A. writes:
This is a Sky video on the British Security services MI6. The former Intelligence officer is John Hughes Wilson (white hair & glasses). He is a former senior Force Research Unit (FRU) officer (the Boss) in Northern Ireland.
Click on cryptome link for video and more photos.
There are 77,000 prisoners in jail in Britain, a state that incarcerates more people per head of population than any other European country.
Danny morrison
26/04/2006
Over breakfast at our hotel, Clive Hopwood and I talked about the panel discussion the night before and asked each other about our work. He has written almost 100 books for children and has had 20 plays performed. In recent years, he has worked in community arts and is currently the director of the Writers in Prison Network.
I said that I would like to write a play about an old people’s home. Clive said that, years ago, he had been involved in a reminiscence project with elderly people which resulted in the publication Those Were The Days.
One old lady, Beatrice Seaton, born in Derby but retired in a nursing home in Wales, told him about her Edwardian childhood, about one of her brothers dying in infancy. Then she added: “I had one teacher who tried to poison Lloyd George.”
My eyes shot open.
David Lloyd George, the man who, on December 5, 1921, issued an ultimatum to the republican delegation, including Michael Collins, that, if they didn’t sign the Treaty before 10pm, the result would be “immediate and terrible war”.
I thought: How different would history have been had Beatrice Seaton’s teacher been successful? How different would it have been had the delegation not buckled under that threat but walked away and the republican movement remained united to negotiate another day?
Beatrice had told Clive that her teacher, who was a Suffragette, had sent some poisoned chocolates to Lloyd George, who was then British prime minster but that she was caught and went to jail. Beatrice said: “And her mother — I have in mind her mother died in jail. Suffragettes were big at the time, just before the war, and she taught us a song for a concert:
“‘Don’t forget it, don’t forget it,
Soon the ladies into parliament will go,
Don’t forget it, don’t forget it,
If they do, you’ll know!’”
In opposition, Lloyd George had been a supporter of women’s rights but did little to help the cause when he was in power.
Researching the story, I discovered that Beatrice was right in the broad thrust of her recollections though she was probably referring to the case of Alice Wheeldon from Derby, her daughter Harriet Ann (who was probably the teacher), and Alice’s married daughter and son-in-law Winnie and Alfred George Mason. They were all charged with conspiring to murder Lloyd George — not with venomous Dairy Box chocolates but with poison darts. It was later alleged that the accused had been set up by British intelligence through the use of an agent provocateur and that Alice Wheeldon had been singled out because she had been hiding conscientious objectors (men who didn’t want to fight in World War I).
She was sentenced to ten years’ hard labour but was released after the war in a weakened condition. She died and was buried in an unmarked grave. Her daughter Winnie was sentenced to five years and Winnie’s husband to seven years. Harriet Ann, who had been held on remand, was acquitted.
Clive Hopwood and I had shared a platform the night before as part of Liverpool’s Writing on the Wall festival.
Clive, who was chairing the event on the subject of prison writings, quoted the observation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the author of Crime and Punishment, that, “the degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons”.
There are 77,000 prisoners in jail in Britain, a state that incarcerates more people per head of population than any other European country.
On the platform were two former prisoners, George Gardiner and Ian Galtress. With little or no experience of public speaking, they bravely read out highly personal poetry, which had helped them express their inner turmoil. One — who had been six years in care — spoke about having sniffed glue from the age of eight, mutilating and trying to hang himself. “Drugs are the enemy/Don’t have a sad life”, read Ian Galtress.
The other speaker was Erwin James, who served 20 years in British prisons (but who didn’t say what his crime was) and was released 18 months ago. Writing saved James, who was barely literate when he was arrested. Without any trace of self-pity, he tells his remarkable story in two books — A Life Inside and The Home Stretch, both of which began as published pieces in The Guardian, for which James now writes full-time.
I spoke about how political prisoners coped with jail and viewed it as both university and battlefield, though they suffered the same emotional dislocation from family and loved ones and the same personal problems as all prisoners do. As I explained the blanket protest, the hunger strike, the big escape, the IRA explosion in the Crum canteen, the loyalist rocket attack the following night on the jail, the jaws of some members of the audience (and panel) literally dropped with incredulity.
James said that, for a time, he shared a wing with a number of IRA men, including Brian Keenan and Hugh Doherty. He said republican prisoners, though few in number, were in an entirely different category. Unlike the rest of the prison population, they were clearly political prisoners, a highly disciplined and motivated group, were selfless, nothing fazed them and they did time confidently.
In A Life Inside, he writes that, in jail, where any weakness is exploited, it is rare for inmates to make friends. You enter into the “precious relationship” of “true friendship” at your peril, he said.
It made me realise how lucky we republicans were, in a sense. Not lucky at having our near neighbours over for 800 years, but fortunate in that our prison history is a proud story of sacrifice, courage and defiance. Comradeships were consolidated and lasting friendships established. Within the criminal prisoner regime, the system is designed around the basis of the prisoner “accepting his or her crime and trying to become a better person”.
James writes compassionately about some of his fellow inmates but also about the norms of suicide, brutality and bullying, where it’s every man for himself in that “dark world”. One, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, self-inflicts wounds to his limbs, puts a pencil through his arm and matchsticks through his ankles, he is so full of self-loathing.
James also writes humorously and tells the story of three murderers sitting at the back in the TV room during an England/Romania match when the issue of English soccer hooliganism comes up. “Those yobbos are giving us a bad name over there,” said one, as the others nodded in agreement.
Though the prison-writing events are just a part of the overall Writing on the Wall festival, the organisers deserve credit for not balking at the unpopular subject of prisoners’ rights and the whole issue of crime and punishment, which often provokes a reactionary response from the general public.
On a lighter note, ever since Clive Hopwood told me Beatrice Seaton’s story, I haven’t been able to get ABC’s pop song Poison Arrow out of my head!
GEARÓID Ó CAIREALLáIN
01/05/2006
Dialann Ocrais or Diary of a Hunger Strike is one of the best works of theatre to have emerged from the Northern Troubles. Written by Dubliner Peter Sheridan, who started it before the end of 1981, it is a powerfully evocative and emotional play that recreates the drama and tragedy of the 1981 hunger strike in Long Kesh in which ten republican prisoners lost their lives.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the hunger strike, the Aisling Ghéar theatre company is producing Diary of a Hunger Strike in Belfast and at various centres around the country throughout the month of May.
Dialann Ocrais/Diary of a Hunger Strike is not a documentary account of the tragic and traumatic events of those months 25 years ago. Rather, the strength of Peter Sheridan’s play lies in its ability to capture the emotion, the trauma, the tragedy and the sheer drama of the hunger strike in an entirely fictional work.
Set in Long Kesh, the play tells the story of Pat O’Connor, the OC of the IRA prisoners. He negotiates a resolution to the hunger strike and no-wash protest in the jail, only to see the agreement reneged upon by the British government. O’Connor then embarks upon a second and ultimately fatal hunger strike himself.
Diary of a Hunger Strike was first produced in 1982 in Hull, England, under the direction of Pam Brighton, now the director of Dubbeljoint Theatre Company. Sheridan then submitted the work to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which duly binned it.
This was the era of section 31, state censorship, the Garda heavy gang and institutional paranoia all over the 26 Counties. Anti-republicanism was considered a parliamentary virtue, and Northern nationalists were ostracised by official diktat.
So the national theatre of Ireland was damned if it was going to produce a play that would leave it open to all sorts of allegations and insinuations about support for the men of violence and fellow travelling. Damned if it was…
I have often wondered how many pages of Diary of a Hunger Strike the powers that be at the Abbey actually read before despatching the manuscript to the corporate waste basket because, apart from being a powerfully evocative drama, the play is one of the fairest and most inclusive pieces of theatre ever written. They probably binned it after seeing that the list of characters included three IRA men. At any rate, it was “no, no, no” as far as the Abbey went.
About three years later, the Abbey contracted a young director called Ray Yeates to head up a short festival of plays in the Celtic languages. Yeates rang Peter Sheridan and told him that, if he got Diary of a Hunger Strike translated into Irish, they could bung it on in the Peacock as part of the Celtic theatre festival and the monoglot big wigs up stairs need never know the difference.
Peter Sheridan contacted me, I translated the play and the bilingual and definitive version of Dialann Ocrais/Diary of a Hunger Strike was born.
Despite being a major hit in that Celtic-language theatre festival, however, the play languished, forgotten and ignored by the mainstream arts in Ireland.
In the late ’80s, I was involved in an amateur production in the Conway Mill on the Falls Road in Belfast and, five years ago, I directed the Aisling Ghéar production that was staged all over the country to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the hunger strike. Now it’s back.
I am probably talking out of turn here because I have a close association with both the play and the Aisling Ghéar theatre company but, if you have a chance to see this piece, do not miss it.
Dialann Ocrais/Diary of a Hunger Strike is powerful, emotive, evocative and harrowing. It has humour in it that will make you wet yourself. You will get angry, frustrated and you will cry because it is terribly, terribly sad. Perhaps — hopefully — you will understand.
Dialann Ocrais will be on in the Rodaí Mac Corlaí club on west Belfast’s Glen Road this Thursday and in An Droichead in the Lower Ormeau Road in south Belfast this Saturday. The official opening night in the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich will be on Tuesday, May 9 and it will run nightly there for the rest of the week.
On tour, the play will visit Newry, Donaghmore, Gaoth Dobhair, Mullingar, Dún Laoghaire and Ráth Cairn. Tickets can be obtained by ringing the mobile number 07909 868 110.
If you are interested in finding out exactly how Dialann Ocrais came to be written, come to the Cultúrlann on Sunday, May 14 at 8pm when the author Peter Sheridan will be giving an audience to the public to talk about the play, the hunger strike and the state of Ireland ever since.
Ahead of tomorrow’s relaunch of its website listing those who have died as result of British state violence or collusion during the recent conflict, the victims group An Fhírinne is appealing to the families of people who were murdered to help complete its database.
01/05/2006
For more than 30 years, the British state has been involved in the murder of Irish citizens. Through the systematic control, manipulation and direction of unionist death squads by British intelligence, those whom the state regarded as its enemies were targeted for assassination.
The murder of citizens through collusion with unionist death squads is a British state policy in Ireland, and those who sanction the policy of collusion have never been held accountable.
State-sponsored murder was established as a formal, politically sanctioned tactic at the heart of British policy in Ireland.
The British apparatus that operates the policy of collusion continues in existence.
Until those mechanisms have been dismantled, the strategy disowned and the truth revealed, collusion cannot be consigned to the history books.
The British state — through agencies such as the British army’s Force Research Unit and the RUC Special Branch — rearmed, reorganised and directed loyalist death squads.
In late 1987, a number of loyalist paramilitary groups co-operated to import a large consignment of modern weapons into the North of Ireland.
Central to this operation were a number of British intelligence agents working both in South Africa and within loyalist groups.
The deadly arsenal of weapons imported included:
• Two hundred modern automatic rifles;
• Ninety Browning semiautomatic pistols;
• Five hundred fragmentation grenades
• Twelve rocket launchers;
• Thirty thousand rounds of ammunition.
Supplying unionist paramilitaries with modern weaponry had an immediate and deadly impact on the number of killings in the North of Ireland. In the six years prior to the weapons shipment, loyalists killed 71 people. In the subsequent six years, loyalists killed 229 people.
Through a network of agents, the British state identified targets, supplied intelligence and provided back-up to the killers. For example, through their agent Brian Nelson, British intelligence updated all the Ulster Defence Association’s intelligence files to ensure that the UDA’s targeting, to quote a British intelligence report, was “more professional”.
The British army’s Force Research Unit had the authority to ensure that loyalist gunmen had a clear run to and from their target.
All British military and police patrols were withdrawn from designated areas, leaving a free run for the assassins. Special Branch ensured that any investigation into the killings did not result in prosecutions, through the exercise of the “Walker criteria” allowing them total control over investigations, arrests and prosecutions.
The British state established an effective murder machine that enabled it to commission the killing of citizens within its own jurisdiction and beyond.
The British justified collusion by arguing that they were “taking the war to the IRA”.
In reality, once the machinery of murder was up and running, no one was safe.
An Fhírinne, Irish for “the truth”, is a campaign group made up of the relatives and friends of hundreds of Catholics, nationalists and republicans who have been murdered as a result of the policy of collusion and other forms of state murder.
Our aims are clear:
• To secure an international independent judicial inquiry into the issue of state violence and collusion with unionist death squads in the murder of Irish citizens;
• An end to the policy of collusion;
• The British government to divulge to the families all the information it has on its policy of collusion.
• We want the British government to dismantle the structures and agencies that implemented its policy of state murder.
As part of the group’s ongoing campaign to uncover the truth, An Fhírinne is launching a new website at the Rodaí Mac Corlaí Club on the Glen Road in west Belfast at 11am tomorrow. We are endeavouring to compile comprehensive records relating to state-sponsored killings.
If you are a relative or a friend of somebody who has died as a result of British state violence or collusion between the British state and unionist paramilitaries, then An Fhírinne needs your support. Our database contains information on over 1,000 people but it is incomplete.
The true story of British state-sanctioned murder and collusion with unionist paramilitary death squads has yet to be told. The truth will only be known if the families of victims force the British government to own up and take responsibility for its actions.
Our victims database is incomplete and very much a work in progress.
If we have overlooked anyone who was a victim of British state killings or collusion, please let us know.
Please search our victims database and help us fill in the gaps or correct any discrepancies.
If you can supply a photograph of a friend or family member who was a victim of British state killings or collusion to add to our database and to our exhibition or if you can supply any biographical information on a victim or information about their murder, please call us on 0775 250 0513 or send an email to robert@anfhirinne.org.
Under the Lagan for exhibition with a strange new location
Sinéad O’Neill
01/05/2006
The Lagan Tunnel in Belfast has become the unusual location for a ground-breaking new exhibition using images from Long Kesh prison.
Barriers of Belief documents the sense of imprisonment that arises in religiously and racially divided societies. It draws inspiration from both the defunct jail and the current war in Iraq.
The brainchild of the local artist Raymond Watson, it takes the format of a series of installations tucked away among the nooks and crannies of the underground water tunnel.
Highlights include Fair Trade, a thought-provoking display of Guantánamo-style orange jumpsuits coupled with a shopping trolley and a pair of baseball bats — a metaphor for Washington’s current foreign policy and our own love of consumerism at the expense of others — and A Cold Floor, a stirring plaster-cast model of a child’s feet standing atop a copy of the Bible.
The artist said he had been inspired by prisoners’ use of the Bible to keep their feet warm while on the blanket protest. The model represents the idea of the self-imprisonment that arises from living in a divided society.
There is also a series of photographs showing a damaged lookout post at the prison, a reconstruction of a visiting room similar to those used in Long Kesh, and a sight and sound installation that draws parallels between the jail and the peace wall separating the Falls and Shankill roads in west Belfast.
Although the exhibition uses images of Long Kesh as a starting point, Watson said Barriers of Belief symbolised polarised communities across the world.
“At first sight, we see these Northern Ireland traits of communal mistrust and culturally driven activities as local issues,” he said.
“But, internationally, our ‘problems’ are recognised as issues with global resonance.
“The exhibition is not about the Maze or Iraq. It is a critical exploration of wider issues.
“In Northern Ireland, it is too easy to be pigeonholed by politically sensitive people — a condition that this exhibition hopes to draw attention to.”
Barriers of Belief runs until this Saturday as part of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. A guided tour by Raymond Watson is included.
More details are available from the website www.cqaf.com.
Actions of direct-rule ministers and civil servants ‘breach’ Good Friday Agreement
Mick Hall
01/05/2006
Assembly members say ‘high-level’ decisions made exempt from section 75 equality provisions.
British ministers and civil servants are undermining the equality legislation enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement, according to politicians and community leaders in the North.
Belfast North assembly member Kathy Stanton said: “The current situation is a cause for great concern. The Agreement is being flouted and, as a consequence, the prospects of attaining social and economic equality will be down to individuals, communities and others working on a daily basis to legally challenge discrimination and inequality wherever it raises its head.”
The Sinn Féin woman said that direct-rule ministers and civil servants were ignoring the equality legislation arising from the Good Griday Agreement. She cited last month’s £33 million (€48 million) Renewing Communities action plan aimed at tackling deprivation in Protestant districts in the North.
Assembly members and Belfast community workers have told Daily Ireland that the decision to treat Protestant social need separately underlined the fact that public service provision and government funding were being administered on the basis of political decisions, at variance with section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and in breach of the Good Friday Agreement.
Politicians and community leaders are expressing concerns over what they claim is the “increasing undermining” of equality legislation envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement.
This, they say, culminated in the granting of £33m to Protestant communities in the North following serious rioting in Belfast last summer.
The Northern Ireland 1998 Act forms the constitutional framework for administering political power in the North. Section 75 has been lauded as the most comprehensive piece of equality legislation in Europe.
Nationalists, non-government organisations (NGOs) and equality campaigners had envisaged the legislation as an effective mechanism to tackle the social legacy of anti-Catholic/nationalist marginalisation and wider discrimination among other groups in Northern society.
It imposes a statutory duty on public bodies to carry out “equality impact assessments” on policies and practices, allowing decision makers to determine and implement options most likely to promote equality and least likely to promote inequality.
Several MLAs are conceding that the task of mainstreaming the legislation to achieve equality within the state is now “unravelling”.
Across a wide range of policy, they claim direct rule ministers and civil servants have successfully implemented economic and social initiatives that are perpetuating historical inequality rather than overcoming it.
Many “high level” decisions taken by ministers and civil servants, they claim, including investment, departmental budgets, health and education decisions, are being exempt from Section 75 screening. In the absence of a power sharing executive, these decisions are not being probed or scrutinised.
The Equality Commission can investigate specific allegations of Section 75 breaches.
However its effectiveness in reinforcing the legislation remains in question. The commission is currently carrying an effectiveness review of its work and will publish it findings in March 2007.
EQUALITY
“This extraordinary ‘exemption’ from the legislation has allowed senior civil servants - the gatekeepers of change in the North - to frustrate change in the North and implement policies which fundamentally undermine the chances of attaining a level social and economic playing field,” says West Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Fra McCann.
“Today, Section 75 has become a paper of little irrelevance to government ministers and civil servants making big decisions.”
One example, Mr McCann claimed, has been the British government’s Renewing Communities Action Plan, launched by direct rule minister David Hanson on April 4.
A Special Task Force report on social deprivation in Protestant districts was released on the same day.
The task force was established by then minister for social development John Spellar in 2004.
It was commissioned to carry out its report following four days of intense rioting when a loyalist march was rerouted away from a section of west Belfast’s Whiterock area.
In the aftermath of the disturbances, unionists claimed working class Protestant areas suffered social “disadvantage” and that this partially accounted for the violence. Both the DUP and UUP lobbied the British ministers harder for direct funding to redress the situation.
Chaired by permanent secretary of the Department for Social Development (DSD), Alan Shannon, the Task Force identified specific needs of these communities by looking at problems faced by those living in the loyalist Sandy Row and the Village areas of Belfast.
“A delegation of our party’s MLAs met with Alan Shannon before the publication of his findings. He assured us that any structural respond to the report would simply be a reconfiguration of existing public services to meet the needs of Protestant communities and that no additional funding would be provided,” said Mr McCann.
“I asked if his recommendations would be assessed under Section 75, he simply replied: ‘We didn’t think it was appropriate to screen the projects’.”
PROTESTANT FUNDING
Another of those present, North Belfast MLA, Kathy Stanton, points out that the main focus and justification for allocating public funding of £33 million (€47.6 million) to subsequent action plan was a unique “lack of capacity” and “weak social infrastructure” within Protestant communities. She says this premise is unsatisfactory and contrary to the government’s own figures.
“Recent research, carried out by Deloitte and Touche on behalf of the DSD, found Catholics more likely to be living in electoral wards with ‘weak community infrastructure’ than Protestants. Catholics make up 57 per cent of the population in designated areas of ‘weak infrastructure even though they make up 44 per cent of the total population – which amounts to a 13 per cent over representation, she says.
“The government’s premise for this initiative is therefore spurious and deceitful.”
The problems identified within loyalist communities by the Task Force included educational under-achievement, a lack of “social cohesion”, “leadership”, “confidence” and the “influence of paramilitary criminality”.
The action plan will see £33 million spent over the next three years mostly on projects in inner city Belfast, and will be complemented by the £100 million Children and Young People’s Fund and £35 million Skills and Science Fund announced recently by Secretary of State Peter Hain.
“What this has effectively done is sectarianise poverty,” said Mr McCann.
A Department of Social Development spokesman denied this saying the government targets deprivation “where it is serious, irrespective of religious or political considerations. All policies continue to be the subject of Section 75 screening in the usual way”.
However, a spokesman for the Equality Commission confirmed to Daily Ireland it was currently “in contact with the Department of Social Development on the allocation of funds and equality screening”. It is understood an investigation is ongoing.
Sinn Féin politicians are not the only people alarmed by the initiative.
George Newell, a community worker with the East Belfast Community Education Centre, said: “The initiative is divisive, as nationalists will be asking why their needs are being met separately. There is obviously a political agenda at play here.
“But in real terms, £33 million spread over three years is peanuts and will have little impact on social deprivation in these areas.
“What the initiative is really about is spin. The government is trying to create a perception of doing something by simply moving money allocated to one public body to another.
“One week before the announcement ministers further cut the budgets of the five Education and Library Boards. Now over £60 million (€87 million) will be cut over the next two years,” Mr Newell points out.
DEPRIVATION
“The money spent on the action plan was a drop in the ocean,” agrees Chrissie McAuley, who is a veteran of community politics in Belfast and a former city councillor, “but it set a very worrying precedent”.
She said: “The initiative did two things. Firstly it signaled that the Labour government were willing to pursue a cynical strategy of ‘divide and rule’ in pursuing its objectives. The government is decimating public services, increasing rates and introducing water charges while attempting to placate unionists while doing so.
“Secondly, and as a consequence, it completely supplanted the principle of delivering services and funding on the basis of objective need.”
In a 2003 Labour Force Survey, commissioned by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the Assembly and published last year, showed Catholics to be 1.8 times more likely to be unemployed than their Protestant counterparts.
Figures also released last year by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency showed nine out of ten of the most deprived areas in the North were located in north and west Belfast. Six of these areas were predominantly Catholic.
A recent report by the Special European Union Programmes Body also found a direct correlation between community background and inequality.
According to the report Catholics make up only 19.5 per cent of the population in the 500 most affluent census output areas.
During a press briefing before the launch of Renewing Communities Action Plan, a senior civil servant admitted that Noble indices, used to determine levels of social deprivation, showed 70 per cent of areas considered socially deprived were predominantly nationalist.
“It has been accepted by voluntary and community organisations that funding on the basis of objective need is the way to address inequalities in the North,” Ms McAuley said.
This forms the basis of the government’s Targeting Social Need policy, in tackling unemployment, poverty and social exclusion.
“But the policies and working agendas of ministers now remain poles a part.
“The fact that funding for community enterprises in north and west Belfast is being withdrawn and allocated elsewhere on the basis of political decision taken by ministers under pressure from unionist politicians, says a lot,” Ms McAuley said.
“All of this points to the civil service, under the direction of ministers, is lacking the of strategy to deal with inequalities.
“There is either a lack of political will or know how to put forward a co-ordinated programme of delivering public services and investment on the basis of objective social need and alleviating poverty.”
In February 2002, a cross-community economic regeneration initiative by the Greater Shankill and West Belfast Task Force put forward a detailed strategy and action plan.
“The West Belfast and Greater Shankill taskforce was established as a cross-community led independent body which based its activities firmly within a Section 75 framework.
“Hanson’s task force was appointed by government and led by the civil service and which managed to polarise political attempts to tackle poverty,” says Belfast MLA Kathy Stanton.
“Good community relations are better built on the foundation stones of human rights and equality.
“To base this on politically expedient decisions of unaccountable British ministers and civil servants serves to ignore the objective needs of the community as a whole. It also causes further divisions within a society struggling to overcome them,” she added.
HOUSING
This funding and service trend also extends to the provision of public housing, according to a Hansard written answer to SDLP MP Eddie McGrady in April 2004. The statistics for Belfast show that, in the year 2003-04, the percentage for Catholics on the North’s Housing Executive waiting list stood at 44 per cent, yet only 28 per cent of those allocated a house during that period were Catholic. This amounted to a 16 per cent under allocation gap.
Protestant applicants during the same period represented 43 per cent of those on the waiting list, while Protestants represented 64 per cent of those actually allocated a house - an over-allocation of 21 per cent.
Figures also suggest that the government’s industrial development body Invest NI is re-enforcing structural and geographical inequalities in the North.
A breakdown of the body’s performance statistics for 2003-2004 showed the unionist heartland of East Antrim to have received double the investment of the combined, predominantly nationalist border consituencies of South Down, West Tyrone, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Newry and Armagh. The figures also showed five of the top six areas for inward investment to be the predominantly unionist constituencies of South Belfast, East Antrim, South Antrim and Upper Bann. Belfast received the largest amount of monies, with east and south Belfast gaining the majority.
A spokesman for the North’s Strategic Investment Board, which has a £16 billion (€23 billion) Public Public Partnership (PPP) capital investment budget, told Daily Ireland that it did not carry out equality impact assessments before making ‘strategic’ decisions in allocating to money to projects.
“The equality screening process is the responsibility of the contracting authority, for example, individual government departments and other bodies,” he said.
In other words, there exists no overall strategic equality screening procedure to redress historical disparities in east-west economic development in the North.
“The current situation is a cause for great concern,” said North Belfast MLA Kathy Stanton.
“The Agreement is being flouted and as a consequence the prospects of attaining social and economic equality will be down to individuals, communities and others working on a daily basis to legally challenge discrimination and inequality wherever it raises its head.”
By Michael McHugh
01 May 2006
Northern Ireland minister Shaun Woodward was last night at the centre of calls for a shake up of the parliamentary expenses system after it emerged that he claimed thousands of pounds of public money towards his London home despite owning a string of other houses.
The multi-millionaire claimed £71,719 towards a mortgage on his apartment in the capital’s South Bank area. There is no suggestion that the minister has broken Commons rules.
Speaking to the Observer, Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said he had written to the senior salaries review board, which oversees MPs’ pay, asking for a change.
“The system is designed to enable MPs quite properly to stay in London overnight, it was not designed to help already rich MPs with their mortgages in distant parts of the country.”
Mr Woodward told the Sunday paper that he had not broken any rules.
“Everything is done through accountants and I am scrupulous about every bill and every receipt. It is entirely legal, appropriate and double-checked by lawyers.”
College staff member referred to PPS over incident at airport
By Brendan McDaid
01 May 2006
A Foyle and Derry College staff member, who allegedly joined in a sectarian tirade directed at a woman, has been referred to the Public Prosecution Service, it has been confirmed.
Speaking at the April meeting of the District Policing Partnership, Foyle District Commander Richard Russell confirmed that the incident, alleged to have occurred at the City of Derry Airport in December 16, 2005, was being probed.
The alleged victim voiced complaints about the police investigation.
Chief Superintendent Russell told the Catholic woman, who attended last week’s meeting in person with her husband, that if the people responsible for the alleged abuse are found by the PPS to have no case to answer, there will be other avenues of seeking redress, including securing a caution.
The Waterside woman alleged that she was abused after intervening in an incident at the airport.
She has since lodged a complaint with police and the school that she had been branded “probably Sinn Fein/IRA, Creggan scum” and “SDLP scum” by another person during the incident, claiming a bid was made to get her to identify her child after she said she recognised one of a group of people as being from the school where her child was a pupil.
Independent DPP board member Marie Brown suggested slapping an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) on the person if guilty.
Mr Russell, however, said that this was unlikely to be appropriate. He said: “Anti-Social Behaviour Orders are meant for recurring patterns of behaviour. ASBOs are about trying to break up a pattern of behaviour rather than as a means of dealing with one particular incident.
“There are, however, also all sorts of non-molestation orders and cautions and other sanctions that may apply in certain cases, if there is a degree of guilt decided upon.”
The woman told of her horror at the alleged attack by a staff member from what she called a “multi-denominational grammar school” and asked whether this constituted a hate crime.
She added: “As a victim I was left very traumatised by the events that took place.
“I went and filed a report but was told by the police officer that this wasn’t a police topic and was a matter for the school.
“I had to push the police officer to take a second look at my statement.”
The woman said it took four months to get police to move her case forward.
“We are talking here today about a liaison officer for victims. At no time as a victim have I ever been approached by police,” she added.
Referring the woman to Robin Young, newly appointed liaison officer for Foyle, Mr Russell responded: “I am not permitted by law to talk about your particular incident, as much as I would like to.
“Let’s talk generally about that sort of an incident. In my view, sectarian abuse of any kind is a hate crime.”
He added: “It is a good point you make. Very often it takes some time for the severity of these cases to sink in to us.
“In that particular case, once the circumstances became known, it was treated very seriously.”
01 May 2006 11:42
Five members of the European Union have decided not to open up their labour markets to workers from the new EU states.
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria confirmed this morning that they will not be applying the Union’s open-border policy.
Greece, Portugal, Spain and Finland have all chosen to open their borders.
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Up until now only Ireland, Britain and Sweden had allowed unrestricted access to workers from the accession states. The ten new states joined the EU two years ago today.
Germany and Austria in particular have insisted that they would face an unsustainable influx of migrants from Poland and Hungary if they fully applied EU laws on the free movement of workers.
Thousands are expected to take part in the marathon
Nearly 14,000 people are expected to be hot-footing it through Belfast on Monday for the city’s marathon.
Belfast City Council, which organises the marathon, said the emphasis this year was on community involvement.
This year is the silver anniversary of the marathon - the first was 25 years ago - with Northern Ireland Mother and Baby Appeal being the chosen charity.
The event starts at City Hall at 0900 and finishes in Ormeau Park, with the route taking in all parts of the city.
Motorists can expect some disruption throughout the morning and early afternoon.
Most roads will remain open throughout the event, the area around City Hall will be closed to through traffic between approximately 0830 and 0930 BST.
Disruption also can be expected along the Albertbridge Road, Holywood Road and Sydenham Road until shortly after 1000 BST.
The front runners are expected to pass back through the city centre, en route to the Falls Road, at about 0925 BST.
Disruption also can be expected around the four change-over points for the marathon relay event on the Holywood Road, Hillview Road and at Gideon’s Green and Corporation Square.
One lane at each location will be closed to traffic for the duration of the event.
Information on the expected traffic disruptions can be obtained from the Traffic Information and Control Centre on 08457 123321 or via www.trafficwatchni.com.
'So venceremos, beidh bua againn eigin lá eigin. Sealadaigh abú.'
--Bobby Sands
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