SAOIRSE32

Daily Ireland

Ciarán Barnes
30/05/2006

A crowd of almost 200 people gathered in a small north Armagh church at the weekend for the unveiling of a monument commemorating the lives of five men murdered by loyalists.
Between 1975 and 1993, Gerard Cairns, Rory Cairns, Rose McConville, John Toland and Joseph Toman were murdered by the Portadown/Lurgan Ulster Volunteer Force.
The gang that killed them contained a number of British army and RUC informers, including the late Mark Fulton, RJ Kerr, Robin Jackson and Billy Wright.
All of the murder victims were from the small townland of Bleary.
Their deaths caused terror among the area’s nationalist population, which was routinely targeted by the UVF gang.
The Cairn brothers were killed in 1993, the last to be murdered.
Thirteen years after that, a monument has been erected in the victims’ honour.
Speaking at the unveiling in the grounds of St Colman’s church on Saturday was Sinn Féin assembly member John O’Dowd and the campaigning priest Des Wilson.
Mr O’Dowd said the Bleary monument would act as a reminder of a tragic time in the history of the small rural community.
“It is a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives as a result of a collusion policy developed far away in London,” he said.
Eamon Cairns, the father of Gerard and Rory Cairns, said the monument was proof that security force agents had failed to break the spirit of the people of Bleary.

Daily Ireland

Teenagers die after disease hits

Áine McEntee
30/05/2006

An asthma expert yesterday called for health professionals to increase awareness of the condition after four young people died within days of each other.
Two Belfast teenagers have died in recent days after having asthma attacks.
Jim McMillan (16) died on Saturday after an asthma attack, while Bronagh Kelly, also 16, died last Thursday.
Fourteen-year-old Victoria Warneck, from Co Down, died on Monday, May 22 after suffering a similar attack.
On May 19, 30-year-old Scott Wasson from Belfast, died from an asthma attack as he and his new bride waited at the airport to fly home from their honeymoon in Barbados.
Patrick McKeown, founder of Asthma Care Ireland, yesterday said more needed to be done to highlight the severity of the condition.
“I would agree to a large extent that more needs to be done to highlight asthma. It’s very rarely the condition flares up with no warning signs and leads to a chronic attack,” he said.
“Education is a huge issue here. Methods of nasal breathing and such preventative measures are perhaps being overlooked, while sufferers become over-reliant on reliever medication such as inhalers.
“This only means the underlying issue of the inflamed lungs isn’t addressed and, when the inner airways are like this, the relievers don’t work and that’s where the danger lies.”
Jim McMillan’s mother Michelle and father PJ said they were totally devastated by their son’s death.
The pathologist told them that asthma had been responsible for their son’s early death.
Speaking from their north Belfast home, the distraught couple said they had never realised just how fragile their son’s health was.
“He was a strong boy. We thought: How could he not pull through an asthma attack?
“At that age, you’re fit and young. We’re completely baffled. We don’t understand how it happened,” Mr McMillan said.
Jim was popular in the area and known for his love of football.
His school friends from St Patrick’s College, Bearnageeha organised a touching farewell to him as part of his funeral Mass yesterday.
The teenager was named after his mother’s brother Jim Meighan, who was killed by the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1987 at the age of 22.
Mrs McMillan said friends and family could not help but remember her brother’s death now.
“It’s like history repeating itself. My mother had three boys and a girl. Jim, my brother, was the second eldest. My son Jim was the second eldest of the family as well. It’s just heartbreaking,” she said.
Asthma is the most widespread long-term condition among children.
On average every year, 44 people die from the condition in the North and 2,445 people are admitted to hospital suffering from its symptoms.
World Asthma Day was held on May 2 to highlight the condition.

Indymedia.ie

Ógra Shinn Féin
Tuesday May 30, 2006 17:13
osf6county at yahoo dot com

On Saturday 27th May, Ogra Shinn Fein in strabane held a “Smash Political Policing” protest at railway street in the town. The protest was in response to the recent harassment of young Republicans in west Tyrone by the RUC/PSNI. During the protest, a number of Ogra Shinn Fein activists occupied the rooftop of the library and dropped a banner reading “Smash Political Policing Now”. The protestors sounded airhorns and whistles to get the public’s attention, while activists on the ground distributed information leaflets on political policing. While returning from the protest one young activist was approached and grabbed by a member of the RUC/PSNI, though when confronted by another group of protestors the harassment ceased.

Speaking on the protest Ogra Shinn Fein spokesperson Sean Mac Giolla Easpaig said, “Today young people have decided to challenge the injustices carried out on a daily basis by the RUC/PSNI. The use of this police force as a political tool against Republicans by those with a unionist securocrat agenda, is an accepted fact and has been in operation scince the formation of the state police in the six counties. If we ars to move into the future in an Ireland of equals, then political and sectarian policing must be confined to the history books”. ” We in Ogra Shinn Fein will continue to challenge and expose the political, partisan nature of this so-called “new police service”.

Related Link: http://www.osf.pro.ie

Irish Examiner

30/05/2006 - 2:59:15 PM

A fingerprint expert has told the trial of a Dublin man charged with membership of the IRA that he is happy beyond any doubt that a fingerprint mark left in a van, in which gardaí found a handgun, was made by the accused.

Detective Garda Eamon Hennelly, who said he has 23 years experience in the identification of finger marks, was giving evidence in the trial of Vincent Kelly (aged 21) of Empress Place, Ballybough, Dublin, who has pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on June 7, 2005.

Det Garda Hennelly told Mr Tom O’Connell SC, prosecuting, that he received a fingerprint mark labelled PN23 and some writing, indicating it had come from the left body section of the boot of a van.

He said he formed the opinion that the mark lifted from the van, which he identified as having a 2000 Laois registered number plate compared with the left ring finger impression on the fingerprint form bearing the name Vincent Kelly.

“As a result of the comparison I am happy beyond any doubt that both marks were made by one and the same person, namely Vincent Kelly,” he told the court.

The witness told Mr Diarmaid McGuinness SC, defending, that he had only made one fingerprint identification involving Mr Kelly.

At the conclusion of today’s hearing Mr O’Connell said he only had one more witness to call for the prosecution but he said she was currently on her way back from Indonesia to Ireland.

“I hope she can get out,” he said.

The three-judge court accepted she was an important witness and the trial was adjourned until tomorrow

Meath Chronicle

A COMPLETE closure of the Sellafield plant in Cumbria - on a phased basis - is the call from Sinn Fein, stated party Colr Joe Reilly.

Pictured is the Sellafield plant in Cumbria, described as the most discredited nuclear facility in Western Europe.

He made the call last Sunday at a half-day conference entitled ‘Sellafield - Still a Danger’, held in the Fairways Hotel, Dundalk. The organiser was SF’s European Department.

Colr Reilly said the people of Meath and the entire country always had “serious health concerns” about the plant, described as the most discredited nuclear facility in Western Europe.

In addition to closure, SF wanted a proper clean-up operation and “more openness and no more cover-ups from the British government on this issue”.

He added that nuclear power could never be a viable option. Among the speakers who took part in the conference were Lennart Varmby, board member, Swedish Energy Agency, Colr George Regan, vice-chair, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, member of Dundee City Council (Scottish Labour), and Ms Rea Street, vice chairperson, CND Britain.

MEP Bairbre De Brún chaired the session ‘Why Sellafield Must Close’, and Arthur Morgan, TD, chaired the session ‘How To Organise For the Closure of Sellafield’.

Meanwhile, on the upcoming elections front, Sinn Féin is organising an ‘Elect Colr Joe Reilly’ public meeting tomorrow (Thursday) in the Pollard Arms Hotel, Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, at 8.30pm in preparation for the forthcoming general election in the new Meath West constituency.

The new constituency includes part of Westmeath and SF candidate, Meath Colr Reilly, said: “There is a strong nationalist/republican labour/SF tradition in the Castlepollard, Delvin, Clonmellon, Raharney area.”

He invited local people who wanted to see a ‘United Ireland of Equals’ to join the part and help elect a SF TD for Meath West. Colr Reilly said the election offered the people of this part of Westmeath the opportunity to vote for change, to end the Fine Gael/Fianna Fail establishment grip on local politics. He also asked interested people to inform their family and friends about this important meeting.

For further information, contact John Guirke, 087-1239670, John Creagh, 086-3975665 or log onto www.meathsinnfein.comwww.meathsinnfein.com

Colr Joe Reilly concluded by quoting the late Bobby Sands MP, that: “Everyone, republican or otherwise, has their particular part to play. No part is too great or too small. No one is too old or too young to do something.”

Guardian

David Fickling
Tuesday May 30, 2006

An attempt by the Irish government to take Sellafield nuclear power plant to a UN tribunal has been ruled as illegal by the European Union, in a blow to local anti-nuclear campaigners.

The European court of justice ruled that the appeal had breached European community law, which insists that European bodies are the only organisations capable of judging such issues.

Less than 100 miles from Ireland’s east coast, Sellafield has long been a cause of political discontent and anxiety.

The plant discharged large quantities of plutonium into the Irish Sea from the 1950s to the 80s, and continues to discharge smaller quantities of the element within industry guidelines.

The Irish government has long called for it to be closed, and during the country’s 2002 election campaign it became a major issue of contention following a concerted campaign from anti-nuclear protesters. There are no nuclear reactors in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.

Last month Irish television broadcast a drama-style documentary about a major nuclear accident at the plant contaminating Dublin and the east coast of Ireland.

Irish anti-nuclear campaigner Brian Greene said that Sellafield was becoming “the world’s super-dump” for high level waste, and expressed dismay at the ruling.

“It points to the craziness of EU law, protecting the rights of member states to use EU law and preventing them from using UN law,” he said.

But the Irish environment minister, Dick Roche, said that Dublin could have more power to press its case at the EU level as a result of the ruling.

“Enforcement of a wide range of international agreements, particularly in the environmental field, are now within the jurisdiction of the (EU) court. This presents Ireland with a novel range of opportunities for holding the UK to its obligations towards the environment and its nearest neighbours,” he said.

Ireland’s nuclear-free status leaves it relatively isolated within the EU. Before the EU’s expansion in 2004 it was one of only three EU countries not dependent on nuclear power, alongside Portugal and Greece.

The Irish case was launched in an attempt to stop the controversial Mox reprocessing plant at Sellafield, which imports high-level waste from foreign countries and reprocesses it into usable fuel.

After the plant began operating in 2001, Ireland took the UK to the convention on the law of the sea, a UN body designed to settle maritime disputes between countries.

The Irish government argued that the UK had not offered sufficient safeguards for the protection of the maritime environment.

But EU law already incorporates the convention on the law of the sea, and the European commission took action against Ireland arguing that Dublin had failed to respect the EU’s jurisdiction over the issue.

A recent agreement between the UK and Ireland means that Irish police and nuclear inspectors now have access to the Sellafield site.

The European commission wants British Nuclear Fuels to offer its inspectors more information about the conditions of nuclear facilities. Full independent inspections of the site are hampered by the fact that large amounts of the waste have deteriorated into a radioactive sludge at the bottom of a containment pond.

Earlier this month, the Health and Safety Executive took the British Nuclear Group to court over a spill in April in which 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel leaked at Sellafield’s Thorp reprocessing plant.

BN.ie

30/05/2006 - 16:35:39

Opposition leaders have reacted angrily to the freeing of a man convicted of the statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny has said it is a scandalous failure on the part of the Government in terms of protecting vulnerable children.

He added: “The Minister for Justice was out last week, saying there is no need to rush serious law. It doesn’t require an instant response because there is no gaping black hole.”

“Go tell that to the thousands of parents of confirmation aged children, one of whom was filled with drink and raped.”

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte also reacted angrily, accusing the Taoiseach of misleading the Dáil and of being out of touch

Deputy Rabbitte told the Taoiseach: “You told this House that there was no question of people walking free.”

“The situation has turned out otherwise and it seems to me that you do not appreciate the gravity of the situation as far as the parents of Ireland are concerned and the gravity of the situation for your Minister of Justice.”

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said: “We have to deal with the issue and we will bring forward legislation in this area very promptly.”

“We will try and have that legislation by the weekend if we can.”

IAIS

05/30/06 11:07 EST

A leading Ulster Volunteer Force paramilitary member is critical after being shot in County Antrim.

The attack happened just before 4PM local time this afternoon in Newtownabbey. It is understood Mark Haddock, 36, has been taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast with multiple wounds.

Mr. Haddock was questioned by detectives about the murder in 1997 of 22-year-old Raymond McCord, whose killing is the focus of a major RUC collusion investigation by the Police Ombudsman.

The inquiry is the biggest ever carried out by Nuala O`Loan`s officers.

The Ombudsman`s report is due to be published within weeks.

Mark Haddock`s former associates in the UVF are the chief suspects in what police are treating as a murder attempt.

He is currently on bail on a charge of attempting to murder doorman, Trevor Gowdy, at a social club in Monkstown nearly four years ago.

Haddock was named in that court case as a leading UVF member. Judgement in the trial has been reserved.

Part of the Doagh Road has been sealed off as police carry out a follow up investigation.

North Belfast DUP MP Nigel Dodds said he was shocked at the shooting.

“This is an appalling incident which will be condemned by all right thinking people,” he said.

“Regardless of circumstances no one has the right to take the law into their own hands and I would call upon anyone with information to assist the police in order to bring those responsible to justice.”

BBC

Mark Haddock (circled) was shot near Mossley Mill

Leading Ulster Volunteer Force paramilitary Mark Haddock is critical after being shot in County Antrim.

The attack happened just before 1600 BST near Mossley Mill in the Doagh Road area of Newtownabbey.

It is understood Haddock, 36, has been taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast with multiple wounds.

He is currently on bail on a charge of attempting to murder doorman, Trevor Gowdy, at a social club in Monkstown nearly four years ago.

Haddock was named in that court case as a leading UVF member. Judgement in the trial has been reserved.

Part of the Doagh Road has been sealed off as police carry out a follow up investigation.

It is understood Mr Haddock had an address in the area for the last two-and-a-half years and had been living there on and off. He is originally from the Mount Vernon area of north Belfast.

North Belfast DUP MP Nigel Dodds said he was shocked at the shooting.

“This is an appalling incident which will be condemned by all right thinking people,” he said.

“Regardless of circumstances no one has the right to take the law into their own hands and I would call upon anyone with information to assist the police in order to bring those responsible to justice.”

Okay, something is fecked up here when a 41 year old man can coerce a 12 year old child to become intoxicated by buying her alcoholic drinks–7 of them–and then when she gets up in the night because she is sick, he rapes her. Excuse me if I don’t say that he had sexual intercourse with her as I believe when you deliberately get a young girl drunk and then have sex with her, that is RAPE. I don’t care what the woman judge who has gone out of her way to protect this man’s identity by referring to him only as ‘Mr A’, calls it. In fact, this judge’s so-called reasoning needs to be examined in that the man has already previously admitted that he KNEW the girl was 12. None of this bullshit of saying oh, gee, I thought she was 16 or 17 or 20. No, he KNEW damn well she was 12, he got her drunk, and he had sex with her. How much more guilty under the law of having sex with underage children can you get? Yet Justic Mary Laffoy has freed the man without any further ado. Can somebody explain to me why this so-called judge–who needs her credentials yanked–can free a convicted sex offender? This is utter bullshit.

…………………

BN.ie

High Court urged not to free sex offender

29/05/2006 - 17:56:58

The High Court was warned today that it is wholly inconceivable to set free a convicted sex offender following the Supreme Court ruling that men who have sex with a minor should not automatically be deemed guilty of rape.

Turning the rules of the age of consent on their head, the five-judge court ruled last Tuesday it is unconstitutional to convict a man who admits to having sex with a child if he does not know their true age.

But counsel for the Attorney General and the Governor of Arbour Hill Prison Gerard Hogan SC told the Hugh Court that it should reject an application to free a 41-year-old man who admitted the unlawful carnal knowledge of a 12-year-old girl.

The man, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty in November 2004 to one count of sexual assault.

At the time he revealed that he knew the girl’s true age.

His lawyer Connor Devally SC made an application to the High Curt to have him freed.

Mr Devally said the man’s incarceration was unconstitutional as the law he was convicted under no longer existed.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy made an order that the man only be referred to as Mr A.

“This is an application that is simply saying I am being held on foot of a warrant founded solely on a provision that is not law,” Mr Devally told the court.

“I think it is ludicrous or absurd to suggest that Mr A while being held under a statute that is not law cannot complain about it.”

Mr Devally told the court there was no issue of compensation and that the court should not concern itself with the consequences of releasing the convicted sex offender.

He insisted the only issue at stake was Mr A’s liberty.

“I do not stand here and say the conviction is invalid nor do I stand here and say the sentence is invalid. I am saying simply that there is no longer a lawful mechanism for the respondent to hold Mr A,” Mr Devally told the court.

He went on to say that to continue Mr A’s incarceration would be to perpetuate a known unconstitutionality.

The court was told that in November 2004 the man, who is in Arbour Hill Prison, was jailed for three years at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after being convicted of unlawful carnal knowledge of an underage girl.

Mr A was 26 years older than the victim at the time of the offence.

His application to the High Court came less than a week after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the 1935 law under which any man is automatically guilty of a crime if he has sex with a girl under 15.

But Mr Hogan SC told the court that granting the convict freedom would in effect give him a windfall bonus following the Supreme Court ruling.

“These are matters that can only be properly ventilated in judicial review proceedings,” Mr Hogan said.

“There is a large stone in the road which he is now challenging and the stone in the road is his conviction.”

Mr Hogan told the court that due to the large age difference between the victim and her attacker it was difficult to see how he could use the ruling from the Supreme Court to secure an order for his freedom.

“Given the disparity of ages between the victim and Mr A, 12 and 36, it’s very hard to see how under any possible circumstances he could have raised that argument,” Mr Hogan said.

“Why should he be allowed to get that benefit after. Why should he… be allowed to march through the resulting gap in the statute.”

Ms Justice Laffoy will give judgement in the case at the High Court tomorrow.

……………………………………………….

BN.ie

Court frees man who had sex with 12-year-old

30/05/2006 - 14:49:43

A convicted sex offender who plied a 12-year-old girl with drink before having sex with her was today set free after a High Court judge ruled his imprisonment was unlawful.

The 41-year-old man was halfway through a three-year jail term for unlawful carnal knowledge of the child and applied to be released on the grounds that his detention was unconstitutional.

When he had sex with the youngster in 2003 he was 26 years older than her.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy told the court the law he was convicted under no longer stood following last week’s Supreme Court ruling that men who have sex with underage girls should not automatically be deemed guilty of rape.

Counsel for the State, Paul Anthony McDermott SC applied to the court to put a stay on the release pending an appeal to the Supreme Court, but the judge refused the application.

The judge said the Supreme Court had struck down Section 1.1 of the Criminal Law Act, 1935 in its entirety with the effect that that section ceased to have legislative existence when created in 1937.

In her ruling she said thereafter there was no statutory offence of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 15.

“To put it another way, the offence with which the applicant was charged did not exist in law when it was purported to charge him with it, nor at the respective dates of his purported conviction and sentencing,” the judge said.

Ms Justice Laffoy told the court the only consequence of the Supreme Court declaration that she was concerned with was whether or not Mr A’s detention was unlawful.

And she said submissions made by lawyers for Arbour Hill Prison that the only appropriate course of action for Mr A was a judicial review of his conviction were inappropriate.

“The contention is that the conviction remains valid on its face. In my view that submission is not correct,” the judge said.

“In the light of the declaration by the Supreme Court of the inconsistency of Section 1.1, the only offence of which the applicant was convicted, the conviction is a nullity and the warrant is bad on its face.

“I would see no sense whatsoever in the applicant pursuing a remedy in judicial review proceedings to quash a conviction, a sentence, and a warrant which are patently bad.”

Costs in the matter will be determined at a later stage and it was also indicated to the court that the decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

BBC

Martin McGuinness described British agent claims as “hooey”

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has rubbished a claim in a Sunday tabloid that he was a British spy.

Speaking at Stormont for the first time since the allegation, Mr McGuinness said it was “a load of hooey” and “total nonsense”.

The allegation was made by a former intelligence officer who uses the pseudonym Martin Ingram.

However, Mr McGuinness said he believed that elements of the DUP were behind the claims.

He claimed the motive was to try to undermine attempts to restore power-sharing.

Mr McGuinness said that DUP MP William McCrea made a similar claim in the House of Commons in Feburary which was “widely ignored”.

Asked if he was 100% no evidence to support the claim would ever be produced, he said he was 1,000,000% confident.

“I have worked all of my adult life as an Irish republican. Many of my comrades have been killed and I of course knew many of them.

“So under no circumstances will I ever be concerned about anybody throwing anything up at me which will stick against me.”

The DUP’s Gregory Campbell said his party had nothing to gain from the claims against Mr McGuinness.

He said his party was opposed to the republican movement as a result of its “illegal and criminal” activities and whether or not senior members were agents was irrelevant.

Belfast Telegraph

By Debra Douglas
29 May 2006

Three young people have taken their lives in west Belfast in the last week, it emerged today.

A 15-year-old girl died on Saturday after taking an overdose just hours after teenager Christopher McKinney was buried after taking his own life.

And on Friday night, schoolboy Barry McNally was found dead in his Twinbrook home.

Sinn Fein MLA Michael Ferguson said it was a worrying increase. “I am extremely concerned about this development, especially when you consider that youth budgets have been dramatically sliced,” he said.

“We should be investing in support services and outreach programmes to give our young people as much help as possible.

“The implementation to the Task Force recommendations is welcomed but much, much more still needs to be done.”

Earlier this year, figures from the government’s Suicide Task Force revealed that west Belfast is suffering more suicides than anywhere else in Northern Ireland. It said research needed to be carried out to see why the figures were to ascertain if they were any underlying factors at play which could be tackled.

0/05/2006 - 6:52:42 AM

An ambitious blueprint for the future of the Maze Prison site, featuring a sports stadium and a conflict transformation centre, will be unveiled today.

The 360-acre plot near Lisburn, Co Antrim, will also feature a cinema, industrial zone, restaurants and parkland.

In 1981 IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands became the first of 10 republican hunger strikers to die in the Maze.

The focal point of the plans will be a 42,000-seater multi-sports stadium, which could stage football matches as part of the 2012 UK Olympics.

The stadium question has generated controversy, with some politicians arguing it should be in Belfast.

But the British government has warned doubters there is no plan B for the state-of-the-art facility.

The conflict transformation centre was critical to ensuring republican backing for the Maze proposals and will see the preservation of the prison’s hospital wing.

It is understood the project will also include a 5,000-seat indoor arena, a rural excellence and equestrian zone, featuring an international exhibition centre and showgrounds, and dozens of new homes.

A new junction and link road to the site will also be incorporated into the proposals in a bid to overcome reservations about the location of the site.

Proposals have also been drafted for a rail link and park-and-ride system close to the stadium, which it is hoped will open in 2010.

The Maze consultation panel, which includes representatives from all four main parties, reached agreement on a way forward for the site early last year.

Since then planners have been working to fulfil the potential of the government-owned site.

Guardian

· East European workers driven out of lodgings
· Police say violence is one of their biggest challenges

Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Tuesday May 30, 2006
The Guardian

Racially motivated attacks, including pipe bombs, bricks hurled through windows and assaults, have risen sharply in Northern Ireland, according to the latest police figures. Loyalist paramilitaries are believed to be behind a significant proportion of the reported incidents, which have doubled in the past two years.

Migrant workers, mainly those from new EU states working in meat-packing and food-processing businesses, are being targeted in the latest wave of attacks. Many east Europeans have been driven from their lodgings. In the most recent attack a Polish man suffered multiple fractures to his skull and face after being attacked in Co Derry. The man, who had been selling pictures door to door, was found badly injured in the Station Road area of Magherafelt on Saturday evening. A week earlier two Poles living in Derry’s Waterside had their car windows smashed and were assaulted.

In towns such as Dungannon there have also been clashes between rival ethnic groups. Officers were recently called to break up fights between Lithuanians and workers from East Timor. During 2005-06 the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) recorded 936 racial incidents, of which 746 were subsequently deemed to be racist crimes. The previous year there were 813 incidents, of which 634 were confirmed as crimes. In 2003-04, 453 racist incidents were reported.

“Northern Ireland is becoming increasingly diverse at a very quick rate,” said Inspector Robin Dempsey of the PSNI’s community safety branch. “It is one of the biggest challenges for the police. Many racial crimes involve criminal damage - graffiti and broken windows. Unless there’s a witness it’s difficult to solve. These attacks involved pipe bombs, letter boxes burnt out, paint bombs and petrol bombs. The more serious have the potential to cause deaths. Some loyalist paramilitaries have an interest in the British National party. Loyalist paramilitaries are involved, though the organisations deny they have sanctioned attacks.”

Northern Ireland’s ethnic minority population was recorded as 14,000 in the 2001 census, accepted as an underestimate. The true figure, say the police and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities (Nicem), is probably 35,000 in settled communities, plus at least 35,000 migrant workers. Northern Ireland’s population is 1.67 million. Two murders have been blamed on racist attacks, one in 2004 and the other in the mid-1990s.

“The BNP is very active in Northern Ireland,” said Patrick Yu, Nicem’s executive director. “But there have been attacks in [republican areas of] west Belfast, too. After the ceasefires we became the next target.”

Leish Cox, of the Chinese Welfare Association, said the community had experienced a rise in attacks, some by loyalist paramilitaries. “When we tried to build a Chinese community centre there were leaflets circulated saying ‘yellow invasion’ and claiming the threat was worse than 30 years of IRA activity.”

Daniel Holder, of Animate, a group working with migrant workers in Dungannon, said: “Hate crime is only the tip of the iceberg; there’s a broader problem of racist attitudes underneath.”

The government is to appeal against a High Court ruling that its appointment of two members of the Orange Order to the Parades Commission was unlawful.

Earlier in May, a judge said NI Secretary Peter Hain failed to ensure the commission make-up represented both sides of the community.

The court said the appointment of David Burrows and Don MacKay did not ensure the body represented both communities.

Mr Hain’s appeal is due to be heard on Tuesday.

On 19 May, the High Court ruled that the appointments did not ensure membership of the body represented both sides of the community.

The case was brought to court by Joe Duffy, a resident of the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, who sought to overturn the appointment of Mr Burrows and Mr MacKay.

Orange Order

Both Mr Burrows and Mr MacKay were members of the Portadown Lodge of the Orange Order which has been at the centre of the decade-long dispute surrounding what has become known as the Drumcree parade.

Mr MacKay resigned from the commission earlier this month after it emerged he had listed DUP MP David Simpson and SDLP assembly member Dolores Kelly as referees on his application form without asking their permission.

The Parades Commission was set up by the government in 1997 to make decisions on whether controversial parades should be restricted.