Posted by Jim on October 9, 2014
The latest Irish Times poll shows Sinn Fein equal with government lead party Fine Gael with 24 percent of the vote. Fianna Fail, the long time party of government, is at 20 percent and Labour is at 9 percent. The remainder of the vote, 23 percent, is splintered among smaller parties and independents.
The poll shows Sinn Fein is poised to be the largest party in Dublin after the next election with 26 percent of the support there.Their support is overwhelming in working class areas at 39 percent. Sinn Fein is up by four percentage points since the last Irish Times poll.
Their vote is overwhelmingly young, male and working class.
The rise for Sinn Fein has been dramatic. In the 1987 election Sinn Fein got just under two percent of the vote. Their rise in the polls parallels their success in Northern Ireland, where they are now the largest nationalist party.
Fine Gael has been rocked by controversies recently, which means their showing of 24 percent (unchanged) will be seen as satisfactory by some.
However, they have failed to benefit from the improvement in the economic tidings and they and their current coalition partners, Labour, have only 33 percent of the vote between them making it almost impossible they could form another government if the election was held today.
Fianna Fail has seen their vote fell five percent, lost mostly to Sinn Fein it seems, especially in working class areas.
The Labour Party has staged a minor comeback and is now at 9 percent, up from seven percent in the last poll.
The new Labour Leader Joan Burton is enjoying a honeymoon period and has the highest ratings of any party leader at 37 percent followed by Gerry Adams at 35 percent and Enda Kenny and Fianna Fail’s Michael Martin at just 26 percent,.
The poll clearly shows the next election will be extremely difficult to call and suggests several different combinations likely for who will end up in government.
The next election is due by April 2016, but it is considered likely it will be held before then.
Posted by Jim on October 7, 2014
by Irish Central Staff writers
A group of influential Irish Americans has directly appealed to Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to end the stalemate jeopardizing the Peace Process.
Thirteen individuals, including former politicians, diplomats and key figures in the US’ involvement with the Peace Process, signed and sent a letter urging the Northern Ireland government to act, warning that “a stalemate without violence is still a stalemate.”
They call for real reflection on the Peace Process – “how far it has come, how much remains unfinished and how much remains at risk.”
While praising Northern Ireland’s many achievements since the milestones of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and the establishment of the Stormont Executive in 2007, the letter raises the major concern that “compromise, the foundation of the agreement, has become almost impossible as the smallest issues go unresolved.”
This lack of willingness to compromise, they write, was the obstacle that prevented last year’s all-party talks chaired by former U.S. Special Envoy Richard Haass and former State Department official Megan O’Sullivan from making any progress on the questions of flags, symbols, parades and the processes to resolve grievances from the Troubles.
“Children growing up without a vision of a shared cross-community future can too easily learn the ways of conflict again,” they caution.
The authors of the letter, including former congressmen Bruce Morrison and James Walsh, the previous US Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney, former US Envoys to Northern Ireland Paula Dobriansky and Mitchell Reiss, and IrishCentral’s founder Niall O’Dowd, pledge their help going forward and promise to help keep the attention of the world tuned to Northern Ireland, just as they did in the years leading up to the Good Friday Agreement.
Read the letter in full below:
Dear First Minister Robinson and Deputy First Minister McGuinness,
Several weeks ago, the Reverend Ian Paisley Sr. passed away at the age of eighty-eight. His passing was a milestone and a cause for reflection on the Irish Peace Process—how far it has come, how much remains unfinished and how much remains at risk. Ian Paisley cast an enormous shadow over Northern Ireland for most of his adult life. For 40 years he was known for his oft-bellowed response to pleas for compromise and cross-community accommodating—“No, Never.” Then came 2007, the time Paisley said “yes” to a Stormont Executive with himself as First Minister for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister for Sinn Fein.
Nine years after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 created the framework for the end of “The Troubles” that had plagued Northern Ireland for 30 years; the man who said “no” then was now making a cross-community devolved government possible. But now as the Rev. Paisley era comes to an end, the hard-earned Peace Process appears stalled again. Is Northern Ireland to slip back to the days of “never” . . . or move forward with compromise and accommodation?
As Americans, we worked, on many levels, to support the negotiations leading up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the challenging steps of implementation thereafter. Democratic and Republican Presidents appointed skilled envoys to support the process; U.S. House and Senate members of both parties presented a united front, always speaking with one voice, as we hosted political leaders here, on neutral ground, and huddled with them in the Republic of Ireland, England and Northern Ireland. It was one of America’s most significant foreign policy successes in recent times. The Irish American Diaspora helped to lay the foundations for peace and justice.
We are now twenty years on since the historic IRA and Loyalist cease fires paved the way for the four years of negotiating and compromise, which led to the peace agreement. Policing and the administration of justice have been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. Sectarian violence is now the exception and crime statistics overall are lower than anywhere in the U.K. Many communities at the local level are building bridges and last year Derry/Londonderry was Europe’s City of Culture, embracing all of its traditions and art forms.
However, a stalemate without violence is still a stalemate. And children growing up without a vision of a shared cross-community future can too easily learn the ways of conflict again. Last March, the annual Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Report noted with concern that a “culture of endless negotiations has become embedded and, without a vision of a shared society to sustain it, the peace process has lost its power to inspire.”
Twenty months ago the Belfast City Council, now with a Nationalist majority, voted to limit the days that the Union Jack would fly over Belfast City Hall, based on practices elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Old wounds seemed to open for all to see. The tension has been reflected at Stormont where progress on legislation has bogged down and the regular business of government slowed to a crawl. Compromise, the foundation of the agreement, has become almost impossible as the smallest issues go unresolved.
Recognizing the significant logjam, both of you acted together to break the stalemate by inviting former U.S. Special Envoy Richard Haass and former State Department official Megan O’Sullivan to review the flash-point issues of identity (flags, symbols, parades and the processes to resolve grievances from the Troubles.) After six months of work, over 100 meetings and testimony from hundreds of aggrieved family members, community leaders, police and public officials, a thorough and thoughtful report was provided to the political leaders for discussion and implementation.
Agreement, unfortunately, could not be reached. Attempts were made to continue the dialogue, but each time the talks have fallen apart. In the aftermath of these failed negotiations, Richard Haass stated “Our experience in Northern Ireland suggests that those who believe that they can ensure that each and every element of this agreement is to their liking—and still secure five party consensuses—are unrealistic in the extreme.”
The stalemate continues and, as time passes, the peace process continues to lose its power to inspire and is diminished by its critics. As Americans who have invested much time, energy and passion into this process, we urge the leadership of Northern Ireland to go back to the table and hammer out a compromise with a clear recognition that all sides will have to give up certain prerequisites to do a deal that moves Northern Ireland beyond the current stalemate and creates a vision of a shared society for the generations to come.
The Peace Process began with small confidence-building measures. Opposing political leaders actually found ways to help their rivals deliver their constituents through cooperative action, both private and public. This shared enterprise of building cross-community confidence is needed again.
Creating a vision of an integrated and pluralist society that lets go of historic wrongs is no easy task, but it is a goal that must be pursued now. Nelson Mandela, the great South African statesman, had a seemingly boundless capacity for reconciliation. His desire to see the people of South Africa, all of them, create their own future trumped everything else. This capacity for reconciliation is at the root of creating the future that Northern Ireland deserves.
During the Peace Process, even at its darkest hour, Unionist and Nationalists alike recognized and appreciated the American role. They thanked us for shining a bright light on the process and keeping the outside world focused on the developments. The light is back on and we pledge our help going forward.
Sincerely,
Hon. James T. Walsh
Former Member of Congress
Former Chairman, Congressional Friends of Ireland Committee
Hon. Bruce A. Morrison
Former Member of Congress
Former Co-Chair, Ad Hoc Congressional Committee on Irish Affairs
Hon. Kris Balderston
Former Special Representative for Global Partnerships (2009 -2012)
The Secretary’s Office of Global Partnerships U.S. Department of State
Hon. Paula J. Dobriansky
Former President’s Special Envoy to Northern Ireland (2007-2009)
Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs U.S. Department of State
John Feehery
President, Quinn Gillespie Communications
Hon. Kitty Higgins
Former Assistant to the President and Secretary to the President’s Cabinet
Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor
Niall O’Dowd
Founder IrishCentral.com
Founder, Irish Voice Newspaper
Paul Quinn
Board Member, American Ireland Fund
Hon. Mitchell Reiss
Former President’s Special Envoy to Northern Ireland (2003 -2007)
U.S. Department of State
Hon. Richard W. Riley
Former U.S. Secretary of Education (1993 -2000)
Hon. Daniel M. Rooney
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland (2009-2012)
Mark Tuohey
Board Member, American Ireland Fund
Carol Wheeler
Founder, Washington Ireland Program
Posted by Louise Sullivan on October 6, 2014
A public campaign against the installation of water meters in the 26
Counties has further escalated following the official start of billing
of the public by Irish Water, the new state-owned water utility board.
A number of protests have been greeted with heavy-handed arrest
operations by the Gardai police.
In Edenmore on Dublin’s Northside, a Garda riot squad was deployed to
deal with a peaceful protest by residents. A total of nine activists
were arrested after they were named by GMC Sierra Ltd, which is
installing the meters in the area on behalf of Bord Gais.
Eleven people were arrested on O’Connell Street in Dublin city centre
the previous weekend during a sit-down protest against increasing
charges and cuts for essential services.
‘Dublin Says No’, an umbrella campaign group against the water meters,
organised the ‘Lockout 2014’ protest calling for a shutdown of O’Connell
Street.
Hundreds subsequently marched this week on Coolock Garda Barracks to
protest at the arrests.
Other major protests have taken place in Cork and Dundalk. In County
Roscommon this week, an individual anti-austerity protestor was
incredibly attacked by a Fine Gael TD as he attempted to speak to
Taoiseach Enda Kenny about health cutbacks. Local TD Frank Feighan is
now facing a Garda investigation for assault after he shoved and jabbed
an elderly man who had approached the Taoiseach’s vehicle.
On Wednesday, Irish Water officially began billing customers connected
to the main supply, with the average bill for a family of two adults and
two children expected to be around 278 euro, mostly using “assessed”
(unmetered) charges.
eirigi, one of several smaller republican groups who have taken to the
streets, said that the trouble witnessed over the water meter
installation so far is only “a taste of what is to come”.
In an account of the trouble, they said the working class will
“literally have to fight for a better future”.
“The fight against the Water Tax will be neither short nor pretty,” they
said. “Anyone who says otherwise is either hopelessly naive or a
charlatan”.
CRONYISM
The implementation of the water charges has so far been surrounded by
controversies of political corruption and mismanagement.
Earlier this year, Irish Water CEO John Tierney’s admitted that 50
million euro of public money had been spent on consultants. At the time,
Minister for Environment and now an European Commissioner-Designate Phil
Hogan said that while he aware of the overall cost, he claimed to be
unaware of the consultancy spend. However, it has since emerged that he
personally signed a document detailing the funding costs.
Hogan, facing calls for his resignation, defended the multi-million
spend on billing the public, saying that you “can’t make an omelette
without breaking eggs”.
Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy said that revelations provided further
evidence as to why Hogan is not suitable for the position of EU
Agriculture Commissioner.
“It is clear now that Mr Hogan’s established position on this issue is
laced with contradiction,” he said. “I would like to know why Phil Hogan
sought to mislead people when he was originally questioned on this
matter.”
And a former Fine Gael councillor has been forced to resign from the
board of Irish Water. Hilary Quinlan resigned after it was revealed that
he had also been appointed as a driver to junior environment minister
Paudie Coffey.
In response to allegations of cronyism in the appointment, Mr Quinlan
said: “You tell me one party out there who doesn’t look after their own.
I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s politics.”
Posted by Jim on October 4, 2014
By Eamonn McCann (for the Irish Times)
At the Tory party conference in Birmingham last Sunday, Secretary of
State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers said she was hopeful talks
aimed at resolving problems to do with public spending, flags, parades
and the past would begin within weeks and conclude before the end of the
year.
One of the reasons this won’t happen is that the government of which she
is part has no intention of allowing the truth to be told about its
forces’ role in the Troubles.
The chances of loyalist or republican paramilitary groups making a clean
breast of it are slim at best. The chances of the British government
owning up are zero.
Within 48 hours of Ms Villiers’s optimistic projection, the Police
Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) announced the closure of the
historical enquiries team (HET) by Christmas, due to a cut in the
policing budget. The HET, set up in 2005 to investigate unsolved
Troubles murders, was already in crisis. Nationalist parties and human
rights organisations, including Amnesty International, had challenged
its credibility, pointing out that the unit responsible for providing
documentary evidence to coroners’ courts was staffed mainly by former
members of the RUC special branch and the Northern Ireland Retired
Police Officers’ Association.
Independent body
Last year, the UK-wide inspectorate of constabulary found the HET had
investigated killings involving alleged state collusion with “less
rigour” than other cases. On Tuesday, Derry-based human rights group the
Pat Finucane Centre said: “The HET has been dead in the water for over a
year . . . What’s needed is a new body completely independent from the
PSNI that can secure the confidence of the whole community.”
Instead, assistant chief constable Alistair Finlay told the Belfast
Telegraph that a “legacy investigations branch” (LIB) would be
established within the PSNI to take over the work of the HET.
“You’d nearly think they were laughing at us,” commented Helen Deery,
whose brother Manus (15) had been shot dead in May 1972 from Derry’s
walls by a soldier of the Welsh Fusiliers as he walked home from a chip
shop in the Bogside.
An inquest into Deery’s killing in 1973 returned an open verdict. In
June 2012 a new inquest was ordered by Northern Ireland attorney general
John Larkin. The task of presenting evidence to this inquest – if ever
it happens – will now fall to the LIB. Ms Deery, who has been
campaigning for the truth about her brother’s killing for 42 years, is
not optimistic.
The determination of successive British administrations to prevent the
full truth being told is clear from a sizeable number of cases. Among
the most notorious are the killings of Gervaise McKerr, Sean Burns,
Eugene Toman, Seamus Grew, Roddy Carroll and Michael Tighe in Co Armagh
by the special support unit (SSU) of the RUC over a three-week period in
1982. All were members of republican paramilitary groups apart from
17-year- old Tighe. None was armed when they were killed. The shootings
were widely seen as retaliation for the earlier IRA killing in Lurgan of
RUC officers Sean Quinn, Alan McCloy and Paul Hamilton.
In June 1986 Manchester deputy chief constable John Stalker’s inquiry
into the shootings was halted when, days before he had intended delivery
of his findings, he was suspended on foot of sudden allegations that he
had consorted with Manchester criminals. He was to be cleared of all the
allegations. The investigation was taken over by Colin Sampson of West
Yorkshire police. The Stalker/ Sampson findings have never been
published.
On June 4th last, the North’s most senior coroner, John Leckey, wrote to
Villiers complaining that, 32 years on, he was still not in a position
to set inquest dates mainly because of the failure of the state to
“provide proper disclosure . . . The commencement of the hearings of
these inquests remains at an uncertain point in the future . . . Some
witnesses have already passed away. Undoubtedly, more will have died by
the time the inquests are held.”
In 2007 Mr Leckey asked for and was allowed to read the Stalker/Sampson
reports – on condition the PSNI could redact them before the victims’
lawyers were allowed access. In May 2012 Leckey asked the crown
solicitor’s office (CSO) whether any of those involved in the redactions
had special-branch experience. The CSO replied that the task had been
carried out by five officers, of whom “four served as special branch
officers and one as an intelligence officer of the RUC”.
In October 2012 the online journal the Detail quoted a former member of
the SSU admitting he and colleagues had been instructed by senior RUC
and special branch officers to lie about the killings to any
investigation.
In April last year Leckey was told by Sir Nicholas Macpherson, permanent
secretary to the treasury, that files he had asked for relating to the
killings had been destroyed three months earlier.
Among the conclusions to be drawn is that Villiers’s protestations of
commitment to unearthing the truth reveal a cool nerve, a brass neck and
something approaching contempt for the families still waiting for the
truth.
Posted by Jim on
Plans to abandon or scale down a number of investigations into past
British atrocities in the north of Ireland are being blamed by
Stormont ministers on a cut in the British exchequer’s annual block
grant for the Six Counties.
There was a furious reaction in Derry yesterday after the PSNI revealed
that the Bloody Sunday murder investigation “will be losing the majority
of its investigation team”.
It said the decision was due to “severe financial pressures” and would
have “a substantial impact on the investigation”.
The announcement came just four days before the PSNI were due to start
interviewing the soldiers who massacred 14 innocent civilians during an
anti-internment march in Derry in January 1972.
“The only winners in this now are the killers,” said John Kelly, a
brother of one of the victims. “This is a live murder investigation and
they’ve just decided that it shouldn’t go ahead for financial reasons.
Where else would a murder investigation be dropped because police are
short of money?” he said.
Mr Kelly said as the Bloody Sunday killings were carried out by the
British army, the Westminster government should now step in to fund the
investigation rather than have it paid from the North’s subvention.
“When this investigation was established we were told that only a
catastrophic event would cause it to be stopped. We were told the money
was ring-fenced. But they’ve pulled the plug on it, end of story. As far
as I am concerned, David Cameron’s apology counts for nothing now,” he
said.
The decision was also condemned by Derry Sinn Fein assembly member
Raymond McCartney, who said “access to justice should not come with a
price tag”.
The PSNI has also announced that it is closing the Historical Enquiries
Team (HET), a specialist police unit set up to investigate unsolved
killings from the conflict. A far smaller “Legacy Investigations Branch”
is set to replace the unit.
And more seriously, a cut in the Police Ombudsman’s budget has
threatened the office’s investigations into more than 300 cases.
Michael Maguire, who has been ombudsman since 2012, has said that plans
to launch investigations into the killing of dozens of Catholics by the
notorious Glenanne gang in the 1970s, will now be “postponed”. He has
also written to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to
inform them that his office will in future not be able to conduct
investigations in line with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Relatives for Justice director Mark Thompson said the news will cause
“further distress and upset to families from across the community”.
“Simply put, the amount promised to the Police Ombudsman to investigate
340 cases is less than the hospitality budget of the NIO for the last
financial year,” he said.
“Politicians continually say that victims and survivors are a priority
and that they too support their efforts to resolve their cases.
“One way to demonstrate that commitment would be by ensuring that this
goes beyond rhetoric and that the funds required by the Police Ombudsman
are provided urgently.”
The campaigner said savings made through axing the HET could have been
carried over to fund the Police Ombudsman’s office.
Theresa Kelly, whose husband Patsy Kelly was murdered in July 1974 in
Trillick, said she had been given hope of discovering the truth about a
murder in which members of the British Army’s UDR are suspected of being
involved.
“The state has failed us time and time again. We have a right to the
truth about Patsy’s murder, and the state owe us a duty to investigate
Patsy’s death properly and effectively. They cannot get out of that
duty.
“Now is the time to have an independent effective investigation and this
should happen in my lifetime – not in 12 more years. They have failed
me, and Patsy, for over 40 years”.
The family of Tommy Casey also spoke of their disappointment that his
case will also be delayed. The 57-year-old Sinn Fein member was shot
dead by loyalists in apparent collusion with the Crown forces.
His daughter Collette Casey last night said: “If the state had
investigated these cases properly the first time we wouldn’t need to
pursue them.
“We will continue to fight for the truth about how our daddy died. It
now looks like it will take generations but we won’t stop. We know that
there was collusion and we know the police didn’t investigate it
properly and this is just another excuse to prevent an examination of
the past.”
The three main routes to examine the past — through the Police
Ombudsman’s Office, the Historical Enquiries Team and the inquest
process — have always subject to political interference, legal delays,
back-room manoeuvres and open sabotage.
But for many nationalists, the claims of insufficient funds are merely a
new attempt to disguise the fact that a veil is being drawn over the war
crimes of the British state.
The “cutbacks” in investigations are a clear sign of the failure of
politicians to agree a way to deal with the past. Rhetoric about
upholding the rights of victims and their families have been proven
meaningless.