SAOIRSE32

Irish Examiner

By Ann Cahill, Europe Correspondent, Vienna
14/01/06

IRISH citizens could soon have to carry identification cards to cross the Border into Northern Ireland or to enter Britain, Justice Minister Michael McDowell has said.

The British Government hopes to have legislation agreed before the summer which the opposition there says will make cards mandatory for most citizens.

Mr McDowell met British Home Secretary Charles Clarke yesterday during an EU meeting in Vienna and agreed to hold a meeting in Dublin shortly to discuss the implications.

Currently, Irish and British citizens can move freely without passports between the countries and into the North.

Mr McDowell said the legislation, if it also applies to the North, will have implications for those crossing the Border who do not want to show their passports or carry British-issued ID.

When asked if this meant Irish people would have to have British-approved ID cards, he said: “If they are introduced in Britain and their carrying is made mandatory there - which I understand is way down the road in terms of their time frame - I suppose Irish citizens are going to have to have some form of photo ID in the UK and there will have to be some form of legal basis for it and an understanding between the two governments on it.”

As a result, the Irish Government could decide to issue ID documents to be carried on a voluntary basis but which would be legal documents he said, adding that there were a number of strategic alternatives facing the Government here.

“One is simply to say that if the UK introduces it to Northern Ireland then it’s a matter for British Government; the other is to say that for Irish citizens, since cross-Border travel is very normal, that we have to make some ID system available: thirdly Irish citizens in Northern Ireland are entitled to apply to the Irish Government as of right for a card issued by the Irish Government which the British on a bi-lateral basis would accept,” he said.

Voting is under way in the House of Lords on the issue and while the Blair government has said the cards will not be mandatory, there is provision for local authorities to fine people for not registering.

Newshound

**Missed this one

(by Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune)

A Christmas star lights up the window of Paula McCartney’s Belfast home as the women, who have taken on the Provisional IRA for almost a year, gather to bring in 2006.

The McCartney sisters and Bridgeen Hagans have 19 children between them, and most are in Paula’s house, running riot around the Christmas tree with the toys Santa brought.

“If our Robert was here, he’d be on the floor with them,” says Paula. “He was just a big kid himself. He couldn’t wait to see what the children got every year. He’d more fun playing with their toys than they had.”

In the kitchen, Paula’s husband Jim is working wonders with left-over turkey. The house is ablaze with twinkling decorations. “I can’t wait to get all this stuff down,” Paula says. “It’s so false. Christmas has been endured, not enjoyed, in this house.

“We made an effort for the kids but Robert’s murder hangs over everything. Last Christmas I went into an awful mood when Jim dropped the trifle leaving the supermarket. I can’t believe I got so upset over a trifle. I wish to God that was all there was to worry about now.”

The McCartneys’ other brother, Gerard, committed suicide five years ago. “Yesterday was his anniversary but it’s easier to deal with than Robert’s will be. Gerard chose to end his own life. Robert was robbed of his.”

Aretha Franklin and Meatloaf cds – presents from her children – lie unplayed in the corner. Apart from buying for their kids, none of the McCartneys had the heart for gifts this Christmas.

Robert’s first anniversary is at the end of the month. So far, there are no plans for any public service or vigil. To the outside world, his sisters’ apparently successful, high-profile campaign means they’ve every reason to embrace 2006.

“We’re not looking forward to the New Year at all,” says Claire. “We’re frightened in case justice isn’t done. Two men have been charged in connection with the stabbings outside Magennis’s bar, but 15 were involved in the murder and clean-up operation. We’re scared they’ve got away with it.”

Claire’s outlook on life has changed: “I used to be an optimistic person. Now, I’m always waiting for something bad to happen.” Catherine is disappointed by the lack of witnesses coming forward. “The wall of silence is still standing. As a family, we continue our daily routines, but we’ve no zest for life anymore.”

The sisters find it too traumatic to visit Robert’s grave but Bridgeen goes: “I went at Christmas with red roses and lilies. The two boys climbed over their daddy’s headstone. Brandon took a wee angel from another grave and put it on Robert’s. ‘My daddy would like that,’ he said. I’d to get him to put it back.”

With big brown eyes and broad, open faces, Conlaed (5) and Brandon (3) are the image of their father. “They ask about him all the time, especially when they see his picture on TV. They want to know how many times he was stabbed,” says Bridgeen.

“I tell them he’s in heaven but they cry and say they want him at home, not in heaven. Paula and Catherine were on TV in Downing Street last month. Conlaed said, ‘My aunties are on TV. Are they dead too?’”

Bridgeen’s boys run happily about the house with their cousins. But, unlike the other children, they return to the front room every few minutes to make sure their mother is still there. “They’re very clingy,” says Bridgeen. “Conlaed is introverted at school. He sits on his own, crying. He won’t talk to the other boys.”

Following a picket and attacks on her home, Bridgeen left the Short Strand to live with her mother. “I still wake in the middle of night and get up and check all the windows and doors.”

With long hair and a good figure, she’s the “glamorous, blonde fiancée” to the media. “They should see the reality. I’m just muddling through. Sometimes, I cry non-stop for hours. Robert is in my head all the time. My friends say I talk about him like he’s still alive.

“I even miss rowing with him. Just before he died, we argued over a Valentine’s Ball. He was refusing to wear a tuxedo, and I said he’d look daft going in ordinary clothes. After he died, I found out he’d already hired a tux. He’d only been winding me up.”

Bridgeen Hagans and Robert McCartney knew each other four years before they got together. Both had been too shy to make the first move. Bridgeen says she fell in love with Robert because he was “kind and gentle and he looked after me”. “Oh come on Bridgeen, he also had a great body!” quips Paula.

Bridgeen relied heavily on Robert. She couldn’t drive. He took her everywhere. Coping on her own with two kids and no car is difficult. “So I’m taking driving lessons. I’m doing my test in February. It’ll give me more independence.”

She’ll need to start cookery classes too, she jokes. “Robert did all that. I can hardly peel a potato!” Bridgeen has struggled financially since he died. She hopes to train as a beautician after Brandon begins nursery school in March.

Paula is angry at rumours, spread by the Provos, that the family are hooked on celebrity status and are making money from Robert’s murder. “If we’d been bereaved by the Brits or loyalists, we wouldn’t be smeared like that,” she says.

According to the Provo rumour mill, there are splits in the family with Paula and Catherine leading the campaign in a political direction which Bridgeen and the three other sisters oppose.

“We’re not clones but we’re a united family,” says Catherine, “unless, of course, we’ve been infiltrated!” “There are no spies in our ranks!” declares Paula. Their only argument is over whether Robert could dance. “He was a wonderful dancer,” says Bridgeen. “No, he wasn’t. No man can dance!” Catherine insists.

The women are grateful for the public support they’ve received, yet miss their privacy: “You can’t go to the shops without being recognised but it’s a price worth paying,” says Paula.

Catherine’s world has been turned upside-down politically. “I’d such faith in Sinn Féin. Now, I see it’s only a big PR machine without any principles. It doesn’t give a damn about working-class nationalists. It cares only about their votes.”

Paula still hopes witnesses will come forward: “Human nature isn’t clear-cut. Maybe there’s somebody, inside or outside the republican movement, who did or knows something, and hasn’t had a good night’s sleep all year because their conscience is troubling them.

“I’d appeal to them to act now. Even a year after Robert’s murder, it’s not too late to do the right thing.”

January 6, 2006
________________

This article appeared in the January 1, 2006 edition of the Sunday Tribune.

Sunday Times

Carissa Casey
January 15, 2006

Click to view - photo from >>here

MAGENNIS’S bar, the Belfast pub in which Robert McCartney was murdered last January, has been sold for £760,000 (€1.12m). After lying derelict for several months, it was bought by Brendan McClinton, a Lisburn publican.

Once a popular lunch spot for barristers from the nearby courts, Magennis’s gained worldwide notoriety following McCartney’s death. His sisters launched an international campaign to bring members of the IRA to justice for the attack.

As part of the campaign a prayer vigil was held outside the bar, where McCartney had been drinking when he got into an argument with an IRA leader.

The knife used in the murder was later taken from the premises by members of the IRA. According to an IRA statement, a member of the bar staff was threatened and CCTV footage was taken from the premises.

Following the murder the pub began losing customers and by last April it had closed, its broken windows and graffiti-marked facade the latest ghoulish Belfast landmark. At the height of its popularity Magennis’s had a weekly turnover of £15,000 but that dwindled to less than £4,000.

Magennis’s was owned by a local businessman, Martin O’Neill, who bought the pub for £925,000 two years ago. It is understood he invested another £100,000 refurbishing the premises.

McClinton owns the 300-year old Traveller’s Rest pub on the Derriaghy Road near Lisburn but is largely unknown in the thriving Belfast pub market. He refused to comment.

Bass brewery is understood to be backing McClinton’s purchase with a low-interest loan.

Last June there were reports that O’Neill was considering a refurbishment of the premises. Later reports claimed the pub was under new ownership, but that deal fell through and the premises were put on the market in September.

Magennis’s is in the predominantly Catholic area of the city, close to the Short Strand where the McCartneys were residents. McCartney’s sisters and his partner, Bridgeen Hagan, have since moved from the area claiming local intimidation.

Two men are on bail awaiting trial on charges relating to the attack. Terence Davison, 49, from Belfast is accused of the murder, and James McCormick, 36, from Birmingham, is charged with the attempted murder of McCartney’s friend Brendan Devine. Both men deny the charges.

Sunday Life

Sinead McCavana
15 January 2006

What roadworks are planned?

The road improvements will create three continuous traffic lanes on the M1 and Westlink between Black’s Road (junction three) and Divis Street junctions.

The works will involve:

–Widening the M1 and Westlink to provide a continuous, dual three-lane road from Stockman’s Lane to Divis Street

–Replacing the bridges at Stockman’s Lane junction

–Constructing a dual, three-lane underpass at Broadway and partial underpass at Grosvenor Road (following construction, access will only be permitted between the Grosvenor Road and Westlink to the south of the junction)

–Modifying the Roden Street/Mulhouse Road signalised junction.

What benefits will the project bring?

The road improvements will reduce the existing congestion on the M1/Westlink and make the road safer and journey times shorter and more reliable. This will benefit all road users, including freight and public transport.

Will traffic be affected during construction?

Yes. Construction of a major project such as this has the potential to cause significant disruption to traffic throughout Belfast and beyond.

There is little opportunity to provide alternative routes during construction for the 65,000 vehicles that use the Westlink each day, as many of these alternative routes are already congested. Therefore, it will be necessary to accommodate traffic through the works.

What temporary traffic arrangements will be in place during construction?

Two traffic lanes will be maintained in each direction through the works from 6am to 10pm Monday-to-Saturday and 11am to 10pm on Sundays.

These lanes may be narrower than normal and subject to a reduced speed limit.

Sections of the M1, Westlink or connecting roads will be closed occasionally.

Road closures will generally be at night or at weekends.

Signs advising of road closures will be displayed at least one week in advance of each closure.

The contractor will be charged for each lane closure in order to limit the number of closures.

In addition, the Roads Service has:

–Installed extra CCTV cameras to monitor traffic through the works and on adjoining roads

–Extended the urban traffic control area where the traffic signals are controlled centrally by traffic information and control centre.

Will alternative routes be available?

Yes. Signed alternative routes will be available for traffic with destinations beyond Belfast.

Variable message signs positioned at key junctions will inform drivers of current traffic conditions through the road works and help them to make an informed choice about their route.

Traffic progression along alternative routes will be improved by:

–Introducing traffic signals at the Milltown, Belvoir and hospital roads junctions

–Improving the Hillhall Road/Glen Road junction

–Restricting other planned works along alternative routes during construction of the M1/Westlink Project

–Improvements to the M1 Saintfield Road roundabout and Largymore Link.

What will happen at Stockman’s Lane, Broadway, Roden Street, Grosvenor Road and Divis Street?

The start of the road works at Stockman’s Lane roundabout will have traffic signals introduced to improve the capacity of this junction.

Broadway will remain as a traffic signal junction during the construction period, although the layout of the junction will alter as the work progresses. Full access will be maintained to all roads at Broadway junction.

The Roden Street junction will be modified, with traffic only permitted to turn left in and left out of Mulhouse Road.

No access will be permitted between Westlink and Grosvenor Road during construction. A temporary bridge will be constructed to carry Grosvenor Road traffic over the Westlink.

During construction of the road improvement works full access will be maintained between Westlink and Divis Street junction.

The Roads Service will provide enhanced traffic and travel information by:

–Measuring journey times through the works and using this information to advise drivers about traffic conditions and help them to make informed choices about their journey

–Installing variable message signs at key junctions (see alternative routes map)

–Providing variable message signs at exits from the Port of Belfast

–Providing driver information signs at least one week in advance of road closures and changes in temporary traffic arrangements

–Providing travel and road works information in local papers, the Roads Service traffic information and control centre website (www.trafficwatchni.com) and radio traffic bulletins

–Extending the current email traffic information distribution service.

What public transport measures will be introduced?

Since June 2005, the capacity of the Portadown to Belfast rail service has been increased by up to 50pc.

During construction, the existing M1 motorway hard shoulder bus lane and bus priority facility, between Broadway and Roden Street, will be maintained for Belfast-bound buses.

In addition, public transport facilities on the southern approach to Belfast will be enhanced by progressing the development of:

–Park and ride sites along the M1 motorway corridor

–Additional bus capacity to serve new park and ride sites

–Bus priority measures on the M1 motorway between Lisburn and Stockman’s Lane junction.

–To register for active notification email alert from the Roads Service traffic information and control centre, fill in an online form at www.roadsni.gov.uk/westlinktrafficalert.

BBC

The SDLP will not consider any measures short of giving the Northern Ireland Assembly back its full powers, party leader Mark Durkan has said.

Speaking on the Politics Show, Mr Durkan said interim arrangements being proposed by the DUP were unsuitable.

“A two-stage process isn’t open. If you start saying we are just going to go for a fallback, and then starting with a fallback that is just holding back.

“Let’s test it and see how far parties are willing to go.”

He added: “We want the assembly restored. If parties aren’t willing to form an inclusive executive, we then have to look at what other options there are short of suspension and direct rule again.

“But parties are only going to get real about how far they are going to go in circumstances where the governments are saying very clearly that there is a definite date for restoration.”

Last week, NI Secretary Peter Hain said he wanted to hold talks on restoring devolution in February.

Mr Hain said elections due in May 2007 had to be meaningful.

“We therefore need to make progress urgently. We cannot let things drift,” he told the Commons.

“I am therefore asking each of the political parties to agree dates for substantial discussions in early February with the British and Irish Governments to give their views on the way forward to restore the political institutions.”

Sunday Life

Close encounter of the fraught kind

By Stephen Gordon and Stephen Breen
15 January 2006

Former top cop Johnston Brown has had a “fraught” TV showdown with Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair - the ex-UDA godfather he had caged for directing terrorism.

The pair came face-to-face in Manchester last week for a documentary on Adair being made by award-winning reporter, Donal McIntrye.

The ex-CID man angrily accused Adair of masterminding a sick plot to kidnap one of his sons in 2000 and of ordering a bomb attack on his home - in revenge for his role in having him jailed for 16 years in 1995.

During the tense meeting, Adair boasted that he planned to return to take control of his old Shankill Road stomping ground.

“It was certainly fraught,” Johnston Brown told Sunday Life.

“I expected the meeting to take place in a brightly-lit TV studio, but it took place in the Salford Boys Club, which was quite a dramatic setting, and we sat opposite each other on bar stools.

“The location was a surprise, but I’ve no regrets at all about meeting Adair.

“I made it clear before hand that there would be no handshakes, no pleasantries before or after the TV discussion.

“I wanted to challenge him about his unwarranted pursuit of my family, and that’s what I did.”

The ex-cop claimed exiled Adair had been “tongue-tied” at times during the exchanges, and had made some absurd claims.

He added: “Adair is clearly a deluded man. He talked of coming back to the Shankill and reclaiming ‘C’ company.

“I advised him against that. Times have changed, but he’s still living in the past.”

Adair denied being behind a plot to kidnap one of Mr Brown’s teenage sons and ordering the bomb attack on his home.

Mr Brown said: “He told me it was ‘all in my head’, and also claimed Special Branch must have been involved.”

In his best-selling book, Into The Dark, the ex-detective revealed harrowing details of a UFF plot to kidnap one of his sons near his Ballyclare home in 2000. He told how the thugs - on Adair’s instructions - planned to kneecap the lad, tie him to a lamppost and hang a placard around his neck saying ‘drug dealer’.

“I’ve accused members of Special Branch of some things, but I certainly wouldn’t accuse them of being involved in that,” said Mr Brown yesterday.

Donal McIntyre described the meeting between Adair and the ex-detective as “very tense”.

“You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife,” said the TV reporter.

“I think both men were facing up to their demons. There was an undercurrent of controlled aggression.”

Johnny Adair last night described the meeting as “strictly business”.

“I respect him (Mr Brown) as a police officer and I hold no grudges against the man, but I told him not to be taking credit for bringing me down.

“He failed to mention there were another 200 police and Army witnesses against me. I told him his book was a number one best-seller because I feature prominently in it. I also said to him that I had nothing to do with the attacks on his home or threats against his children.”

But Mr Brown scoffed at Adair’s remarks, saying: “I was told by the prosecution that the evidence of my CID partner and myself was absolutely central to securing Adair’s conviction. Much of the other evidence against him had either been discarded or disallowed.”

The ex-cop said Adair pleaded guilty rather than be humiliated at a trial in front of his UDA cronies, who would have heard how he had “run off at the mouth” to him about his terrorist activities.

The McIntyre Uncovered documentary, ‘Here’s Johnny’, will be broadcast on Channel 5 and TV3 in around three months time.

Sunday Life

Stephen Breen
15 January 2006

Shocking new details about the brutal killing of Belfastman Robert McCartney can today be revealed for the first time.

Sunday Life has learned the 33-year-old received TWO vicious beatings before being murdered by a republican mob.

The murder victim’s sisters, who have vowed to step up their campaign for justice in 2006, were only told about the development by cops on Thursday.

We can also reveal the campaigning family are set to launch a website - www.justiceforrobert.com - over the coming weeks in a bid to raise awareness about the murder.

The dad-of-two died after he was stabbed and beaten outside the now-closed Magennis’ Bar on January 31, 2005.

Said Paula: “We couldn’t believe it when the police told us that Robert was actually attacked twice by the mob on the night he was murdered.

“They attacked him and left him for dead and then they came back to finish him off.

“We think that if they had just left him the first time then me might be alive today.”

It has also emerged police want to speak to the driver of a large blue vehicle, who is believed to have stopped at traffic lights when the 33-year-old was being attacked.

It is understood the driver may have ‘revved’ his engine in a bid to make the mob aware that he had witnessed the attack.

The police will make a fresh appeal for the driver to come forward on the first anniversary of the murder.

Speaking to us from her new home in south Belfast, Paula told us her family will spend Robert’s anniversary reflecting on the events of the last year.

The mum-of-five also told us she is considering an offer by police for her to make a fresh appeal for information outside Magennis’s.

Said Paula: “My sisters can’t go anywhere near the bar because of all the bad memories it holds for us, but I am considering whether or not to stand outside on Robert’s anniversary.

” I would plead with anyone who has been afraid to come forward to search their hearts and tell police what they know.

“We are determined to see more people in court for our brother’s murder.”

Sunday Life

15 January 2006

MI5 is turning up the heat on UDA and UVF godfathers in a bid to force them to stand down - or be shut down.

Sources have told Sunday Life that the Security Service has taken over a small section of Palace Barracks outside Holywood to direct the operation against loyalist terror bosses and their criminal empires.

It is understood that the Government has decided to target UDA and UVF leaders in the wake of last July’s historic statement by the IRA formally announcing the end of its armed campaign.

One security source said the failure of the two main loyalist groups to follow the IRA’s lead and their reluctance to stand down were seen as major obstacles which had to be tackled.

Said the source: “The Security Service [MI5] has been given the job of shutting down the UDA and UVF.

“Intelligence is the key to the success of this operation. The service will be gathering and collating intelligence on loyalist drug-dealing, prostitution, extortion - everything they are at.”

He added: “There will be no hiding place for the paramilitary bosses.

“When the UDA and UVF refused to follow the IRA lead last year, their days were numbered.”

Our source compared the MI5 operation against loyalist paramilitaries to “cutting the head off a snake”.

“Once the head is cut off, the body might wriggle a bit, but it dies in no time.

“They [loyalist leaders] will be approached and shown what the state has against them.

“It will be a straightforward, non-negotiable choice - pack it all in now or we’ll put you away for 20 years.

“It’s an offer none of them will be able to refuse.”

Sunday Life

Cops reject bid to remove stations anti-terror measures

15 January 2006

The threat from dissident republicans is so high that cops say they can’t continue dismantling security measures at a Co Down police station.

Police have said they cannot agree to scaling down or removing blast walls surrounding the base, in Downpatrick.

The SDLP has been pressing to have the fortifications removed, but during a meeting with the divisional commander, Superintendent Ralph Taggart, they were told it would not be safe nor wise.

The station - in Irish Street - had the unique distinction during the Troubles of being the only one in Ulster with rocket caging over the main streets surrounding it as a counter-measure against IRA mortar attacks.

After the second IRA ceasefire in 1996, the caging was removed.

But now - 10 years later - attempts to have other measures taken down have been rebuffed.

Peter Craig, the former SDLP chairman of Down District Council, who led a delegation of councillors to meet Supt Taggart, said: “We pressed hard to have the blast wall in Irish Street taken down.

“It has been there too long. We want to get traffic moving and get Downpatrick normalised.

“He informed us this would not be possible as there is still a threat.

“It is disappointing - but we have to accept that his intelligence is telling him that there is still a threat to life.”

The wall - specially designed to throw any blast outwards - was built out into the middle of the street as part of a series of intricate measures in 1990 at the same time as the IRA killed Patsy Gillespie, in Londonderry, in a so-called ‘human bomb’ attack.

The measures including the erection of the rocket caging and the acquisition of nearby shops.

But the base continued to be a regular IRA target, and was the scene of its last major bomb-attack before its August 1994 ceasefire.

In recent years, dissident republicans, who have a strong presence in the Ballyhornan and Castlewellan areas, have launched attacks on the base in 2002, and on stations in nearby Ardglass and Castlewellan.

These two sub-stations have since closed.

The long-term plan is to replace the existing Downpatrick station on a new site by 2010.

slnews@belfast telegraph.co.uk

Daily Ireland

**Via Newshound

Connla Young
13/01/2006

The Irish Republican Socialist Party has said it intends to take up the case of a former INLA member turned down for early release by the Sentence Review Commission last week.
Joe Magee was jailed in 2004 for killing British army recruitment officer Michael Newell in Derby in 1992. A sergeant in the Royal Corps of Signals, Mr Newman died in hospital after being shot at close range as he left work. Mr Magee made his application for release under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He was told last week that the Sentence Review Commission’s interim determination was to reject his bid for release.
The former INLA man severed his links with the paramilitary organisation several years ago. He is to appeal against the commission’s interim determination in the coming weeks.
Senior IRSP member Willie Gallagher last night said his party would support Mr Magee’s appeal.
“He has severed his links with the Republican Socialist Movement and has no contact at all. We will be getting in touch with him in the coming days though and will possibly put in a request to attend the appeal hearing. We are confident he would abide by any conditions set down by the Sentence Review Commission,” said Mr Gallagher.
Earlier this week, campaigning Co Tyrone priest Monsignor Raymond Murray backed Mr Magee’s bid for freedom from Maghaberry prison, where he is serving a life sentence.

Limerick Leader

**Via Newshound

By CLODAGH O’LEARY
Saturday, January 14th, 2006

Click to view - Foggy dew… The colour party and a section of the crowd at the Republican Plot for the Sinn Fein Sean South commemoration

THE Irish Government should release all political prisoners under the terms of the Good Friday agreement and actively campaign for a 32-county Ireland, according to a Sinn Fein Councillor at yesterday’s Sean South commemoration in the city.

Despite the cold conditions, over 150 people marched to Mount St Lawrence’s cemetery, led by the Ballyseedy Martyrs Band, from Kerry.

Wexford Councillor and general election candidate John Dwyer gave the graveside oration at the Republican Plot.

“I am calling on British and Irish Governments to fully honour the commitments laid down by the Good Friday Agreement.”

“It is time for them to put their money where their mouth is, and not allow for any other political prisoners to be taken hostage under the Good Friday Agreement,” said Cllr Dwyer, to rapturous applause.

He said now was a time for action on all sides.

“The Irish Government can no longer sit on the fence, it is time they actively started moves toward a 32-county Ireland,” he said.

He told the gathered crowd, which included Sinn Fein members from Limerick and Clare, that it was their duty to resist moves to prevent the creation of a united Ireland.

“There have been attempts to criminalise us, but people only do so, because they fear us, they fear our unity. We are calling on more Irish people to join our march, because we are unstoppable. We are moving into a different phase, but we cannot be stopped,” he said.

Former IRA prisoners and members of “The Balcombe Street Gang” Harry Duggan and Eddie Butler, who were arrested in 1976 after a series of bombings in London, attended, as did Brixton escapee Nessan Quinlivan.

Maurice Quinlivan, chairman of Sinn Fein Limerick and a candidate in the next general election, told the gathered crowd that plans were already underway for next year’s Sean South commemorations-which will mark the 50th anniversary of his death.

“We will have a national political leader here to speak and we have begun to put together a programme of events,” he said.

Republican Sinn Fein, which rejects the Good Friday Agreement, held their own march and graveside oration on New Year’s Day which attracted Republicans from Limerick, Cork and Tipperary.

Newshound

(James Kelly, Irish News)

Time flies. It’s difficult to believe that it was away back in October 2002 that our keystone cops invaded the Stormont assembly and surprised the outside world with the long running farce dubbed ‘Stormontgate’ and it’s even more surprising sequel with reports of republican spies under the bed. Secretary of state Hain has at last announced to a bored house of commons that enough is enough and the time has come to pull the plug on that expensive Stormont jamboree, costing a total of £78 million with its 108 assembly members paid salaries and allowances of £85,000 on average while awaiting the recall that never came.

“Countless times,” said Hain “voters in Northern Ireland have asked me: how long can this go on? I want to tell the house today – not many months more.”

He said it would be “traducing democracy” to have elections for a second time to an assembly that does not exist.

Elections were due in May 2007 so they could not let matters drift.

The upshot of all this is that talks with the political parties begin here next month but judging from the reaction to date of the parties, the prospect of a breakthrough in time for another election in May is remote and there is talk instead of fall-back proposals. SDLP leader Mark Durkan wants a firm date for restoration of devolution or if that falls through, the appointment of a panel of administrators until such time as the backsliders wake up and are faced with the alternative of ‘get on or get out’ from a fed-up electorate.

Significantly, the DUP boss Ian Paisley has been silent on the restoration issue leaving it to his sidekick Peter Robinson to suggest a covert return to the failed convention idea of a talkshop assembly monitoring continued direct rule by Westminster. An attractive proposition for DUP MPs and unionist members of the House of Lords, swanning around over there as elder statesmen, but just another attempt to delay the inevitable implementation of the sheet-anchor Good Friday Agreement.

Meantime working-class Protestant communities, especially in Belfast, are awakening to the fact that they have been let down by their political representatives’ stupidity. The NIO minister, David Hanson, let the cat out of the bag this week when he confessed that while deprivation was more prevalent in the north’s nationalist areas, loyalist communities often found it harder to tackle problems because they weren’t “as well-equipped” to deal with them.

“A pound of government money on Belfast’s Shankill Road will not buy the same output as a pound spent in nationalist areas like the Falls Road,” he said. In the wake of the recent loyalist riotous attempt to defy the ban on a march through the Catholic Springfield Road the reason is not hard to seek.

Observers of history over the years will have noted that when loyalist politicians are under pressure to mend their ways invariably help will appear from the unionist orange underworld. For example we all know that it was a gang of extremist thugs in the Belfast shipyard labelling themselves as the ‘Ulster Workers Strike’ who smashed the first power-sharing Stormont government formed after the Sunningdale Agreement. Paisley, West and the other cowering local politicians only joined in when, to their surprise, the defeatist labour secretary of state the late Merlyn Rees failed to take a strong line against what was in fact a fascist-style conspiracy to prevent workers leaving their homes for their places of employment.

This was no strike. Hooded men with cudgels even broke up a pathetic trade union march to work. Afterwards, Mr Rees made a fool of himself at an Oxford Union gathering by pleading that he, a Welsh miner’s son, could not prevail against a ‘worker’s strike’. How do I know? Well, I was there. I heard his excuse and by permission of the chairman Lord Longford put the record straight in my first and last speech to the Oxford Union. Merlyn was angry but the truth had to be told.

Well, to get back to the present, with Paisley and company under pressure to emerge from their political hidey hole, the date for the talks has been set for early in February. Is it a coincidence or a piece of superb timing that under flaring headlines in The News Letter we are told that the date for a ‘Unionist Protest rally’ in Dublin has been set for Saturday February 25?

The rally, which sounds suspiciously like another Drumcree piece of Orange coat-trailing, is supposed to help ‘IRA terror victims’ but how the plan to stage a march of loyalist bands, DUP politicians, Orangemen, wearing either Orange lilies or LOL collarettes from O’Connell Street to a protest demonstration outside the Dail against the peace process can help the unfortunate victims, has not been told. We are informed that thousands from the north are expected at the event which is part of the ‘Love Ulster’ campaign.

A statement about the march says: “We expect there will be those who will seek to deny us our rights in Dublin. However, we now state that we are intent on a peaceful assembly and will be working closely with the Garda Siochana assistant commissioner for the Dublin metropolitan area.”

As one who for many years reported the Twelfth procession along Belfast’s Royal Avenue I am wondering about those loyalist bands. I recall those cultural contributions by certain rowdy bands such as “the Lilyo: do you think that I would let an oul fenian git ruin the colours of the Lily-o”. Or another with a Lambeg drum and a screeching flute which ran “Slither slaughter, Holy water, chase the papishes everyone”.

Does the Garda assistant commissioner know something we don’t?

An ecumenical contribution with the loyalist bands playing hymns all the way? Ah well, if not, perhaps some fine day in happier times?

January 15, 2006
________________

This article appeared first in the January 14, 2006 edition of the Irish News.

BBC

A police Land Rover was attacked

Police have come under attack from stone throwers in west Belfast.

Officers were sent to the Shaw’s Road area at about 2200 GMT on Saturday following reports that up to 30 youths were drinking and annoying residents.

A policeman was injured but not seriously. One man and two youths were arrested.

Police have urged parents to be aware of the whereabouts of their children and ensure that they are not being supplied with alcohol.

Police said they had received reports of 20-30 teenagers - aged between around 14 years and 19 years - drinking and causing an annoyance to residents.

A police Land Rover was attacked by stone throwers and, as police arrested a 19-year-old man at Rossnareen Park, a group of around six males in their late teens attempted to pull him from police.

More police vehicles then came under attack from missile throwers at Shaw’s Road and Corrib Avenue.

As two other males, aged in their late teens, were being arrested, attempts were again made by about six males to pull them from police.

One officer was assaulted during this incident, but was not seriously injured.

Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to contact police at New Barnsley on 0845 600 8000 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

Sunday Times

Brian Carey and Enda Leahy
15 January 2006

HE HAS moved from the H-Blocks to apartment blocks. Now Tom McFeely, a former IRA hunger striker, stands to make millions from one of Dublin’s biggest shopping developments.

Thirty years ago a judge described him as “an extremely dangerous, intelligent and vicious young man”, but McFeely has now emerged as a key player in the planned €500m extension of the Square shopping centre in Tallaght.

The former IRA member, who spent 53 days on hunger strike in Long Kesh prison in 1980, is doing the deal alongside Noel Smyth and Derek Quinlan, two of Ireland’s richest and most successful property developers.

The redevelopment will include the creation of a new main street for the west Dublin suburb.

Now resident on Dublin’s upmarket Ailesbury Road, McFeely worked his way into the Square deal through a shrewd property manoeuvre. He and his partner Larry O’Mahony are believed to have paid up to €50m to acquire Lowes Tavern, a company part-owned by Dublin auctioneer Sean Davin last March.

Lowes Tavern holds a “licence agreement” with South Dublin county council (SDCC) to use an 18-acre car park close to the Square. It is understood that this agreement alone was valued at €30m when McFeely and O’Mahony purchased Lowes Tavern from Davin.

The licence is extremely valuable because the owners of the Square, a partnership of wealthy Dublin businessmen, have been unable to extend the shopping centre into the car park without it. The sale of Lowes Tavern was described by a senior Dublin property adviser as “one of the property coups of the year”.

The car park is owned by SDCC which has been anxious to promote the Square extension. To the embarrassment of the council, its own licence hindered the project.

Although talks between the Square’s wealthy owners and Davin took place over the licence, McFeely and O’Mahony trumped all other bidders to scoop the valuable licence agreement.

It has been reported that McFeely, a builder, and O’Mahony, a Dublin timber merchant-turned-developer, have a one-third share in the company planning the extension, as a result of their acquisition of Lowes Tavern.

The redevelopment will triple the amount of shopping space and will help the Tallaght centre, opened in 1990, to catch up with rival operations in Dundrum, Blanchardstown and Liffey Valley.

Senior property sources believe other partners may try to buy out McFeely’s and O’Mahony’s “position” in the development, yielding a substantial profit for the Lowes Tavern shareholders.

The other shareholders in the development company are Alburn, headed by Smyth, and a partnership that includes Quinlan and a number of Ireland’s wealthiest business people.

McFeely has been active in other business deals in both Britain and Ireland. He and O’Mahony purchased the Tallaght Plaza hotel last year.

The former IRA member served 12 of a 26-year sentence in the Maze prison for robbing a post office and shooting and wounding an RUC officer during a siege of a house in Co Derry. He was released under the royal prerogative on the recommendation of the Court of Criminal Appeal in Northern Ireland in 1987, which ruled that the 12- and 14-year sentences, ordered by the original trial judge to run consecutively, were excessive considering the crimes.

After he was convicted by the Belfast City Commission Court in 1977 the judge told McFeely: “I am satisfied that you are a dangerous young man. You are intelligent and vicious and you seem to be glorifying in your acivity.

“You are a danger to the public and a greater danger to the police. It is clear that you must be put away for a long time.”

McFeely replied: “I may serve the term, but you will not.”

It was the second time the Dungiven man had been jailed. He was one of 19 IRA men who escaped from Portlaoise prison in 1974 when a terrorist exploded a bomb inside the compound destroying one of the walls.

Sunday Times

15 January 2006

Man with a north-south plan

Usually, Peter Hain spends Christmas on South Africa’s Cape peninsula, where he was brought up and where his sister Sally still lives. This year the extended Hain family, all 15 of them, took up residence for the festive period in Hillsborough Castle, his official Northern Ireland residence.

He has to pretend to like the place, but Hain genuinely seems to have taken a shine to Northern Ireland. Asked how long he will stay there, he says: “I am not keen to move; I want to see this through. I really like the place and the people. You take a lot of stick, but in whatever jobs I have done I have sought to focus on where you can really change things and make a difference, and that is what I would like to do.”

The Northern Ireland secretary has the ability to get on with people and is a good listener as well as talker. His Labour colleague Paul Flynn has said of him: “He has the capacity to be on all sides simultaneously.”

In his other life, Hain is secretary of state for Wales and the principality was sufficiently impressed to vote him politician of the year for 2005 in a television poll.

It was at a Christmas party in the Wales Office that Hain introduced Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist party leader, to his parents, Walter and Adelaine. Some of those present expected sparks to fly. After all, it was less than a month earlier that Paisley had called for Hain’s resignation. But it turned out that they had something in common. Hain’s parents had both been imprisoned in South Africa for their opposition to the apartheid regime. Paisley, who likes to describe himself as “an old jailbird”, has been imprisoned twice in Northern Ireland for leading demonstrations.

Soon Walter Hain and Paisley were swapping reminiscences of Robben Island and Crumlin Road jail in Belfast. In his speech later Hain referred to them as “two old rebels”, but remarked that while his father was still a rebel, Paisley had now joined the establishment and was about to lead it. The humour, like the introduction, showed a sure touch with the DUP. Paisley was flattered and laughed uproariously. Some guests wondered aloud if prison terms would prove as convenient an ice-breaker between the DUP and Gerry Adams.

“I must say I like Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson,” says Hain. “Whether or not we have fierce arguments is not the point, I just like them as individuals. The same goes for Reg Empey as well, but particularly for the DUP people. They are easy to get on with.”

Hain’s rapport with the DUP is one of the surprises of his tenure. When he arrived in Belfast, the BBC dusted off a file of militantly nationalist statements he had made in the 1980s as a Labour left-winger. “Partition was and remains unjust and undemocratic . . . British policy was to promote and foster sectarian and religious division,” Hain wrote in a magazine in April 1988. Elsewhere he advocated Irish unity, British withdrawal and a tough line with unionism by any future Labour government.

With previous secretaries of state, any sign of a strong opinion on Northern Ireland has produced an immediate political squall, but Hain’s track record was stronger than the others’. Today he dismisses all that firebrand stuff, saying, “I’m not going to defend comments made 20 years ago in circumstances that are light years away from where we are now. That is part of the yellowing newspaper cuttings.”

He denies that the remarks were ever raised with him by unionists, though he concedes that they were brought up by a group of women from the loyalist Shankill Road. “Frankly it’s water off a duck’s back,” he said.

Hain was born in Nairobi and only came to England when his parents were barred from South Africa in 1966. His relentless campaigning against the apartheid regime made him a target for Boss, the South African intelligence service, which maliciously implicated him in a bank robbery for which he was subsequently acquitted.

He recalls: “Early on in my time here Gerry (Adams) and Martin (McGuinness) brought that up when I was talking about the Northern Bank. They were rejecting any suggestion that the IRA was involved in the robbery and they were making kind of jocular digs saying, ‘Well you were framed once, weren’t you?’”

It cut no ice with Hain, who told them: “There is no doubt that the IRA did it. The chief constable is absolutely right.”

He may listen to local politicians, and joke with them, and introduce them to his parents, but there is also a touch of steel and no mistaking his authority in cabinet. Under previous secretaries of state Sinn Fein were able to hold private meetings with the prime minister in No 10, now Hain is invariably present.

He has a will to act, and Northern Ireland leaders have found that huffing or refusing to move has not been an effective veto on Hain.

“The politics of procrastination is rife in Northern Ireland,” the minister complains. “There is a kind of blame culture; blame the secretary of state, blame London, blame the other parties. It is time people started escaping this and taking responsibility for governing themselves. I think this is going to happen.

“You can’t wait around for ever for oppositionalist politicians to keep playing their games. That period is over. My predecessors took the view that you shouldn’t take the tough decisions because that might get in the way of the politics. Perhaps they were right. I have taken the view that, actually, the politics had better catch up.”

Hain was, however, forced into a U-turn last week when he dropped legislation that would have granted on-the-run (OTR) terrorists immunity from imprisonment. The plan w,as drawn up by his predecessors in 2003 when it was published in draft form by the British and Irish governments with a guarantee that it would be legislated for once the IRA disarmed. Even though he intended to amend the legislation after all party opposition had been taken on board, the crunch came when Sinn Fein condemned the legislation on the grounds that security forces found guilty of Troubles-related offenses would also benefit from it.

Hain said last week that when Sinn Fein came to him in December and said it no longer supported the bill, his reaction was “to tell them to get lost.” His subsequent decision to drop the bill was taken to avoid the trouble and expense of setting up special tribunals that nobody would use. The commitment to legislate remains, but he is in no hurry to fulfil it. “I don’t think this can be addressed until there is a different climate, ” he says.

He adds: “As of now the lancing of the boil of the OTRs has created a positive atmosphere in which it might be possible to make progress. In the autumn I will see if anyone has any ideas to put to me.”

Ideas are required in other areas too. Under Mo Mowlam, John Reid and Paul Murphy, a series of difficult economic choices were postponed. The continuous gush of public spending — 63% of the province’s gross domestic product, or £60 (€88) a week in subsidies for every person — was unquestioned. With money tight at the British Treasury, Hain has ended the procrastination.

He has laid plans for water charges; he is jacking up rates by 19%; he is cutting the number of local authorities to seven; and in a forthcoming review of public spending he aims to slash the number of civil service departments. Cherished institutions such as the home service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment are being scrapped in the name of rationalisation, despite unionist howls of protest.

Politicians are not exempt either. Last week in the House of Commons he warned that he will cut off the £85,000-a-year that is, on average, paid in salaries and allowances to members of the suspended Northern Ireland assembly. If the salaries stop, politicians’ advice centres will close and the whole political apparatus will run down. Moderate parties such as the Ulster Unionist party and SDLP will be worst affected.

But Hain makes no apologies. “There is no prospect of the status quo prevailing — millions of pounds being paid out for people not to do their jobs,” he says. It is strong medicine from a man who once campaigned for mass nationalisation and was ousted from the board of Tribune, the left-wing Labour weekly, by Gordon Brown for his neo-Keynesian views.

Now he sings from a different economic hymn sheet. “I don’t think people have woken up to the fact that the economy is not sustainable in its present form in the long term,” he says of Northern Ireland. “We have got to become much more competitive, less dependent on a bloated public sector with huge state subsidies and such a small private sector. It is just not sustainable.”

A key part of his strategy is increasing north/south co-operation and developing an all-Ireland economy, though he rules out two measures that have cross-party support in the province — reducing corporation taxes to southern levels or bringing the north’s high fuel taxes into line with the republic’s. “You can’t have a differential tax regime, whether it is corporation or petrol tax, across different regions of the United Kingdom.”

Despite that, he predicts: “There will be a lot more north/southery. Not gratuitous poking-unionists-in-the-eye north/southery, but common-sense practical north/southery to improve the quality of life and opportunities for people.

“The interpretation that this is a kind of Trojan horse for a united Ireland is 100% wrong. It is about whether the people of Northern Ireland are going to enjoy prosperity and opportunity in the future.”

Some of what he has in mind may be too much for the Irish government, from which Hain expects help to shoulder the burden of building up the north’s private sector. He suggests that Dublin use its muscle to secure inward investment for the north and even encourages Irish companies to transfer some of their operations across the border.

“There is recognition in the south that that is the way to go,” Hain insists. “Just as, for example, you have British and Irish companies establishing themselves in China and India and eastern Europe without necessarily losing jobs at home, I can see the opportunity for businesses in the republic, where skills are now short because it is overheated, actually seeing advantages in relocating part of their businesses north of the border.

“I was talking to the Irish foreign minister, Dermot Ahern, about the common marketing of the island of Ireland to investors, where we were not seeking to do each other down but were seeking to maximise international investment either side of the border, and particularly for the republic to use its clout in Irish/America to get investment up north.”

Other areas of cross-border co-operation could include the health service and policing. He envisages more joint use of hospital facilities and more exchanges between the gardai and the PSNI. But he adds: “I can’t see the gardai coming in as back-up for the PSNI if there was a crisis.” That will still be the job of the British army.

Most of the co-operation he favours seems to be in the public sector, where the governments have control, but Hain is also bringing pressure on private sector companies, which he believes are acting as a restraint on north/south trade.

Firmly in his sights are mobile phone companies who charge roaming tariffs for northerners crossing to the south and vice versa. “I am giving the mobile phone companies an ultimatum that we are going to achieve this all-Ireland tariff or life is going to get pretty tough for them.”

The immediate priority is to start political talks next month, and he promises to be tough with local politicians. If they don’t like his programme, Hain urges them to take charge themselves. Even if they do, “I don’t have any economic sweetener for them in my back pocket”.

Clearly, Hain’s affection for his new Irish friends only goes so far.