SAOIRSE32

Times Online

European Briefing by Carl Mortished
April 19, 2006

THERE were two Easter parades in Dublin last weekend. The first military parade for more than three decades to mark the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule was well attended (it didn’t rain) and even the doubters proclaimed it tasteful and inclusive, with Britain’s Ambassador on the reviewing stand.

It was a triumph for the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s strategy of pulling the ceremonial rug from under Sinn Fein, a party whose recent electoral success in the Irish Republic poses a threat to the political and financial establishment. Mr Ahern wants to steal Sinn Fein’s republican clothes — but even Sinn Fein realises that the real Irish debate has moved on.

The question today is not whether politicians stand metaphorically shoulder to shoulder with the rebels of 1916, but whether they are a part of the new Ireland of tax havens, million-euro homes and rampant consumerism.

Sinn Fein’s Easter march, held a day before the official Sunday parade, was an unprepossessing affair. A few hundred-strong, clad in cheap tracksuits, black berets and dark glasses, they looked embarrassing as they drummed and whistled their way past chic boutiques, bemused tourists and sated shoppers.

The Sinn Fein banners bore the usual 1916 nationalism, but the marchers’ unspoken complaint is that the Celtic Tiger has passed them by. Ireland is rich — unemployment is 4.5 per cent, half the European Union average, and its income per capita is higher than the UK’s and on a par with Sweden’s. Yet the new wealth of this land of tax accountants, offshore assembly plants and financial intermediaries does not trickle down easily to the poor.

More worrying is evidence of Ireland’s dependence on the screwdriver plants of foreign multinationals to create jobs and pay bills. A recent study by economists at Trinity College, Dublin, of the effect of globalisation on the Irish economy revealed that American companies accounted for 77 per cent of the Republic’s total exports, with domestic-owned firms accounting for less than a tenth of the total. Moreover, in 2002 foreign multinational investors paid €2.6 billion in corporation taxes to the Irish Government, 56 per cent of the total paid by companies in that year and almost 10 per cent of all tax collected.

That would hardly matter if one believed that Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and GlaxoSmithKline were in thrall to the unrivalled skill and productivity of Irish workers or, at the very least, retained an extraordinary affection for Ireland’s climate and cuisine.

The study, by Philip Lane and Frances Ruane, suggests that foreign investors may be drawn for pecuniary reasons. The foreign multinationals earned a yield of 17.5 per cent on their Irish investments in 2003, more than twice the rate of profitability scored by Irish firms investing money overseas. The economists reckon that the enviable rate of return scored on Irish investments is in part due to an overstatement of profits, “the result of the tax-planning activities of multinational corporations, in recognition of Ireland’s status as a low-tax regime”.

To put it bluntly, US corporations are exporting profits to Ireland, transferring by a simple process of book-keeping the locus of added-value in the sale of a computer, reckoning that Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate makes it a more rewarding profit centre than the US or most European countries, including Britain.

This is not sustainable and the Irish Treasury’s golden goose could be strangled more quickly than Common Agricultural Policy subsidies. Even among Irish-American senators in Washington, such a huge subsidy to a foreign government will not stand. What will happen to Dublin’s smart set, the bankers and lawyers and the shoppers at Brown Thomas, an establishment so chic that it makes Selfridges look tawdry? They will survive, but for Mr Ahern, the real worry must be the one in ten who vote Sinn Fein. Their numbers will grow.

BN.ie

18/04/2006 - 18:51:42

Northern Secretary Peter Hain tonight denied there was any prospect of the Irish and British governments jointly ruling the North in the event of no power-sharing government at Stormont.

As the British government prepared to introduce an emergency Bill in Westminster on Thursday to facilitate efforts to revive power sharing this year, the Northern Secretary reassured Conservative and Democratic Unionist MPs that there were no plans for joint authority from Dublin and London.

Mr Hain told Shadow Northern Ireland spokesman David Lidington: “There is no question of joint authority, absolutely no question of joint authority or joint government at all.

“There is plenty of scope for practical co-operation provided through the architecture of the Good Friday Agreement endorsed by a vote by the people of Northern Ireland, cross border co-operation across a number of areas on energy, the economy, on child offending, on getting rid of unfair mobile-phone roaming charges and having a single all-island mobile phone rate.

“On all those issues and many more, there is tremendous scope for future co-operation and, indeed, much of it is already taking place but there is no question of joint authority at all.”

Mr Hain was responding to concerns that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s blueprint for reviving devolution by November 24 this year offered a bigger stick to unionists than republicans if they were unable to meet the deadline set for forming a multi-party executive this year.

Democratic Unionist deputy leader Peter Robinson accused Mr Ahern and Mr Blair of issuing a crass, foolish threat to Unionists which was contrary to the concept of any principle of consent in the North.

Mr Robinson told MPs today: “I hope the Secretary of State will make it very clear that there will be no constitutional change (to the status of Northern Ireland within the UK) as a result of the Provisional IRA not meeting the deadline that is set for November 24.”

The East Belfast MP also claimed that one of the weaknesses in the plan for reviving devolved government in the North by November 24 was its belief that unionists could be forced into a government featuring Sinn Féin by imposing a timetable for progress.

“The issue is not to be determined by the clock but whether various conditions have been met,” the former Stormont Regional Development Minister insisted.

“It will be determined by whether paramilitary and criminal activity has ended and that is the critical factor as far as this party is concerned.

“We want to move into devolution. We want to have an executive in Northern Ireland but the principle of the mandate that we have indicates that we can only share power with those who are committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.”

Both Mr Robinson and Mr Lidington noted the roadmap from the two governments for devolution had been released in between two events in which the Provisional IRA was suspected of having involvement: the murder of former Sinn Féin official turned spy Denis Donaldson in Co Donegal and a heist on a lorry carrying vodka.

Mr Hain, however, insisted that it was significant that in its Easter statement issued last week the Provisional IRA distanced itself from former republicans engaged in criminal activity.

Mr Hain told MPs that the emergency bill, which would be rushed through parliament over the next week, needed to be passed quickly to enable MLAs to have two attempts at forming a power-sharing executive this year.

The Assembly will be recalled on May 15 with the express purpose of trying to elect First and Deputy First Ministers at Stormont on a cross-community basis and a power-sharing government within six weeks.

However, if it was apparent that no executive could be formed before the summer recess, all 108 Assembly members would be given a further 12-week period in the autumn to complete the task.

The Northern Secretary also confirmed the Assembly would be given the opportunity before the formation of an executive to consider issues affecting their constituents including water charges, education reform, the economy and the review of public administration.

Orders in Council affecting Northern Ireland could also be referred to the Assembly, he signalled, for consideration.

Mr Hain added: “Ministers will naturally be willing to take account of views on such matters, if they are provided on a cross-community basis.

“It would be preferable to all democrats that the parties were quickly to take up the mantle of government so that the decisions which affect the every day lives of people in Northern Ireland were taken by locally accountable politicians.

“However, in the meantime, I will not delay in implementing vital reforms which this government considers essential to the better running of Northern Ireland.

“While these decisions may not always be popular, they are necessary in the public interest, to put Northern Ireland on the road to becoming world-class.”

Eamon De Valera observes 40th anniversary of the Easter Uprising

>>Click here

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Belfast Telegraph

By Brian Walker
18 April 2006

Battle commences today to try to force NIO ministers to change their minds over replacing the 26 district councils with seven “super councils”.

Most political parties in the province believe the move will amount to a “repartition of Northern Ireland.”

MPs returning from the Easter break are debating a Government order to appoint a new boundary commissioner and assistant commissioners to divide new council areas into 60 wards.

The seven council solution recommended by the review of pubic administration and approved by Peter Hain is supported only by Sinn Fein.

Ministers’ claim that 62% of those consulted by the review approved the seven council solution has already been dismissed by both unionist parties and the SDLP as a fix.

New council boundaries will be based on amalgamations of present council districts as follows:

Coleraine, Ballymoney, Moyle, Ballymena and Larne.

Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey, Antrim and Lisburn City, in a “croissant”, much disliked by both unionist parties for lacking a common identity and natural accountability.

North Down, Newtownards, Castlereagh, Down, provoking SDLP criticism for Down’s remoteness and different political allegiance from the others.

Newry and Mourne, Craigavon, Banbridge and Armagh.

Omagh, Dungannon and South Tyrone, Fermanagh and Cookstown, containing some bitter rivals.

Derry City Council area, Limavady, Strabane and Magherafelt.

Belfast would remain intact as the province’s only hung council.

The new council carve-up is closely tied up with the Assembly’s recall from May 15.

The Government is hinting that the parties could influence the shape and role of the councils if only they could agree on a form of government.

A local government task force has already been formed to drive the changes through by 2008.

Mr Hain has already invited the parties to contribute.

Today, MPs will only be able to vote for or against the order but not to make changes to it.

The committee session begins a fortnight’s intensive activity at Westminster to pass laws needed for Assembly sittings from May 15 to November 24 and to call a snap election if the Secretary of State so decides.

BN.ie

18/04/2006 - 10:52:03

Education Minister Mary Hanafin has announced plans to improve the teaching of Irish in schools around the country.

Ms Hanafin told the annual conference of the Irish National Teachers Organisation today that a team of 30 language experts would be appointed to help teachers improve their Irish.

She also said a number of summer camps would be established to encourage children aged between 10 and 13 to take part in fun activities through Irish.

The INTO has welcomed the move.

“For quite a number of years, we have been demanding extra resources for the actual teaching of the spoken language to take the emphasis away from reading and writing,” spokesman Denis Bohane said.

“Teachers will welcome any assistance they are given to improve their skills.”

Newshound

(Claire Simpson, Irish News)

A former IRA prisoner has complained that visitors were prevented from seeing republican inmates in Maghaberry jail yesterday (Sunday) because they were wearing Easter lilies.

Paddy Murray (43), who was part of the group, said they had passed two security checks before they were stopped by a guard.

“There were a load of visitors who went to see republican prisoners,” he said.

“They were wearing Easter lilies. They got through the first two security checks okay and then one of [the officers] stopped them and said they couldn’t go through because the lilies were sectarian.”

Mr Murray, of the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Group, said he did not understand why the group was refused entry.

“They went to visit republican prisoners who were on a segregated wing and have their own room.

“None of them would be offended by an Easter lily,” he said.

A spokesman from the Prison Service said visitors are subject to the same rules as prisoners.

“While shamrocks and poppies may be purchased from the prison shop and can be worn throughout the prison in the weeks leading to Remembrance Sunday and St Patrick’s Day respectively, Easter lilies may only be worn by prisoners in their cell,” he said.

April 18, 2006
________________

This article appeared first in the April 17, 2006 edition of the Irish News.

Poverty and Inequalities in Great Britain

The Condition of the Roman Catholic Minority in Northern Ireland : Bernadette Devlin’s Maiden Speech in the House of Commons (22/04/69).

(Photo from Irish Culture and Customs)

Miss Bernadette Devlin (Mid-Ulster)(1) 4.37 p.m.

I understand that in making my maiden speech on the day my arrival in Parliament and in making it on a controversial issue I flaunt the unwritten traditions of the house, but I think that the situation of my people merits the flaunting of such traditions.

I remind the Hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester Clark) that I, too, was in the Bogside area on the night that he was there. As the Hon. Gentleman rightly said, there never was born an Englishman who understands the Irish people. Thus a man who is alien to the ordinary working Irish people cannot understand them, and I therefore respectfully suggest that the Hon. Gentleman has no understanding of my people, because Catholics and Protestants are the ordinary people, the oppressed people from whom I come and whom I represent. I stand here as the youngest woman in Parliament in the same tradition as the first woman ever to be elected to this Parliament, Constance Markievicz, who was elected on behalf of the Irish people.

This debate comes much too late for the people of Ireland, since it concerns itself particularly with the action in Derry last weekend. I will do my best to dwell on the action in Derry last weekend. However, it is impossible to consider the activity of one weekend in a city such as Derry without considering the reasons why these things happen.

The Hon. Member for Londonderry said that he stood in Bogside. I wonder whether he could name the streets through which he walked in the Bogside so that we might establish just how well acquainted he became with the area. I had never hoped to see the day when I might agree with someone who represents the bigoted and sectarian Unionist Party, which uses a deliberate policy of dividing the people in order to keep the ruling minority in power and to keep the oppressed people of Ulster oppressed. I never thought I could see the day when I should agree with any phrase uttered by the representative of such a party, but the Hon. Gentleman summed up the situation “to a t.”. He referred to stark, human misery. That is what I saw in Bogside. It has been there for fifty years - and that same stark human misery is to be found in the Protestant Fountain area, which the Hon. Gentleman would claim to represent.

These are the people the hon. Gentleman would claim do want to join society. Because they are equally poverty-stricken they are equally excluded from the society which the Unionist Party represents a the society of landlords who, by ancient charter of Charles II, still hold the right of the ordinary people of Northern Ireland over such things as fishing and as paying the most ridiculous and exorbitant rents, although families have lived for generations on their land. But this is the ruling minority of landlords who, for generations, have claimed to represent one section of the people and, in order to maintain their claim, divide the people into two sections and stand up in this House to say that there are those who do not wish to join society.

The people in my country who do not wish to join the society which is represented by the hon. Member for Londonderry are by far the majority. There is no place in society for us, the ordinary “peasants” of Northern Ireland. There is no place for us in the society of landlords because we are the “have nots” and they are the “haves”.

We came to the situation in Derry when the people had had enough. Since 5th October, it has been the unashamed and deliberate policy of the Unionist Government to try to force an image on the civil rights movement that it was nothing more than a Catholic uprising. The people in the movement have struggled desperately to overcome that image, but it is impossible when the ruling minority are the Government and control not only political matters but the so-called impartial forces of law and order. It is impossible then for us to state quite fairly where we stand.

How can we way that we are a non-sectarian movement and are for the rights of both Catholics and Protestants when, clearly, we are beaten into the Catholic areas? Never have we been beaten into the Protestant areas. When the students marched from Belfast to Derry, there was a predominant number of Protestants. The number of non-Catholics was greater than the number of Catholics. Nevertheless, we were still beaten into the Catholic area because it was in the interests of the minority and the Unionist Party to establish that we were nothing more than the Catholic uprising…

(806 words)

1. Bernadette DEVLIN, Proceeding of the House of Commons, 22 April 1969. London, Hansard, p. 282-283.

BBC ON THIS DAY

17 April 1969

A 21-year-old woman, Bernadette Devlin, has become Britain’s youngest ever female MP and the third youngest MP ever.

Play video

Standing as an independent Unity candidate, Miss Devlin wrested the seat of Mid-Ulster in Northern Ireland from the Ulster Unionists.

In a straight fight she defeated Anna Forrest, the widow of the late MP George Forrest, by more than 4,000 votes.

At the last general election Mr Forrest had a majority of just over 2,500.

It was only Miss Devlin’s second foray into politics after standing against Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister, James Chichester-Clark, in February’s Stormont elections.

She polled nearly 6,000 votes against Major Chichester-Clark’s 9,000.

In Mid-Ulster Miss Devlin was helped by the constituency’s natural Catholic majority of about 4,000 and the fact that Mrs Forrest did not campaign at all.

‘Non-sectarian’

The young MP, a Catholic, has declared her sympathies with the IRA and her win has dismayed Northern Ireland’s Protestant community.

However, the Queen’s University psychology student has always said her approach is non-sectarian and she wants to promote unity among the people of Ireland.

A leading figure in the student civil rights movement, Miss Devlin said her political ambitions were only awakened last October after she took part in a march that was violently suppressed by the police.

After her victory, Miss Devlin who turns 22 next Wednesday, said she would raise issues concerning Ulster in the House of Commons.

“I was elected by the oppressed people of Ulster and I shall work for them,” she said.

She did not yet know when she would take her seat in Westminster or where, as an independent, she would sit, Miss Devlin added.

In Context

Bernadette Devlin took her seat in Westminster on her 22nd birthday.

Her maiden speech was described as “electrifying” by the Conservative MP Sir Norman St John Stevas.

Her time in the House of Commons was eventful.

She once assaulted Home Secretary Reginald Maudling and accused him of lying over the events of Bloody Sunday.

She received a nine-month prison sentence for taking part in the sectarian riots in Derry in August 1969.

However, Bernadette Devlin lost much Catholic support following the birth of an illegitimate daughter in 1971.

She did not stand for re-election in 1974 but continued to support republican causes.

In 1981 she and her husband, Michael McAliskey, survived an assassination attempt when gunmen burst into their house and shot them.