SAOIRSE32

BBC

Council employees and staff at other government bodies across Northern Ireland have begun a two-day strike action.

It is being taken across the UK in protest at a pay offer of 2.5%.

As well as council services, the Housing Executive and education and library boards will also be affected.

The Unite union has called on assembly members and councillors to join the picket lines and support striking workers.

Derry City Airport will also be affected by the strike action.

It is owned by the city council and a spokesperson said it was disappointed that there was no agreement to exempt the airport from the industrial action.

Trevor Salmon, director of corporate services with Belfast City Council, said it was hard to predict what support the strike would have.

Is your council hit by the strike?

“What we do know is certain essential services such as burials, cremations and weddings which have been long in the planning will go ahead as planned,” he said.

“There will be disruption of our leisure centre and our community centres - we think 50% of those will be disrupted or closed.

“The biggest disruption of course is going to be the bin collections - we calculate that some 54,000 households will be affected.”

No deal

DUP councillor Jimmy Spratt, who took part in the pay negotiations with the unions, said the offer of 2.54% was “a full and final offer”.

“On the ballot that has taken place, the second largest union on the National Joint Council, the GMB union, actually accepted the pay deal,” Mr Spratt said.

However, Unite workers wages increased by 6%.

Jimmy Kelly, Irish regional secretary, said: “Unite calls on the Stormont government to fund local government properly.”

The union wants workers to be paid what it describes as “a decent living wage”.

“We call on councillors and MLAs who support our members’ demands to join us on the picket lines. They will be made very welcome,” said Mr Kelly.

By Barbara Collins
BBC

The family of a Crossmaglen man who went missing 29 years ago has been given a map showing where his body might be.

Gerry Evans was last seen in County Monaghan in 1979

Gerry Evans, is listed as one of the Disappeared. His family have never been told what happened to him, or where he might be buried.

He was last seen hitching a lift in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, on Sunday 25 March, 1979.

In March this year, a note and the map were given to his aunt.

Gerry Evans’s brother, Noel, told the BBC his aunt was given the A4 white card with a drawing of where the body was claimed to be and a message which read: “This is where I believe Gerry to be buried. I hope this helps and God bless you all.”

The document was taken to the Gardai before being passed on to the Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains.

Noel Evans and a Commission representative visited the alleged site, which is being kept secret while tests are carried out.

Before a dig can start, demographical maps need to be checked to see if the site, as described, existed 30 years ago.

Scientific equipment will be used to check for any soil disruption and sniffer dogs will also inspect the area.

It could take up to a year for this work to be completed.

**Via Troops Out Movement
The Irish News
09/07/08

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde will this morning launch a legal challenge to try TO block Coroner John Leckey from gaining access to the police investigation into the shooting of an unarmed IRA man.

Pearse Jordan (21) was shot dead by an undercover RUC unit as he drove a stolen car along the Falls Road in west Belfast in November 1992.

Over the last 16 years Mr Jordan’s parents have fought a legal battle to gain access to the police files surrounding their son’s killing.

In 2007 a House of Lords ruling ordered the PSNI to provide Northern Ireland coroners with all relevant police files relating to controversial killings.

As a result Mr John Leckey re-opened the Jordan inquest after an 11-year adjournment.

Last month Mr Leckey ordered the chief constable to hand over the senior investigating officer’s report into the Jordan murder by 4.30pm on July 4.

However Sir Hugh refused to hand over the police investigation report, claiming he was not legally obliged to disclose the murder files to the coroner.

“The investigating police officer’s report, insofar as it consists of matters of opinion, comment, assessment, conclusions and recommendations, does not constitute ‘information’,” a PSNI solicitor said in a legal challenge opposing the handing over of police files.

Resisting the coroner’s request, the solicitor said that “this is a routine document prepared in every case where a crime file is opened and later submitted to the Public Prosecution Service”.

“It contains no primary evidence at all and is a summary of the various witness statements, which were taken at the time, together with a commentary by the investigating officer stating his conclusions and recommendations,” the solicitor said.

However, the Jordan family’s solicitor, Fearghal Shiels of Madden & Finucane, insists that the PSNI is legally obliged to hand over the files.

“The investigating officer will be giving evidence to this inquest and he bears ultimate responsibility for the conduct of the RUC investigation, which was strongly criticised by the European Court of Human Rights in 2001 for its lack of independence,” he said

“It purports to be an analysis of the evidence and is the cornerstone upon which a decision was taken by the DPP not to prosecute Sergeant A for murdering Pearse Jordan”.

“The information contained in this report and the process whereby that decision was arrived at could not be more relevant.”

**Via Troops Out Movement
The Irish News
09/07/08

A media expert has warned against any attempt to gag newspapers from reporting on the activities of a Special Branch agent implicated in more than a dozen murders.

Mark Haddock, exposed as a Special Branch informer last year by the then police ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, yesterday applied to the courts for an order banning the media from naming, photographing or identifying him when he is released from prison.

Media analyst Roy Greenslade last night warned that a ban could have major implications for the press in Northern Ireland.

He said that serious contradictions now existed over the state’s obligation to protect the life of its citizens and the media’s right to report the activities of convicted killers and serious criminals on the grounds of public interest.

“I am on record as supporting the media ban on reporting the new identities of Maxine Carr or the boys who killed Jamie Bulger,” Mr Greenslade said.

“However, I believe that the Scappaticci and Haddock cases are different because they were working as agents of the state when they were allegedly involved in serious crimes, including murder.

“The courts have to be very careful as to whether these people deserve anonymity now, when their actions allegedly led to innocent people being killed.

“The state will surely protect its agents but the question has to be asked, what rights do victims have in this case?”

Mr Greenslade said a ban would gag the media from properly investigating issues that needed to be exposed on the grounds of public interest.

“The state is effectively trying to stop the press from digging out the sordid stories of what its agents were allowed to engage in,” he said.

“The courts risk setting a dangerous precedent here if people like Haddock and Scappaticci are allowed to skulk back into the darkness with no-one allowed to report on what they’ve done or more importantly what they might be getting up to in the future.”

In June 2006 the High Court in Belfast imposed a ban on the media reporting any information that could disclose the location of alleged British army agent Freddie Scappaticci.

In April the Sunday World paid £30,000 legal costs and made a £10,000 donation to charity after it published details of Scappaticci’s whereabouts.

In the same month the prison service sought a court injunction to stop the media photographing prisoners, including serious sex offenders, who were taking part in an early release scheme.

The gagging order was thrown into turmoil when serial rapist Mark Clarke absconded but the media were banned from publishing his photograph.

**Via Troops Out Movement
The Irish News
15/07/08

A show of strength by armed and masked members of the INLA in north Belfast has been condemned by community workers as “defying logic”.

The propaganda stunt was staged on streets in the Ardoyne area on Friday night to coincide with loyalist Eleventh Night bonfires.

Five masked men, two carrying automatic weapons and walkie-talkies, posed for photographs.

A spokesperson for the INLA said the men had been “patrolling Ardoyne to defend [it] from loyalist attack”.

Ardoyne, the scene of interface violence in the past, has experienced one of the quietest July periods on record so far this month.

The annual Orange Order march that parades past the Ardoyne shops interface on the Twelfth passed off on Saturday without major incident.

North Belfast interface worker Joe Marley branded the INLA members’ actions “crazy”.

“People who had the best interest of the community at heart were standing at the interfaces on Friday and Saturday and a lot of work was done, both over the weekend and in the run-up to it, including diversionary work with young people,” he said.

“Their presence at the interface was a deterrent against any potential attack and was the mature and sensible approach.

“Masked-up men running around is just a crazy approach.

“These same people were also engaged in trying to stir up tensions at the interface on Saturday.

“Their energies would have been better spent working for the good of the community rather than harking back to this type of senseless behaviour.”

The INLA has said it is on a “no-strike-first” ceasefire.

The Independent Monitoring Commission linked the group to a murder in the Republic last year.