Posted by Jim on January 31, 2018
“Under Enda Kenny—who never evinced the slightest interest in The North— we had ministers responsible for this place who differed only in their antagonism towards Sinn Féin, one a former Stickie[ ‘Offiicial Republican], the other from the law and order right of Fine Gael. … [Nationalists] watched in alarm, as every northern issue Sinn Féin raised in the Dáil, was batted away derisively by Enda Kenny, and in Stormont talks his minister Charlie Flanagan adopted a position indistinguishable from the British when he wasn’t completely disengaged.”
Brian Feeney.Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, January, 31, 2018
IN December after Leo Varadkar pronounced himself mighty pleased with the deal on the border that the EU had wrung out of the British. He came out with this declaration: “To the nationalist people of Northern Ireland I want to assure you that we have protected your interests throughout these negotiations and will continue to do so and you will never again be left behind by an Irish government.”
Two days later the British government publicly ratted on the deal and they’ve been rowing away from it ever since.
British duplicity isn’t the point here. We’ll see in the coming months how successfully they squirm around the legalities.
No, let’s look at Varadkar’s pronouncement, which you might find touching.
Or on the other hand, coming from a Fine Gael-led government which has done nothing for northern Nationalists for six years, except exhibit hostility towards their political representatives, you might find his remarks to be what they call in diplomatic parlance a bit of a démarche— in normal language, a manoeuvre.
Under Enda Kenny—who never evinced the slightest interest in The North— we had ministers responsible for this place who differed only in their antagonism towards Sinn Féin, one a former Stickie[‘Official Republican’], the other from the law and order right of Fine Gael.
They stood idly by as the Conservative-led governments since 2010 cleaved ever closer to the DUP, indulging their merest whims, and by 2017 were displaying overt support for the raving right of the Tory party in security and legacy matters here.
It was a new experience for northern Nationalists who had been used for over 20 years to the unequivocal support of Irish governments and an identity of policy.
The reasons are obvious and have been outlined here before. John Hume had made his party, in effect, the Irish government in The North, pursuing and promoting its policies.
However, by the beginning of this decade not only was Sinn Féin overwhelmingly the choice of northern Nationalists, whose votes had made Martin McGuinness deputy First Minister, but they won 220,661 votes and 14 seats in the 2011 Dáil. By 2016 that became 295,319 and 23 seats, making them a political threat in The South.
Consequently, from 2010 northern Nationalists found themselves bereft of political influence in both Westminster and Dublin.
They watched in dismay as David Cameron’s precarious coalition courted the DUP, even throwing a party for them in the Downing Street garden.
They watched in alarm, as every northern issue Sinn Féin raised in the Dáil, was batted away derisively by Enda Kenny, and in Stormont talks his minister Charlie Flanagan adopted a position indistinguishable from the British when he wasn’t completely disengaged.
Disenchantment grew as the DUP, with British connivance and Irish complicity, blocked everything in the Assembly and in talks on flags, Orange marches, the past, the present, the future.
Sinn Féin could not provide any political leverage for northern Nationalists. They faced undisguised hostility in London and Dublin.
Now, since December it appears the Taoiseach has pulled on a green jersey. He met Sinn Féin on December 18 and later agreed with them that calling a British-Irish Inter-Governmental Council is a good idea.
He actually answered questions from Gerry Adams. He said Barry McElduff’s stupid stunt was “perhaps an error of judgment”.
He told the DUP they don’t represent a majority in The North on Brexit, producing predictable apoplexy from poor Sammy Wilson. Not to be outdone, Simon Coveney hoped for a united Ireland.
What’s going on? Will Mary Lou McDonald’s Sinn Féin at last be able to exert the sort of political leverage that John Hume exercised?
Don’t hold your breath. Varadkar has noticed that polls show 22 per cent of people are more likely to vote Sinn Féin with Mary Lou as leader.
Varadkar has also enjoyed a huge boost in his poll ratings, not unrelated to his confrontation with the British.
Unlike beleaguered Micheál Martin he is not competing with Sinn Féin for votes. What Varadkar’s aiming to do is keep those Fianna Fáil voters who switched to Fine Gael in 2011.
He’s also hoping for Sinn Féin transfers in the next election in 2019. His manoeuvre has nothing to do with the northern Nationalists.
Posted by Jim on January 30, 2018
The man alleged to have been the British Army’s most high-ranking agent
in the Provisional IRA has been arrested and is being questioned about
allegations that he murdered dozens of people while working undercover
in the IRA’s feared internal security unit.
The agent known as Stakeknife has been named as Freddie Scappaticci from
west Belfast. The BBC reported that he was arrested in England but said
the investigation team would not release details of the arrest nor where
he is being held “due to security reasons.”
In 1993, Mr Scappaticci was allegedly recorded providing details on the
late Martin McGuinness and the IRA to investigative journalist Roger
Cook, after a ‘Cook Report’ documentary on Mr McGuinness was broadcas.
The tapes covertly recorded by Mr Cook were passed ten years later to
the Panorama documentary team. Mr Scappaticci was subsequently accused
of being ‘Stakeknife’, and receiving a six figure sum every year by the
British government while serving as head of the IRA’s so-called ‘nutting
squad’. The unit has been linked to more than 40 killings, many of which
are now feared to have been carried out at the behest of Stakeknife’s
MI5 handlers.
Scappaticci subsequently left Ireland but always denied that he was an
IRA informer. He is said to have appeared briefly at his 98-year-old
father’s funeral in west Belfast last year.
Operation Kenova, a police investigation, was launched in 2016 after
victims demanded to know the truth of his alleged activities. A
statement by Operation Kenova claimed it had spoken to more than 40
families and generated 1,500 lines of enquiry. The investigation into
Scappaticci is expected to take several more years before the case comes
to trial, if at all.
The 72-year-old’s arrest comes 24 hours after the sentencing of
notorious loyalist ‘supergrass’ Gary Haggarty for several murders in
another highly controversial case of collusion. It ended in shock for
victims and relatives as the double agent received a sentence which will
likely see him released within weeks. There was a sense of cover-up
following the sentencing, which was exacerbated by the decision in
October that no prosecutions would be brought against his handlers in
RUC police Special Branch.
In another development today, a large number of disparate groups of
victims of the conflict announced plans for a mass march to demand
action on stalled efforts to deal with the legacy of the conflict. The
march will take place under the banner “Time for Truth” in Belfast on
February 25.
Announcing the march, Emma Rogan, whose father Adrian was shot dead in
the UVF Loughinisland massacre in County Down in 1994, said the truth
cost nothing.
“I am calling on everyone to come out, put your feet on the streets and
march with us,” she said. “Solidarity, everybody together sending a
strong clear message that we deserve and we need the truth. It’s human
decency that people would get the truth and know what happened to their
loved ones and know why.”
A full report on each of these developments will be carried in our
weekend edition.
Posted by Jim on
Haggarty recruited by Special Branch less than a year after joining UVF
Gary Haggarty was a Special Branch informer for 11 years
Allison Morris. Belfast News.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018 GARY Haggarty was recruited as an RUC Special Branch informer less than a year after joining the ranks of the murderous Mount Vernon UVF when he was arrested for possession of ammunition.
Victims’ relatives expressed anger yesterday as it was confirmed the Loyalist supergrass could be freed within weeks despite pleading guilty to five murders and almost 200 other paramilitary crimes.
A 35-year jail term was reduced to six-and-a-half years for helping police and agreeing to give evidence against his former associates, although a prosecution is only set to go ahead in one case.
With time served on remand Haggarty is now eligible to appear before parole commissioners to secure his release to a new life in witness protection.
The Irish News understands that he was first recruited by Special Branch in the early 1990s after being arrested for possession of a bag of bullets at a house in Glasgow Street in north Belfast.
Detectives from CID had already charged Haggarty when they were outranked by Special Branch, who had all charges withdrawn.
He acted as an informer for 11 years but committed hundreds of offences, including the murders of Catholic workmen Eamon Fox (44) and Gary Convie (24) as they had lunch together in a car in north Belfast in 1994.
Mr Fox’s son Kieran hit out at the sentence yesterday, saying Haggarty was a paid state informer who was “allowed to kill at will”.
“What is justice in this country? It is just designed to look after the criminal,” he said.
Politicians also said justice had not been served.
PPS acting deputy director Michael Agnew said the discounts applied in such cases are difficult for victims, but “without it convictions for the many offences would not have been achieved”.
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said the PSNI “fully realize that there will be many questions surrounding the Haggarty case”.
“However, as he is now a key witness in a forthcoming trial PSNI is now prevented by law from talking about this case.”
Posted by Jim on January 27, 2018
In a dramatic day at Belfast’s High Court, a judge who sought to quash a
report which found British state collusion in the Loughinisland massacre
is to step aside from the case.
In 2016, the Police Ombudsman determined that the RUC police colluded
with loyalists who killed six Catholic men in a bar as they watched a
soccer match. Five others were wounded in the attack.
On Friday, Justice Bernard McCloskey delivered a contradictory series of
rulings before accepting that a legal challenge to that report should be
re-run in front of another judge — but only to ensure victims’
relatives’ confidence in the final outcome.
Nevertheless, he lashed out at arguments he was potentially biased after
previously representing the same RUC police chief, Raymond White, in a
similar case as “flimsy, artificial and entirely unpersuasive”.
Legal experts described the rulings as “unprecedented”. The outcome
meant no final order could be made on whether to quash the Ombudsman’s
report, which still stands, despite the judge’s insistence that parts
should be removed.
Niall Murphy, lawyer for the Loughinisland families said it was “the
most unprecedented resolution to a judicial review application that I
have ever experienced in my years in practice”.
“What we have now is an opportunity for the Police Ombudsman and the
families to re-engage in a brand new reflection of the legal issues
raised and we look forward to doing that as quickly as possible.”
Emma Rogan, whose father Adrian was one of the six men killed in the UVF
gun attack on the Heights Bar in 1994, said the families welcome a new
judge taking a look at the case.
“We are delighted that our report still stands in its entirety – the
(ombudsman’s) report that we got in 2016 is still the report that’s on
record.”
She added: “I will be here fighting for truth and justice until I have
no fight left in me.”
“All we ever wanted was the truth, that’s it, the bottom line –
everybody deserves it. It’s human decency for people to know and for
people to acknowledge what happened to their loved ones. That’s all we
want,” she said.
Posted by Jim on
Concerns have been expressed at the accelerating rate at which
undocumented Irish people living in the United States are being deported
back to Ireland.
Nineteen-year-old Dylan O’Riordan, originally from County Galway, has
already been detained for four months in punitive conditions by US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In the Suffolk County House of
Corrections in Boston, the teenager is required to wear a bright yellow
jail jumpsuit at all times.
He moved to the US when he was 12 years old along with his parents, who
are both legal US Permanent Residents. He now faces deportation on the
basis he has overstayed his visa.
“I was aware how with Trump immigration was going to get a lot harder,
but I didn’t pay as much mind to it as I should have, which was my first
mistake,” he said.
Dylan is confined with 150 men in a section of the county jail
contracted to ICE. “There’s a lot of people from El Salvador, a lot of
Guatemalans, couple of Haitian people, and I’m the only Irish in the
whole facility,” he said.
O’Riordan’s lawyer points out that his client was brought here when he
was a child, but ICE won’t budge.
“Their position has been, well, he waived whatever rights he had when he
came,” said Tony Marino. “Twelve-year-olds don’t waive rights! I’ve
never seen anything like it. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
A prominent local Irish immigrant, John Cunningham, went on camera with
an Irish TV crew last year talking about his fear of living illegally in
Boston. Weeks later, ICE arrested him and sent him back to Ireland.
Kieran O’Sullivan, of the Irish Pastoral Centre in Boston, said that the
number of Irish being sent home from the US has surged, with a total of
34 Irish immigrants being deported in 2017.
Mr O’Sullivan explained there had been a number of high profile
‘detentions’ involving Irish people in the Boston area over the last 12
months.
He said it was “disturbing” that detainees spend lengthy periods in jail
while paperwork regarding their expulsion is processed.
“This causes considerable upset to the families of those detained
whether in the US or back home in Ireland,” he said. “This notion that’s
out there – that they’re a threat to the country – is nonsense.”
Emigration from Ireland has been officially encouraged by successive
Irish governments, and it is a process that continues. The late former
Tanaiste Brian Lenihan asked people to leave, telling them “we can’t all
live on a small island”. This week Taoiseach Leo Varadkar urged young
people without wealthy parents to emigrate to save up for a mortgage.
It is estimated that as many as 50,000 unauthorised Irish are living in
the shadows in America. Fine Gael TD John Deasy TD has been appointed to
be special envoy to the U.S. Congress to work out a solution to the
problem.
Fionnuala Quinlan, the Irish consul general in Boston, says with the
island’s small population there’s hardly a family in Ireland that
doesn’t know of someone living illegally in the U.S.
“That’s really why the government places such a strong emphasis on it,”
she says. “We know the impact that living an undocumented life has on
people not being able to go home for funerals or celebrations, the fear
and isolation that can result from that.”