SAOIRSE32

Kerryman.ie
13 Nov 2008

The cost of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Northern Ireland has reached €214 million, it was revealed today.

The team investigating the shooting dead of civil rights protesters by soldiers in Londonderry in 1972 is finalising its report and has not heard evidence in almost four years.

East Derry DUP MP Gregory Campbell said it was hard to justify the mammoth public expenditure when people were struggling with the financial crisis.

“I urge the Government to get this spending under control,'’ he said.

“Failure to do so is undermining public confidence in the inquiry and is confirming to the public that the Government places a higher priority on examining events of nearly 40 years ago than it does addressing current pressing issues.'’

Paratroopers killed 13 people, with another dying later from his injuries. Nationalists said they shot innocent demonstrators, while the Army said its members came under fire from the IRA.

A total of €31 million has been spent on the inquiry since hearings ended in January 2005.

A spokeswoman for the inquiry, headed by Lord Saville, said: “We always bear in mind that it is public money that we are spending.

“Every effort is made to keep costs to a minimum.'’

She said the €31 million bill included retrospective claims from lawyers for work carried out when hearings were ongoing.

There are also office and administrative costs as the team draws up its final report.

The inquiry was established in 1998 by then prime minister Tony Blair after a campaign by the families of those killed and injured. Around 900 witnesses were heard.

Saville Inquiry officials confirmed it would be autumn 2009 - five years after the investigation ended - before findings were released.

Lord Saville said the previous indication of the timescale necessary to complete the report “was a substantial underestimate'’.

The last time he wrote to victims it was due to be completed this January or February.

Irish News
13/11/2008

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams told supporters in the US that he wants to reach an accommodation with unionism, but hit out at what he called its “Afrikaner wing”.

The republican leader told a fundraising dinner for his party in New York that partnership was the way forward, but that some unionists opposed change.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) branded his comments grossly offensive.

This came as the dispute between republicans and the DUP today forced the cancellation of a further meeting of the Northern Ireland Executive, which has not sat since June.

Adams said: “Once, unionism dominated life in the north… today, if political unionism wants to exercise power, it can only do so if it is prepared to work in partnership with republicans and within the all-Ireland political architecture of the Good Friday and St Andrews Agreements.

“Some elements of unionism continue to resist change. But for the leadership of unionism today the question is very simple.

“Is it ready to move forward with the rest of us?”

Sinn Fein and the DUP are in talks aimed at ending deadlock over issues including the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster.

But Adams claimed some unionists were resisting change.

“Few human beings of my acquaintance are as petty and mean-spirited and negative as those in the Afrikaner wing of unionism,” he said.

“But if we are truly about nation-building – and that is what Sinn Fein is about – then we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted or diverted by negative and reactionary elements.”

He said the political institutions needed to be bedded down, and outstanding issues needed to be dealt with to fulfil the promise of the Good Friday Agreement.

Sinn Fein has blocked Executive meetings since June in protest at the refusal of the DUP to move on the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster until it believes the unionist community is ready for the move.

Sinn Fein also wants the DUP to move on issues including education reform, legislation to protect the Irish language and the redevelopment of the Maze prison site.

Republicans claim that the DUP is failing to adhere to the partnership principles of power-sharing and has accused the DUP leadership of looking over its shoulder at right-wing elements.

Deputy leader of the nationalist SDLP Alasdair McDonnell said the failure to hold Cabinet meetings was hurting ordinary people.

“There can be little doubt that 2008 will forever be remembered as the year the credit crunch bit, the economy slid and Sinn Fein and the DUP did absolutely nothing,” he said.

But DUP Assembly member Robin Newton attacked Mr Adams for comparing sections of unionism to white supremacists in South Africa.

“This hopelessly sectarian outburst, which bears no semblance to reality, says more about Mr Adams than it does about any unionist,” he said.

“It is clear that there is an underlying bitterness in these disgraceful comments.”

Lindy McDowell
Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday, 12 November 2008

In a weekend interview Cherie Blair revealed how during a visit to 10 Downing Street, Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness had shown off their skateboarding skills to her sons Euan and Nicholas.

Cherie says she’d looked out of the window towards the Number 10 garden where, she recalls: “There, to my astonishment, were Gerry and Martin on the skateboards showing the boys a few tricks.”

This cosy scene of the two Shinner Sk8ter Boyz showing the sons of the British Prime Minister how to perfect their kickflips, heelflips and ollies might well have astonished a few within the republican community as well.

Surely this wasn’t happening back at that time when Jonathan Powell and Tony Blair were famously redrafting P O’Neill’s statements for him?

Among the republican faithful the revelation in Powell’s recent memoirs about the Brits somersaulting over P O’Neill’s head hit home with all the force of a concrete bollard in the skateboarding groin.

One poster on a republican website summed up the sense of alarm.

“At long last the elusive P O’Neill has been tracked to his secret lair … 10 flipping Downing Street.

“When P O’Neill finally called on the party militia to stand down I’m surprised it didn’t say: ‘Cherie and I would like to express y’know … our appreciation … y’ know … to you guys.’”

If anything that sense of cynicism has been growing of late, as two new tomes about the peace process and the Sinn Fein role in particular highlight.

Good Friday: The death of republicanism is the new book from former IRA man Anthony McIntyre, a critic of the Adams’ leadership. As it says on the tin, it’s a scathing attack by the author on what he believes were the moves that led to the defeat of republicanism.

Perhaps even more crushing is the brilliant new publication from Henry McDonald, the highly regarded Irish correspondent of the Guardian.

Again the title pulls no punches: Gunsmoke and Mirrors: How Sinn Fein Dressed Up Defeat as Victory.

For a man who is fond of quoting the line that it’s the victors who write history, Adams must currently feel that the writing isn’t so much on the wall as on the bookshelves.

McDonald’s book (it’s published by Gill & Macmillan) is a forensic analysis of the path that led directly from Sinn Fein vowing to smash Stormont to chuckling as they settled in to help run it.

McDonald says his aim is “to pull back the curtain at the side of the stage and reveal the true nature of the political outcome in Ireland today”.

He says that the Provisionals campaign “was meant for us, ie, those of us in this island from a Catholic or nationalist tradition/background.”

“They carried it out on our behalf because they somehow knew better than we did. And yet now we are being asked to be grateful for all the wasted years and broken lives, as if the Ireland of today, at peace and enjoying unprecedented prosperity north and south, was somehow down to those who wreaked so much havoc in the name of the nation ? ”

His book documents the twists and turns that the Sinn Fein leadership executed in their efforts to stay on board the peace process.

And it features interviews with disillusioned members of the republican movement now questioning what it was all about. All that killing. All that misery. The years spent behind bars.

For what? That tale this week of Adams and McGuinness teaching the sons of a British Prime Minister how to keep their footing on the skateboard seems oddly apt.

For a pair of politicians, who many of their own former supporters now believe, performed the ultimate back flip.

IAIS
11/12/08

The trial of Northern Ireland sectarian murder victim Michael McIlveen has heard how the Catholic schoolboy was “nailed” with a baseball bat which was swung at times like a golf club, and kicked up to 60 times.

The claims were made by a friend of the 15-year-old who also told of his vain attempts to save him in a video-taped police interview.

15-year-old Michael McIlveen died from head injuries in hospital the day after he was chased and set upon in May 2006.

In a taped police interview his friend told how, as he fought off and held one attacker, another would take his place, and how, during the five minute brutal assault, he pleaded with the attackers to “leave Michael alone”.

The now 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said afterwards he knew there “something seriously wrong” with the schoolboy.

The tape was played at the Antrim Crown Court trial of six Ballymena youths and men facing charges arising out of the teenager`s murder.

20-year-old Mervyn Wilson Moon from Douglas Terrace in Ballymena has already pleaded guilty to murder.

Derry Journal
**Via Newshound
11 November 2008

The INLA were responsible for the murder of Derry dad-to-be Emmett Shiels in Creggan, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) announced yesterday.

In its latest report, the organisation set up to monitor the activities of paramilitary groups said it believes the INLA shot the 22-year-old in the Bligh’s Lane area of the city on June 24.

The report states: “In the six months under review, members of the INLA were, we believe, responsible for the one paramilitary murder which was committed in Derry in June.

“The victim was apparently going to the aid of a man who might have been the intended target of the assailants.”

In the aftermath of the murder, the INLA were blamed locally, despite a statement from the organisation’s Derry brigade denying any involvement.
The murder was widely condemned in Derry and sparked a huge public response, culminating in hundreds of people signing a petition calling on the leaderships of paramilitary groups to call off their armed campaigns.

Elsewhere in the report, the small republican splinter group calling itself Oglaigh na h’Éireann were blamed for an armed robbery in Strabane in March.

Overall, the report said dissidents had been more active than at any time in the last four and a half years.

Despite this the IMC also said it believes dissident republicans have not been recruiting new members. “We do not think that there has been any overall material increase in the number of dissident activists or in their access to weapons or explosives,” it stated.

Irish News
**Via Newshound
11/11/08

A former associate of an Omagh bombing suspect appeared at the High Court in Belfast yesterday to claim he has no memory of events about which lawyers want to question him.

Terence Patrick Morgan, who is receiving psychiatric treatment, took the stand briefly after being ordered to attend the trial of five men being sued over the 1998 atrocity.

“No matter what you do with me I can’t remember anything,” he said.

Lawyers for three of the defendants want to question him about claims he made during police interviews following the Real IRA attack.

During those sessions it was alleged that he falsely signed in one of the men, Seamus McKenna, as being at work on the day of the bombing.

The court has also heard further claims that Mr Morgan – who worked as a foreman for Colm Murphy, another of the men being sued – lent his mobile phone to his boss the day before the attack.

Mr Morgan is said to have later retracted some of what he told police.

McKenna’s barrister Brian Fee QC told the trial the witness was claiming to be unwell and receiving psychiatric care.

A specialist report on his condition is due to be completed by today, the court heard.

Mr Morgan was asked several times by the trial judge whether he wanted to give his evidence or wait until the report was submitted.

Each time he responded by saying he could not recall.

“My memory is blank. It doesn’t matter,” he said.

Deciding not to have him give evidence yet, the judge said the specialist assessment might explain why he claimed to have no recollection.

“If that’s in the medical report it would be important to understand why that situation arose,” Mr Justice Morgan said.

He ruled that lawyers for the defendants and plaintiffs should see the report first.

Mr Morgan was ordered to return to court later in the week.

Breaking News.ie
12/11/2008

A legal challenge against how police handled the loyalist protest which targeted Catholic schoolgirls at Holy Cross Girls’ School in north Belfast could end up in the European Courts, it was revealed today.

The House of Lords today dismissed the case, which criticised policing of violent loyalist demonstrations at the school in 2001.

But after the Lords judgments recorded how pupils suffered weeks of sectarian abuse and were targeted by missiles including balloons filled with urine, solicitors said they might yet take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The scenes at Holy Cross attracted international media attention after simmering sectarian tensions boiled over and a Protestant community sought to block the route of Catholic pupils and parents making their way to school.

At the height of the protest a loyalist bomb was exploded at the scene and, after calls for the demonstration to be cleared from the area, the mother of a pupil later launched a legal action criticising the police operation.

Fearghal Shiels, of Madden & Finucane Solicitors, which handled the case, said: “We are very disappointed by the decision and are giving serious consideration to an application to the European Court of Human Rights.

“It is difficult to reconcile the fact that the House clearly accepted that the children were subject to inhuman and degrading treatment, yet concluded that permitting a protest to take place, which the police admitted was illegal, was upholding the rule of law.”

The High Court and the Court of Appeal had already rejected the case and Baroness Hale of Richmond was among the Law Lords who dismissed it today.

But the Baroness said of the Holy Cross episode: “The world looked on in consternation and amazement in September 2001 as day after day little girls being taken to school by their parents were subjected to a barrage of intimidating clamour, insults, abuse and offensive missiles from bystanders, some of them children themselves, as they walked up the street.”

The scenes caused widespread outrage as schoolchildren walked along a corridor of police and soldiers in riot gear.

But despite the fact that loyalists were only yards from the children, police claimed that, if they took action to force loyalists away, they risked sparking more serious violence across Belfast.

The Baroness added: “It was the fact that little children could be subjected to such prolonged and very public ill-treatment which horrified the outside world and made it hard for them to understand, not only why the aggressors could think it in any way acceptable to subject the children to such an ordeal, but also why the authorities could allow it to happen.”

But she said it had been demonstrated that had the police taken a firmer line “it could have been a great deal worse”.

She added: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing and no doubt the police have learned lessons from this whole experience. But in a highly charged community dispute such as this, it is all too easy to find fault with what the authorities have done, when the real responsibility lies elsewhere.”

The dispute centred on alleged attacks on Glenbryn homes by the larger nationalist community in Ardoyne and was eventually resolved when the Protestant residents were promised social services and security measures.

BBC
12 Nov 2008

A Law Lord has said the Human Rights Commission “wasted” House of Lords’ time over the Holy Cross dispute.

The case was brought by a mother of a child who was a pupil at the north Belfast Catholic girl’s school during the 2001 loyalist protest.

She alleged the police breached the child’s human rights by not taking a tougher approach with protestors.

Two courts rejected that claim, it went to the House of Lords and that appeal has now also failed.

For four months in 2001, Catholic children and their parents ran a gauntlet of hate on their way to the north Belfast school.

The mother of one of the pupils took legal action against the police - claiming they had failed to prevent her and her daughter being subjected to “inhumane and degrading treatment” and had discriminated against them.

The case went before the House of Lords and five law lords, who published their judgement on Wednesday.

They dismissed the claims and said the police had acted in the best interests of the children.

The police welcomed the judgement and said it demonstrated they they had fulfilled their obligations under human rights law.

The judgement also contains criticism of the Human Rights Commission - which intervened and supported the case.

One of the Law Lords said the commission had “unnecessarily wasted their time” and that its intervention was of “no assistance”.

That criticism has been rejected by the Chief Human Rights Commissioner Monica McWilliams.

She said the commission’s decision to intervene had been vindicated because one of the Law Lords accepted that it was right when it said the wrong legal test had been used when the case was originally dismissed by the Court of Appeal in Belfast.

Belfast Telegraph
12 November 2008

A boy from west Belfast can expect to live six years less than one from the south of the city, a report revealed today.

High levels of academic under-achievement and too much smoking and drinking also blight the lives of those in the most deprived areas, the Belfast Healthy Cities document added.

Belfast Healthy Cities is a partnership of medical experts and administrators. Health Minister Michael McGimpsey helped launch its paper today.

Partnership chairwoman Dr Bernadette Cullen said: “These statistics highlight some very serious messages about persistent inequalities in health within the Belfast Trust area, which can only be tackled by addressing their root causes.

“What is required is joint leadership across sectors, based on an understanding of how non-health policy impacts on health.”

The paper, ‘Divided By Health: A City Profile’ brought together statistics on obesity, economic inactivity and smoking.

It warned:

• A boy born in west Belfast is expected to live six years less (71) than one from south Belfast (77).
• Male life expectancy in Belfast is the 11th lowest in the UK while Castlereagh by contrast ranks in place 172nd.
• Smoking prevalence remains at around 30%, with the gap in prevalence rates between those in manual and non-manual occupations increased.
• A fifth of people remain sedentary and there was an increase to 37% of men drinking too much.
• Obesity is also on the rise.

The report said around 30% of people in Belfast were economically inactive, which includes the retired and students, one of the highest rates in the UK.

There has been a limited change in the proportion of people leaving school with no GCSEs, despite efforts to combat illiteracy.

According to the 2001 census, 51% of people in west Belfast aged 16-74 had no formal qualifications compared to 27% from the south of the city.

Dr Cullen added: “Health equity will be a key theme for the World Health Organisation (WHO) European Healthy Cities Network in its next five-year phase.

“We see the profile as an essential resource and basis for agreeing future policy priorities for Belfast, and the ongoing reform of the public administration structures offers a timely opportunity for this.

“In particular, the profile can help target action and resources in a way that is most likely to improve health and reduce inequalities in health.”

Mr McGimpsey said the profile highlights important positive change over the last decade, including improvements in life expectancy, reduced unemployment, improving quality of housing and increases in the proportion of school leavers achieving at least five GCSEs at grades A*-C. There has also been an increase in the number of people in higher education, especially in areas where participation in higher education traditionally has been low.

He added: “So much has been achieved, but to continue to improve health and wellbeing overall, tackling inequalities in health must be a core policy priority.”

Irish Examiner
12/11/2008

Gardai at the scene in the Wicklow Mountains where partial remains, suspected to be of IRA victim Danny McIlhone, were found Saturday November 8Investigators who uncovered the partial remains of a suspected IRA victim on a remote Wicklow hillside are using their ground-breaking methods at five other potential burial sites, it was revealed tonight.

A special DNA database has also been set up of all the families of the so-called Disappeared as part of a new scientific approach that is hoped will finally lead to the bodies of nine people still missing.

Scientists at the State Pathologist’s department are carrying out tests on a human foot, a boot and a sock discovered in the Wicklow Mountains on Saturday believed to be that of Danny McIlhone, who vanished from west Belfast in 1981.

They are trying to identify the complex genetic code of the partial remains which will be sent to a forensic science laboratory in Britain where the special Disappeared database is housed.

If it matches with samples already taken from McIlhone’s family it will positively identify the remains as that of the missing teenager and end decades of misery and uncertainty for his relatives.

It will also spark fresh hopes for other families who have suffered the same agony.

Investigators have already rolled out their new techniques at five more suspected burial locations in Counties Monaghan, Meath and Louth.

They are also to begin similar strategies at two other sites in the Republic as well as at a forest near Rouen in northern France, where it is believed INLA victim Seamus Ruddy is buried.

A source close to the ongoing investigations, carried out under the authority of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR), said there was no deadline for the archaeological “time-team” to find the remaining bodies.

“There are a number of known burial sites and at different phases over the last year and a half we have moved on to each one of those sites and carried out the scientific work,” he said.

“That work is now at different stages … so this is a model that will be rolled out at every potential burial site.”

BBC
12 Nov 2008

Police are continuing to question three men in relation to the murder of 51-year-old Patrick Devine in Claudy, County Derry, in September 2004.

One of them is also being questioned about membership of the INLA.

Mr Devine was shot in his home in the Sperrins

Mr Devine was found slumped over his dinner at his remote farmhouse in the Sperrin Mountains. He had been shot several times at close range.

He was a psychiatric nurse and ran a large-scale sheep farm. The killing was featured on Crimewatch in June.

South Belfast News
Belfast Media
Political Platform by Jimmy Spratt, DUP

Our global economy is reeling and our local community is looking to the Assembly for leadership and help. What is response of Sinn Féin? In one of the most challenging periods to face our country in decades, what is the Sinn Féin strategy for helping the people?

Sadly, and pathetically, they respond by obstructing the Executive from meeting and leaving those most at risk to fend for themselves.

The powerlessness of opposition during Direct Rule was frustrating, but the paralysis of the Executive by Sinn Féin is unforgivable. Their narrow, selfish agenda helps no-one at this time of financial hardship. It’s time for Sinn Féin to get back to work.

What we have now is a far cry from the buoyant Sinn Féin of years gone by. Under Trimble’s unionism, who would have believed that it would have been Sinn Féin that would be on the back-foot, threatening to bring devolution to an end because of their own failures in negotiations and go back to direct rule.

Sinn Féin’s strategy might have worked for them in another era but not now. We will not bow to threats, bend to pressure or be blown off track. We will not budge until the terms are right and the conditions we set out in our manifesto have been met. If and when we have the right deal and public confidence is secured we will move forward but not until then.

The DUP want to see a society where everyone can benefit from economic prosperity. That is why we placed such emphasis on it in the Programme for Government.

That’s why the present refusal to have an Executive meeting to deal with the hardship being faced by our people is so frustrating.

It is not just frustrating for me as a politician, but is also frustrating for the man and woman facing the reality of economically challenging times. Who, if they lose their job, will be asking the question, ‘when are policing and justice powers going to be devolved to the Assembly’?

Does anyone in the construction industry believe that an Irish Language Act will address the current downturn facing that sector?

I want to see policing and justice powers devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

My party fought an election on this issue and we are committed to delivering upon it but our manifesto makes it clear we will not support devolving such powers until the community has confidence in the structures and in those who would operate them. Therefore, there will be no justice minister that cannot command the support of the wider community.

Sinn Féin should remember that devolution of policing and justice is not the only unfinished business. We have unfinished business too - in reforming the system of government here away from mandatory coalition, reducing the number of Government departments, resolving the parades issue and creating a more efficient public sector. I hope Sinn Féin will be just as keen to see our outstanding issues resolved.

Belfast Telegraph
Tuesday, 11 November 2008

At Queen’s University, Denis Bradley once more juggled all of those difficult issues that are part and parcel of Northern Ireland’s past and present.

The issues of sectarianism, segregation, victims, survivors, amnesty, prosecutions, the dead and the cost of dealing with and not dealing with a conflict of several decades.

“We cannot keep going on beating ourselves up over the past,” he said.

“We firmly believe that we must deal with this within a reasonable timeframe.

“This should be done in one place, which has the confidence of all sections of our community,” he suggested.

But will that Commission, expected to be recommended by the Consultative Group, with its two units — Investigations and Information Recovery — be that place of confidence?

Who will establish it, who will fund it, whose truth will be told and whose won’t?

Those questions will have to be answered when the report and recommendations of the Eames-Bradley Group are published in the New Year.

There will be an ugly battle — an argument and long debate — before any implementation.

The IRA and the UDA refused to meet the Consultative Group, the UVF did talk once, and then there is the question of the role of the State in conflict and killing.

Mr Bradley has said that our process will not be the South African model of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

But what will it be, and can it be something that will bring the IRA, the loyalists, the State and many others to the same place of explanation?

It is much too soon to think of answering that question.

At Queen’s, Mr Bradley talked on a range of issues — and the Consultative Group wanted this speech to be heard in every corner in every community, and not just by victims.

“Outside the victims sector there are many who would wish the past away, who believe that if we simply throw money at meeting the physical and emotional needs of victims then they should be happy, should go away and allow the rest of society to get on with the future,” he said.

“Dealing with the past is not just about victims, it is about our entire society.”

But is that society ready for a process that will shovel all that recent history to the surface to be sifted through and examined before we move on?

There are others who can’t move on — who have been broken physically and emotionally, and at Queen’s, Mr Bradley said: “It is deeply unfair to place the entire burden of dealing with the past on the shoulders of victims alone.”

What he is asking is, who else is prepared to carry the weight?

The question of the past and how it is dealt with is the next political football — something that will be kicked and played in all directions.

There are those who want to hear and are demanding to hear Gerry Adams’ truth — but he will have questions of his own to ask of others.

No one knows yet the direction this process will take.

Writing a report and making recommendations is one thing — getting them implemented is something quite different.

“If we do not deal with the past and start to lay the foundations now for a transformed society then there is the real possibility that this will not be the last generation to experience the horrors of conflict,” Mr Bradley warned.

He said that for as long as “hatred, suspicion and a desire for revenge remains, then the possibility of the return of violence looms over this society”.

And he offered an opinion that “the peace has not yet been won”.