SAOIRSE32

Mid Ulster Mail
11 December 2008

UNIONIST councillors yesterday slammed a Sinn Fein move asking Roads Service to erect Irish and English nameplates on roads leadings to towns and villages in the Magherafelt district where the majority of households are in favour.

The local District Council adjourned the motion on Tuesday night tabled by Councillor Sean Kerr to allow council officers to seek clarification on whose responsibility it is to erect the signage.

DUP Councillor Paul McLean described it as “very insensitive” and claimed it would lead to community division.

“This will not benefit community relations,” he said. “Where you have a 50/50 split in a town or village it will lead to that community being at loggerheads.”

Ulster Unionist councillor George Shiels condemned it and said it had potentially sinister connotations.

“It is the equivalent of labelling towns and villages within Magherafelt district as Protestant or Catholic,” he said.

Derry Journal
**Via Newshound
10 December 2008

A new campaign to make Irish one of the official languages of the North has been welcomed by SDLP councillor Mark H Durkan.

The move was launched at Stormont when SDLP MLA Dominic Bradley tabled a private members’ bill to have English and Irish formally recognised as the official languages of the North.

Welcoming the plan, Colr Durkan said the experience of Wales and Scotland show that language legislation can be enacted without controversary.

“The SDLP have been working on this bill for several months in response to the statement by former DCAL Minister Edwin Poots that his department would not bring forward an Irish language bill to meet the commitment made at St Andrews. Contention around these issues is generally based on misunderstanding and experience from Scotland and Wales shows that this contention quickly dissipates once legislation is in place. The SDLP will now be seeking support from other parties in the Assembly with a view to putting it before MLAs in the New Year,” he said.

Colr. Durkan also said an Irish Language Act would “depoliticise” the language debate.

“The real benefit to be won from establishing language rights in legislation lies in depoliticisation. This bill establishes two official languages, Irish and English, so it is very clearly a threat to no one. It is designed to meet the needs of nearly 170,000 people who know or use Irish and they belong to all political parties and none,” he said.

Irish News
10/12/2008

THE trial of four men arrested during a Garda operation into suspected dissident activity in Donegal last March has heard that images of “men in balaclavas, camouflaged jackets and holding an AK47” were found during a search of a transit van.

The four Derry men standing trial at the Special Criminal Court are Gary Donnelly (38), Kildrum Gardens, Michael Gallagher (28), Sackville Court, Martin Francis O’Neill (40), Colmcille Court and Patrick John McDaid (38), Marlborough Street.

They have pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself on the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oghlaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA, on March 16.

Detective Garda William Sisk, of the Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Square, told Patrick Marrinan SC, prosecuting, that he was briefed on suspected dissident activity in Co Donegal on March 15 this year.

He said that he was “made aware of members of the IRA putting on a media display of firearms and explosives in the Donegal area”.

Mr Sisk said that he saw a transit van at 11pm in the Bridgend area and that he carried out a “cursory search” of the van and found a stills camera, a video camera and a memory-card containing images.

He turned on the camera and saw a number of images including “men in balaclavas, camouflaged jackets and holding an AK47”.

Det Gda Kevin Moriarty told the court that he saw two of the accused, Mr Donnelly and Mr O’Neill, enter MacIntyre’s pub in Bridgend at approximately 9pm on March 15.

Mr Moriarty saw a white transit van drive into the pub’s carpark ten minutes later and a man leave the carpark and go into the pub.

“Shortly after, I saw Gary Donnelly, Martin Francis O’Neill leave the bar, accompanied by a gang of other men, six or seven males, milling around the front of the bar.”

Mr Moriarty said that one of the men walked to another car and “took a number of bags from the boot, then walked back to the group of men outside the pub and to the carpark where the white transit van had earlier driven into.”

Mr Moriarty said that at 11.20pm he became aware that a white transit van had been stopped by gardai just outside Bridgend.

“I went to the scene and Mr Sisk pointed out a number of items he had found in the van and asked me to take control of them,” he said.

The trial continues.

Irish News
10/12/2008

SCORES of women elected to the Oireachtas packed the Dail chamber yesterday to mark the 90th anniversary of the first female TD and MP.

The momentous event, involving more than 70 former and sitting TDs and Senators, also commemorated the 1918 poll in which women had the right to vote for the first time.

Constance Markiewicz

Independent Senator Ivana Bacik said the special ceremony was held to celebrate the remarkable achievements of Ireland’s female politicians throughout the years.

“I hope this event will serve both as a celebration of the many remarkable women who have been TDs and senators over the past 90 years and as a reminder of the low levels of women’s participation in Irish political life,” she said.

“This will be the first time in the history of the Irish State – in the nine decades since that historic 1918 election – that the Chamber will be nearly half filled with women representatives.”

In December 1918 revolutionary nationalist Constance Markiewicz became the first woman elected to the British House of Commons as an MP but she turned down her seat.

Instead she became the first woman TD to take part in the newly established Dail Eireann.

Excerpts from two speeches by her were read aloud in the chamber by Catherine McGuinness, former senator and supreme court judge.

One of the extracts was from a speech to the Students’ National Literacy Society in Dublin in 1909 and the other she gave to the Irish Women’s Franchise League in Dublin in 1915.

A photograph was taken to mark the historic event.

Ms Bacik said the ceremony was modelled on a similar exercise carried out in the Portuguese parliament in 1994.

“The photograph taken at that event, of women politicians filling half of the Portuguese parliamentary chamber, achieved a widespread impact and helped greatly to increase awareness about low levels of women’s political participation,” Ms Bacik said.

“I hope that this event will have a similar effect here in Ireland, in helping to encourage women to come forward and participate more actively in public life.”

Just 22 of the 166 Dail members are women, while 13 out of 60 in the Seanad are female.

Over the last 90 years women have filled just 370 of the total of 6,072 Dail and Seanad seats.

“Today as we celebrate the historic election of Constance Markiewicz by honouring the many women who have entered the Oireachtas over the past 90 years, we might well reflect on the need to encourage more women to enter political life – so that some day our parliamentary chamber may be filled with equal numbers of elected women and men in a true ‘parity democracy’,” Ms Bacik said.

Story of a countess

Born Constance Gore-Booth in London, the daughter of a Co Sligo landowner seemed destined for the cream of society rather than revolutionary politics.

A noted beauty, she studied art at the Slade School in London and in Paris where she met Casimir Markiewicz, a Polish art student whom she married in 1900.

They had one daughter but the marriage was not a success. In 1913 Casimir Markiewicz departed for Ukraine, never to return.

Countess Markiewicz was attracted to the emerging Sinn Fein movement and became involved with Inghinidhe na hEireann (‘Daughers of Ireland’).

In 1909 she set up the Fianna, a boy-scout militia while in 1913 she also ran a soup kitchen in Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union.

But perhaps what she became best known for was her role in the 1916 Easter Rising.

As an officer in James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army she participated in the 1916 rebellion, serving as second-in-command to Michael Mallin in St Stephen’s Green.

She was sentenced to death for her role in the rebellion but the sentence was commuted.

In total, 17 female candidates ran in the election of December 14 1918, one Conservative, four Labour, four Liberal and eight from others parties.

Countess Markiewicz was selected by Sinn Fein to contest the St Patrick’s division of Dublin.

She defeated William Field of Charles Parnell’s Irish Parliamentary Party who had represented the constituency continuously since 1892.

Countess Markiewicz died in July 1927 in a public ward of a Dublin Hospital. Her funeral was attended by huge numbers of the Dublin working class.

By Richard Walsh - Republican Sinn Féin
Indymedia.ie
11 Dec 2008

RSF have condemned the subversive activities of the Dublin Administration in demanding a ‘Yes’ vote.

The decision to re-run the referendum on the rejected Lisbon Treaty in the 26-Counties next October represents an attempt to subvert the sovereign will of the People, a spokesman for Republican Sinn Féin has said.

“All kinds of pressure is being applied to those allowed to vote to ensure that they arrive at the result Brian Cowen and the EU ‘élite’ demand.

“Already a large section of the Irish population are denied their say on the issue. Nobody living under British occupation is permitted to vote, despite being Irish citizens who are resident in Ireland. Of course the fact that a majority of people in the Six Counties are opposed to the direction of the EU – including many who oppose the EU project entirely – means that this situation suits the Dublin administration.

“However, they were prepared to turn a blind eye to the non-resident former head of the 26-County administration, John Bruton – now the EU’s representative in the United States – illegally casting a ballot in favour of the rebranded EU Constitution.

“The Dublin administration should have the decency to admit that Lisbon is dead instead of engaging in the same cynical exercise of a second referendum as was the case following the rejection of the Treaty of Nice.”

International Herald Tribune
The Associated Press
December 11, 2008

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Ireland has committed to hold a second referendum on the European Union’s stalled reform treaty before the end of October 2009, the French government said Thursday.

France, which currently holds the EU presidency, wrote in a document expected to be endorsed by EU leaders at summit talks later Thursday that Ireland would vote again in return for changes to the so-called Lisbon treaty.

The rejection of the treaty by Irish voters in June left the document in limbo, as it has to be ratified by all 27 EU members before it can come into force. The treaty is meant to streamline the EU’s 50-year-old rules of procedure and bolster its position on the world stage.

EU leaders on Thursday are expected to back some key changes to the draft treaty, notably scrapping plans to slim down the EU’s executive office, according to the EU text obtained by The Associated Press. EU nations will also be prepared to offer Ireland other guarantees, including assurances that its cherished neutrality stays intact.

The guarantees are meant to ease Irish fears that the EU would strip away long-held Irish provisions such as those that outlaw abortion and guarantee workers’ rights, and would dilute health and education standards.

Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said all 27 EU leaders had to sign off on the changes being proposed, but said the changes would go a long way to address Irish voter concerns.

“The work in relation to these range of issues, on which we are seeking legal guarantees, is not complete,” Martin said from Dublin ahead of the summit. Adding a second vote was conditional on the treaty changes being completed in the coming months.

The French text says a second vote would be held before the current term of the EU’s executive commission runs out, which is at the end of October 2009.

“The Irish Government is committed to seeking ratification of the Lisbon Treaty,” the summit document said. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is to formally present his country’s demands for changes later Thursday.

Cowen is facing heavy criticism at home over his government’s determination to stage a second referendum. Ireland is the only EU member whose constitution requires ratification by a public referendum.

Ireland’s most prominent anti-EU treaty campaigner Declan Ganley said efforts to hold a re-vote were “anti-democratic.”

Ganley, a self-made millionaire who ran a successful referendum campaign against the treaty in Ireland announced plans Thursday to expand his “Libertas” party and run candidates across Europe for June’s European Parliament elections to protest efforts to keep the reform treaty alive.

“It’s up to the people of Europe, the electorate of Europe to decide what kind of future they want for the European Union … their votes are not listened to, they are ignored,” said Ganley.

Twenty-four EU members have already ratified the treaty. Ireland, the Czech Republic and Poland are the three yet to do so.
___

AP Writer Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Ireland contributed to this report.

**And this guy is the CULTURE Minister, acting this way??? It would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.

Gregory Campbell wants the singer to clarify her position

By Natalie Lindo
BBC

Lyrics chosen by singer/songwriter Dido have led Northern Ireland’s culture minister to accuse the artist of supporting the IRA.

The singer has just released her new album, Long Way Home, which she co-wrote with producer Jon Brion.

In the song ‘Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do'’ the lyrics include a few lines from Barleycorn’s ‘The Men Behind The Wire’.

“Armoured cars and tanks and guns, came to take away our sons. But every man must stand behind, the men behind the wire.”

The song was written by the Northern Irish band in the aftermath of internment.

It describes raids by British soldiers, and the “men behind the wire” refers to those held at Long Kesh prison, which later became the Maze jail.

Now Culture Minister Gregory Campbell, of the DUP, has asked the artist, or her management, to clarify her position so the public and her fans know where she stands on the issue.

Dido has just released a new album

“Whatever the song represented when it was recorded 40 years ago has changed, since then it has been recorded by militant republicans about people who were guilty of very serious crimes, terrorists and gangsters,” he said.

“Why on earth would a singer who, previous to this hasn’t shown any affinity with that sort of grouping, make a recording like this?” he added.

Barry McElduff of Sinn Féin said Mr Campbell was “focusing on issues with little relevance or significance”.

“Once again we see needless rants from a man who is elected as a minister for culture in this assembly, but would much rather criticise a great music talent like the musician Dido,” he said.

Mr Campbell said his opinion on the Dido song had been sought by a local newspaper journalist.

“I just said it was odd, it doesn’t appear to be an Irish Republican song but the verse she has chosen is.

“If she is an IRA supporter then she should come out and say it, if she is not she should say that and offer some clarity either way.”

Mr McElduff said he believed most people would expect the minister for culture, arts and leisure to defend and support artistic freedom and independence.

He added that the minister had recently also taken exception to an episode of the Simpsons.

“I think artistic freedom and independence is very important,” he said.

Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 11 December 2008

One of the men who oversaw IRA arms decommissioning has received the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating in some of the world’s thorniest conflicts.

Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari accepted the award from the Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes at a ceremony in Oslo.

71-year old Mr Ahtisaari won the award for his three decades of peace work around the globe including in Namibia, Kosovo and Indonesia.

He was a member of the decommissioning body that negotiated the destruction of IRA arms, but he rarely spoke in public about the process.

He served as Finland’s president from 1994 until declining re-election in 2000, when he left politics and founded his Crisis Management Initiative, a peace mediation institute.

The Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and literature are due to be presented in Stockholm, Sweden, today.

• Detectives seek dioxins source in Irish farm crisis
• Food firm in inquiry insists its oil is legitimate

Henry McDonald and James Meikle
The Guardian
Thursday December 11 2008

Detectives on both sides of the Irish border were yesterday investigating claims that smuggled fuel may have contaminated the animal feed behind the Irish pork crisis, which last night prompted the Food Standards Agency to order the withdrawal of all Irish pork products from supermarket shelves in Britain.

The Irish Republic’s environmental protection agency and Irish police are investigating the possibility that the feed was tainted with dioxins from smuggled fuel oil.

The fuel is converted from agricultural green diesel to red diesel used in motor vehicles and for heating oil. This process, pioneered by the IRA’s south Armagh Brigade during the Troubles, produces dioxins as a waste byproduct.

Police are acting on intelligence that the oil used to heat the animal feed in a processing plant in the republic was sourced from Co Tyrone in Northern Ireland and may have been smuggled fuel. However, they are also exploring an alternative theory that the oil was legitimately sourced but was tainted by being transported in a tanker contaminated with dioxins.

The oil that is the focus of the investigation was used in a burner at the Millstream Recycling plant in Co Carlow to convert food products into animal feed. This plant is being investigated by police as the suspected source of the contaminated feed.

In a statement, Millstream Recycling stressed that the company had only ever purchased their oil from a legitimate supplier in the Republic of Ireland. Garda Siochana, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and sources at the Department of Health in Northern Ireland said yesterday there was no suggestion that the Co Carlow-based company was involved in anything illegal. Millstream added that it would be inappropriate to make any further comments during the investigation.

In rural parts of Northern Ireland, most notably south Armagh and east Tyrone there are dozens of illegal fuel smuggling centres, many under the control of republican paramilitaries. The IRA sold the converted red diesel on the black market to drivers at a knockdown price. The drivers avoided fuel tax on both sides of the border but the process resulted in the pollution of land and rivers around the border.

The PSNI and the Garda confirmed yesterday that they have been called in over allegations that the fuel came from Co Tyrone. Police sources stressed that the inquiry was still at an early stage.

Smugglers operating on the south Armagh-Co Louth border were blamed during the last foot and mouth crisis for bringing the disease into Ireland. Foot and mouth entered the Irish Republic via cattle smuggled from Northern Ireland.

Supermarkets and other retailers last night began removing all pork products linked to Ireland. The European commission said Britain’s attempts to introduce a different recall system from Dublin’s would undermine attempts to have a level playing field across Europe on Irish products.

The Food Standards Agency said that when European chief veterinary officers met yesterday, “it was confirmed that the European commission wants a level playing field across Europe on Irish pork and, as such, all Irish pork should be recalled and destroyed. The original decision taken by the Food Safety Authority in Ireland is binding across Europe”. Pork products from animals reared, slaughtered and processed in Northern Ireland were unaffected.

The agency says that consumers with any concerns about the origin of pork products should contact the shop at which they bought them.

Last night , it was unclear exactly how many retailers had put products back on their shelves earlier this week and now had to remove them again. The Guardian understands some had difficulty in establishing which farms had been involved in the pork crisis.

Sainsbury’s said it had only acted on the food agency’s original advice which meant that all pork products from Ireland had been removed from sale.

The Irish government announced that the sale of Irish pork and bacon would resume with new products carrying a label confirming that they were safe to eat and verified as having had no association with potentially contaminated feed. Agriculture minister Brendan Smith said its “decisive and rapid action” in removing all pork products from the shelves last weekend “allows us to restore supplies in which the consumer can have full confidence”.

Borderline business

The falling pound and Alistair Darling’s VAT cut has benefited Northern Ireland. In the republic, VAT is 21.5% while it is now 15% north of the border.

At the huge Sainsbury’s in Newry, Co Down, a third of trade is in euros. And up to 60% of trade at pre-Christmas weekends in Newry and Derry, closer to the border, has been from Republic of Ireland shoppers.

Until the pound started falling against the euro, the republic’s one advantage was its cheaper fuel; the Treasury loses millions a year from diesel smuggled by gangs and sold in areas such as south Armagh. Customs is investigating garages in Belfast alleged to sell “washed” diesel to motorists.

News Letter
10 December 2008

NORTHERN Ireland has the fastest growing population in the United Kingdom, it has been revealed.

The annual report of the Registrar General concludes the Ulster population has risen by a full one per cent, ensuring the Northern Ireland now has over 1.75m inhabitants.

The dramatic rise up in the year up until mid-2007 was twice the rate of both Scotland and Wales and almost double that of England.

However, Northern Ireland lagged well behind the Republic which recorded a dramatic 2.5 per cent increase.

The Province’s population rose by a total of 17,500.

The birth rate increased by 5 per cent, with babies born from mothers of minority communities, namely eastern european countries, showing a dramatic rise.

Meanwhile, the report also revealed more than a quarter of people who died in the died in the Province suffered from cancer.

There were over 14,500 registered deaths in 2007.

News Letter
10 Dec 2008

GORDON Brown has indicated he is willing to help move the issue of compensation forward for victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism, it has been claimed.

DUP MP Nigel Dodds was speaking after he met the Prime Minister on Wednesday.

Mr Dodds was accompanied by Labour MP Andrew McKinlay and Michelle Williamson, whose parents were killed in the Shankill Road bombing by the IRA in 1993.

Earlier this year, Ulster victims’ hopes of compensation over terrorist tragedies appeared dashed when Mr Brown indicated in a letter to lawyers representing IRA victims he would be unwilling to seek compensation, despite the US government acting on behalf of American citizens.

The Libyan regime under Colonel Ghadaffi is widely thought to have provided funding and training to the Provisionals at the height of the Troubles.

Semtex originating from Libya is thought to have been used in terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 90s, including the Enniskillen Remembrance bomb.

Last month, in response to a question from Mr McKinlay in Parliament on the issue, Mr Brown indicated he would “review” the matter.

Speaking after lobbying the Prime Minister, Mr Dodds said: “Prior to our meeting today, the message which we had been getting from the government was that there was nothing they could do on this matter. I am pleased that is no longer the case.

“The Prime Minister has indicated that the government will help move the issue of compensation for victims forward.”

The North Belfast MP claimed the Provisional IRA could bnot have waged their campaign without the backing of Ghadaffi.

“The Libyans have admitted their guilt in supporting terrorism. The very fact that they have established a $2.7billion fund to compensate American victims of terrorist acts they supported is a clear admission of guilt.

“If the Americans can apply pressure to guarantee compensation for victims, why is our own government selling short victims from all corners of the United Kingdom who suffered at the hands of the terrorists Ghadaffi bank-rolled? That is the message we took to the Prime Minister today,” he added.