SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph
2 July 2008

Over 400,000 people in Northern Ireland have claimed Irish passports in the 10 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Nationalist politicians said the figure showed large numbers of people were benefiting from the recognition of the Irish identify enshrined in the Agreement.

The new data from the Irish government showed 402,658 people from Northern Ireland have taken Irish passports or renewed their existing ones since April 1998.

The Good Friday Agreement recognises the right of those born in Northern Ireland to hold British and Irish citizenship.

SDLP Assembly member for Mid Ulster Patsy McGlone who obtained the figures from the Dail said: “There are clearly a large and growing number of people in the North who want to take advantage of their right to an Irish passport.

“It does seem that people believe the Irish passport is popular and safe to travel on.

“Pensioners are also taking advantage of the free Irish passports available to them.

“But people are obviously increasingly comfortable with and confident in taking advantage of this.”

Mr McGlone also claimed he was aware of instances where people from a unionist background had claimed Irish passports, because Ireland’s traditional neutrality made it a safer passport to travel on.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin said: “Some 400,000 passports have been issued, since the signing of the Good Friday agreement on 10 April, 1998, to applicants born in Northern Ireland.

“Such applications have been increasing year on year, with some 60,000 passports issuing to persons born in Northern Ireland in 2007 compared to some 30,000 in 2002.

“The majority of Northern Ireland applications are made using the Northern Ireland Express Post Service (NIPX) which is available in some 70 Post Offices throughout the area.”

SDLP South Down Assembly Member PJ Bradley described the figures as staggering and called for a permanent Irish passport office to be opened in Northern Ireland.

“Those of us that campaigned in the past for Irish passports to be equally available across the island and to the diaspora overseas did envisage a steady uptake, but the figures released in a reply to a question put in Dail Eireann are well beyond our greatest expectations,” he said.

“The figures are bound to add weight to the SDLP’s request to have an Irish Passport Office located in a convenient location north of the border.

“I am quite certain that the trend will continue as future generations will emulate the example which is being shown by today’s generation.”

BBC
2 July 2008

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled Britain breached international conventions by monitoring emails and phone calls between Ireland and the UK.

The data was intercepted over a seven year period from 1990 to 1997.

The court found the surveillance was in breach of a convention guaranteeing respect for private correspondence.

The case was taken by three organisations, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty and British-Irish Rights Watch.

For security reasons, the UK neither confirmed nor denied the statements made about its surveillance activities, but it agreed that the court could presume some of the civil liberties’ groups communications were intercepted.

“The court recalled that it had previously found that the mere existence of legislation which allowed communications to be monitored secretly had entailed a surveillance threat for all those to whom the legislation might be applied,” the court said in a statement.

“In the applicants’ case, the court therefore found that there had been an interference with their rights as guaranteed by Article 8,” the court said referring to the article in the European Charter of Human Rights on the right to privacy.

The 1985 Interception of Communications Act gave British authorities “extremely broad discretion” to intercept communications between Britain and another country, it added.

“The court considered that the domestic law at the relevant time had not indicated with sufficient clarity, so as to provide adequate protection against abuse of power,” it added.

BBC
2 July 2008

A man arrested in England for questioning about the murder of six people in a County Down bar 14 years ago has been released without charge.

Officers from the PSNI arrested the 45-year-old in Maidstone on Monday with the assistance of Kent police.

The killings in Loughinisland took place as the men, aged 34 to 87, watched television.

The victims were watching a World Cup match when a UVF gang burst in and opened fire.

They were Adrian Rogan, 34, 39-year-old Eamon Byrne, Patsy O’Hare, 35, Dan McCreanor, 59, Barney Green, 87, and Malcolm Jenkinson, 54.

BBC
2 July 2008

An 18-year-old woman has been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to the murder of Emmett Shiels in Derry last week.

She will appear at the city’s magistrates court on Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, officers investigating Mr Shiels’ death have been given more time to question three male youths aged 16, 17 and 18.

A 16 year-old-girl was arrested in Derry in connection with the killing on Wednesday evening.

Mr Shiels, from Tyrconnell Street in the Bogside, was shot in the Bligh’s Lane area at about 0045 BST on Tuesday June 24.

He was driving a pizza delivery van when he was caught up in a confrontation with a group of masked gunmen.

Up to 1,000 people attended a vigil in memory of Mr Sheils.

News Letter
02 July 2008

FERMANAGH: Police in Fermanagh have revealed that the Real IRA has claimed it tried to attack a police patrol on the Fermanagh-Monaghan border area last Monday.

A PSNI spokesman said that a report was made to a local newspaper in Ferrmanagh and the caller claimed a coffee jar bomb had been thrown at a patrol car near Wattlebridge.

“We have no first hand knowledge of any attack. However, we thought it would be prudent to warn the public and let people know about this claim, which we have been unable to substantiate,” he said.

Londonderry Sentinel
02 July 2008

SECTARIANISM and segregation remain prevalent in some of Londonderry’s most deprived areas, new research has indicated.

“The Facts, Fears and Feelings” project explored the impact of sectarianism in everyday life for more than 100 young people, aged 16-35, in both Derry and Belfast.

The research involved young people in the Fountain and Creggan areas of the city.

Through their involvement in the study, some of the young people went on to develop the ‘Cut It Out! Stand Together Against Sectarianism’ campaign.

This unique initiative involved the distribution of over 3,000 badges and ads on over 50 cross-town buses in Belfast and Derry, asking people to take a stand against sectarianism.

Dr Rosellen Roche, a social anthropologist from Queen’s School of History and Anthropology, conducted the research and headed the project.

Dr Roche said: “The young people involved, who are mostly out-of-school, seeking work and attempting to gain qualifications, represent a contingent that can often be ignored in research.

“This study does not claim to represent feelings in Northern Ireland as a whole, nor does it present a ‘cure’ for sectarianism and segregation.

“It does, however, illustrate how personalised sectarianism can be, how it can seep down through generations and how young people, like those involved in this project, are grappling with it in contemporary, post-Agreement Northern Ireland.”

Among the key findings were the impact of social isolation and the influence of families.

“Almost two thirds of the young people we worked with were so isolated from the other community that they actually felt completely untouched by sectarianism,” said Dr. Roche

“They live in a kind of ‘cocoon’ within their own communities, with little reason for mixing or mingling across the divide.”

“One third of participants talked openly about their parents or grandparents having negative views of the other community.

“They often excused this on the basis that they consider their elders to be victims of conflict, who are therefore entitled to be prejudiced.”

Dr Roche said the findings now presented a number of challenges.

“As academics, policy makers, volunteers and political leaders, it is our job to listen to the young people, to gage what really should be done and to help to put community mechanisms in place that will mix young people consistently across the divide,” she said

AMEL BRAHMI in Belfast
Irish Times
Wed, Jul 02, 2008

THE SINN Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast laid a laurel wreath yesterday at the war memorial of the Belfast City Hall, to remember the unionists and nationalists soldiers who fall at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Tom Hartley, accompanied by some of his councillors, observed a short silence at the cenotaph, in a separate ceremony held at 9am.

Two hours later the official ceremony took place with the arrival of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment followed by representatives of the DUP, the Orange Order, and war veterans who placed the poppy wreaths at the memorial.

Mr Hartley, the second Sinn Féin mayor to commemorate the deaths of soldiers from the 16th (Irish) division, said he understood that many from the nationalist tradition have felt “alienated” from the commemoration because of the British symbolism involved.

“But Irish soldiers from Belfast were engaged in the British Ulster Division and it is important that the nationalist community is able to remember and engage with this,” he added.

DUP Environment Minister Sammy Wilson deplored the fact that the sacrifice of these soldiers had been ignored and added he was happy that the Battle of the Somme was now seen as part of both communities’ shared history.

“The sacrifice was ignored not only in Northern Ireland but also with the Irish Government. Here we have focused on the 36th (unionist) division but in Ireland they didn’t want to acknowledge the 16th division,” he added.

The battle of the Somme that raged from July 1st 1916 until November 1916 saw the deaths of 10,000 soldiers from the Ulster and Irish divisions.

Nearly half of them – 45 per cent – were from the 16th (Irish) Division. They had joined the battle in September 1916 to support the 36th (Ulster) Division.

Breaking News.ie
01/07/2008 - 12:33:20

A Northern Ireland man arrested as part of a Garda Special Branch investigation into INLA activity in Dublin has had his bail application adjourned for a third time as the defence was not ready to proceed.

Peter Mullen, solicitor for Declan Duffy, asked the Special Criminal Court for a short adjournment to allow the defence to obtain proofs in relation to Mr Duffy’s surety.

Mr Duffy was earlier charged at a special sitting of the Special Criminal Court with membership of the terrorist organisation.

Mr Duffy, a 34-year-old native of Armagh City, with an address at Hanover St West, Dublin 8 was charged with membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish National Liberation Army, otherwise the INLA on June 22.

Michael O’Donovan, solicitor for the State told the court this morning that the garda who would set forth the State’s objections to bail would not be available until after next Tuesday.

Mr Justice Paul Butler told Mr Mullen that the earliest available date was Wednesday July 9 and remanded Mr Duffy in custody until that date.

Detective Sergeant Marilyn Brosnan, of the Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Square, gave evidence last week of arresting Duffy in Blackrock.

She said that when cautioned Duffy replied: “I am not a member of any illegal organisation.'’