THE Society of St Vincent de Paul has launched its Annual Appeal and is expecting requests for help in the run-up to Christmas to be higher than any witnessed in recent years, as already calls for help have tripled on those received last year. In the first week of December, more than 1,000 calls were received by the Society’s Belfast office alone.
More people have been requesting help with food, fuel and white goods than last year and those faced with impossible choices, who are faced with financial difficulties every day of the year, will be in need of assistance for placing presents under the Christmas tree so their children do not wake up to an empty Christmas.
Speaking about the dire situation some families are finding themselves in, Mary Waide, Regional President of St Vincent de Paul, North Region, said: “We are receiving more calls than we have experienced in recent years and more requests via our website from people who would not normally speak out and seek help.
“As well as taking more than 1,000 calls in our Belfast office alone last week, people have also been contacting us by email, phoning our Derry office and calling our almost 100 helpline numbers in local communities across Northern Ireland.
“Some people are finding themselves being faced with the decision of whether to put food on the table, heat the home or buy presents for their children as Christmas approaches. While a third of children are living in poverty in Northern Ireland, we are not just being asked for help by people trying to make ends meet on low incomes, we are also receiving requests from people who have been plunged into poverty and are living in extreme pressure due to rising energy costs, an increase in the cost of living, the reduction in Universal Credit and the impact of the pandemic.”
Mary added: “At the time of year when we remember Christ’s birth and which should bring joy and create magical memories for children, parents are struggling and in the depths of despair. I would appeal to the generosity of our local people in communities across the province to make a donation to SVP to help their neighbours. We are accepting phone and online donations this year so SVP can provide families with vouchers, empowering them to prioritise what they choose to buy.”
Paying tribute to the dedication of SVP members, volunteers and staff for their incredible support, Mary said: “I would like to thank all those involved in ensuring that families receive the help they need. For the empathy they possess in ensuring that the needs of those requesting assistance from SVP are met with dignity.”
Every year SVP spends approximately £3 million to help those experiencing poverty in the North. Last year, SVP responded to tens of thousands of calls for assistance from members of the public.
December is the month for remembering republican political prisoners. This is the current up to date Irish republican prisoner list for 2021, collated by the ‘Irish Republican Prisoner News’ Facebook page. Its tips on writing to prisoners are included.
Shelton Abbey Prison Arklow Co. Wicklow Ireland – Colin Casey
Castlerea Prison Harristown Caslerea Roscommon Ireland – Dean Evans
Portlaoise Gaol Dublin Road Portlaoise Co Laois Ireland
Loughan House – Daniel Hegarty
C4 – Seán Connolly
E1 – Dónal Billings – Jonathan Hawthorn – Michael McDermott – Sharif Kelly
E2 – Garret Mulley – Joe Cassidy
E3 & E4 – Philip Barney McKevitt – Stephen Hendrick – Edward McGrath – Connor Hughes – Darren Fox – Kevin Braney – Robert Day – Seán Hannaway – David Nooney – Conor Metcalfe – John Brock – Máirtín Manning – John Roche – Declan Sean McDermott – Robbie O’Leary – Ray Kennedy
Hydebank Fern One Hydebank Wood Hospital Road Belfast BT8 8NA – Mandy Duffy – Sharon Jordan – Christine Connor
Maghaberry Prison Old Road Ballinderry Upper Lisburn BT28 2PT Ireland
Roe 3 – Liam Hannaway – Ciarán McLaughlin
Roe 4 – Brendan McConville – Seán McVeigh – Peter Granaghan – Gerard Lagan – Paul Campbell – Christie Robinson – Seán Farrell – Shea Reynolds – Joe Barr – Gary “Musky” Hayden – Kevin Barry Murphy – Damien “DD” McLaughlin – Davy Jordan – Issam Hajjawi – Ciaran Maguire – Gabriel Meehan
Davis House – John Paul Wootton – John Paul Heaney – Seamus Morgan – Terence Marks – Patrick Joseph (Mooch) Blair – John Sheehy – Niall Lehd
TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE TO AN IRISH POLITICAL PRISONER/POW
Writing a letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war is a concrete way to support those imprisoned in Ireland for their political struggles.
At times we get messages from all over the world asking advice on writing to Irish Political Prisoners, it is so heartening to know that there are so many people from many countries who support our prisoners and the Irish Republican people, advice sought is usually what can I write? Are there any special requirements? Can I send anything other than a letter?
The fact that people take time out to research is very respectful. We have decided to put together a little dos and don’ts for people who are not au fait with contacting Irish Political prisoners, we hope this helps you, if we have missed anything or anyone else wants to add please feel free to comment below
1. Address the letter in clear lettering giving the full mail address, name and wing of the Political Prisoner.
2. If it’s your first time writing to a Political prisoner don’t think you have to write war and peace, so don’t panic lol just a little about who you are, why you are writing and your best wishes is more than enough, the fact you have taken time out to write at all is what is most appreciated
3. Please include a return address, on occasion a Political prisoner may wish to write back to you and you wouldn’t want to miss that! If you want to be sure that the prisoner has your address, include it on the letter itself, since letters and envelopes can get separated when the mail is processed by the prison.
4. Should a prisoner not write back, please do not be offended or allow it to stop you writing to other POWs, like all of us some POWs are chattier than others, but know this, your letters do make a difference and every one of them is appreciated whether replied to or not.
5. Do NOT include a Political prisoners “Prison Number” even if you know it, these are numbers assigned by the prison, Republican prisoners will not allow themselves to be criminalised by using them as an identification, please respect the Political Status of Irish Republican prisoners and do not include them, don’t worry the letter will still reach the prisoner with or without this number.
6. Please be conscious of the content of your letter, all mail is read by screws before it reaches the Prisoner. Obviously, do not write about illegal activities, ongoing investigations or ask questions of a personal nature.
7. Maghaberry Prison – does not permit parcels or cash to be delivered via post to prisoners, if you have items you wish to send in you should contact the relevant Prisoner Welfare organisation, who can advise you of the procedures.
8. Portlaoise Prison – does permit books and other items to be posted in, please do not send unsolicited items and only do so if requested by a prisoner. If you wish to donate cash to someone in Portlaoise Prison, please contact the relevant Prisoner Welfare organisation.
Fourteen people were killed by British paratroopers on Bloody Sunday.
staff reporter
12 Nov 2021
The programme of events to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday was launched in Derry this afternoon.
Highlights include the screening of the film White Handkerchief and a special event in Guildhall Square.
Earlier, a Families Walk of Remembrance will leave Creggan at 9.15am, retracing the route of the January 30 1972 march, ending with a memorial service at the Bloody Sunday monument on Rossville Street.
Musical highlights include the Undertones and Damien Dempsey and special guests taking to the stage for separate concerts at the Millennium Forum.
The events, themed One World One Struggle, are being organised by the Bloody Sunday Trust who today also launched the new Bloody Sunday 50 website where details of the events planned can be found.
I do wonder where all this talk of “war” is going to take us. Like the chatter about an imminent United Ireland, when the latest polling evidence indicates most people in Northern Ireland are happy enough, it’s largely just chatter. For now.
Ronan McCrea in the Irish Times today expresses real frustration on the Irish side with the way things are going:
With London walking away from the compromises it made and no good options available, Brussels may well conclude that its best option is to call the UK’s bluff and threaten to terminate the TCA.
The Northern Ireland protocol came into being in 2019 because the British were unwilling to endure a no-deal Brexit. With London repudiating the core provisions of the protocol, the only way to save it may be to make it clear that acting in this manner means enduring the no-deal outcome that Johnson was unwilling to countenance two years ago.
All of which, Frost’s command paper has already, painstakingly, put back on the table.
One unionist friend noted last week, the threat to invoke Article 16 is integral to the protocol. An alarm or a safe word to be uttered if the going gets too tough for one party or the other. Indeed the Commission were the first to invoke it.
And clipping onwards to a no deal is an outcome Johnson has played with before, and the Brexiteers have always been happy to consider since it complies with their view of primacy of sovereignty within the political-economy trilemma.
Tom McTeague of The Atlantic draws on Roderick Crawford’s essay for Policy Exchange puts a rather different, less complementary construction on the matter:https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1458078972877606921&lang=en-gb&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fsluggerotoole.com%2F2021%2F11%2F10%2Facting-in-this-manner-means-enduring-the-no-deal-outcome-that-johnson-was-unwilling-to-countenance-two-years-ago%2F&sessionId=cb446e919816351bd3365d14e0b0e6ea8ae3948f&theme=light&widgetsVersion=f001879%3A1634581029404&width=550px
The weakness of the UK position in the negotiations is another warning about the wisdom of going for a bust-out policy when you only have 52% of the UK population behind you. What’s changed is Johnson now has an 80 seat majority.
Domestically he can (and does) do almost anything he likes. The primary mandate from the 2019 general election was effectively to ‘get Brexit done’, and if he’s ‘forced’ to crack some Delft on the way out it’s something he will luxuriate in.
Tom then turns to another interesting piece, this time from Rory Montgomery, a former Irish diplomat who served as Permanent Representative to the European Union, in the Dublin Review 0f Books.
In it, Montgomery notes that although Enda Kenny at “the Magill summer school in July 2016, mused about smart technology and licence plate recognition”, he had dropped that position by January 2017 before Varadkar took over:
It became our firm position that any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard border. The Commission picked this up and moved to make regulatory alignment the centrepiece of its approach.
One good reason for our changing our position was the emphatic way in which Theresa May had set out her red lines, which would clearly lead to very significant divergence between the UK and EU.
But another was that regular Commission officials (not Barnier and the taskforce) adopted a completely orthodox approach to the full application of EU law in any arrangement. We would have been banging our heads against a brick wall had we continued to look for more flexibility at that time.
That, for me at least, fills an important gap in my previous understanding of what was going on at the time. It also clarifies the nature of the crisis going forward and what the tensions are (and how horribly irresolvable they may be).
All of which takes me back to Dani Rodik’s observations made in the teeth of the Euro crisis in May 2010:
The crisis has revealed how demanding globalization’s political prerequisites are. It shows how much European institutions must still evolve to underpin a healthy single market. The choice that the EU faces is the same in other parts of the world: either integrate politically, or ease up on economic unification.
Before the crisis, Europe looked like the most likely candidate to make a successful transition to the first equilibrium – greater political unification. Now its economic project lies in tatters while the leadership needed to rekindle political integration is nowhere to be seen.
Dilemma or trilemma, it hasn’t gone away you know?
