“These inquests into some of the most controversial killing of the Troubles were recently the subject of a major review by Lord Justice Weir who was scathing about the way in which the PSNI and military authorities have dealt with these cases.”
Irish News Editorial. Friday, May 6, 2016
Once the votes are counted and the successful candidates declared, the new assembly will have a long list of pressing matters to consider and hopefully expedite in a timely fashion.
In particular, relatives who have lost loved ones in the conflict will be urging the fresh batch of ministers to reach urgent agreement on how we move forward on dealing with the past, an issue that continues to cause deep hurt and division.
Certainly, it is a matter that is exercising the highest levels of the judiciary in Northern Ireland with Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan making a surprise intervention this week on the matter of funding for legacy inquests.
These inquests into some of the most controversial killing of the Troubles were recently the subject of a major review by Lord Justice Weir who was scathing about the way in which the PSNI and military authorities have dealt with these cases.
Sir Declan outlined a plan in February that included setting up a special Legacy Inquest Unit that would deal with all outstanding cases within five years.
He said he had been ‘given to understand’ that if the executive asks for resources for legacy inquests the request would be given very serious consideration by the secretary of state.
However, this week the Lord Chief Justice expressed disappointment that the executive has not yet submitted a bid for funding to Theresa Villiers and said this would affect the timeframe for the establishment of the new legacy unit.
This is all deeply concerning and will add to the sense of frustration and dismay felt by families who have waited far too long for hearings into their cases.
It is also unusual for the most senior judge to make his views known in such a direct way so we can assume he shares this sense of frustration.
A new assembly means a fresh beginning and we must hope the post-election executive shows a determination to resolve these difficult issues once and for all.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has received the seal of office of
Taoiseach from the President after being re-elected this afternoon with
the help of nine independents and the tacit support of Fianna Fail, who
abstained as part of an historic agreement with their traditional foes.
After 70 days of convoluted negotiations, Kenny won by a margin of 59
votes to 49. In the end, he had the support his own party as well as
five of the six members of the Independent Alliance, two of the five
rural Independent TDs, as well as unaligned Independents Michael Lowry
and Katherine Zappone.
Speaking in the Dail, Mr Kenny claimed that at the heart of a programme
for government agreed with Fianna Fail was a realisation of the
potential of all the people of Ireland. He said it was a “great honour”
to accept his nomination as Taoiseach for a second term.
The new ministers will take over their departments on Monday. It is
expected Michael Noonan will return as Minister for Finance, Leo
Varadkar as Minister for Health and Frances Fitzgerald will return to
the Department of Justice.
Tension had been building in the Dail chamber throughout the early
afternoon as last-minute crisis background talks continued with the
Independent Alliance. The situation required some filibustering to
delay the vote before the deal was done.
As part of the deal, it is understood the Independent Alliance has been
offered one senior ministry, a super junior ministry, a junior ministry
and a rotating junior minister, with Shane Ross as the senior minister.
Details of the local pork-barrel projects offered to the independents
for their support have not yet been revealed.
Roscommon TD Michael Fitzmaurice, aligned to Euro MP Luke ‘Ming’
Flanagan, failed to support the new coalition over the issue of turf
cutting, but talks are said to be continuing on that issue.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Labour’s
Joan Burton all noted the Independents luke-warm support.
During his speech Micheal Martin took credit for the postponement of
water charges but added: “Water policy is not the most important policy
facing the country and has taken too much time.”
He hit out at the Labour Party for continuing to argue that charges
should remain, saying: “Alan Kelly suffering from the withdrawal of the
drug of his choice.”
He also took a swipe at Sinn Fein saying: “The very people who have
condemned us for allowing Fine Gael back into government spent two
months trying to force us into government with them.”
Labour’s Joan Burton, who is expected to step down as Labour leader
shortly, described the Fine Gael-Fianna Fail deal as “tawdry” and
allowed Fianna Fail to put its boot on Fine Gael’s neck and pull down
the government whenever it chooses.
Ruth Coppinger of the left-wing AAA-PBP said that she has never seen an
incoming Taoiseach looking “so unhappy”. She added that 75% of people
did not want Kenny returned as Taoiseach.
“The traditional rules [on opposition] apply, because the two
traditional parties had to come to an agreement. This isn’t a grand
coalition, but it’s certainly a first cousin of a grand coalition,” she
added.
Ms Coppinger said there will be “collective groan” from people around
the country who did not want Mr Kenny to return as Taoiseach. She said
the suspension of water charges was not due to pressure from Fianna
Fail but rather down to the anti-water charge movement.
While criticising the “Enda Dependents” for supporting Mr Kenny, Sinn
Fein’s Gerry Adams noted that many of them “were among the most vocal
opponents of Fine Gael and Labour’s policy agenda”.
He described joint Fine Gael-Fianna Fail programme as a “masterclass in
waffle and bluster. No real ambition. No big ideas. No costings. Little
real detail.
“Never was so much negotiated for so long, for so little. Their joint
paper contains a few miserly lines – not even a section – on health.”
He also noted there was no commitment on the construction of social
homes “whatsoever”.
“All we have is a reiteration of the haphazard approach to a social,
State-endorsed housing and homelessness emergency that Fine Gael and
Fianna Fail caused in the first instance.
“On the issue of water, which was the main point of contention between
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, we are told that Irish Water remains and
water charges are merely suspended, completely contrary to the Fianna
Fail manifesto.”
He also noted that the Taoiseach had vowed not to form a government
beholden to Independents.
“Another election promise out the window,” he said. “However long it
lasts, Sinn Fein will fulfil our obligations as the leaders of the
opposition. And in the interest of citizens, we will hold this
Government – comprising Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Independents
propping them up – to proper and robust account.”
RADIO FREE EIREANN this week will expand from 12noon until 2 pm New York time, as the program will combine up to the minute election results and analysis from the Stormont elections across the six counties with its pledge drive.
From Tyrone, Gerry McGeough will give the latest results and analysis of what they mean.
First time candidate Dr. Anne McCloskey will discuss what campaigning in Derry where her opposition included Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and SDLP Party leader Colum Eastwood
Author ,retired FDNY member,Vietnam Vet Billy O’Connor will give his ironic view of the Bronx Irish community as revealed in his book “CONFESSIONS OF A BRONX BOOKIE”
RFE is heard on listener supported radio , and in order to keep its vital perspective on the air,requests contributions from listeners on a quarterly basis.Our program is quoted in newspapers and influential political blogs in Ireland.
Premiums of appreciation for contributors will include an iconic CD “EASTER 1916” made in 1966 which combines songs and interviews to tell the story of the Easter 1916 Rising in a way that is unmatched a half -century later, and Billy O’Connor’s “CONFESSIONS OF A BRONX BOOKIE”
John McDonagh and Martin Galvin will host.Radio Free Eireann can be heard this week from 12noon to 2pm on 99.5 FM radio in New York or live streaming at WBAI.ORG or at any time at WBAI.ORG/ARCHIVES
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Carrie Twomey and her husband Anthony McIntyre. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times
The British government has lodged a subpoena with Boston College seeking access to taped interviews given by former IRA prisoner Dr Anthony McIntyre, it was stated on Monday.
Ed Moloney and Wilson McArthur, who were centrally involved with the Belfast Project – an oral history of the Troubles – said that the British government, acting on behalf of the PSNI and the office of the North’s Director of Public Prosecution, had served a subpoena on Boston College seeking access to Dr McIntyre’s personal interviews.
Former director of the project Mr Moloney and Mr McArthur, who interviewed former UVF members for the oral history, accused the authorities of engaging in an illegal “fishing expedition” in seeking access to Dr McIntyre’s tapes.
Boston College’s spokesman Jack Dunn said that the “subpoena was issued in proceedings that the United States District Court ordered sealed, and Boston College was requested to treat the proceedings and the subpoena as confidential”.
“Nevertheless, the university notified Mr McIntyre of the subpoena because it concluded that he should know that his materials had been requested. Given that the pending proceedings remain under seal, Boston College is not able to comment further on the matter,” added Mr Dunn.
Historian Dr McIntyre, who served time in prison on an IRA murder conviction, and Mr McArthur respectively interviewed 26 republican and 20 loyalist former paramilitaries for the project.
Dr McIntyre also gave an interview about his IRA involvement during the Troubles to another interviewer as part of the project.
Interviewees were given commitments that there would be no disclosure of their interviews until after their deaths. Two of those who gave interviews were former senior IRA figure Brendan Hughes and former UVF member and Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine.
After their deaths their testimonies were included in a book by Mr Moloney called “Voices From the Grave” which contained information from Mr Hughes about the IRA’s abduction, murder and disappearance of Jean McConville in 1972.
Subsequently, as part of its investigation of Ms McConville’s murder the PSNI sought access to the Boston tapes. Ultimately under legal pressure Boston College handed over a number of tapes that are believed to contain reference to Ms McConville.
The release of the tapes also resulted in the arrest of veteran republican Ivor Bell (79) who also engaged with the project. He is charged with aiding and abetting in Ms McConville’s murder as well as membership of the IRA. His trial has yet to take place.
“This action by the DPP and PSNI is simply a fishing expedition, which is prohibited by international law,” said Mr Moloney and Mr McArthur.
“We do know, in particular, that this request does not have anything to do with the disappearance and murder of Jean McConville, which was the event that motivated this PSNI trawl five years ago,” they added.
“The subpoena request provides no details of specific charge, investigation or offence of which Dr McIntyre is accused, no names of alleged victims, no dates, no places. Instead the originators of this shoddy document mention matters which are so over-broad, that literally anyone alive during the Troubles in Northern Ireland could be accused of some association with them,” said Mr Moloney and Mr McArthur.
They added that Dr McIntyre has engaged Belfast human rights solicitor Kevin Winters “to resist these efforts to raid his personal memoirs”.
Mr Moloney and Mr McArthur said the arrest and charging of Mr Bell was an “abuse of process” as was the action against Dr McIntyre. They called on the Irish Government “not to co-operate with the British authorities should any effort be made to extradite Dr McIntyre from his home in Drogheda to Belfast for the purposes of yet another futile and inordinately expensive show trial”.
They added that the DPP and PSNI had requested, and the US Department of Justice had agreed, to a “demand that Boston College keep these legal proceedings secret, away from the prying eyes of the international press”.
The PSNI said it was not “commenting on the matter” while the DPP’s office was not in a position to comment at this stage. At the time of writing there was no response to queries from the Northern Ireland Office.
‘Oh wise men riddle me this, what if the dream come true? – PH Pearse
The recent tsunami of revisionism has sought to draw a direct parallel between the noble self-sacrifice of those who those who struck for Irish Freedom on Easter Monday 1916 and those who were senselessly and cynically ordered ‘over the top’ at the Somme bloodbath a few months later. The former have in recent times been depicted as mere dreamers, poets and artists. They were of course all those things and so much more, the only Irish soldiers to die in the period of the ‘War of the Cousins’, during which the ruling elites ensured the mass slaughter of so many. The latter were mere cannon fodder enticed to their deaths by a sectarian desire to trump democracy in Ireland or even worse, by false promises to allow Irish people limited control over Irish affairs.
The Proclamation of the Republic always had pride of place in my late grandfather’s house. As a very young boy I struggled to read some of what were to me then very strange words that I had not yet encountered in any of my early school books. Today, when I read it or hear it read aloud, I marvel again at its construction and content, a tri-partite treatise summing up our historic campaigns for freedom, a charter for fundamental human rights well ahead of its time and an Augustinian reminder of all that was sacred in a just war.
Typeset by Christopher Brady from equipment commandeered by Michael Molloy and later distributed throughout Dublin by Helena Molony, The Proclamation was read first by Padraig Pearse on the plinth of the GPO and later by Thomas J Clarke at the foot of Nelson’s Pillar. Few if any listening could have envisaged its importance or the bravery of those acting on its legitimacy. The following days and weeks fully illuminated their courage and their steadfastness. Sixteen of them paid the ultimate sacrifice in Kilmainham, Cork and Pentonville prisons.
Each political party who claim some sort of lineage from 1916 has in their turn betrayed the high idealism of the Rising for narrow political shortterm gain. And yet 100 years on those Republicans who still cherish the dream have hope. The law of unintended consequences ensured that the deaths of the leaders of breathed new life into the War of (partial) Independence. Time and again democracy rears its head. Scotland almost tore the ‘United Kingdom’ apart and will no doubt be more successful on the next occasion. A ‘Brexit’ would remove at a stroke any cover for the lie that ‘the conflict is over’ with new ‘watchtowers overlooking Aughnacloy’.
Others may again accuse those who refuse to accept British rule in any part of our country of being dreamers. That is hardly an original criticism. Somehow, someday, the matter of ensuring that Republic ‘takes her place among the nations of the world’ will be determined democratically by ‘the suffrages of all her men and women’ through a One Ireland, One Vote referendum.
Plunkett Nugent (above right) is a lifelong Irish republican from the Galbally area in East Tyrone and a founding member of the PH Pearse Society Galbally – Cappagh. As a keen advocate of human rights he works as a Barrister At Law and is highly valued in his local community, with his many and varied contributions to local politics, history and culture widely respected in Galbally, its hinterland and beyond.
Carrie Twomey and her husband Anthony McIntyre. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times
