SAOIRSE32

Larkspirit

Friday 13th

I’m not superstitious, and it was an uneventful day today. I feel all right, and my weight is 58.5 kgs.

I was not so tired today, but my back gets sore now and again sitting in the bed. I didn’t get the Irish News, which makes me think there is probably something in it that they don’t wish me to see, but who cares. Fr Murphy was in tonight for a few minutes.

The Screws had a quick look around my cell today when I was out getting water. They are always snooping. I heard reports of men beaten up during a wing shift …

Nothing changes here.

Sean McKenna (the former hunger-striker) is back in H-4, apparently still a bit shaky but alive and still recovering, and hopefully he will do so to the full.

Mhúscail mé leis an gealbháin ar maidin agus an t-aon smaointe amháin i mo cheann - seo chugat lá eile a Roibeard. Cuireann é sin amhran a scríobh mé; bhfad ó shin i ndúil domsa.

Seo é cib é ar bith.

D’ éirigh mé ar maidin mar a tháinig an coimheádóir,
Bhuail sé mo dhoras go trom’s gan labhairt.
Dhearc mé ar na ballai, ‘S shíl mé nach raibh mé beo,
Tchítear nach n-imeoidh an t-iffrean seo go deo.
D’oscail an doras ’s níor druideadh é go ciúin,
Ach ba chuma ar bith mar nach raibheamar inár suan.
Chuala mé éan ’s ni fhaca mé geal an lae,
Is mian mór liom go raibh me go doimhin foai,
Ca bhfuil mo smaointi ar laethe a chuaigh romhainn,
S cá bhfuil an tsaol a smaoin mé abhí sa domhain,
Ni chluintear mo bhéic, ’s ní fheictear mar a rith mo dheor,
Nuair a thigeann ar lá aithíocfaidh mé iad go mor.

Canaim é sin leis an phort Siun Ní Dhuibir.

Translated this reads as follows:

I awoke with the sparrows this morning and the only thought in my head was: here comes another day, Bobby — reminding me of a song I once wrote a long time ago.

This is it anyway:

I arose this morning as the Screw came,
He thumped my door heavily without speaking,
I stared at the walls, and thought I was dead,
It seems that this hell will never depart.
The door opened and it wasn’t closed gently,
But it didn’t really matter, we weren’t asleep.
I heard a bird and yet didn’t see the dawn of day,
Would that I were deep in the earth.
Where are my thoughts of days gone by,
And where is the life I once thought was in the world.
My cry is unheard and my tears flowing unseen,
When our day comes I shall repay them dearly.

I sing this to the tune Siun Ní Dhuibir.

Bhí na heiníní ag ceiliúracht inniú. Chaith ceann de na buachaillí arán amach as an fhuinneog, ar a leghad bhí duine éigin ag ithe. Uaigneach abhí mé ar feadh tamaill ar tráthnóna beag inniú ag éisteacht leis na préacháin ag screadáil agus ag teacht abhaile daobhtha. Dá gcluinfinn an fhuiseog álainn, brisfeadh sí mo chroí.

Anois mar a scríobhaim tá an corrcrothar ag caoineadh mar a théann siad tharam. Is maith liom na heiníní.

Bhuel caithfidh mé a dul mar má scríobhain níos mó ar na heiníní seo beidh mo dheora ag rith ’s rachaidh mo smaointi ar ais chuig, an t-am nuair abhí mé ógánach, b’iad na laennta agus iad imithe go deo anois, ach thaitin siad liom agus ar a laghad níl dearmad deánta agam orthu, ta siad i mo chroí — oíche mhaith anois.

(Translated, this reads as follows:)

The birds were singing today. One of the boys threw bread out of the window. At least somebody was eating!

I was lonely for a while this evening, listening to the crows caw as they returned home. Should I hear the beautiful lark, she would rent my heart. Now, as I write, the odd curlew mournfully calls as they fly over. I like the birds.

Well, I must leave off, for if I write more about the birds my tears will fall and my thoughts return to the days of my youth.

They were the days, and gone forever now. But I enjoyed them. They are in my heart — good night, now.

:::u.tv:::

Furious unionists tonight accused the British Government of breaking a promise after reducing political representation on the next Northern Ireland Policing Board.

By:Press Association
MONDAY 13/03/2006 17:14:54

They claimed Stormont was trying to seize control of the authority, a central part of the Good Friday Agreement, when Secretary of State Peter Hain confirmed independent appointments would be in the majority.

His selections for the new body, which scrutinises police performance and spending of its £830 million budget, included a woman whose party is linked to the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force.

But with the politicians receiving just eight of the 19 seats, Ulster Unionist member Fred Cobain was outraged.

The North Belfast MLA claimed the Government welched on an agreement with his former party leader David Trimble and the Democratic Unionist chief Ian Paisley.

When the Board was formed over four years ago they were assured it would always have more political representatives, in line with the Patten blueprint for police reform, Mr Cobain claimed.

He said: “The Government have ratted on that. They have told lies the whole way through this process.

“They have not only corrupted the whole political process, but they have now corrupted the policing process.

“Democratic control has gone, the Board has now become another quango for the Government to manipulate whatever way they want.”

The North Belfast MLA also claimed the changes could be part of a ploy to bring an end to Sinn Fein`s boycott of the policing arrangements.

The republican party refused to nominate to its allocated two seats.

“There`s no reason to change the make-up of the Board unless there has been another deal with Sinn Fein,” Mr Cobain said.

“There are no standards to this Government. When they want to change something they just change it.

“This is a slap in the face for those people who took a risk on policing, all to appease Sinn Fein, who may or may not join the Board.”

Sinn Fein`s policing spokesman Gerry Kelly was equally dismissive of the new authority.

“The members of this Board have all been appointed by the British Secretary of State,” he said.

“This is not what Patten recommended. We need democratic accountability not another quango.”

But the Northern Ireland Office hit back at the criticisms, stressing Mr Hain did not have to use Assembly election results or the d`Hondt system based on party strengths to hand out seats.

“Under the law it`s the duty of the Secretary of State to appoint a Board that, as far as practicable, is representative of the community,” a spokeswoman said.

“As Sinn Fein refused to nominate, the Secretary of State achieved an acceptable community balance by making further independent appointments.”

The new Board will meet for the first time next month when members will elect its chair and vice-chair.

Outgoing chairman Sir Desmond Rea has signalled his willingness to serve again in the top post, with sources saying it would be a shock if he was not chosen.

Two independent representatives, property developer Barry Gilligan and training consultant Pauline McCabe, are believed to be contenders for the vice-chairmanship.

Insiders predicted a Democratic Unionist member could also take the post vacated by Denis Bradley, a former priest who once brokered secret peace talks between the IRA and British Government.

Irish Examiner

By Cormac O’Keeffe
13 March 2006

THE Defence Forces are making “robust efforts” to ensure that appropriate security measures are in place for the 90th anniversary of the 1916 rising.
A military parade involving 2,500 personnel is being held in Dublin.

Security and intelligence staff within the Defence Forces are determined to make sure that plans are in place to deal with any possible repeat of the rioting in Dublin two weeks ago.

A Defence Forces’ spokesman said: “We will continue robust efforts in ensuring that appropriate security measures are taken in the lead up to the parade on Easter Sunday.”

He said liaisons were taking place with gardaí as part of the security preparations.

He declined to comment on the garda handling of the rioting, which convulsed Dublin’s city centre on February 25.

The Defence Forces held rehearsals in Dublin and Cork over the weekend and have conducted other rehearsals in the Curragh.

Up to 700 soldiers from the Southern Brigade conducted a rehearsal along the Straight Road, near the County Hall in Cork, yesterday.

The Southern Brigade will be part of the Easter Sunday parade.

Senior army officers believe the rioting on February 25 had “raised the ante” for the 1916 parade.

The security plan for the celebrations is expected to be based on a rigorous risk assessment of the possible threat of disruption and a detailed plan to deal with any possible eventuality.

This will include proper, and speedy, backup to cope with any disruption, which critics say was absent from the rioting two weeks ago.

The Defence Forces’ military intelligence section is understood to be monitoring individuals suspected of being intent on causing problems on the day.

The section is also believed to be monitoring websites for other signs of hostile intent.

Military intelligence regularly coordinates with the Garda Security and Intelligence Section in security operations. However, the Defence Forces has a separate mandate to conduct its own operations in providing security to the State.

The parade will depart from Dublin Castle, pass through Dame Street, College Green and O’Connell Street. The 1916 Proclamation will be read outside the GPO, followed by military honours.

Irelandclick

We report today that a second postal strike is a real possibility after a striker was sacked by the Royal Mail on Friday last.

The facts about the sacking remain unclear. But what’s crystal clear is that Royal Mail management have, since the strike ended, embarked on a path of confrontation and humiliation which was bound to lead to more trouble. And as postal workers meet tonight to consider the way forward, trouble is exactly what the Royal Mail has got.

If Royal Mail don’t already know because they are too blind or uncaring to notice, we’re here to tell them that there is immense bad feeling within their workforce, and that is a recipe for disaster. The culture of disrespect that led to the first strike has not been replaced, in fact the workers will tell you that it is worse, with management seemingly hell-bent on exacting revenge for the industrial action, which was ended on terms widely seen as a victory for the strikers.

Workers continue to be routinely harassed and targeted, unlimited overtime is given to workers who remained at work during the strike, while workers who came out are fed titbits on the whim of their superiors. As if that wasn’t bad enough, attempts to get the backlog cleared have been nothing short of disastrous with huge amounts of mail being dumped and lost. That’s hardly surprising when agency workers with virtually no training or experience are being used.

Nobody knows what the outcome of tonight’s meeting is going to be. But even if a second strike does not materialise, another round of industrial action is inevitable for as long as Royal Mail continues with its divide-and-conquer strategy. The company’s most senior people must order the line managers who are provoking confrontation to wind their necks in.

The company’s workers deserve better – and so do its customers.

Daily Ireland

By Jarlath Kearney
13/03/2006

The PSNI will face potentially its worst crisis of confidence in the coming months as Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan completes three critical reports.
The most high-profile of the reports centres on allegations that one or more Special Branch agents operated with impunity as part of an Ulster Volunteer Force gang based in the Mount Vernon district of north Belfast.
This report is anchored around the activities of a senior UVF member allegedly implicated in the killing of the young Protestant man Raymond McCord Jr in 1997.
It has been suggest that more than a dozen killings can be linked with this UVF figure, who was protected for more than a decade because of his work for Special Branch.
Retired RUC detective Jonty Brown has alleged that Special Branch actively blocked CID investigations into the activities of the UVF figure.
Other serious questions for the PSNI are expected to arise when the ombudsman reports on the first killing conducted by the force since it replaced the RUC in 2001.
In 2003, a specialist PSNI unit in Co Armagh shot dead 21-year-old Neil McConville, who had been the subject of intense Special Branch surveillance. He had not been politically involved and controversy has surrounded the circumstances in which he was killed.
It recently emerged that, when investigators of the Police Ombudsman’s office tried to access PSNI files about the incident, they found that a computer hard drive required for investigative reasons had been removed by Special Branch.
The third major report focuses on the nature of the original RUC/PSNI investigation into the murders of Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine in 2000.
Informed sources say the extent and seniority of the PSNI personnel involved in the three cases could create the greatest long-term controversy.

Daily Ireland

This man was hit by the stark contrast of the media’s handling of IRA and loyalist killings. He also asks why Facing the Truth did not probe the widespread hatred of Catholics in the North.

By Mick Hall
13/03/2006

There has been much talk recently about truth, forgiveness and reconciliation in the North. The three-part BBC television series Facing the Truth brought together victims’ families and the perpetrators of the victims’ deaths in an attempt to reach a point of genuine repentance and possible forgiveness.
During the series, Michael Stone apologised to the family of Dermott Hackett, one of the loyalist’s victims.
Stone, while seemingly repentant, still maintained his loyal “soldier” status.
He had been simply carrying out the unofficial will of the British state.
Stone was certainly used as a proxy agent in Britain’s covert policy of employing loyalist death squads in its fight against republicans.
However, Stone’s clinical, self-serving appraisal of his actions raised many questions — questions that were not asked by the discussion facilitator, the South African bishop Desmond Tutu, and which the format of the programme did not facilitate.
Loyalist violence, although serving a specific counter- insurgency purpose during the conflict, was largely motivated by an intense, frightening sectarian hatred within a section of the loyalist/unionist community.
This communal hatred was largely absent from within the nationalist communities — something the BBC has never admitted.
Indeed, on occasions when this has been publicly stated, fierce reaction has caused a speedy retraction.
Irish president Mary McAleese’s comments comparing indoctrination against Jews in Nazi Germany to the attitude of some Protestants towards Catholics in the North and similar comments by the Redemptorist priest Alex Reid last year are notable examples.
Relatives of loyalist and state violence watching would have been only too aware of the painful inadequacy of the BBC coverage last week.
Many would have asked why one family’s suffering was being exposed to the glare of the media stoplight while their own family’s experience remained hidden.
Gerard McErlane, a 54-year-old from Poleglass on the outskirts of west Belfast, was one such relative.
“After watching the BBC show, I phoned several radio and television producers and asked what criteria they used to decide which families would feature on their programmes. Not one of them could give me an answer,” he said.
On May 23, 1975, Gerard McErlane’s 29-year-old brother John and 19-year-old brother Thomas were shot dead in Mount Vernon in north Belfast by Ulster Volunteer Force members.
The two brothers had been playing cards with work associates in a flat when two gunmen burst in and ordered the occupants to lie face down on the floor.
John and Thomas McErlane were shot twice in the head.
Gerard McErlane said: “I can still vividly remember what they looked like when I saw them afterwards — the colour of their nails, the way their hair was combed, the shoes they were wearing.
“The murders left me numb.
“I had just married one month before the shootings and, when I look at my wedding photos, it seems like yesterday I saw them last.”
Looking back, the most haunting experience of Gerard McErlane’s life was watching his mother suffer in grief until she died of cancer, 28 years after the murders.
“It was the hardest thing for me.
“My father died eight years after the deaths.
“My mother lived on and never celebrated a thing in her life afterwards.
“There were no Christmases, no birthdays and not much sleep — only absence and pain.
“She never suffered physically from the cancer that killed her. What I saw in her face before the final breath was the similar expression of grief.
“I was relieved for her. It would have been easier if she had died with them,” he said.
“After 30 years of feeling numb, I began asking questions.
“A part of me that had been deadened was brought to life last year and, although I have no hatred or bitterness for those who killed my brothers, the frustration has sometimes proven too much. I pray a lot and it has helped.”
Gerard McErlane’s numbness cleared after the murder of Robert McCartney, killed in January last year after a brawl in a Belfast bar.
“Our family grew up in the Short Strand, where Robert’s mother and father lived. They were good people.
“After Robert died, the McCartney family received more publicity in three days than we received in 30 years.
“When I started thinking about how the media and politicians manipulate families’ feelings, highlighting one murder while ignoring others to suit a political agenda, it made me feel ill,” he said.
The comparison that Gerard McErlane drew between the McCartney murder and his two brothers’ fate added to the hurt.
“Robert was murdered after a bar brawl.
“John was persuaded, over many months, to go to the card school in Mount Vernon. Thomas was also persuaded to go after nothing happened to John for the first number of months.
“But once they both went, they were murdered,” he said.
In February 1978, a 22-year-old man from Rathcoole, already serving an 11-year term for armed robberies, was convicted and given two life sentences for the murders.
A second man was convicted for the two brothers’ murders and for the murder of a third man.
“There was more than two people involved in that murder, and no one else has ever been charged,” Gerard McErlane said.
If he had an opportunity to meet the killers, the retired Housing Executive officer said he would look into their eyes and ask them one thing: “Do you ever think about what you did? Are you ever haunted at night by their faces, the way my mother was until she died?”
Gerard McErlane doubts whether the killers ever showed remorse but is thankful the deaths were quick.
“They probably went to the pub, watched it on the news and congratulated themselves on a job well down.
“For them, they were just two less taigs to deal with.
“But the deaths were quick, unlike those who died at the hands of the Shankill butchers.
“Many Catholics were taken back to ‘romper rooms’ in loyalist clubs and tortured slowly to death.
“I’m thankful that didn’t happen,” he said.
Gerard McErlane is still disturbed by the nature of loyalist violence.
“When Fr Reid and Mary McAleese said what they said about the way Catholics have been treated, they were revealing the truth.
“Catholics were not brought up to hate like that,” he said.
Asked whether it would help if this was recognised in wider society, he said: “Anything that reveals the truth surrounding my brothers’ killings would help.
“What happened was evil, and a society that harbours evil instead of engaging its legacy serves only to prolong the pain.”
Last year, Gerard McErlane met representatives of the Republic’s Department of Foreign Affairs with a view to meeting senior members of the Southern state regarding the murders.
He has yet to receive a reply to his request.
“My family was not the only family that has suffered.
“I would be happy to be part of a big delegation.
“I feel a truth won for one family is a truth won for all families imprisoned in the past,” he said.

Daily Ireland

By Jarlath Kearney
13/03/2006

Hundreds of mourners from across Ireland descended on the Co Donegal town of Buncrana on Saturday for the funeral service of Albert Fullerton.
Mr Fullerton was the son of Sinn Féin councillor Eddie Fullerton, who was murdered by a pro-British death squad 15 years ago.
Since his father’s murder in May 1991, Albert Fullerton spearheaded the family’s campaign for the truth about the episode.
The Fullerton family has consistently campaigned for a public independent inquiry into collusion and cover-up in the murder by both the British and Irish authorities.
Albert Fullerton was seriously injured early last Monday when the van he was driving crashed outside Letterkenny. He was on life-support until Thursday afternoon, and his vital organs were donated.
A Sinn Féin guard of honour accompanied Mr Fullerton’s tricolour-draped coffin on Saturday. The national flag remained in place throughout the funeral proceedings inside Cockhill Church.
Senior Sinn Féin members, including vice-president Pat Doherty and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, also attended.
Following the funeral Mass, Mr Fullerton’s close friend Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, the Sinn Féin mayor of Buncrana, delivered an oration in the adjoining graveyard.
The councillor described Mr Fullerton as “a great family man”.
“We all have individual memories of Albert – the rock and roller guitarist; the joker always winding us up and cracking jokes when we were trying to be serious, the strong and loyal friend.
“But most of all, we remember Albert Fullerton as the inspirational campaigner for truth and justice for his beloved father, Eddie Fullerton.
“Albert knew from day one when his father was murdered, that those who carried out their dirty work did not act alone.
“He knew that the amount of detailed intelligence necessary to have taken over a home and gained access to a semi-detached home at the very end of a cul-de-sac in Cockhill Park in territory totally unfamiliar to the killers and for them then to escape across the border unimpeded posed very serious questions.
“In the absence of an adequate Garda investigation, Albert took on the role of investigator. He spoke to literally dozens of witnesses and potential witnesses over the years trying to put together pieces of the jigsaw. Key witnesses emerged because of their admiration for Albert’s integrity and decency.
“He refused to accept that this was just an ordinary murder. And because of his incredible commitment and love for his father, we now all know that was absolutely right,” Mr Mac Lochlainn said.
Mr Mac Lochlainn declared that, as a result of Albert Fullerton’s efforts, the campaign for truth and justice into Eddie Fullerton’s 1991 murder would never falter.
“If there are those who believe that, with the passing of Albert Fullerton comes the passing of truth and justice for his family and the community that loved him and his father, then they are sadly mistaken.
“I want to send a clear message from this graveside today that the Eddie Fullerton justice campaign will continue until all of those responsible, including right up to the doors of 10 Downing Street, take responsibility for the murder, Mr Mac Lochlainn said.

Daily Ireland

- Evidence destroyed to ‘save UVF figure employed by Special Branch’ - Initial PSNI investigation now probed by Police Ombudsman - Father of murdered teenager says: ‘It stinks to high heaven’
By Jarlath Kearney
13/03/2006

Evidence that could have implicated a senior mid-Ulster Ulster Volunteer Force member in the targeting of Catholics was destroyed because the loyalist is a Special Branch agent, it was alleged last night.
The controversy centres on the cut-throat murders of Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine in Tandragee, Co Armagh, on February 19, 2000.
An informed source has told Daily Ireland that the PSNI has destroyed an electoral register marked with targeting information about Catholics and recovered during follow-up searches after the double murder.
The source also alleged that the destruction of the marked electoral register was officially known at a senior level in the PSNI. No one was ever charged with illegally possessing the marked electoral register before it was destroyed.
However, Daily Ireland understands that the document may have been linked to a senior UVF member who has never been arrested in connection with the murders or subsequent investigations. This person is believed to be a top Special Branch agent in or around Co Armagh.
News that the document had been destroyed only emerged after a new senior investigating officer was appointed to reinvestigate the double murder. Since the new officer began a reinvestigation last autumn, two people have been charged in connection with the murders. It emerged two weeks ago that forensic evidence, including DNA samples, linking a different suspect with the murdered teenagers had also turned up.
Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan is conducting an investigation of the original RUC/PSNI investigation.
On Saturday, the mid-Ulster UVF issued a public statement denying that the organisation had sanctioned the murders in 2000. The UVF said it fully supported the campaign for truth and justice by the two dead men’s relatives.
Asked to comment on the latest allegations last night, David McIlwaine’s father Paul told Daily Ireland he believed a senior UVF member at the centre of the affair had been protected because he was a Special Branch agent.
“This is absolutely disgusting news and vindicates all of the fears we expressed about the original investigation from day one. It stinks to high heaven,” he said.
“I have a lot of confidence in the new senior investigating officer appointed last year.
“I am relieved that someone in the PSNI is being honest with us.
“It is totally unacceptable that there was evidence there at the start which could and should have been acted upon but which was not.
“It is my belief that this Special Branch agent would have certainly ordered and possibly taken part in the killings and that they did so of their own volition and without any authority from the UVF leadership.
“I also understand that this person was questioned by the UVF leadership at the time and in fact lied to them, denying any knowledge of the killings.
“Before this latest information emerged, I would have accepted that we could have put a lot of the deficiencies in the original investigation down to gross negligence or incompetence of the highest level.
“However, I am now 100 per cent of the belief that the person at the centre of this entire episode — who has never been arrested in relation to the case — is a police agent who has been protected,” he said.
“I have lodged a formal complaint with the Police Ombudsman about the original investigation.”
Mark Thompson of the Belfast-based group Relatives for Justice said there were now “serious and outstanding questions that need to be addressed about this affair as a matter of urgency”.
“We are calling on the Policing Board to initiate a fully independent public inquiry into both the killing of David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb and into a series of highly questionable practices in terms of the conduct of senior PSNI members,” said Mr Thompson.
Sinn Féin policing spokesman Gerry Kelly told Daily Ireland the affair was “an appalling episode of political policing”.
“All of this appears to have been done to cover up the involvement of a Special Branch agent at the centre of this affair who has yet to be brought to justice,” Mr Kelly said.
The Belfast North assembly member criticised the Policing Board and the PSNI over the affair.
He said his party would raise the latest developments with British prime minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, as well as with Nuala O’Loan.
A PSNI spokesperson told Daily Ireland: “As the initial investigation into this case is currently under investigation by the office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, it would be inappropriate for PSNI to comment further at this time.”

Sinn Féin

Published: 13 March, 2006

Sinn Féin policing spokesperson, North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly has dismissed the announcement of new make of the Policing Board today by British Secretary of State Peter Hain as the establishment of ‘another quango’ when what is needed is ‘democratic accountability’.

Mr Kelly said:

“In four years the previous Policing Board failed to end political policing or tackle collusion and failed to hold the political detectives publicly to account.

“The members of this Board have all been appointed by the British Secretary of State. This is not what Patten recommended. We need democratic accountability not another quango.

“The requirement for a democratically accountable civic policing service has yet to be delivered. That is achievable through the transfer of powers on policing and justice to a restored local Assembly and Executive, within an all-Ireland framework.” ENDS

BN.ie

13/03/2006 - 13:45:26

The British government has announced the make up of the North’s new 19-member Policing Board.

The body includes four members appointed by the DUP and two each appointed by the SDLP and the UUP.

The other members, meanwhile, include Dawn Purvis, the chairperson of the Political Unionist Party, which has links to the Ulster Volunteer Force.

Also included are former Irish rugby international Trevor Ringland, who is now a member of the UUP, and Derry businessman Brendan Duddy, who was a go-between in talks between the British authorities and the republican movement at several key moments in the Troubles.

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
13 March 2006

An electoral register found in the home of a UVF murder suspect with bullet shapes drawn beside some names was later destroyed by police, it emerged today.

The apparent hit list was discovered six years ago during searches associated with the hunt for the killers of Portadown teenagers Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine.

The document was found in the home of a UVF suspect shortly after the two teenagers were found with their throats cut beside a rural road near Tandragee in February 2000. The suspect’s girlfriend told police that the list came from the home of a local UVF leader, but no one was charged in connection with the document.

It was later destroyed by police. The PSNI was asked yesterday if the destruction was routine procedure or if it contravened any rules about the handling of evidence, but a spokeswoman said police could not comment because an investigation by the Police Ombudsman is still under way.

The destruction of the partial electoral register is the latest in a series of incidents that have posed questions about the official handling of the case. They include:

The recent discovery of DNA and other forensic evidence that had not been acted upon for six years;
the revelation that a police officer phoned a UVF leader - the same one alleged to have supplied the list - on the morning the bodies were discovered; and the failure to hold an inquest into the apparent suicide of one of the chief suspects who had been under the protection of the same UVF commander.

A Police Ombudsman inquiry into the case had been ready to conclude that police conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the murders, but David McIlwaine’s father Paul recently asked the Ombudsman to revisit the case because of the revelations about DNA evidence.

He was told about the list’s destruction recently by PSNI detectives who have made a number of breakthroughs in the case over the past year. He says he believes the names marked with bullet shapes were Catholics living in the Tandragee area and did not directly relate to the double murder, but it is not clear if any warnings were issued after its discovery

“I’m pleased with the progress that’s been made recently, but I still want to known why something of a crucial nature wasn’t acted upon,” he said.

The PSNI spokeswoman said: “As the initial investigation into this case is currently under investigation by the office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, it would be inappropriate for PSNI to comment further at this time.

“Two people have been arrested and charged in connection with the murders of Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine in February 2000. They are due to appear in court in due course.”

On Friday, the UVF called on witnesses to co-operate with police saying the murders were not sanctioned by the UVF leadership.

The Blanket

**Via Newshound

John Hanley • Forum Magazine, 2 March 2006

In 1996 MI5 assigned agent David Rupert the task of infiltrating dissident republican circles in Ireland. Rupert’s priceless intelligence gave MI5 an indispensable insight in to the membership and modus operandi of both dissident republican groups on either side of the border. Throughout his stay in Ireland Rupert forwarded all of the relevant intelligence he had acquired to MI5 via encrypted e-mails. Between 1997 and 2001 Rupert posted 2166 e-mails to his paymasters in British intelligence.

On 11 April 1998 Rupert dispatched his most controversial e-mail to MI5 headquarters. It was almost five months before the now infamous maroon Vauxhall Cavalier would decimate the centre of Omagh town and kill 29 people. For this reason the e-mail is all the more startling because in it Rupert informed MI5 that a dissident republican group was planning a car bomb attack in Omagh [E-mail 104, 11-04-98].

>>Read on

Village

SIPTU members are sacked in Kildare, as Irish companies seek to engage low-wage workers

by Scott Millar
Thursday, March 2, 2006

Twenty two members of the SIPTU trade union have been sacked at a construction firm in Rathangan, Co Kildare. Their union claims their sacking is part of a workers “displacement” programme, being conducted by the firm, Doyle Concrete.
Mediation talks between the company and SIPTU began on Tuesday 28 February.
Anthony Lawlor, who was sacked after 13 years working at Doyle’s said: “Early last year the company hired five Eastern European lads. The starting rate for Doyle’s Concrete was €10.50, most people were on around €13 an hour. But they had these Eastern European guys in on €8.50 an hour and they weren’t paying them over time rates on fixed contracts of 50 hours. I approached management to ask them did they intend treating the new workers on the same basis as their colleagues. They said they did and their was no hidden agenda”.
In September last year, Lawlor and three other long serving workers were laid off by the company. SIPTU members at the company went on strike in support of their colleagues. After a seven week strike the Labour Court ruled in favour of the workers and made a recommendation that all workers, whatever their nationality should have the same wages and conditions.
Last month the company said it was officially closing it’s Doyle Concrete business, which made kerbs and other concrete castings. However in the run up to this decision the company transferred it’s non-union staff, including the new lower paid Eastern European workers, to another company, Doyle Steelite metal fabrication company. Both companies are based on the same site and are owned by the same family. Until this year workers regularly transferred on a daily basis between the two. A separate Steelite entrance was built since the beginning of this year.
Some of the workers sacked had over 30 years of service at the business and say it will be impossible to find other work in the local area. Lawlor said: “the remaining workforce has gone from one that was mainly unionised to largely non-union. They are after discovering how easy it is to replace us with cheap labour and are trying to crush the union”.
Doyle’s would not comment on the closure that they have blamed on the previous strike action.
Trade unionists say similar stories to those of the Doyle Concrete workers lie hidden in last weeks Central Statistics Office figures. These showed a drop in Irish national manufacturing jobs by 19,000 in the 12 months to November last year. Non-nationals took up 7,500 of these jobs. A net of 800 Irish national jobs also went in the catering sector. Evidence arriving to the trade union movement indicates that it is those workers with a long service history, which usually means a rate of pay that has increased over years, which some employers are most eager to displace. Conversely it is often such workers that find it most difficult to retrain or motivate themselves to find new forms of employment. Such workers are also the most likely to be unionised.
Mike Jennings, SIPTU Eastern Regional secretary, “Pure greed is what is driving this. It doesn’t do anybody any good to tell people it is all a figment of their imagination, ignore the problem or dismiss it as mere anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately the reality is displacement is happening. It is still a minority of employers but it will become impossible for competitive reasons for decent employers not to go down that road if we do not recognise it and confront it”.
The first workers to suffer widespread displacement, in what trade unionists have termed as the ‘race to the bottom’, are already employed migrant workers. Largely non-unionised they must now compete with others willing to be paid less and accept lesser conditions.
Trade union membership by migrant workers is often strongly opposed. Cavan Box Company started to employ Lithuanians and the union attempted to organised them. Recently the company is hiring only Poles. The company is refusing to operate the check off system of deducting union dues at source for the new workers. The new workers claim to be being paid less than their Irish counterparts.
A survey by the Irish Migrant Rights Centre has also shown the effects that the displacement of Irish mushroom pickers by workers mainly from Latvia and Lithuanian has had already. Their 2005 survey found that piecework payment rates in the industry now meant that a worker had to pick 53 per cent more mushrooms in an hour to reach the minimum wage than they had to two years ago. Eastern European workers are now being displaced in some farms by new Asians workers.
SIPTU national organiser Noel Dowling is clear that a dual trade union strategy of persuading government to enforcement existing legalisation and organising the new work force is necessary. He said: “The trade union movement must seek to organise the new work force. If exploitation, by that I mean paying less to foreign workers than their Irish colleagues can be dealt with displacement is no longer a problem. The real difficulty in even telling this story is that it is portrayed as xenophobic. In fairness to employers they will happily exploit people regardless of their nationality. What we are trying to do is ensure all people irrespective of background employed here should be on the same wages and conditions that people have fought to establish”.

Village

**Via Newshound

by Colm Heatley
Thursday, March 2, 2006

There are only a few hundred involved in dissident republicanism despite efforts to recruit disaffected youth in Northern Ireland. Colm Heatley reports
“Sinn Féin don’t care about us, all they want are votes and then you won’t see them again, they do nothing for republicans”, says Ciaran a 21 year-old from the Fisherwick estate in Ballymena.
He used to put up Sinn Féin election posters but now he supports Republican Sinn Féin and sympathises with the RIRA and CIRA. It is estimated there are 2-300 in the RIRA and not more than 200 on the CIRA.
Five of his friends from the Fisherwick estate were arrested last year and charged with explosive offences related to a RIRA firebomb campaign in Co Antrim. The oldest was 29, the others were aged between 20 and 22.
He thinks Sinn Féin has “sold out” and the only people doing anything to advance the “republican cause” are those in the 32-County Sovereignty Committee and Republican Sinn Féin.
Since the Good Friday Agreement and particularly since last September’s IRA decommissioning the dissident groups have been recruiting heavily amongst young nationalists across Ireland.
In Northern Ireland they have had most success in areas where Catholics are outnumbered by Protestants and where there is little history of IRA activity, places such as Ballymena and Antrim town. In areas such as west Belfast the dissidents have had virtually no success when faced with a well organised Sinn Féin constituency. Their recruitment drives are simplistic and play upon the disenchantment and deprivation felt by young nationalists.
Using a mixture of old-fashioned republican rhetoric and lending a sympathetic ear to the concerns of young people faced with unemployment, loyalist attack and general anomie the dissidents have had some limited success.
When the RIRA was formed in 1997 following the IRA’s reinstatement of its ceasefire in July of that year a number of senior provisionals defected to the new group. Amongst them were senior bomb-makers, seasoned gunmen and members who had provided logistical support over long periods.
But a series of successes by the Garda and PSNI, long jail sentences, internal feuding (the RIRA’s leader Liam Campbell was beaten up in Portlaoise jail the week before the riots) and an almost complete lack of support from within republican areas convinced many older republican activists to part company with the group.
When the dissidents began reorganising last summer they were aware that they could not mount any significant attacks and since then their tactics have switched to encouraging their young supporters to riot with the PSNI. Last year young supporters of the CIRA in Lurgan, Co Armagh, rioted with the police for two consecutive nights. There had been no event to trigger off the riots and it later emerged that the CIRA had tried to plant a car bomb in the town during the disturbances.
This week Republican Sinn Féin’s vice-President Des Dalton said he viewed the riot as a ‘dry run’ for the possible visit of the British Queen to Dublin later this year.
“We view Saturday’s march as a dry run for the visit”, he said. “The Queen and what she represents is not welcome. We will continue to protest against such a visit.”
The dissidents clearly see such street protests as the best vehicle for advancing their aims.
As Sinn Féin moves further towards mainstream politics the dissidents have attempted to capitalise on grass-roots resentment in working-class areas.
That claim is hotly disputed by Sinn Féin, but some republicans regard its stance on Saturday’s parade, ‘everyone has the right to march wherever they want’, as out of step with grass-roots opinion.
Sinn Féin has actively campaigned against loyalist parades in Northern Ireland for a number of years on the basis that they must seek the consent of the host community.
Dissident republicans though remain a micro-group within Irish society.
They do not contest elections in Northern Ireland and most republicans view them as a “talking shop”.
Their republican credentials have been tarnished by their involvement in the Omagh bombing and by allegations that senior members of the RIRA conducted an arms deal with the Loyalist Volunteer Force in 2001.
Furthermore their lack of a realistic alternative to the peace process and an insistence upon a return to “armed struggle” has led to a wide-spread rejection of their politics in war-weary nationalist areas.
Significantly they receive far more support in the South where nationalists have not been subjected to loyalist paramilitary attack.
Ruari O’Bradaigh’s leadership of Republican Sinn Féin is also regarded as a major dent to the credibility within wider republican circles.
O’Bradaigh was instrumental in supporting the IRA’s 1975 ceasefire, which with hindsight, many republicans now view as a disastrous episode in the IRA’s history.
They believe the IRA was duped and the British government used the truce to build up intelligence and better co-ordinate their strategy against the IRA. However the dissidents have provided a home for some younger nationalists.
Pete Shirlow, a lecturer at the University of Ulster, has conducted extensive research into post-ceasefire attitudes among young people.
“In areas where republicanism hasn’t been so strong the push toward politics for young nationalists hasn’t been strong either”, he says.
“In such circumstances young people have put nationalism above politics.
“To the supporters dialogue is a closed-off option, representing weakness.”
The forthcoming marching season in the North will present further opportunities for dissident republicans.

Irelandclick

Biding time before the next elections

Mr McDowell and the Taoiseach both claim that they had no idea there would be trouble in Dublin over the Orange march up O’Connell street. They say that their intelligence reports indicated that it was going to be a walk in the park, and so the Garda presence was deliberately light.
Yet they both also claim that the trouble was orchestrated and pre-meditated, with gangs arriving, prepared with trolley loads of bottles and other missiles.
The idea of an Orange march up the middle of Dublin passing off without protest or incident was always going to be highly unlikely, so I am not surprised that the word went out and gangs of youths boxed each other off about where to be, when to be there and what to bring.
I know that teenage sons of some of my friends in Dublin received such text messages, which they duly ignored. And we have seen in recent days copies of emails that were sent out, and websites that carried similar calls to riot, re-printed in some of the national newspapers.
I can understand completely why the youths wanted to go to Dublin city centre and have a go at the loyalists, or even the Gardaí – might have done so myself 30 years ago – but I cannot figure out how Michael McDowell, Bertie Ahern and the Garda intelligence service did not get word of it themselves.
If leaflets were distributed outside schools during the previous week, don’t the children of Gardaí go to school as well? If text messages and emails were exchanged, are we to believe that none of them made their way to the attention of the Gardaí, in any shape or form?
If the Gardaí – through their intelligence services (translated as whatever gossip was going in Harcourt Street of a night) or otherwise – knew that trouble was likely but nothing was done about it, then serious questions have to be asked. Like, was there a conspiracy to allow the rioters free reign of the city for a while in order to discredit republicans? Worse still, did the powers hear whispers of trouble but just decided to do nothing?
On the other hand, if the McDowell, Ahern and Garda intelligence really did believe that there was no trouble to be expected on the occasion of the first ever Orange march up O’Connell Street, then perhaps they are just incompetent. Criminally incompetent. So incompetent that it is inconceivable they would be let run a kindergarten, never mind a state. So incompetent that in any civilised society they would have resigned already.
But how they can say that no trouble was expected, yet the trouble was pre-meditated and orchestrated is beyond me. Perhaps they really don’t know about sectarianism…
Meanwhile, the two governments are ‘hopeful’ of swift progress on the Northern assembly front. I bet you a dig in the head this means going for Paisley’s preferred option of a shadow assembly with no fixed date for the return of powers to northern institutions until agreement is reached concerning the nature of their return. Despite the fact that everyone from David Trimble to Martin Ferris is against it.
Which means that there will be no return of power in the North until Paisley says so.
Sinn Féin have already rejected this proposal stating that they would prefer the assembly to be scrubbed altogether and the MLAs’ salaries stopped. But Sinn Féin know they will not be able to reject the shadow assembly if and when the Brits set it up, with the support of the Leinster House lot. They will just have to be dragged, kicking and screaming into it and hope that it can be edged forward towards the re-establishing of real power later on.
The shadow assembly will be a talking shop, serving no-one’s purpose except that of Ian Paisley and the two government leaders.
Blair does not want to push Paisley too far away these days because he does not know when he might need to make a deal with him for support in Westminster.
And Ahern is not going to push for any set up in the North that will make Sinn Féin look good. Why should he help his own political opponents with an election coming up and the campaign already underway?
Paisley won’t share power with Sinn Féin in the Northern Assembly and Executive because he knows what they are up to. Firm and efficient political institutions, North and South, could be encouraged to grow closer to each other over the years, especially as economics and social services and health and even policing evolve. Especially if Sinn Féin are in government in both jurisdictions.
And Paisley doesn’t care a damn if Sinn Féin get into government because the people voted for them, or that institutions evolve into one because that is a more effective way of working. His only interest is in keeping the Shinners out of power in the Six Counties.
Better than the assembly as far as I can see – or, as well as the assembly, the preferred option – would be for the Irish government to allow all Northern MPs the right to sit in the Dáil. We should have this right already and it is not the British government, not 800 years of oppression, nor perfidious Albion that is denying us. It is the Irish government. The Irish government for whatever reason, continues to ban Irish citizens in Ireland from returning elected representatives to the national parliament, Dáil Éireann.
This is an in between period, time to tread water, take a breath and prepare.
One way or another, there will be elections to the Stormont assembly either this year or early next year.
We know there will be elections to the Dáil next May.
And the elections for the re-organised local government is going to be crucial.
Democrats who seek justice and equality are impatient, and rightly so.
We want our better way soon. Now.
But this is the time to be patient, to tread water, to prepare. The big battles on the electoral front are on their way and the fallout may well change everything.
Utterly.