister responsible for steering the legislation through the House of Lords, has described the bill as “evil but necessary” and conceded that it will have to be amended.

In a BBC interview he said: “This bill will not pass the Lords as it is currently drafted . . . (it) is not acceptable to the majority of the people . . . The fact is changes may be made in the Commons and some left till it gets to the Lords, but it will get a very rough ride.”

Cox and James also say that it is unlikely that any member of the armed forces will be charged in connection with the murder of Finucane, although they hope that more loyalists will. Finucane’s murder in 1989 has been investigated by Stevens since 1999 and James has been centrally involved. Cox has headed the Stevens team on a day-to-day basis for the past three years.

Cox said: “Our focus is going to change, we are looking at all the deaths in the Troubles.”

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
27 November 2005

STAKEKNIFE, the most important British agent within the IRA during the Troubles, is being investigated for two murders and a kidnapping and the investigation is being widened to include dozens of other killings, senior police sources have revealed.

The Northern Ireland historic cases review, which is examining unsolved murders during the Troubles, is planning to investigate all deaths attributed to the IRA’s security team, which was headed by Stakeknife.

But none of the agent’s handlers in British military intelligence are likely to face charges in relation to these killings. Despite a finding by Sir John Stevens, a senior British police officer, that there was collusion in the murder of Pat Finucane, a Belfast solicitor, nobody from the security forces will face charges for that either.

Dave Cox, a former commander in the Metropolitan police who is in charge of the review, said: “The allegation is that Stakeknife is an (army) agent involved in murders. We are looking at all the murders of alleged touts (informants) and then seeing which ones it would be appropriate to investigate him for.”

Cox confirmed that Stakeknife is currently on police bail for “two murders and one kidnap” and added: “Our focus is going to change; we are looking at all the deaths attributable to the IRA’s security team.”

Stakeknife is the intelligence service codename for Freddie Scappaticci, a west Belfast republican who was a senior figure in the IRA’s internal security division responsible for rooting out informants. While he worked in this role he was himself an agent for the Force Research Unit (FRU), a British special forces unit responsible for handling informants and agents within paramilitary groups.

Scappaticci agreed to work for FRU in 1978 after he became disillusioned with IRA violence. He was unmasked by the press in 2003. The IRA had suspected his role since the early 1990s and denied him access to sensitive information. They never attacked him physically or identified him because of the embarrassment it would have caused.

Scappaticci had been promoted and trusted by many senior republicans and his treachery reflected badly on their judgment. He was a close friend of Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, for many years.

One of the murders for which Scappaticci is being investigated is Joseph Fenton, and the kidnapping is that of Alexander “Sandy” Lynch, an informer captured by the IRA but rescued by the British army before he could be killed.

Fenton, a west Belfast estate agent, was found dumped in the Lenadoon estate in 1989. An RUC Special Branch agent since 1982, he had supplied houses to the IRA to use for meetings, but allowed the security forces to bug them.

Following a tip-off, probably from Scappaticci, the police told him the IRA had uncovered his role and offered him assistance to move to England in order to save his life. Once there, Fenton contacted an MP to protest at being moved. The MP, who has asked not to be named, said: “He insisted on returning to Northern Ireland.”

Defying advice, Fenton returned to Belfast where he was kidnapped and murdered.

Lynch was held and interrogated in the same house as Fenton. He told police that, during his abduction, Scappaticci questioned him on behalf of the IRA but left the house minutes before the army arrived. Scappaticci’s fingerprints were found on a battery in an electronic scanner that had been used to check Lynch for listening devices. Despite this, he was never charged in connection with the abduction.

In an anonymous interview with ITV’s Cook report in 1993 Scappaticci gave a description of the interrogation of informers. He said: “When (the IRA) have anyone, the standard procedure is to strip them and de-bug them, just to see if they are wired up. Then they usually put a boiler suit on them. They put them in a chair facing the wall, and go from there.”

The IRA murdered 60 alleged informants during the Troubles, 35 of them while Scappaticci was involved in the security team. Many of those who died had no involvement with the security forces.

Scappaticci is believed to have saved the lives of many more. But the families of some of those murdered as informers are convinced that they were sacrificed by the intelligence services to protect higher-level agents.

Phil James, a Detective Superintendent who is working with Cox on the review of Troubles murders, said that none of Scappaticci’s army handlers have been interviewed.

James and Cox worked on the Stevens inquiry into collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. In that role, James interviewed Brigadier John Gordon Kerr under criminal caution in connection with Finucane’s murder.

Kerr, who is currently British military attaché in Beijing, was head of FRU at the time of Finucane’s murder in 1989.

James and Cox have both pointed out that if charges are brought against Stakeknife or any member of the security forces, they will not have to appear in court or serve a sentence if the Northern Ireland Offenses Bill, which passed its second reading in the House of Commons last Wednesday, passes into law.

Sunday Business Post

27 November 2005
By Colm Heatley

Almost 90 years after Michael Collins put forward the idea that unionism could be dealt a fatal blow by redrawing the border to make the North too small to be viable, unionists have accused the British government of ‘repartitioning’ the North to favour nationalists.

The government has proposed a radical restructuring of the North’s system of local government, which would reduce the number of councils from 26 to seven, cut the number of councillors from 600 to 350 and strengthen the powers of councils.

The controversial seven council model will evenly split local government power between unionists and nationalists.

The three councils west of the river Bann will be nationalist controlled, the three east of the Bann will be in unionist hands and Belfast council will be almost evenly split between unionists and nationalists.

An alternative 15 council model favoured by the SDLP and unionists would have left nine councils in unionist hands and six in nationalist control.

The proposal’s opponents have claimed it will ‘balkanise’ the North by creating an invisible border dividing west and east. But, the plan’s supporters said it reflects the North’s demographics.

DUP MP Peter Weir, said his party felt there was an element of re-partitioning behind the proposals.

“Undoubtedly this will ‘balkanise’ Northern Ireland and there is a suspicion that the province is being redrawn to suit a different agenda,” he said.

“We now have a nationalist bloc of councils west of the Bann.”

Sinn Féin is the only party backing the plans. The SDLP and unionist parties have argued the plan will create a democratic deficit in the North at the expense of isolated rural communities.

Under the plans, councils in rural areas will make decisions for a district including urban centres such as Derry, Portadown and Ballymena.

The SDLP has said it also opposes the proposed increase in powers because of the refusal of unionist-dominated councils, such as Ballymena, to share power with nationalists.

But Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey said the seven council model was the fairest.

“Under the seven councils, the minority, whether they be unionist or nationalist, will have around 25 per cent representation which will give them access to decision-making positions,” he said.

Meanwhile, a single health authority will replace the four health boards and a single education authority will replace the five education boards, which serve the North.

The British government expects the move to save around stg£200million per year. However, that figure is some way short of the North’s estimated annual deficit of stg£5 billion.

The Northern Ireland Federation of Small Business welcomed the proposals. Around 68 per cent of the North’s economic activity revolves around the public sector, compared with 38 per cent in the Republic, and the federation hopes the reduction of public government will lead to more scope for private enterprise.

But there has been no indication as to the number of job losses there will be in the public sector and the trade union, Unison said it was anxious because the British government had given no guarantees on the issue.

Sunday Business Post

27 November 2005
By Vincent Browne

The McBrearty family conducted a sustained campaign against the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, over his refusal to guarantee to pay their legal costs at the Morris Tribunal.

The minister claimed he could not give such a guarantee, as the tribunal might refuse the McBreartys their costs on the grounds that they obstructed the work of the tribunal.

It would be absurd, he argued, to guarantee them their costs until the tribunal had established that they had cooperated fully.

There was plausibility to his contention.

Tribunals are peculiar animals. They require citizens to give evidence and produce documents. Tribunals are engaged in inquiries that may damage the good name of individuals. Therefore, when the state chooses to establish tribunals, it has an obligation to citizens that appear before it, and citizens whose reputations may be damaged, to guarantee the costs of their legal representation.

There is a constitutional right to legal representation on the part of people whose good names might be damaged by a tribunal.

Citizens who waste the time of a tribunal or tell lies or wrongly refuse or fail to supply documents to it are normally refused the costs of their legal representation. That seems fair enough, on the face of it.

But the practice whereby nobody is guaranteed his legal costs until a tribunal has established that he has cooperated fully causes problems.

Citizens who want to cooperate fully, but who have to spend lengthy periods at a tribunal, must fund their own legal expenses until the tribunal gets round to awarding costs, very much at the end of the day.

The time lag might be years, and people without substantial financial resources are effectively deprived of legal representation for most of the time they are dealing with tribunals.

The inequity is obvious, but does anybody in government - or, for that matter, in the tribunals - care?

In the McBreartys’ case, the unfairness of all this was bizarre. Before the Morris Tribunal got under way, the gardai accepted that the McBreartys were entirely innocent.

The purpose of the tribunal’s inquiries in the modules concerning the McBreartys was not to establish whether the McBreartys had done anything wrong, but how and why they were wronged. They were the victims.

They had every reason to cooperate fully with the tribunal, to give it all the information, documents and data.

From the outset, they wanted their legal costs guaranteed and paid in instalments. McDowell would not have it.

You could say the minister’s hands were tied by precedent and by a sense of duty to the state - a duty to ensure that the state did not guarantee payment of legal costs to anybody legally represented at a tribunal without full cooperation being established in advance. Certainly this could be perceived as harsh in the case of the McBreartys, but what else could be done?

I am not saying I agree with this proposition - I don’t - but one can see the force of it.

But it now emerges that McDowell, on behalf of the state, guaranteed - before the tribunal even began its hearings - to pay the legal costs of a whole raft of people whose actions were to be examined by the tribunal.

In the case of many of these, far from being entirely innocent victims of the improper conduct of others, they were the suspected perpetrators of that improper conduct.

It really is incredible, isn’t it?

The Garda Commissioner engaged a legal team to represent not just himself, but 101 other gardai, many of whom were suspected of having wronged the McBreartys and having otherwise engaged in spectacularly improper conduct.

This legal team did not depend on the chairman of the tribunal awarding its legal costs at the end. These were paid handsomely on an ongoing basis from state funds, via the Garda Commissioner’s office.

The tribunal rejected the evidence of several of these gardai whose legal costs were guaranteed in advance by the state. In other words, it didn’t believe them.

Very serious charges of improper conduct and negligence were made against a raft of them, including Chief Superintendent Sean Ginty, Chief Superintendent Denis Fitzpatrick, Superintendent JF O’Connor and others.

In the case of many of these, the tribunal rejected their evidence. Where this happened in other tribunals, such people were refused their legal costs.

But in this case, the legal costs were fully paid by the state, in instalments and guaranteed in advance.

The total bill came to €4.6 million for the barristers alone. Two of the barristers made well over €1million over three years.

Could somebody explain this?

BBC ON THIS DAY

27 November 1975

Ross McWhirter was an outspoken critic of the IRA

Guinness Book of Records co-founder and editor Ross McWhirter has been shot dead outside his North London home.

Mr McWhirter was hit at close range in the head and chest at 1845 GMT. He was taken to a local hospital, but died soon after being admitted.

The well-known author and BBC Record Breakers presenter recently offered a reward of £50,000 for information leading to the arrest of IRA bombers.

Scotland Yard said no group had yet claimed to be behind the attack.

The two gunmen are thought to have waited in the garden of the couple’s Enfield house for an hour while Mr McWhirter was in the house preparing to go out to the theatre.

Shots

When Rosemary McWhirter arrived home, she got out of her blue Ford Granada and was approached by two men holding pistols.

She ran into the house as her husband came to the front door and seconds later heard two shots.

The killers then used her car to escape. Police later found the car abandoned a few miles away in Tottenham.

Outspoken critic of the IRA

Mrs McWhirter and her two sons, Iain and James, were taken to a secret address soon after the murder, where they are being guarded around the clock.

Mr McWhirter edited the Guinness Book of Records with his twin brother, Norris, and also worked closely with Guinness Director David Hoy, who said the outspoken critic of the IRA was aware he could be in danger.

“He took normal precautions recommended by the police and always looked under his Mercedes - he also varied his routes home,” he said.

In Context

The IRA gang who killed Ross McWhirter and carried out dozens of other attacks in London throughout 1975 was apprehended two weeks later.

Martin O’Connell, Edward Butler, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty exchanged shots with police in central London on 6 December and escaped to a flat in Balcombe Street, taking two hostages.

———————————————————-
Balcombe Street siege

The four men were arrested after a six-day siege, charged with 10 murders and 20 bombings and jailed for life in 1977.

———————————————————–
Surrender

They were freed in April 1999 under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement - the multi-party peace deal for Northern Ireland.

Norris McWhirter continued to edit the Guinness Book of Records until 1985 and presented BBC’s Record Breakers until 1994. He died in April 2004.