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Four Days in Antrim Barracks

May 8, 2014, 5:52 pm
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The Balmoral Press Conference on my release
My recent detention and interrogation was a serious attempt to bring charges against me. It was conducted by the Retrospective Major Investigation Team of the PSNI or REMIT, which is based at Seapark, Carrickfergus, County Antrim.

I had contacted the PSNI through my solicitor, Seamus Collins, in March to tell them I was available to meet them. This followed another intense round of media speculation which has tried to link me to the killing in 1972 of Mrs. Jean McConville. It is part of a sustained malicious, untruthful and sinister campaign going back many years.

Last Monday the PSNI responded to my solicitor. They said they wanted to speak to me. I was concerned about the timing. Sinn Féin is currently involved in very important EU and local government elections. Notwithstanding this I left Leinster House and Leaders Questions with the Taoiseach on the Wednesday afternoon and travelled to the Antrim Serious Crime Suite where I arrived at 8.05pm.

En route I talked to the senior investigating officer a number of times to inform him of my estimated time of arrival. He was insisting that I meet him the car park opposite the PSNI barracks. He told me that I must  get into a squad car and that he would then arrest me and drive me into the barracks. I said I would not do this and that he could arrest me inside the barracks. He said he couldn’t do this under the legislation and that I had to be arrested outside of the precincts of the station.

Because I thought that this was merely a ruse to allow the media to be told that I had been arrested and brought to the Serious Crime Suite I told him I was going directly to the station of my own accord, voluntarily. As it turned out there is no legislative bar on me being arrested within the precincts of the station. And subsequently that’s exactly what happened shortly after 8pm.

My solicitor was present. I was escorted by two detectives from REMIT to the Serious Crime Suite which is a separate complex within the barracks. I was seen by a doctor at 10.40pm and a custody Sergeant then took me through all of the processes and protocols. My belt, tie, comb, watch, Fainne and Easter Lily pins were removed. My solicitor made representations that I be allowed to keep my pen and notebook given that the offence that I was accused of occurred 42 years ago. After some toing and froing, I was eventually granted this request by the custody superintendent.

Shortly before the first of thirty three taped interviews I was served with a pre-interview brief. This accused me of IRA membership and conspiracy in the murder of Jean McConville. It also claimed that the PSNI had new evidential material to put to me. The interview commenced at 10.55pm. There were two interrogators – a man and a woman who were monitored and directed by more senior officers in another room. They conducted all of the interrogations. All of this was recorded and video  taped. My private consultations with my solicitor may also have been covertly recorded. The male detective cautioned me. He told me that I had the right to remain silent but if I did remain silent a court could draw an inference from this.

I was told that the interrogations were an evidence gathering process and that they would be making the case that I was a member of the IRA; that I had a senior managerial roll in Belfast at the time of Mrs. Jean McConville’s abduction, and that I was therefore bound to know about her killing.

The interview began with my being asked where I was born. I challenged my interrogators to produce the new evidential material. They said that this would happen at a later interview but they wanted to take me through my childhood, family history and so on. I told them that I had no desire to do this but they persisted. This went on until 11.39pm when they turned off the tapes to go ‘and consult’.

Over the following four days it became clear that the objective of the interviews was to get to the point where they could charge me with membership of the IRA and thereby link me to the McConville case. The membership charge was clearly their principal goal. The interrogators made no secret of this. At one point the male detective described their plan as ‘a stage managed approach’. It later transpired that it was a phased strategy with nine different phases.

The first phases dealt with my family history of republican activism. My own early involvement in Sinn Féin as a teenager - when it was a banned organisation. My time in the 1960s in the civil rights movement and various housing action groups in west Belfast. The pogroms of 1969 and the start of the ‘troubles’.

They asserted that I was guilty of IRA membership through association because of my family background – my friends. They referred to countless so-called ‘open source’ material which they said linked me to the IRA. These were anonymous newspaper articles from 1971 and 72, photographs of Martin McGuinness and I at Republican funerals, and books written about the period.

If any of these claimed I was in the IRA then that was, according to my interrogators, evidence which they wanted to put to me for response. They consistently cast up my habit of referring to friends as ‘comrades’. This they said was evidence of IRA membership.

They claimed I was turned by the Special Branch during interrogations in Palace Barracks in 1972 and that I became an MI5 agent!

They also spoke about the peace talks in 1972, my periods of internment and imprisonment in Long Kesh. This was presented as ‘bad character evidence.’

Much of the interrogations concerned the so-called Belfast Project conceived by Paul Bew, University lecturer and a former advisor to former Unionist leader David Trimble, and run by Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre who were paid handsomely.

Both Moloney and McIntyre are opponents of the Sinn Féin leadership and our peace strategy and have interviewed former republicans who are also hostile to me and other Sinn Féin leaders.

These former republicans have accused us of betrayal and sell-out and have said we should be shot because of our support for the Good Friday Agreement and policing.

The allegation of conspiracy in the killing of Mrs. McConville is based almost exclusively on hearsay from unnamed alleged Boston College interviewees but mainly from the late Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes. Other anonymous alleged Belfast Project interviewees were identified only by a letter of the alphabet, e.g. interviewee R or Y. One of these is claimed by the PSNI to be Ivor Bell although the interrogators told me he has denied the allegations. In the course of my interrogations they played what they alleged was a recording by Ivor Bell. They asked me to confirm that this was indeed his voice. I told them I could not do that.

I rejected all the allegations made about me in the Boston Tapes.

These tapes have now been totally discredited. Historians from the History Department of Boston College have made it clear that this ‘is not and never was a Boston College History Department project.’

A spokesman for the College has also castigated Moloney and McIntyre and confirmed that the College would be prepared to hand back interviews to those involved.

For the record let me state once again that I am innocent of any involvement in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs. McConville or of IRA membership.  I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will but I am not uncritical of IRA actions and particularly the terrible injustice inflicted on Mrs. McConville and her family. I very much regret what happened to them and their mother and  understand the antipathy they feel towards republicans.

The family has the right to seek redress in whatever way they chose or through whatever avenue is open to them. This case raises in a very stark way the need for the legacy issues of the past to be addressed in a victim centred way. Of course this is very challenging. Not all victims have the same demands.

Sinn Féin is committed to dealing with the past, including the issue of victims and their families. We have put forward our own proposals for an independent international truth recovery process which both governments have rejected. We have also signed up for the compromise proposals that were presented by US envoys Richard Haass and Meghan O Sullivan.

The two unionist parties and the British government have not.

Sinn Féin is for policing. There is no doubt about this. Civic, accountable, public service policing. That is what we will continue to focus on. It has not been achieved yet.

During my interrogation no new evidential material, indeed no evidence of any kind was produced. When I was being released I made a formal complaint about aspects of my interrogation which will in due course be dealt with by the Police Ombudsman.

My arrest and the very serious attempt to charge me with IRA membership during the 1970s is damaging to the peace process, and the political institutions.

Finally let me be clear there is only one way for our society to go and that is forward. I am a united Irelander. I want to live in a citizen centred, rights based society. There is now a peaceful and democratic way to achieve this. The two governments are guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. They have failed in this responsibility. The future belongs to everyone. So, civic society, church leaders, trade unions, the media, academia, and private citizens must find a way to provide positive leadership. The British and Irish governments are obliged to do likewise.

People in Britain, the USA and internationally also have a role. The people of the island of Ireland endorsed the Good Friday Agreement. It is the peoples agreement. It does not belong to the elites. It must be defended, implemented and promoted.

Yes, deal with the past. Yes deal with victims. But the focus needs to be on the future. That is the road we are on. There will be bumps on that road. There will be diversions.  There are powerful vested interests who have not bought into the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. Obstacles will be erected but we must build the peace and see off the sinister forces who are against equality and justice for everyone.


Remembering Bobby Sands and his nine comrades

 
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The MRF - Dublin Monaghan bombs - Ballymurphy Massacre - state sponsored killings and collusion

May 16, 2014, 2:25 am
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The decision by Drew Harris, the Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI, not to investigate killings carried out by the secret British Army ‘Military Reaction Unit’ of the early 1970s will surprise few within the nationalist community.

The MRF was the subject of a BBC programme last year. In it members of that clandestine force boasted of their activities. The MRF was particularly noted for carrying out drive-by shootings in which civilians were targeted. Pat McVeigh and Daniel Rooney were two of its victims. There were others.

At that time it was widely believed that many of these attacks were the work of unionist death squads. Some were claimed by the British Army but it is clear that part of the strategy that the MRF was working to was to heighten sectarian fears.

In more recent weeks Drew Harris’s profile has increased because of his claim that 95 of the 228 OTRs who received letters were linked to 295 killings. The fact that there was no evidence for this and that his claim was based solely on ‘intelligence’ was lost on our more reactionary political elements. He was also, according to media reports, the police officer who authorised my arrest.

The reality is that for 40 years the British state has defended and protected those who kill on its behalf from the legal consequences of their actions. There are countless examples of this.

When the Historical Enquiries Team brought British soldiers in to question them about the killing of citizens they were not arrested. On the contrary they were given tea and scones!

Last year a British Inspectorate of Constabulary report – the HMIC - was scathing in its criticism of how the PSNI handled those investigations.

Today the PSNI knows, and has known for years, the names of those members of the British Parachute Regiment who killed 14 people on the streets of Derry in 1972. Have any of the Paras been arrested? NO.

The PSNI know that the 11 civilians killed in Ballymurphy in August 1971 and the six killed in Springhill the following year – all by the Paras - are innocent victims. Have they diligently pursued these cases? No.

Three weeks ago the British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers criticised what she described as the one sided focus on state killings. Her intention is to create a hierarchy of victims in which those killed by the British state and their families are treated as second class.

This was the British state using shoot-to-kill policies, plastic bullets and indirect state sponsored executions – often of citizens who had no involvement in any aspect of the conflict.

Among other actions the British government was and is directly responsible for is the Dublin-Monaghan bombings which left 34 civilians dead 40 years ago this weekend.

The McEntee report found that the investigations were, ‘significantly restricted in their investigations by the non-cooperation of the British authorities’. Four reports were published by the Dáil into the Dublin Monaghan bombs. The Dáil concluded “that given that we are dealing with acts of international terrorism that were colluded in by the British security forces, the British Government cannot legitimately refuse to co-operate with investigations and attempts to get to the truth.”

But that is exactly what successive British governments, including this one, have done. They have refused to provide information in their possession on these killings.

In respect of the Ballymurphy case the British Secretary of State has now refused a review of the circumstances surrounding those events. She also refused a similar request from the families of 11 victims of the IRA who were killed in a bomb attack at La Mon in 1978 and of course we know that the British are refusing to establish the public inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane.

The British government is involved in a concerted cover-up of the role of the British government and its security and intelligence agencies in colluding with unionist paramilitaries in the killing of citizens. It also wants to cover-up the role it played in securing for the UDA and the UVF and the DUP founded Ulster Resistance, weapons from the old apartheid regime in South Africa, which subsequently killed hundreds of citizens, including members of my party.

Ms Villiers position is further evidence of a British government determined to prevent victims of British state violence from getting to the truth.

On Tuesday I had an opportunity to raise some of these matters with the Taoiseach in the Dáil. I had 17 questions down out of 37 on the north.

I specifically asked Enda Kenny if he had been given prior notice of Villiers decision in respect of Ballymurphy. He told me that they had been notified the night before but he wasn’t sure if the Department of Foreign Affairs had received a copy of the statement.

There was no effort to challenge Villiers decision - just a meek acceptance of the Brit line. This is typical of the Irish government’s current approach to the peace process. It appears to have no pro-active strategy to engage with British government.

More positively the Taoiseach has promised to visit Ballymurphy and to bring forward an all-party Oireachtas motion in support of the Ballymurphy families. That at least is welcome.

 
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A letter to candidates and Candidatitis and other ailments

May 19, 2014, 3:32 pm
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With a week to go before the election north and south I decided to write a short note of encouragement to the almost 350 candidates Sinn Féin has standing in the European and Local Government elections and two by-elections for the Dáil.

I included with it an article I wrote in 2005 for the Westminster elections. It was/is a wry and humorous look at the impact of standing in an election on candidates. Some of the names - for example Mary is Mary Harney - may not jump out at you now but I think you will get the idea.
 
Enjoy.
 
GerryA xoxo
 
 
Comrade

Congratulations on your selection as a Sinn Féin candidate.

It is a great honour to represent Sinn Féin in any capacity and a huge privilege to seek a mandate from your peers for our historic republican mission.

Not every Sinn Féin candidate will get elected. That is the nature of elections but every Sinn Féin candidate has the ability to get elected.

We should not be carried away by opinion polls. Every Sinn Féin candidate deserves 100% support from the rest of us during this campaign and on Election Day.

We also need to ask for preferences from  those citizens who are giving their number 1 to other candidates.

A second, third, even a sixth or seventh preference can make the difference between victory and defeat. Every vote counts.

So does every preference.

So, thank you all for your work and for standing up for citizens and the great Sinn Féin party.

Thanks also to your family.

I have attached a piece I wrote for Village magazine in April 2005 on Candidatitis.

I hope you are not suffering too badly from this.

Enjoy the campaign.

We are winning. Good luck. 

Le gach dea mhéin agus buiochas duit.
 

Is mise  

Gerry Adams TD

 

 

Candidatitis and other ailments

At some point in every election campaign every candidate forms a view that they are going to win. This syndrome, which is known as candidatitis, is capable of moving even the most rational aspirant into a state of extreme self belief. It strikes without warning, is no respecter of gender, and can infect the lowly municipal hopeful as well as lofty presidential wannabe.

Screaming Lord Sutch, or his Irish equivalent, and no I don’t mean Michael McDowell, who stand just for the craic, can fall victim of candidatitis as much as the most committed and earnest political activist. I believe this is due to two factors. First of all most people standing for election see little point in telling the voters that they are not going to win. That just wouldn’t make sense. Of course not. So they say they are going to win.

Listen to Michael Howard the British Tory leader. He has no chance of beating Blair. Does he admit that? Not on your nelly. Or closer to home. Listen to David Ford the Alliance leader. No chance of winning even half a seat in the current contest in the north but Ford sounds as confident as George W Bush addressing an election rally in his native Texas.

That's when candidatitis starts. As the 'we are going to win' is repeated time and time again it starts to have a hypnotic effect on the person intoning the mantra. By this time it’s too late.  Which brings me to the second factor.  Most people encourage candidatitis. Unintentionally. Not even the candidates best friend will say hold on, you haven't a chance. Except for the media. But no candidate believes the media. And most candidates are never interviewed by the media anyway.
 
So a victim of candidatitis will take succour from any friendly word from any punter. Even a 'good luck' takes on new meaning and 'I won't forget ye' is akin to a full blooded endorsement. So are we to pity sufferers of this ailment? Probably not. They are mostly consenting adults, though in most elections many parties occasionally run conscripts. In the main these are staunch party people who are persuaded to run by more sinister elements who play on their loyalty and commitment.

In some cases these reluctant candidates run on the understanding that they are not going to get elected. Their intervention, they are told, is to stop the vote going elsewhere or to maintain the party's representative share of the vote. In some cases this works. But in some cases, despite everything, our reluctant hero, or heroine, actually gets elected. A friend of mine was condemned to years on BelfastCity council years ago when his election campaign went horribly wrong. He topped the poll.

That’s another problem in elections based on proportional representation. Topping the poll is a must for some candidates.  Such ambition creates a headache for party managers. If the aim is to get a panel of party representatives elected they all have to come in fairly evenly. This requires meticulous negotiations to carve up constituencies. 
 
Implementing such arrangements make the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement look easy. It requires an inordinate amount of discipline on the candidates' behalf. Most have this. Some don’t. Some get really sneaky. Particularly as the day of reckoning comes closer. Hot flushes and an allergy to losing can lead to some sufferers poaching a colleague's votes. This is a very painful condition leading to serious outbreaks of nastiness and reprisals and recriminations if detected before polling day. It usually cannot be treated and can have long term effects.

So dear readers all of this is by way of lifting the veil on these usually unreported problems which infect our election contests. Politicians are a much maligned species. In some cases not without cause.

But as we enter the last week of elections in the north I thought Village readers, if fully informed of the viruses caused by electionitis,  might be persuaded to take a more tolerant and benign view of the sometimes strange behaviour of those citizens who contest elections .

Love us or hate us you usually get the politicians you deserve. Granted this might not always extend to governments, given the coalitions which come together in blatant contradiction of all election promises or commitments. The lust for power causes this. This condition is probably the most serious ailment affecting our political system and those who live there. It is sometimes terminal. But this comes after elections and is worthy of a separate study.

Before they get to that point, if they ever do, candidates suffer many torments. Space restrictions prevents me from documenting them all.

So, don’t ignore the visages on the multitudes of posters which defile lamp posts and telegraph poles during election times, and in some cases for years afterwards. Think of the torment that poor soul is suffering. When you are accosted by a pamphlet waving besuited male, and they mostly are besuited males, as you shop in the supermarket or collect the children at school try to see beyond the brash exterior. Inside every Ian Paisley is a little boy aiming to

please. Bertie, Pat, Mary and the rest of us are the same. It's not really our fault you see. Big boys make us do it. And your votes encourage us.

 
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Government given notice to Quit

May 26, 2014, 1:44 am
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The Fine Gael/Labour government is in crisis. The election results of recent days confirm this. They have been effectively given a notice to quit by the electorate.
Fine Gael and Labour came to power in 2011 promising an end to cronyism and greater transparency and accountability. It was proclaimed by Enda Kenny as a ‘democratic revolution’.
Three years later it’s looking more and more like the same old, same old. Enda Kenny and Eamonn Gilmore have lost control of the political agenda.
For months they have been denying that there is any crisis in health, especially in respect of the removal of discretionary medical cards, or that there is a growing problem with housing, and especially homelessness.
They also consistently and robustly defended the actions of their former Justice Minister Alan Shatter, even as the scandals in policing and justice increased, and public disquiet turned to anger.
The treatment of the two Garda whistleblowers, John Wilson and Sergeant Maurice McCabe by the government was appalling. The government’s attack on the Garda Ombudsman’s Office (GSOC) over allegations of bugging was disgraceful. The then Justice Minister’s instinct was to put GSOC in the dock. 
But it was Alan Shatter’s judgement and his decisions, on a whole range of serious justice and policing issues that has undermined public confidence in the administration of justice and the Gardaí. It led to the sacking of the Garda Confidential Recipient Oliver Connolly and the sacking/retirement of Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.
Then the news broke that telephone calls into and out of over 100 Garda stations had been bugged for years. A commission of investigation was set up to examine this.
In a desperate attempt to limit the political damage Minister Shatter belatedly apologised to the Garda whistleblowers. Fine Gael and Labour backed him to vote down a no confidence motion in the Dáil. But the report from the Data Protection Commissioner in early May that Justice Minister Alan Shatter broke the date protection rules by revealing personal information about independent TD Mick Wallace in a television debate; and the then imminent publication of the Guerin report into allegations made by Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe, saw Alan Shatter resigning as Minister for Justice.
But bad as all of these debacles have been it has been the withdrawal of medical cards, especially from children with lifelong illnesses or disabilities that has caused the greatest public anger. Almost every day another tragic story emerges of a family being put under pressure with the removal of their medical card or the threat to remove it and deny a sick child much needed medications and support.
Amanda Hughes spoke out last week about being asked to prove that her son Ben, aged 4, ‘still has Down syndrome’ if he is to keep his medical card.
Joe Lawlor’s daughter Nathalia has a rare incurable genetic condition who is asked each year if his daughter still has the condition. Nathalia can’t walk or talk and is fed by a tube and needs 24 hour care.
In recent days a senior doctor revealed that gravely ill patients are having their medical cards removed. He has said it includes citizens dying from cancer who are unable to afford chemotherapy and patients with kidney failure who can’t get dialysis. He also revealed that in many instances “patients don’t even realise their card has been cancelled until they go to the pharmacy to collect their medicines.”
The Irish Cancer Society has also described how many cancer patients are suffering severe distress and financial hardship as a result of losing their discretionary medical cards or being refused these cards. It says that it has seen a 12% increase in applications for financial aid from patients in the first three months of this year.
Time after time under questioning by me and others in the Dáil Enda Kenny and his Cabinet colleagues, but especially the Minister for Health James Reilly, defended their handling of the discretionary medical cards issue. Last October the Taoiseach described the row over cuts to medical cards as “scare-mongering”. He insisted that “every person who deserves a card” is getting one.
He and the government did the same around the issue of housing and homelessness.
And then, low and behold, just days before an election in which the pollsters said that the government parties were heading for losses Ministers suddenly discovered their consciences. A report on homelessness was produced, a new state bank to help small and medium businesses was announced and on Tuesday last, just days away from citizens casting their votes the Health Minister said that is no longer acceptable for “some of the most vulnerable people in our society” to be stripped of state help.
The Labour Leader too sought to blunt the criticism of the government by acknowledging that the implementation of too many checks on those with medical cards, in particular those over aged over 70, is a form of ‘harassment’.
The government claim action will be taken. Exactly what action the Taoiseach and others envisage we don’t know. They wouldn’t say. But trust them, there will be action. We just have to wait until after the election. And God forbid that anyone should suggest that this is just an election stunt.
For three years the Fine Gael/Labour government has been inflicting one hardship after another on vulnerable citizens to pay for the greed of the bankers and developers and corrupt politicians. A succession of stealth taxes, including sceptic tax charges, the universal social charge, the property tax and now water charges have all been introduced.
The EU and local government elections have allowed the public to pass judgement on this government. It should go. That would be the right thing to do. But in the expectation that Fine Gael and Labour will once again not do the right thing we begin fighting the next Dáil general election now.
 
 
 
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We will use our mandate wisely

May 28, 2014, 7:35 pm
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As you read this column I am in Washington DC briefing senior political figures and the Obama administration on the current difficulties within the peace process.

But I will return to that again. For now let me deal with the local government and EU elections that has just concluded across the island of Ireland. The facts tell part of the story.

·       483,113 votes for Sinn Féin in the EU election.

·       4 MEP’s elected.

·       262 Local election candidates elected

·       76 women councillors

·       39 Councils with SF councillors

·       32 Counties with Sinn Féin MEP’s

·       21.2% of the vote in the EU election

·       19 Councillors in Belfast City Council

·       16 Councillors in Dublin City Council

·       10 Councils where Sinn Féin are the largest party in % share of the vote terms

·       8 Councils where Sinn Féin are the largest party in seat terms

·       Too many happy Shinner’s to count!

·       THE LARGEST PARTY IN IRELAND

Sinn Fein has had a historic result, north and south. Voters have endorsed our message that there is a fairer way to organise our economy and society which is rights based and citizen-centred. We are committed to using our growing numbers of Councillors, TDs, MEPs, MPs, and MLAs and our mandate wisely and in the interests of citizens.

Sinn Féin will also keep the commitments we made to the electorate.

The island-wide election result is also an endorsement of Sinn Fein’s message for the need to reinvigorate the Peace Process and for an agreed, united Ireland.

Sinn Fein’s newly elected MEPs will stand up first and foremost in the interests of Ireland and all our citizens, while our all councillors will fight for genuine community interests which put the needs of citizens first.

In the south voters have very clearly rejected the austerity agenda of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fail. It’s very likely that the coalition government, not least as a result of these elections, will not see out its full term. Thought their instinct will be to hang on as long as possible. So, we begin fighting the next General Election now.

Some combination of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fail has been in government since the foundation of the state. The old way of doing politics, as practiced by these parties has clearly failed.

The way in which ordinary citizens are still being forced to pay for the greed of bankers, developers and corrupt politicians is deeply unfair. Banking debt, unemployment, forced emigration, a raft of new taxes, cuts to services and social supports are crushing the hope of Irish citizens and damaging the well-being of society.

In the north Martin McGuinness will initiate discussions with the other party leaders to seek agreement on implementing the outstanding issues arising from the Good Friday and other Agreements, and from the Haass proposals on the past, flags and emblems and parades.

However, deep rooted change also requires a fundamental realignment of Irish politics.

Ireland needs new leaders, with new ideas and a new direction. The EU and Local Government elections can be the beginning of a real transformation of the political landscape.

North and south Sinn Féin has put forward realistic, credible and costed alternative economic policies and challenged the conservatism of British and Irish governments.

Sinn Fein seeks a society and an economy that is run in the interests of all our citizens, not vested interests or golden circles whether in the upper echelons of the private or the public sector.

We also want to strengthen and reinvigorate the Peace Process and to build an agreed, united Ireland.

We seek a historic and inclusive accommodation between Orange and Green which respects all our people in all of their diversity.

Among our priorities in both states are real jobs, fair taxation, investment in communities, and more social housing. In the 26 counties we will press for far-reaching reform of politics and public institutions including the justice system and Gardaí.

For Sinn Fein politics is not a game. It is about saying what you mean and meaning what you say. It is about changing the lives of citizens for the better.

One party rule in the north has gone and two-and-a-half party rule in the southern state is going also. Sinn Féin is now a major player in both states on this island with policies, objectives, and an expanding organization which transcends Partition.

Sinn Féin is not interested in winning seats for the sake of it. We seek political office only in order to bring about change in our country and in the lives of our citizens. We have a political vision and regardless of the ups and downs of even elections, we will continue to work to deliver a fairer, better Ireland.

Sinn Féin is involved in a historically unprecedented effort to build genuine republican politics in both states on this island. Building capacity and resources and membership is a big task for us and we will continue to grow.

I would appeal today, to citizens to join Sinn Fein in building a citizen-centered, rights based republic on this island.
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It’s time for real progress

June 6, 2014, 4:56 am
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Following last week’s election results I travelled to Washington DC to brief senior officials in the State Department, White House and Irish American Congressional leaders. I also met other Irish American leaders in New York. The focus of our conversations was the current difficulties in the peace process and the steps that are needed to resolve them.
The last two years especially have seen the process drift from one crisis into another. Sinn Fein has been warning of this but the British government, and especially the Irish government, have refused to listen. Both governments have been disengaged from the process and the pro-unionist stance of the British government has encouraged the worsening political impasse.  

My arrest on April 30th changed this. Now there is a realisation that all is not well. The question is what will the two governments do to end the impasse?

There are many issues contributing to current difficulties. Not least of which is the refusal of the Unionist leaderships to engage positively. This is most evident in the refusal of the UUP and DUP to sign up for the Haass compromise proposals on legacy issues, flags and symbols and parades. 

But then why would you expect the unionist parties to behave differently if the British government has not signed up to the Haass compromise proposals and backs their intransigence? 

It is a fact that the Cameron government, like the Major government in the 1990’s, has been explicitly partisan in championing a unionist agenda. The British Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, has played a key role in this. She recently rejected requests from the Ballymurphy families for a review into those events. Instead she expressed her concern at what she described as ‘the one-sided approach which focuses on the minority of deaths in which the state was involved.’ Such arrogance. 

This is the same British government that refuses to hand over information on the Dublin Monaghan bombs which killed 34 citizens 40 years ago. Events which the Dáil described as “acts of international terrorism that were colluded in by the British security forces.” 

This is the same British state that was directly responsible for almost 400 deaths and many hundreds more through state collusion. These are not the ‘minority of deaths’ which Ms. Villiers seeks to dismiss as if unimportant. 

At the same time as Ms Villiers denies truth to the victims of British state violence she implements a policy that implements, in effect, an amnesty for British forces. 

On top of this we now know David Cameron recently hosted, what the London Guardian described as a ‘lavish reception in the Downing Street garden’ for the DUP. The purpose? To court that party’s support in the event of a hung Parliament following the British general election next year. The Guardian wisely questioned whether this was Cameron playing the traditional conservative ‘Orange Card’. 

The effect of the British government’s handling of the political situation has been to reinforce political logjams.

In an article last week in the Belfast Telegraph the British Prime Minister indicated a willingness to make progress. The jury is out on that. If Mr. Cameron is serious about ending the impasse – if he is serious about reaching agreement on the issues of contention then he needs to move beyond a minimalist approach which merely tinkers at the edge of the difficulties. He needs to sign up to the Haass proposals.
David Cameron also has to demonstrate a willingness to make progress on those matters arising out of the various agreements, including the Good Friday Agreement, the Weston Park Agreement, and the St Andrew’s and Hillsborough agreements which have not been implemented. 
These include the Bill of Rights, the all-Ireland Charter of Rights, Acht na Gaeilge, the North South Consultative Forum, the Civic Forum and the inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane. These are not matters for negotiation. They are agreements made and are the responsibility of the British and Irish governments to implement.
Nor can the Irish and British governments sit back and, like Mr. Cameron in his Telegraph article, seek to place all of the responsibility for progress on the Executive parties in the north. There is a huge onus on the British Prime Minister to take positive decisions that enhance the political context for agreement. Persuading unionist leaders to move forward through an intensive process of discussions will only work if the British government constructively engages and provides those parties with clear and positive leadership.
There is a small window of opportunity between now and July which must be fully utilised to negotiate agreements on outstanding issues, including legacy issues, parades, and flags and emblems.
The peace process is in trouble. It cannot be allowed to meander. The road has too many pitfalls. There are too many elements on the fringes of nationalism, within unionism and especially within the British system, who want to derail the process and build obstacles to it.
For all the issues pressing down upon people’s lives every single day, the people of this island, the diaspora and the international community believe in the peace process. Our efforts in the time ahead must be to ensure continuing progress and the full implementation of outstanding issues.
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Mother and Baby Home Scandal

June 12, 2014, 7:04 am
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Pearse Doherty agus mise at Mother and Baby vigil Wednesday evening
From the USA to China, from Africa and India to Australia the story of how almost 800 babies and children died in the care of a religious order and the state were buried in a mass grave in Tuam County Galway has captured the media headlines for the last week.

The mother and baby home was run by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, County Galway. It was a state regulated institution, and information uncovered through the diligent efforts of local woman Catherine Corless, revealed that 796 babies and children died there over a period of five decades, from the 1920s to 1961.

Corless, who describes herself as a ‘farmer, housewife and gardener’ worked tirelessly to secure details of the babies and children who died in Tuam. She paid €400 to access the Birth and Deaths Register in Galway. Initially she expected to get information on 8 to 10 children but instead was given a list of 796 names of babies and children who died in the Tuam home.

Some were only a few days old. Others were aged between a year and a half and three years of age. The oldest to die was aged nine.

All were buried in a small plot of land in the grounds of the home, including some reportedly in a septic tank.

There has been understandable public outrage. In recent years a succession of distressing reports have revealed the extent of abuse in state institutions run by the Catholic Church.

 The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, generally known as the Ryan Commission, was published in May 2009. It ran to five volumes and looked at the extent of abuse against children in Irish institutions from 1936.

Most of these related to the system of residential and industrial schools that were run by the Catholic Church under the supervision of the Department of Education and which saw children treated like slaves and prisoners. They were subject to the most horrendous conditions and abuse.

Other reports, including the Ferns Inquiry, the Cloyne Report, the Murphy Report and the scandal of the Magdalene Laundries focused on abuse by Catholic clergy and religious orders.

The Tuam scandal has now shone a light onto the harsh reality of other institutions.  Currently efforts are underway to discover whether mother and baby homes also existed in the north and what were conditions like in these.

In Tuam as elsewhere conditions were harsh. Inspector’s reports and firsthand accounts by former residents paint a picture of a brutal and cruel regime in which women and children were treated appallingly.

Records released last week from the Dublin Archdiocese show that the high mortality rate in Tuam also existed in the other homes. In 1933 the mortality rate in Tuam was 35%, or over three times the norm at that time.

In human terms this means that 42 of the 120 children admitted to Tuam in that year died. The mortality rate in Pelletstown was 34%. In Bessborough it was 39%. In Sean Ross Abbey is was 37.5%.

In addition to the mother and baby homes run by Catholic religious orders there was also Bethany Home in Rathgar. It was run by an independent protestant group as an evangelical institution for unmarried mothers and their children. It also took in prostitutes, alcoholics, and young people under 17. Women and young people convicted in the courts were also sent there.

Thus far it has been estimated that 219 children died in Bethany between 1922 when the Home opened and 1949. They were buried in unmarked graves. Some died from marasumus – a form of malnutrition. Conditions in the Catholic run homes were no better.

In an Inspectors report in 1947, which recorded the conditions in Tuam, there is a distressing and disturbing account of life for its residents. Children are described as emaciated and suffering from malnutrition and of having wizened limbs.

In addition to the inhuman treatment endured by residents was added the outrage that some were treated as guinea pigs in vaccine experiments. According to the UCC historian Michael Dwyer 2,051 children from the homes at Bessborough and Roscrea were  used in secret vaccine trials conducted by Burroughs Wellcome – now GlaxoSmithKline. The trials included injecting children with vaccines for diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio.

Children in St. Clare’s in Stamullen, in Dunboyne, in St Patrick’s Dublin and in Castlepollard were also used in vaccine trials.

Who gave permission for such actions to be carried out? Did the relevant government department or Minister agree and clear the use of Irish children as guinea pigs? We need an inquiry to find out.

To the shame of all of those responsible the ill-treatment of the children and babies continued beyond their short lives as most were buried in unmarked graves.

On Tuesday the Irish government finally announced the establishment of a Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes. This is a welcome development but it is vital that the Commission has terms of reference that are comprehensive and allow it to examine all aspects of this issue.

For many citizens there is genuine bewilderment at what has emerged. How could anyone treat mothers and babies in this way? How could the state abdicate its responsibility to citizens?

The root of this shame is to be found in partition and the creation of two conservative states on this island. Both were characterised by economic failure, by emigration, by backwardness on social issues, by inequality and by the failure to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens.

In the north a one party unionist regime dominated politics and institutionalised sectarianism, discrimination and inequality and injustice.

In the south the state that emerged following the civil war was in hock to the Catholic Hierarchy.

Two conservative states ruled by two conservative elites in their own narrow interests. The old colonial system replaced by a neo-colonial one.

It was in these circumstances that the abuses that occurred in the Magdalene Laundries, in Bethany Home, in the residential "Reformatory and Industrial Schools" and in the mother and baby homes occurred.
Report after report has confirmed that for much of its existence the state system for looking after children abused and treated them more like slaves than citizens.

Dáil records show that successive governments knew about the high infant mortality and the poor quality of care in institutions looking after children. They did nothing.

As Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin told the Dáil: “There have been attempts to place the blame on wider Irish society because of the deeply conservative social attitudes that dominated in those decades. And it absolutely has to be acknowledged that the social attitudes of those times were disdainful of great numbers of people and cast them out of society.

However, this can be too easily be twisted into a view that since everyone was to blame – no one was to blame. The reality was that there were powerful social and economic forces, powerful men in Church and State, who ruled this society and who ensured that women and children and the poor and the marginalised were kept in their place. Much has changed for the better but much has also yet to change.”

 
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Bodenstown: Radical, rooted, relevant and republican

June 16, 2014, 7:09 am
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The annual commemoration at the rgaveside of Wolfe Tone the father of Irish republicanism is an improtant event. This year I gave the speech. I am enclosing it here. It sets out Sinn Féin's vmission statement; our view of the recent election results; the importance of 1916 and ending partition; current difficulties in the political process in the north; Sinn Féin's economic plan; our objective of being in governemnt north and south; and our determination to remain radicval, rooted, relevent and republican.


 
Address to Wolfe Tone Commemoration,
Bodenstown, Co. Kildare
2014

Fellow republicans,
Táimid cruinnithe anseo inniu, mar a dhéanann muid gach bliain, in aice le reilig Theobold Wolfe Tone, athair an Phoblachtach in Éirinn agus ceannaire Cumann na nÉireannach Aontaithe.

Two-hundred-and-sixteen years ago the United Irish rebellion sought to end British rule in this country and establish an independent republic based on the principles of equality for all citizens, and the unity of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter.

Today, we honour Tone, the men and women of 1798, and subsequent generations of Irish republicans. Just as importantly, we rededicate ourselves to the fulfilment of Tone’s objectives.
Election results
Ba mhaith liom mo chomhghairdeas a dhéanamh le na ceathrar MEP’s, nua tofa atá ag Sinn Féin– Martina Anderson, Lynn Boylan, Matt Carthy agusLiadh Ní Riada, agus na dhá céad seasca is a ceathar (264) comhairleoirí Sinn Fein a raibh tofa sa Thuaisceart agus sa Dheisceart ar an darna lá is fiche (22ú) agus tríú lá is fiche 23ú Bealtaine.

Almost half a million voters have now made Sinn Féin the biggest party on this island.
Mission Statement
Sinn Fein’s philosophy is about putting the interests of citizens, as opposed to elites, at the centre of political considerations.

We seek a New Republic with equality and social justice at its core.

Our watchword is equality.

We stand for a basic threshold of economic justice — the right to a home, to an education, to a job, to healthcare, to the pursuit of happiness.

Our mandate is for social justice and against unfairness and austerity.

It is a mandate for the promotion of the Irish language as the common heritage of all on this island.

It is for the peaceful unity of Orange and Green, with tolerance and respect for all people.

Republicanism is a European philosophy and Sinn Féin’s mandate is also to pursue an independent Ireland in a Europe that respects the rights of nation states and is based on principles of social solidarity.

Tá polasaithe Sinn Féin bunaithe ar na bunluachanna poblachtach seo.
1916 anniversary
Because Sinn Féin challenges the privilege of the elites, we are often vilified by the conservative parties and the establishment media.

They were at it 100 years ago.

The Irish Times and Irish Independent condemned the 1916 Rising.

The Irish Times referred to it, incorrectly, as the ‘Sinn Féin rebellion’. 

But last Tuesday the Irish Times accused Sinn Féin of seeking to hijack the Rising’s centenary.

Interestingly, one hundred years ago, at this very spot, the forces that would make the 1916 Rising were coming together to honour Wolfe Tone.

The Irish Volunteers were joined by the Irish Citizen Army and Tom Clarke chaired the commemoration.

The trade union leader Jim Larkin was in attendance.

This was in the wake of the Great Lockout and Larkin was cheered by the crowds showing the solidarity between republicans and the labour movement.

Leaders of the trade union movement need to think of this.

They need to decide whether their loyalty is to the trade union membership – working people – or the Labour Party.

Trade union members also need to consider whether they should pay a stipend to the Labour Party to be insulted by its leaders.

The Rising belongs to the people of Ireland, not any single party.

But let me be clear, Sinn Féin won’t take lectures on 1916 from those revisionists and other slibhiní who abandoned its ideals many decades ago and who sought to prevent its commemoration.

The 1916 Proclamation remains unfinished business. 

Partition stunts Ireland’s potential — politically, socially and economically.

There is now a peaceful way to end Partition.

This is a work in progress and there is an onus on nationalist Ireland to persuade our unionist neighbours that their interests lie in a new, agreed Ireland.

The Good Friday Agreement provides for a referendum on Irish unity.

A Border Poll provides an opportunity to begin building a new, united Ireland. 

Sinn Féin believes it is time to let the people have their say.
The North
While the North has been transformed in recent years, many issues remain outstanding. 

The British Government is refusing to keep agreements made since 1998.

Sixteen years after the Good Friday Agreement it has failed to implement important elements, such as a Bill of Rights and Acht na Gaeilge.

When taken with its decision to unilaterally end its Weston Park commitments to resolve the OTR issue, and its refusal to establish an inquiry into the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, the British Government strategy is undermining the political process.

Encouraged by this, there has been an effort by unionist parties to reverse progress made since 1998.

This cannot be allowed.

Issues of the past, flags and parades must be addressed.

The Haass compromise proposals provide a clear way forward.

They must have the unambiguous support of the Irish and British governments.

Two weeks ago party leaders in the North agreed to re-engage in intensive talks around these issues.

Since then, however we see no evidence that the DUP is willing to approach this process in a positive, constructive way.

This is all to do with what is happening within political unionism.

Both the DUP and UUP signed up to the St Andrews and Hillsborough Agreements but are now being challenged by those on the more extreme right such as the TUV and UKIP.

This is a consequence of the huge failure by the UUP and the DUP to face down these rejectionists in the same way as Sinn Fein has done with anti-Agreement elements on the fringes of republicanism.

Let me be clear Sinn Féin will continue to stretch out the hand of friendship to our unionist neighbours.

We will uphold everyone’s civil and religious rights.

But we will also stand firmly and robustly against the bigots, the racists and the sectarian fundamentalists.

They and their political cheer leaders are on the wrong side of history.

Change may be delayed. It cannot be stopped.

The views, ambitions and goodwill of the vast majority of citizens, and Sinn Féin’s focus for the future, is the guarantee that change is irreversible.
Economic policy
Since the elections, Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and media commentators say they will subject Sinn Féin’s economic policies to greater scrutiny.

Tá muid an sasta faoi sin.

It would be great to have a real discussion about the need for a different economic approach.

It would be wonderful to have a scrutiny of the policies of Fianna Fáil and the PDs – remember the PDs? – and of Fine Gael and the Labour Party.

During the Bertie Ahern era Sinn Féin TDs were vocal in pointing out the dangers of the developing property bubble and the growing potential for an economic crash.

Sinn Fein warned of the dangers of over-reliance on taxes from the property sector.

We warned of the over dependency on the construction sector and we highlighted the danger of auction politics as other parties tried to outdo each other with promises of tax cuts.

Sinn Féin was also almost a lone political voice against a drive to reduce regulation across the economy.

We were right then.

We are right now.

Sinn Féin has put forward costed, alternative policies that are about fairness.

Let all parties in this state do the same.

Sinn Féin’s focus is on job creation, stimulating the economy, fair taxes, debt restructuring, and protecting public services. 

It is about making the necessary deficit adjustment without harming families or frontline services, by asking the wealthiest to pay more and cutting waste from public spending.

Citizens understand the challenges and are prepared to shoulder their share of the burden of readjustment.

An rud nach taitníonn leo ná an dóigh go bhfuil sé chomh éagórach.

The Property Tax, Water tax, removal of medical cards, cuts to social supports, mortgage distress and lack of social housing or adequate health services, including mental health services, have pushed working people to the limit.

As Bobby Sands wrote; ‘there is no equality in a society that stands upon the economic bog, if only the strongest make it good or survive.’

Let’s see some scrutiny of the policy of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil which says that for many years to come, Irish citizens should carry an unsustainable bank debt burden, and an economically and socially destructive austerity agenda.
Changing the political landscape
Recent years have witnessed scandals in all the major institutions of Irish life – politics, planning, business, banking, the Church, charities, the justice system and the Gardai.

These scandals have their roots in the toxic political culture, which arose from the counter-revolution that followed the 1916 period.

A conservative elite - politically represented by the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaderships, often supported by Labour - oversaw this corrupt culture.

Bhí seo, agus tá seo, an mhalairt le cad atá i gceist le fíor poblachtachas.

Tá éileamh mór ann d’athrú mór inár sochaí, an geilleagar agus i bpolaitíocht.

Some combination of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil has been in government since the foundation of this state.

But just as one-party Orange rule in the North is gone, the failed two-and-a-half party system in this state is going also.

Sinn Féin is now a major player in both states with policies and an expanding organization, which transcend partition.

That means we must prepare for government.

We must prepare to become a government of national unity and recovery.

In his day Wolfe Tone clearly identified the connection with Britain and Ireland’s lack of independence and sovereignty, with the depressing state of the economy and the appalling conditions in which citizens lived.

A similar clear headed analysis must be brought to bear today so that Connolly’s reconquest of Ireland by the Irish people can be advanced.

Sinn Féin wants to be in government because we want to change Ireland for the better.

We want to tackle disadvantage, unemployment and inequality and improve the quality of life and standards of living for people across Ireland – particularly those people who are today struggling under the burden of austerity. 

We want to deliver on issues such as housing, health and jobs. 

We want to end partition.

But Sinn Fein will not do is what the Labour Party has done — we will not give cover to the agenda of conservative parties, repeating again the failed political history of this State over the past 80 years.

The Labour Party’s internal debate is focused on Sinn Féin, rather than on its disastrous colonisation by Fine Gael.

Labour still doesn’t get it.

The contenders for the Labour leadership don’t get it.

Labour – God’s gift to Fine Gael — are so busy debating whether or not they would allow Sinn Féin be in government with them, that it hasn’t dawned on them that after the General Election there may not be enough Labour TDs to be in government with anyone!

This Fine Gael/Labour government has betrayed the electorate.

It promised a ‘democratic revolution’ but has delivered the same stale, old politics of previous governments.

We see them appointing cronies to state boards, and Ministers favouring their own constituencies for funding.

They seek to retain control over the banking inquiry by stuffing it with government TDs and Senators.

They defend the indefensible in a failed effort to save Ministers such as Alan Shatter.

They ignore the real hardship being endured by the most vulnerable citizens as a result of austerity.

This isn’t a democratic revolution – it is an act of subversion.

What Sinn Féin is committed to is the radical republican politics of Wolfe Tone.

We are about creating a New Republic, with new politics and a new way of doing things that puts fairness and equality at the heart of how this country is governed.
Conclusion
As Sinn Féin builds a real political alternative throughout this island, we must remain radical, rooted, relevant and republican.

People are increasingly looking to us for leadership and to provide hope for the future.

We have a political vision for this country and its people that involves building the type of society Wolfe Tone envisioned - a republic that the citizens of this country deserve but have never had.

The recent scandalous revelations of the Mother and baby homes is further evidence that after partition a conservative, mean spirited, narrow minded political and business elite in this state, in alliance with the Catholic Church hierarchy, put in place laws and institutions and censorship restrictions, which were intolerant, chauvinistic, prejudiced and anti-women and anti-working class.

Unmarried mothers were held for years in institutions.

Sex was deemed a crime.

Babies were taken from their mothers, alive and dead.

They had broken no laws.

The thousands of mothers and children who endured unbelievable hardship were denied everything by the state.

For some commentators, the responsibility and blame for this is being laid at the door of society.

I have been trying to understand this.

In this version of events everybody is to blame and everybody is at fault.

However, everybody is not to blame.

The victims are not to blame.

It is as if the virtual imprisonment of unmarried girls and women and the theft of their children were a natural outworking of Irish society in that period of our history.

However, that is too simplistic a picture.

It seeks benignly or inadvertently to excuse the decisions that were taken by the elites in the State and church.

As Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin told the Dáil this week, this can be too easily twisted into a view that since everyone was to blame, nobody was to blame.

That is not good enough.

We extend love and respect to the survivors of abuse and we thank them and their supporters for their struggle.

Sinn Féin is already bringing about a realignment of politics. In Councils across this state, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, on an unprecedented scale, have coalesced to exclude Sinn Féin.

Some of them may think this is the smart thing to do.

It’s not. It is a stupid thing to do.

It is the wrong thing to do.

And it will not succeed. We are very good at not being excluded.

So, let Fine Gael, and Fianna Fáil and the others take not.

Bobby Sands spelt it out in the last entry of his hunger strike diary.

‘The mind is the most important.’ He wrote:, ‘If they aren’t able to destroy the desire for freedom, they won’t break you... the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart.

 The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show.

 It is then we’ll see the rising of the moon’.

Tá ceart ag Bobby. Tiochfaid lá eigean nuair a bheidh an fonn saoirse seo le taispeáint ag daoine go léir na hEireann.

Ansin tchífidh muid éirí na gealaí.

Until them let it be clear. Sinn Féin isn’t going away, you know.

We are going to grow and grow.

As for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáikl? They are ideologically indistinguishable.

They should unite.

For our part Sinn Féin will continue to bring the message of equality into councils and to replace party pacts and exclusion with power-sharing and inclusion.

For Sinn Féin politics is not a mere game or career choice.

We have important work to do on behalf of Ireland and its people.

Let’s leave here today, ever more determined to do it.

Ar aghaigh linn le cheile.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh.

PS: Fosta, go riabh maith agat do Mark at An Phoblacht
 

 

 

 

 

 
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Search

Time to realign politics

June 21, 2014, 8:48 am
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Today we are holding an internal party conference in Dublin. Those taking part are our new elected representatives and the party leadership. It has been a really good day and is preparing the party for the work to come.
This is my speech.
Fáilte romhaibh go léir.and the part

Ar dtus , ba mhaith liom mo chomhghairdeas a dhéanamh le na ceathrar MEP’s, nua tofa – Martina Anderson, Lynn Boylan, Matt Carthy agus Liadh Ní Riada, agus na dhá céad seasca is a ceathar (264) comhairleoirí a raibh tofa sa Thuaisceart agus sa Dheisceart ar an darna lá is fiche (22ú) agus tríú lá is fiche 23ú Bealtaine.

That is a significant achievement. But for Sinn Féin elections are not about simply playing the political insiders game.

If citizens want to judge Sinn Féin it cannot be just on how many votes we have. It has to be on the changes that we bring about. That is the only way to judge what we have achieved in the last 30 or 40 years. And on what we will achieve in the upcoming period.

For us electoral politics are about transforming society on this island, north and south. It is about putting the interests of citizens, as opposed to elites, at the top of the political agenda. All of you in this room are the elected representatives of the Irish republican ideal. That is both a challenge and a great honour.

So, let us always be clear on who we are, what we stand for, and who we represent.

We need to know our core values. Our beliefs.

We need to be the very best that we can be at promoting these core values.

We need to know how to win support for these core values.

Initially this support may be passive. Most people become passive supporters before they become activists. It is our responsibility to convert passive support into active support so that citizens are empowered. So what does Sinn Féin stand for?

Sinn Fein stands for equality, for fairness, for economic justice — for the right of citizens to a home, to an education, to a job, to healthcare, to the pursuit of happiness.

We are freedom, equality and solidarity. We are against austerity.

Sinn Féin is for a united Ireland and we have the strategy to bring it about.

We are for the unity of Orange and Green, for civil and religious rights with tolerance and respect for all citizens.

And we are for the promotion of the Irish language as the common heritage of all on this island.

We are for an independent Ireland in a Europe that respects the rights of nation states and is based on principles of social solidarity.

Tá polasaithe Sinn Féin bunaithe ar na bunluachanna poblachtach seo.

As Sinn Fein continues to grow, we must always remember that our project is not about any one of us as individuals.It’s about the republican cause.

Standing United

There was a time, not so long ago, when it was very dangerous to be a Sinn Féin representative. Our leaders, councillors, election workers and their families were subjected to a brutal campaign of assassination. For some it remains dangerous.

Last week Martin McGuinness’s car was damaged. Others in the party get regular death threats. When Sinn Fein Councillors in the north were first elected they were denied their rightful entitlements, as were those who voted for us.

And for decades in this state Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour combined to exclude Sinn Féin Councillors from committees and delegations on councils. Indeed we were denied the use of public buildings for Ard Fheiseanna, including in my own constituency of Louth. They are still at it today.

Witness the alliance of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour conniving to carve up council positions for each other. It’s time Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil stopped pretending they are different. They are not. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are conservative soul mates. They should be in government together.

The challenge for Sinn Féin is to decide where we want to be in the medium to long term and chart a course toward this. That means we have to be very clear about our objectives and our strategies. That means we need to be more cohesive than ever before.

What we are trying to do is unprecedented. It hasn’t been done before and arguably it hasn’t been tried. Because what we are trying to do is to build in two parts of a partitioned island a national struggle that transcends the border; that doesn’t succumb to partitionism; that is cohesive and continuously moving forward even at times at an incremental pace.

It means supporting each other and working together as comrades and equals. It means working our party structures and ensuring that none of our elected comrades, especially  new councillors are left to muddle through policy matters. This is a two-way process. It means Councillors coming to us. It means Head Office and leadership providing support.

A lot of work to do

I said earlier that we need to decide where we want to be in the medium to long term. That is a subject we have to return to in a process of engagement across the party so that we can get a democratic consensus on these questions. So I won’t elaborate on that too much today.

But we can look forward to the immediate future. For example, two years from now we will have contested at least two by-elections, a Westminster election, a General Election and an Assembly election. We will have commemorated the centenary of the 1916 Rising.

We will have had to deal with huge challenges in the peace process and political process and ongoing negotiations. There is a large onus on us, who want Irish unity to persuade those who are unionist of the merits of this position. We also have a strong view that outside the issues of political allegiance there is potentially huge common ground between working class unionists, loyalists, nationalists and republicans. 

Notwithstanding the shortcomings of unionist leaders, Sinn Féin needs to engage with unionism in all its forms and sectors. Across the island and indeed internationally our position on social and economic issues is essentially a republican one. That is that, citizens have rights and society must be shaped on these core values in a citizen centred, rights based dispensation as opposed to privileges for the elites. 

For this reason we are anti-austerity and pro public services. We need to popularise these core values by developing policies, which can win public support. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done over the next two years. 

Sinn Féin has just come out of very good elections where483,113 people voted for the party and elected a record number of councillors and MEPs in addition to our team of TDs, MLAs, Senators and MPs. We are now the largest party on the island. There is growing support for our pro peace process/anti-austerity message and our all Ireland politics.   

We need to deliver. There will be an additional onus on us to do this where we hold power. We need to be radical and innovative in delivering for communities against the backdrop of the current economic crisis. 

The centenary of 1916 has the potential to have a significant influence on politics on the island. It creates an opportunity to focus on the question of Irish Unity and the real need for changing politics. We need to step up our work for the decade of centenaries.

We also need to keep building our party and to address some organisational weaknesses across the island. There are 3 Councils across the island where we didn’t get any Sinn Féin representative elected and 19 Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) in the 26 Counties where no one was returned.

There is also a growing disenchantment with the political process in the 6 counties and a decreasing turnout in the 26 Counties. This needs to be tackled.

Today we will discuss our national strategic objectives and start putting in place our political, electoral and organisational strategy and workplan for the next 2 years.

Our immediate priorities are:

·        Negotiations and dealing with difficulties in the political process and peace process.

·        By-elections and Westminster elections.

·        Preparations for a General Election and Assembly elections.

·        Preparations for the centenary of 1916 with a strong focus on Irish Unity.

·        Engage with unionism in all its forms, on issues of common ground.

The North

There is now widespread concern about the situation within the DUP. It is quite clear that the DUP does not appear to have the appetite for the challenge of dealing with the outstanding issues of flags, parades and the past in any serious way.,

Sinn Féin demonstrated very clearly during the Haass negotiations our seriousness and determination to find a way forward. We made compromises during those talks.

For any process aimed at resolving these issues to succeed unionist political leaders need to show a similar willingness. That has not been evident so far.

Despite this there does exist a window of opportunity to resolve the issues of flags, parades and the past. Sinn Féin will meet separately with An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and British Prime Minister David Cameron in the next few weeks.

Party leaders in the Executive have agreed an intensive round of talks and Sinn Féin is engaging positively in this process. However to be successful the Irish and British governments must become more engaged in upholding and fulfilling their obligations

We also need the continuing support of the US Administration, of political leaders on Capitol Hill and of Irish America.

Economic policy

Since the elections, Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and media commentators say they will subject Sinn Féin’s economic policies to greater scrutiny. Tá muid an sasta faoi sin.

It would be great to have a real discussion about the need for a different economic approach. During the period of the Celtic Tiger Sinn Féin and especially our small dedicated group of TDs, pointed out the dangers of the developing property bubble and the potential for an economic crash.

We warned of the over-reliance on taxes from the property sector; of over dependency on construction; of the danger of auction politics. Others tried to outdo each other with promises of tax cuts.

Sinn Féin argued that the wealth of the Celtic Tiger should be used to create sustainable jobs, build infrastructure, and be invested in health and education.

We were ridiculed by the same people whose flawed greedy self serving policies collapsed the economy, forced hundreds of thousands out of work and almost half a million of our young people overseas. Sinn Féin was right then and we are right now.

We believe that it is possible to make the necessary deficit adjustments without harming families or frontline services by creating jobs, asking the wealthiest to pay more and by cutting waste from public spending.

The Property Tax, Water tax, removal of medical cards, cuts, mortgage distress and lack of social housing have pushed working people to the limit.

So, let’s see some scrutiny of the policy of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil which says that for decades to come that our children and our grandchildren should be forced to pay for the greed of the bankers, developers and corrupt politicians.

Government Failure

This Fine Gael/Labour government promised a ‘democratic revolution’ but has delivered the same stale, old politics of the previous Fianna Fail-led government. They appoint cronies to state boards. Ministers favour their own constituencies for funding. They seek to control the banking inquiry by stuffing it with government TDs and Senators.

They ignore the hardship endured by the most vulnerable as a result of austerity. They take medical cards from the most vulnerable, fail the homeless, and cut services for the elderly, the sick and the young. They have betrayed the electorate.

Fianna Fail cannot provide a credible alternative to the Government because the government is already implementing Fianna Fail policy. Fianna Fail does not disagree with the Government on any of the major issues facing our citizens. Fianna Fail is an integral part of the 'Consensus for Cuts'. The Water Tax, for instance, was Fianna Fail’s idea.

Sinn Fein in government

For our part Sinn Fein needs to be ready for government in this state on our terms, agree our policy priorities and political platform and our commitments need to be deliverable.

We are ambitious for change and believe we can deliver on jobs, housing and health. But we will not do what the Labour Party has done — we will not enter government merely to give cover to the agenda of conservative parties.

That’s the old failed political system. Citizens want fundamental change. Sinn Féin seeks to offer a viable, do-able, political alternative. This will not be achieved by the creation of yet another right-wing conservative party offering repackaged versions of past failed policies.

 Despite the fervent wishes of the conservative media this state does not need a ‘PDs Mark 2’, led by disgruntled Fine Gael TDs. The reality is that some combination of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil has been in government since the foundation of this state.

But just as one-party Orange rule in the North is gone, the failed two-and-a-half party system in this state is going also. Today's gathering is further proof that Sinn Féin is now a major player in both states with policies and an expanding organization, which transcends partition.

It is time for a realignment of politics. Let those on the Irish left who really believe that a government without Fine Gael or Fianna Fail is possible begin working together towards that end.

Building new politics

Sinn Féin is committed to a new Republic, with new politics that puts fairness and equality at the heart of government. As we spearhead the building of a real political alternative throughout this island, we must remain radical, rooted, relevant and republican.

People are increasingly looking to us for leadership and to provide hope for the future. That is our task comrades. That is your task. Let us get to it. Ar aghaidh linn le cheile!
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Spectacular intellectual gymnastics and the Guildford 4

June 26, 2014, 5:39 am
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Gerry Conlon died on Saturday. He was one of four people arrested, tortured and falsely imprisoned for carrying out bomb attacks in Guildford and Woolwich in England in 1974. His father Giuseppe was also arrested while visiting his son in prison and wrongly convicted of involvement in bomb making. He died in prison.

The Guildford 4, the Maguire 7, the Birmingham 6 and others were all victim of a series of grave miscarriages of justice which saw the British police service, judiciary and political establishment conniving in imprisoning citizens they knew to be innocent of any wrong doing.

Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill, Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong spent 15 years in English prisons under the most horrendous of prison conditions, often in solitary confinement.

A public campaign in support of their release eventually succeeded in achieving that in 1989. Following this Gerry became a strong advocate for and campaigner on justice issues. As a victim of injustice he was articulate and tireless in pursuit of justice. His death is a loss to his family and friends but also to all of those who were touched by his courage and who he endeavoured to help.

Within hours of his passing former SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon sought to score political points against Sinn Féin by accusing republicans of ‘almost conniving’ to keep innocent people behind bars.

The responsibility for the detention and incarceration of many innocent people in England and in Ireland rests absolutely with the various police forces and judicial and political system.

The British police knew that the Guildford 4 were innocent but they connived to keep them and other innocents in prison.

Seamus Mallon’s line of argument, though spurious and devoid of merit, was taken up by sections of the media. The Taoiseach repeated this line in the Dáil on Wednesday.

Some of this has by now become little more than a well-worn and tiresome routine that is rarely matched by the facts. A column in the Irish Independent: ‘Weasel words from Adams on Conlon case is used as a weapon in propaganda war‘ is typical.

The Indo columnist wrongly claims that: “Gerry Conlon was in jail because the IRA bombed Guildford”. Like Seamus Mallon he ignores the facts. The British police arrested the Guildford 4; tortured false statements from them; and then railroaded them through a judicial process that was unjust and biased.  That was the responsibility of the British police. The IRA was responsible for the bombings. They made that clear at the time.

The same Indo columnist goes on to rewrite the history of the period. He claims that it was 1977 and as the IRA’s Balcombe Street unit was about to “receive huge sentences for other bombings they half-claimed that they were also responsible for the Guildford bombings. Could they be believed?”

It was 1975 and yes the IRA could be believed.

In December, 1975, the four IRA Volunteers who became known as the Balcombe Street unit were arrested. Within 24 hours of their arrests they told senior British police officers that they, and not the four people who had been recently convicted – later to become known as the Guildford 4 - were involved in the bombings.

The British police said they would look into these claims, but there is no evidence of any further investigation. At the subsequent trial of the Balcombe Street unit it emerged that the forensic evidence had been edited to remove all reference to Guildford and Woolwich.

On the strength of legal statements given by members of the Balcombe Street unit, the Guildford Four were eventually granted an appeal in October 1977.

At the appeal hearing, with the support they explained later of the IRA leadership, Eddie Butler, Harry Duggan, Joe O'Connell and Brendan Dowd testified that they were responsible for the Woolwich attack. Brendan Dowd also accepted responsibility for the Guildford bomb attack. All of the men said that the four persons convicted of the Guildford and Woolwich bombings had played no part.

According to the highly respected British Labour MP Chris Mullin, who campaigned for many years on behalf of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six: “So detailed was the Balcombe Street unit's account that it was not possible to pretend that they had not been involved”.

Despite this, the British Appeal Court, headed by Lord Roskill, perversely professed themselves satisfied and upheld the convictions of the Guildford 4. They engaged in what Mullin described as “spectacular intellectual gymnastics” in order to accept confessions obtained under torture and to deny the appeal.

Why did they do this? Because if it was accepted that the British police had fabricated confessions and ignored the evidence of those IRA Volunteers really responsible then as Lord Bridge argued in the Birmingham six case you would have to accept that the all of this “shows the police not only to be masters of the vile techniques of cruelty and brutality to suspects. It shows them to have a very lively and inventive imagination.”

This was what another British judge, Lord Denning, speaking of the same case, called the “appalling vista” that would arise should it be proven that the British police had deliberately imprisoned innocent people.

Later in his evidence to Sir John May's Inquiry into the Guildford & Woolwich bombings in 1989, British Labour MP Chris Mullen MP stated:

“In the absence of an explanation a good deal more credible than any which has so far been advanced, I submit that from soon after the arrest of the Balcombe Street IRA unit it is inescapable that those in authority, up to the highest level, realised that innocent people may have been convicted of the Guildford and Woolwich bombings and were anxious to avoid facing up to that possibility.”

None of this is any consolation to the families or the victims of these miscarriages of justice like Gerry Conlon or his family. Neither is it any consolation to the families of the victims or the victims of the IRA bombing.

Our endeavour must be to ensure that these events never happen again. Efforts to score political points by distorting or ignoring the facts makes no worthwhile contribution to this.
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Unionist walk out of talks – a step back

July 3, 2014, 8:55 am
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With the intensive all-party talks less than 48 hours old the Unionist parties all walked out. The reason? The Parades Commission has barred an Orange march from returning along part of the Crumlin Road through a nationalist area.

The DUP leader Peter Robinson and Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt were then joined by the leader of the TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice) Jim Allister and by the parties linked to the UVF and UDA in issuing a joint call to action for loyalists to oppose the Parades Commission’s determination and describing the all-party talks as ‘fruitless’.

The unionist leaderships urged loyalists to respond peacefully and lawfully but given that their decision is in direct opposition to a lawful decision by the Parades Commission, it is questionable how much weight will be given to this by those loyalist elements that have been periodically involved in serious street disturbances in the last two years.

Many will also question their sincerity in appealing for calm in light of the claim in their joint statement that ‘having seen republican threats of violence being rewarded the conclusion is swiftly drawn that violence pays.’

It is also important to note that there are more loyalist and orange parades taking place each year than ever before. In 2005 there were 2120 marches in the north. By last year that had more than  doubled to 4,637. Two thirds of these are loyalist parades. Claims that objections by a handful of nationalist areas to orange parades going through their communities is an attack on the Orange is clearly a nonsense.

The decision by the unionist leaderships today is evidence of their failure to stand firm against the demands of the Orange Order, the UVF and UDA in north Belfast. This is about these groups playing the Orange Card and using the threat of political instability to achieve their demands.

This is unacceptable. The status quo is not tenable. Sinn Féin will resist all efforts by unionist leaders to roll back the Good Friday Agreement.

This morning’s move by the unionist leaders was not entirely unexpected. We warned the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Labour Leader ED Miliband that unionist intransigence was threatening the political process.

Why would unionists engage positively in dialogue when David Cameron has not been fully engaged with the peace process in the last four years. Yesterday’s meeting with David Cameron was our first such meeting since he came to power in 2010. This is deplorable and is clear evidence of the British government’s failure thus far to properly engage with the process of change in the north. David Cameron, like other Conservative leaders before him, has leaned heavily in the direction of political unionism and away from the inclusive approach of the Good Friday Agreement.

This has contributed to the political process facing a succession of crises. But the situation has deteriorated even further in recent months as a consequence of the DUP’s unwillingness to participate positively within the political institutions and the Good Friday and other Agreements. Like David Trimble before them the DUP engagement has been tactical and aimed at serving their own party political agenda rather than the needs of the Good Friday Agreement.

They have bought into the architecture of the Agreement because they have no choice. But they have not bought into the substance. As Martin McGuinness has noted ‘We are in government with unionists because we want to be. They are in government with us because they have to be.’

In other words they have bought into the political institutions in terms of elections, salaries, and status but not into the need for real partnership government, the effective development of north-south co-operation, equality, mutual respect and parity of esteem. The DUPs participation within the institutions has been marked by blocking and stalling important initiatives; including equality measures in the education sector and collapsing the Programme for Government commitment on the Maze Long Kesh site.

Instead of applying themselves to making the Agreement work the DUP leadership has formed a loose axis with the Ulster Unionist Party, the TUV, the UVF and elements of the UDA and the Orange Order to obstruct progress.

None of this is unusual. From the first day after the Good Friday Agreement was achieved the UUP – then the larger unionist party – behaved in much the same way. It took a significant effort on the part of the British Labour government in the days leading up to the Good Friday Agreement referendum in May 1998 to persuade David Trimble to adopt a positive attitude. At one point it looked like the referendum would be lost.

 
Ivan Lewis, Mary Lou McDonald, Ed Miliband, Gerry Adams and Michelle Gildernew
 
Tony Blair visited the north three times, gave numerous interviews and Labour party people from Britain worked behind the scenes to focus the UUP on winning the hearts and minds of unionist voters. Trimble sold the Agreement and the referendum was passed comfortably.

But every negotiation since then has taken the same path. While Sinn Féin and others have played our part in creating the conditions for agreement it is a fact that without a pro-active British government encouraging the UUP and then the DUP there would have been no progress.

Thus far the Cameron government has chosen to endorse DUP intransigence and support the unionist narrative of the conflict. London failed to back the Haass compromise proposals on parades, flags and symbols, and contending with the past; it unilaterally broke the Weston Park commitment on resolving the issue of OTRs, and has not implemented key elements of the Good Friday Agreement.

Recently, David Cameron has begun to indicate an awareness that the process is in difficulty. But this morning’s action by the unionist leaders has significantly ratcheted up the crisis in the political process.

The intense period of negotiations that the political leaders in the north had agreed to hold and which began only last night are now ended. The unionists have left the stage. That’s their decision.

Yesterday we told Mr. Cameron that making progress requires a positive engagement by the Irish and British governments on issues which are their direct responsibility. The governments cannot deplore the lack of progress in the process unless they act to fulfil their obligations. Without that unionism will do as little as possible.

Sinn Féin will resist all efforts by unionist leaders to roll back the Good Friday Agreement. The British and Irish governments must also stand resolute for the Good Friday Agreement. They need to be champions for progress, for positive change and for the Agreement.

As co-equal guarantors of the Agreement the two governments must ensure continuing progress and this has to include implementing agreements already made that are their sole responsibility.

 
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End the War on Gaza

July 17, 2014, 2:06 am
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Protest against Israeli assault on Gaza: Belfast

 
The Israeli assault on Gaza has killed 200 people. Most of whom are civilians and children. Thousands more have been forced to flee their homes under threat from the Israeli government.

The short ceasefire announced for this morning is a welcome development.  

However it will only be another temporary lull in the cyclical violence in that region unless a real and inclusive dialogue takes place involving all of the combatant groups, including Hamas, and if the core issues of statehood for the Palestinian people, an end to the Israeli theft of Palestinian land and water rights, and the lifting of the siege of Gaza are not agreed.

Below are some thoughts on the situation:

Imagine that the population of the north was squeezed into an area half that of County Louth, the smallest county on the island of Ireland.

Imagine that 1.8 million people are locked into a piece of land that stretches roughly 40 kilometres from the border to Drogheda and is roughly 10 kilometres wide.

Imagine that 80% of the people who live there are dependent on some form of food and clothes aid.

Imagine that over 80% live below the poverty line.

Imagine that unemployment is 44%, and that 58% of young people between the ages of 15-29 have no work.

Imagine that 52% of women have no work.

Imagine that electricity is unpredictable and frequently fails.

Imagine that the health system is unable to cope and does not have access to modern equipment and the medical drugs and treatments others take for granted.

Imagine that 10% of children under five have had their growth stunted by malnutrition.

Imagine that anaemia is widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 58.6 per cent of schoolchildren and over a third of pregnant mothers.

Imagine that most of the sewage sites are overflowing and the system is close to collapse, and that 3.5 million cubic feet of raw sewage is finding its way into the Irish Sea every day.

Imagine that there is little rainfall and that most drinking water comes from ground wells.

Imagine that you know that in six years time they will all run dry. There will be no drinking water.

If your imagination is up to the task you have just imagined the harsh reality of life for almost two million men, women and children living in the Gaza strip. But even that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Myself and several colleagues visited Gaza five years ago in 2009. It was just after the Israeli ground invasion. By the time the Israelis left the economy of Gaza was shattered. 3,500 homes had been destroyed; another 28,000 damaged; 800 industries were damaged or destroyed; 10 schools were destroyed and 204 damaged.

1440 people had been killed, including 114 women and 431 children.

A school destroyed by Israeli assault in 2009
In 2012 there were further Israeli attacks on Gaza. In November of that year 161 Palestinians, including 71 civilians were killed. The then Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, justified the assault claiming that: "All our objectives were reached, taking out the Fajr rockets, rocket launching pads and Hamas offices".

Less than two years later and the Israeli Defense Forces claim that Hamas now has 10,000 rockets! How? What happened to Barak’s claims?

For Palestinians the reality is that they are stateless. They are a nation without a settled piece of secure territory they can call their own. Millions live in refugee camps. Many have done so for over sixty years and many millions more are scattered around that region and the world.

The Separation Wall erected by the Israelis has seen huge chunks of Palestinian land and water rights stolen. Illegal Israeli settlements containing over 100,000 illegal settlers occupy Palestinian land on the west Bank.

Should we be surprised then when violence erupts? The last week the Israeli assault on Gaza has left almost 200 Palestinians dead. Once again it is the civilian population that is being collectively punished by the Israeli state. 75% of those killed have been civilians. Just over a quarter have been children. Some of the images that have appeared on the internet of children have been horrifying and deeply upsetting.

But the impact of the Israeli assault extends beyond the dead and injured. Gaza relies on wells for drinking water. At the weekend Palestinian officials were accusing the Israeli military of deliberately targeting wells in Gaza City, as well as water pipelines. Thousands of families have been left without access to clean drinking water. This is especially critical in a region where one Oxfam official said that 90 percent of the water in Gaza was already unsafe to drink.

Hospital bombed
In January 2013 the EU Heads of Mission Jerusalem Report 2012 was published. It was a scathing indictment of the Israeli government’s flouting of international law and it’s violation of the rights of Palestinian citizens living in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories.

The report found that the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the west bank are ‘the biggest single threat to the two state solution.’

The EU report accused the Israeli government of implementing a settlement policy that is ‘systematic, deliberate and provocative’ and ofpursuing a deliberate policy of seeking to drive Palestinians out of East Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Report indicted Israel for violating ‘international humanitarian law’.

A United Nations report published two years ago  – ‘Gaza in 2020 – A liveable place?’ concluded that within a decade, ‘There will be virtually no reliable access to sources of safe drinking water, standards of healthcare and education will have continued to decline and the vision of affordable and reliable electricity for all will have become a distant memory for most.”

The report added that; ‘The already high number of poor, marginalised and food-insecure people depending on assistance will not have changed and in all likelihood will have increased.’

The Separation Wall
The Palestinian people have been robbed of their land, imprisoned by separation walls and borders into ghettoes, and have little power or influence.

Israel by comparison is a first world, highly developed, rich and heavily armed super-state with nuclear weapons.

At some point there will be a ceasefire. But everyone knows it will only be a lull before another round of violence. Without a comprehensive peace accord that deals with all of the key issues of Palestinian self-determination and independence and of two states, as well as of economic issues and prisoners and land and water rights, no ceasefire will last long.

Real progress toward a negotiated political settlement requires an end of armed actions by all of the combatant groups. That means an end to the rocket attacks from Gaza. It also means an end to Israeli aggression and its bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has caused enormous suffering. It also means lifting the blockade of Gaza.

But perhaps most important it needs the international community to stop standing by while Gaza and the Palestinian people are again pounded back to the stone age by the might of the Government of Israel.

Photos from Belfast protest: Go raibh maith agat Peadar





 

 
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Expel Israeli Ambassador

July 24, 2014, 3:03 am
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August 1969 was a tipping point in the history of the north. Sectarian pogroms, a feature of nineteenth century Belfast and partition, returned to the streets of Belfast with hundreds of families in Ardoyne, the lower Falls and the Clonard area being forcibly evicted from their homes. Loyalist mobs led by the RUC and B Specials attacked Catholic homes. Filmed sequences from the period show families scrambling desperately to save belongings as they abandoned their homes with flames billowing behind them and smoke rising into the air. Whole streets of terraced homes, local businesses and mills were destroyed.
The refugees carried their children, bundles of clothes and small pieces of furniture in their arms or on their backs while larger pieces were left abandoned in the street or piled onto to flat bed lorries to be carried off.

The streets of the Falls Road and Ardoyne were a war zone.  It was a terrifying time. In the three days between August 14 and 16 eight people were killed and scores more injured. The familiar streetscape in the Falls that I had grown up in was shattered. The close knit community was left battered and bleeding. The image of frightened families running for their lives and the sense of devastation, of gutted buildings and of makeshift defensive barricades are still fresh in my mind. As are the rolls of barbed wire strung arbitrarily across streets by British Army squaddies as the first of Belfast’s separation walls took shape.    
Many of the families ended up in schools in Andersonstown, including – St. Teresa’s, Holy Child and La Salle. They lived in overcrowded classrooms. Desks pushed up against side walls. They slept on mattresses among the bits and pieces of furniture they retained.

The August pogrom was the failure of politics and it set the scene for decades of conflict.
I was reminded of the overcrowded Belfast schools while watching a report on the 120,000 Palestinian citizens who have been forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israeli military. Thousands of homes have been flattened by no warning Israeli bombs from air, sea and tank. Most of the refugees have taken shelter in some 61 schools and other property run by the United Nations. Conditions are appalling. Too many people, not enough mattresses, blankets, food and water. And all living under the imminent threat of Israeli bombs.

The Director of Operations for UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) which provides aid to refugees said: “These men, women and children are relying on us to provide them with shelter and the reality is that UNWRA only had relief supplies in stock for 35,000 people.” The real figure at time of writing is four times that.
The scale of the nightmare in Gaza is so much bigger than our Belfast experience. In two weeks over 700 Palestinians have been killed – mainly civilians and children. Thousands more have been grievously injured and rushed into hospitals inadequately resourced after eight years of an Israeli siege and themselves the target for Israeli attack.

A report in the London Guardian at the weekend told of an Israeli assault on Shujai’iya district in at “least 100 Palestinians were killed – 67 on one area - … the corpses of women and children were strewn in streets of Shujai’iya as people fled on foot and packed into vehicles.”
Nowhere is safe. Four people were killed when Israeli tankls bombed the al-Aqsa hospitasl. In Khan Younis Israeli bombs destroyed a home killing 24 members of one family. Whether on the beach or at home children have been deliberately targeted as Israel engages in the collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza.

Each news report brings another story of horror and destruction as the death toll rises.
The Palestinian people are the victims of one of the great injustices of the modern era. For over sixty years millions have lived in refugee camps. Most know no other life. Opportunities for political progress and peace have been squandered by successive ruthless Israeli governments hungry for Palestinian land and water and determined to ensure that Palestinians remain fractured, impoverished and too weak to challenge Israeli aggression.

In 2009 I saw for myself the disastrous impact that the Israeli siege was having on the lives of the people of Gaza. I was angry. I was only there two days and I was angry.
Imagine living in those conditions for generations. If you deny people the right to a job, to a home, to freedom and control of their own destiny then don’t be surprised if they too are angry.

If you force almost two million people to live in a huge open prison where there the future looks likely to be a replay of the past then don’t be surprised if they are angry.
The powerful governments of the world have stood back and time after time excused Israeli actions, proclaiming that Israel has the right to defend itself. What of the right of the Palestinian people to security and defence?

In a new low the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of using “telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.” Israel kills 600 Palestinians and then blames the Palestinians for the media news reports.
As long as world leaders accept the single narrative of Israel then there will be no peace in that region. There is a Palestinian narrative that must be given equal validity and a Palestinian people who deserve hope and peace for the future.

Around the world countless demonstrations have been held in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Those efforts must be intensified in the time ahead. At the weekend I urged the Irish government to go beyond the politics of empty rhetoric and expel the Israeli Ambassador – to set an example for the rest of the EU. There is widespread support for this.
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End the slaughter in Gaza

July 30, 2014, 3:43 pm
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It is unusual for this column to deal with the same issue three weeks in a row. But the Israeli assault on Gaza makes this a very special case. The scenes of desolation and destruction, of whole streets reduced to piles of broken rubble, and the images of torn bodies, especially of young children and babies, demand that the international community do all that we can to end this slaughter.

Just before noon on Tuesday morning I spoke to Saeb Erekat in Ramallah on the west Bank. The Palestinian Unity Government was holding an emergency meeting to discuss the deteriorating situation.

Saeb is an Executive Committee Member of the PLO and is the Chief Negotiator for the Palestinian government. He took a few minutes to brief me on the current situation in Gaza and the behind the scenes efforts to achieve a humanitarian ceasefire.

He explained that the Palestinian government, including Hamas, had accepted a United States proposal for a 24 hour humanitarian ceasefire. The Israeli government rejected this. The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon then proposed a 72 hour humanitarian ceasefire. The Palestinian government accepted this but again the Israeli government said no.

Saeb thanked the people of Ireland for their support and asked that they and the international community endorse and support the United Nations call for a ceasefire. He told me that there is no oil, no water, and no electricity in Gaza. Saeb described this current Israeli assault as seeking the total destruction of Gaza.

The proof of this can be found in the statistics of death and destruction coming out of Gaza. In the 24 hours before I spoke to Saeb another 100 Palestinians – mostly civilians – had been killed in attacks by the Israel military.

Since July 8 when the current violence erupted around 1300 Palestinians – according to the UN 80% of them civilians – have been killed. Almost 7,000 have been injured. Israel has lost 53 soldiers and three civilians.

An explanation for the disproportionate number of civilian deaths between Palestinians and Israel can be found in the words of Major General Gadi Eizenkot, now a deputy chief of staff in the Israeli Army. Six years ago he admitted that any village or city from which rockets are fired would be regarded as a ‘missile base.’

The Israel Army and its defenders claim that it is the most moral army in the world. The evidence of the last three weeks disproves that claim. On the contrary the Israeli army, air force and navy have demonstrated again and again their capacity to deliberately and systematically and accurately target the civilian population.

They are engaging in collective punishment of a civilian population – a practice which is supposedly outlawed under international law. But the truth is that the end game is about the theft of Palestinian land and water and control of the occupied territories through terror.

When Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005 it wasn’t about peace or acknowledging the rights of the Palestinian people. Arial Sharon the former Prime Minister of Israel said that their disengagement ‘will strengthen its control over those same areas in the ‘Land of Israel’ which will constitute an inseparable part of the State of Israel.’

Israel’s assault on Gaza, including the blockade that was imposed in 2007, is about defending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, denying the Palestinian people their national rights, undermining Palestinian political institutions and its economy and to weaken Palestinian resistance.

Israeli government aggression has to be challenged. The rights of the Palestinian people must be defended. The violence against the civilian population of Gaza must be ended. The Irish government can play an important role in this. Ireland is generally viewed as progressive on international matters around the world. The UN has called for a three day ceasefire. The Irish government and the Dáil should be united in supporting this.

Last week I wrote to An Taoiseach requesting that he recall the Dáil to discuss the situation in Gaza. The Taoiseach has not answered my letter but in briefings to the media he has indicated that he is not willing to accede to Sinn Féin's request for the Dáil to be reconvened.

Thus far Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, 14 independent deputies, one Fine Gael TD and one Labour TD and six Seanadóirí have endorsed our request for the recall of the Dáil.

I believe the Taoiseach’s position is a mistake, particularly now that the Seanad will be reconvened to discuss this urgent issue, but also in light of the Palestinian support for the UN ceasefire call. The Irish government and the Dáil can provide leadership at this critical juncture as efforts are made to end the violence.

Given our own history as a people, our experience of conflict and our peace process, a recalled Dáil uniting in support of an end to violence and in support of the United Nations appeal for a 72 hour humanitarian ceasefire, would send a powerful message of solidarity to the people of that region and encourage an intensification of pressure on the Israeli government to accept the United Nations ceasefire proposal.

In the meantime I want to commend all of those who are organising and participating in public protests against Israeli actions and in support of the Palestinian people. Nelson Mandela once remarked that; ‘We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.’ He was right.

 

 

 
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The rising of the moon

August 7, 2014, 4:01 am
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Last Friday morning, August 1st, former comrades of Bobby Sands - ex-POWs Sinead Moore and Jimmy Burns - unveiled a remarkable white marble bust of Bobby in the Felons Club on the Falls Road in west Belfast. Two days later thousands more travelled to Derrylin in County Fermanagh to celebrate the lives and heroism of the 10 hunger strikers who died in 1981 and also of Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg.

The marble bust, which was commissioned by the Bobby Sands Trust and shaped from a block of marble by Paraic Casey, is a fine representation of Bobby and a tremendous piece of sculpture. I would urge any of you either visiting the Felons or just passing by to take a few moments and go into the foyer to admire the bust which has been set in a recess into the wall. Art is very important in whatever form it takes but to carve something out of stone or wood or marble into an image of a living person and to capture the essence of that person takes enormous talent.

Even now 33 years later it’s hard to take in that the events of that time – events which led to the deaths of Bobby and his nine comrades inside the prison, and of more than 60 others outside. We get a small sense of it when we realise that prior to August 1st 1981 Bobby, Francie Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O Hara and Joe McDonnell had already died. Friday was Kevin Lynch’s anniversary. It was Big Doc’s – Kieran Doherty – the following day - Saturday. It will be Tom McElwee’s anniversary this Friday and on August 20th it will be Mickey Devine’s.

Some of them I knew before they went into prison. Others I met in prison. I’m very proud to say that Bobby Sands was my friend. I had been interned in Long Kesh and was then sentenced for trying to escape and found myself in Cage 11, in another part of the camp which held sentenced political prisoners. Bobby was one of those.

He was a wiry, long haired individual. I remember him as a keen sportsman who played soccer or gaelic football whenever he got the chance. He had a good sense of humour and liked music. He was very good on the guitar. He was also a gaelgoir. He famously went on into the H-Blocks where he taught the other prisoners Irish.

There was a study hut in the cage – which was in reality not much bigger than a garden shed. It had a few tables and chairs in it. At one time we kept pigeons in it. In another of the cages they lowered the ceiling and used the space to store the ingredients for poítín until it was found by the screws.

I had been asked by Danny Morrison, who was then the editor of Republican news to write for the paper. Consequently I would sit in the study hut trying to scribble down my thoughts. Bobby would have practiced there. I have an abiding memory of him sitting playing the classic Kris Kristofferson song, ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ over and over again. Later when he went to the H Blocks Bobby wrote songs including ‘McIlhatton’ and ‘Back home in Derry’.

There was once a great moment at Christmas when we put on a concert. Bobby and Dosser, Big Duice, and Big Igor decided to mime to the Queen song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. But being the consummate professionals they were they decided to create the iced smoke effect from the music videos. Igor had the notion that if you ground down table tennis balls and light them that that would produce the smoke effect. He was right in one respect. It did create smoke. Lots of it and he almost choked most of us to death. We had to evacuate the big hut.

In Cage 11, as in other cages, we inculcated an education ethos. Sometimes Long Kesh is presented by those who don’t know better as a ‘university’ as if we were all stupid before we went into prison. Not true. People got involved because they were political activists and were against injustice and because we wanted change. In the prison we got the chance to read and debate and discuss.

Bobby was very much a part of this. He took part in all of the discussions. He read a lot. He was very intelligent, very committed, and all the time was asking questions. He was an internationalist. He read about other struggles. In those days the big international struggles were Cuba, south America, the struggle against apartheid in south Africa and Palestine.

I have no doubt that Bobby  would have been appalled, as we all are, by the shocking images from Gaza, and outraged at the failure of the international community to challenge the aggression of the Israeli government.

Martin, the Palestinian Ambassador Ahmed Abdelrazek agus mise
Twice in the last few days I have spoken to Saeb Erekat the Chief Negotiator of the Palestinians. He has told me of the terrible conditions of the people of Gaza and also of the Unity Government’s efforts to secure progress through negotiations. It’s very important that we raise our voices on this issue; that we continue to organise and lobby and challenge the propaganda of the Israeli government.

We also need to write and text and email the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin on its recent decision to abstain in the vote at the UN Human Rights Council. That decision was a disgrace and we need to be telling them that they didn’t do that in the name of the Irish people.

Bobby was also a leader. It was after the first hunger strike and the way that British reneged on the possibility of getting decent conditions around the five demands, that Bobby resolved to lead the second hunger strike. He knew that the stakes had been raised and he knew that it was almost certain that he would die.

Bobby was an ordinary working class lad from north Belfast. He was a poet, a gaelgoir, a writer, a political activist, a political prisoner, who ends up an MP, and who is seen everywhere by those who love freedom, as a freedom fighter.

And if you want to understand what motivated Bobby then I would urge you to read any of his books or poems or short stories. In recent days his Prison Diary has been republished. He kept it for the first 17 days of his hunger strike – before he was moved to the prison hospital.

On the last day he wrote; “Tiocfaidh lá éigin nuair a bheidh an fonn saoirse seo le taispeáint ag daoine go léir na hEireann ansin tchífidh muid éirí na gealaí”. - The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we’ll see the rising of the moon”.

For me that’s the essence of how you win struggle because in that little phrase Bobby is recognising that the only people who can actually win freedom are the people themselves. You can create the conditions in which people can take freedom but ultimately it needs the people to win freedom.
 

 
 
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No to Fracking

August 14, 2014, 4:43 pm
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Last month I headed down to Carrick-on- Shannon in county Leitrim for a public meeting on the impact of the Irish government’s austerity policies on rural communities and families. It was a warm summer evening with a clear blue sky for most of the way there. Carrick-on-Shannon was quiet but the public meeting was packed to the doors.

Later we drove to Monaghan along dark windy roads crisscrossing the border. Leitrim is one of our most underrated counties. Fewer mobile phone calls than usual meant I had an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the countryside.

Last week I was just across the border from Leitrim in Derrylin in county Fermanagh for the national hunger strike march and rally. Like its Leitrim neighbour Fermanagh is a wonderful county – stunning scenery, lots of small and large lakes and countless rivers all feeding into the Shannon river basin. Small towns and villages are connected by twisting narrow roads.

For several decades the road network was broken by British Army border crossings and roads that were blocked with concrete blocks. The adverse impact on the local economy was considerable.

Today Leitrim and Fermanagh like all of the border counties suffer from higher than average levels of unemployment and poverty, poor road systems, a lack of investment and inadequate public services. Both are very dependent on farming and tourism to provide jobs.

When the Derrylin event was over local MP Michelle Gildernew climbed into our car and directed us to an old quarry some miles away at Belcoo where Australian shale gas exploration company Tamboran is planning to drive a bore hole over 700 feet into the underground rock in search of gas.

The search for gas from shale is focused on the north-west carboniferous basin which covers Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo, Cavan, Donegal and Fermanagh. It covers an area of some 8,000 square kilometres and is the source of two of the islands largest water systems, the Shannon and the Erne.

When we arrived at the Belcoo site we were met by local activists who are camping outside the entrance to Tamboran’s camp protesting the use of fracking to extract shale gas. The gates to the quarry are covered in posters and slogans and one large sign proclaims it to be the ‘Gates of Hell’.

As well as the local activists there are also a large number of PSNI officers on duty, directing traffic and monitoring developments. Local MLA Phil Flanagan joined us as did Sandra McLellan TD and Michael Colreavy TDS. In a large tent across from the gates the anti-fracking activists make tea and coffee and there are sandwiches available for protestors and visitors. The atmosphere is relaxed, welcoming, but there is a clear determination among all of those in the Belcoo camp to oppose fracking.

What is fracking? It is a means of extracting natural gas trapped in layers of sedimentary rock between one and two kilometres beneath the surface. Horizontal wells are drilled into which a mixture of water and sand and chemicals are forced at high pressure. This fractures the rock and allows gas to seep into the wells where it makes its way to the surface for collection and distribution. An average well will use up to 20,000 cubic metres of water. Of these high volumes of millions of gallons of water about a third, containing treatments, sands and other chemicals, is returned to the surface where it has to be disposed of.

Fracking is a hugely controversial method of extracting gas. In 2011 at our Ard Fheis Sinn Féin discussed the use of fracking, listened to the arguments and passed a motion stating our opposition to it and our “full support to local communities who are opposed to this unsafe procedure.”

As a process it has been banned in several European countries, including France and Bulgaria, and there is credible evidence of damage to drinking water; to human health and to animal health. It can cause serious environmental pollution, is a significant and dangerous threat to our countryside and can damage fish stocks. There is evidence that fracking was responsible for several small earthquakes in the north of England several years ago.

Fracking poses a very real risk to the success of our farming industry, and to the health and safety of rural communities, across the island of Ireland, as well as undermining our tourism industry. In addition to the dangers posed by the drilling and extraction processes there is significant disruption to local communities by lorries full of materials regularly entering and leaving the fracking site.
In January 2011 the British based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research published a report, Shale gas: a provisional assessment of climate change and environmental impacts. The report set out concerns about ground and surface water contamination, possibly even affecting quality of drinking water and wetland habitats, depending on factors such as the connection between ground and surface waters.

The report noted that: “The depth of shale gas extraction gives rise to major challenges in identifying categorically pathways of contamination of groundwater by chemicals used in the extraction process. An analysis of these substances suggests that many have toxic, carcinogenic or other hazardous properties. There is considerable anecdotal evidence from the US that contamination of both ground and surface water has occurred in a range of cases.”

Fracking is not the answer to the energy needs of the island of Ireland and the farmers of Fermanagh have given a lead by signing a pledge that they will not allow fracking on their land. 
Renewable sources of energy must remain the main focus for the future. Tidal, hydro, wind and biomass all have the potential to satisfy Ireland and Europe’s energy demands.

There was widespread public concern at Tamboran’s drilling. The announcement on Monday by the Minister for the Environment that Tamboran's proposal to drill a core of rock from Cleggan Quarry would require a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and planning permission, is a welcome decision. Public concern had been heightened by the north’s Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment’s, DUP Minister Arlene Foster’s decision to award the licence without any public debate. 

I want to commend the efforts of local communities and of my party colleagues who have consistently raised their concerns about fracking. The threat to the people and environment of Fermanagh and Leitrim and surrounding counties remains high and we must all remain vigilant.
The focus will now shift to the Irish government and to the decision by the previous Fianna Fáil government to permit fracking licence options to Tamboran Resources and The Lough Allen Natural Gas Company, and the failure of the Fine Gael and Labour to put a halt to proceedings.

Let me be clear; Sinn Féin is opposed to fracking north and south and we will use our political strength to resist it. If any application is made for fracking Sinn Féin will be bringing it to the Executive to oppose it.

 
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Albert Reynolds RIP

August 28, 2014, 7:36 am
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On Monday, Martin McGuinness, myself, Rita O'Hare, Pat Doherty and Lucilita Breatnach represented Sinn Féin at the funeral of former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds in Dublin. All of us, along with others who couldn't attend, had worked with Albert on the peace process. The State ceremony was a fitting send off for a man who was crucial to the development of the peace process.
 
There was poignancy in the fact that his funeral took place just days before the 20th Anniversary of the historic and groundbreaking IRA cessation of 1994.
 
That decision by the IRA leadership resulted in enormous changes and had profound effects on politics in Ireland and on the relationship between Ireland and Britain.
 
Much of the work to bring about that opportunity was carried out away from the public eye and is often now forgotten.
 
 
People rightly remember the great political highs of the past two decades, be it the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement, the St. Andrews and Hillsborough Agreement, the decision of Ian Paisley to share power or the decision by the IRA to leave the stage.
 
But none of these or the other fundamental, political, social and constitutional changes during the peace process would have been possible without the difficult and risk-laden work which was undertaken by Albert Reynolds, Fathers Alec Reid and Des Wilson, John Hume, the Sinn Féin leadership and others in the years before the 1994 cessation including brave citizens from civic unionism, Protestant churches and the community sector.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Ireland of the early 1990s was very different from now. Armed conflict was part of everyday life. Political censorship and exclusion was the norm. Successive Irish governments worked with British governments in pursuing an entirely negative agenda which merely fed the cycle of discrimination, resistance and conflict.
 
When Albert became Taoiseach he was briefed by the former Taoiseach Charlie Haughey on discussions that had opened up between Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil. Martin Mansergh, senior political adviser was to be an important bridge and Fr Alex Reid was to be the main conduit to Mr Reynolds. Fr Reid persuaded the new Taoiseach of the possibilities which were being created at that time.
 
So, Albert Reynolds brought a different approach. He was persuaded of the potential which existed in my own dialogue with John Hume and he was moved to offer support to this at a time when others deliberately sought to undermine it.
 
 
Alongside this he struck up a dialogue of his own with the then British Prime Minister John Major and despite significant political opposition both inside and outside the British Parliament, the Downing Street Declaration was secured. This declaration, of course was not sufficient and work had to continue beyond that. But at least Sinn Féin was now dealing directly with the Taoiseach and he came to realise that more was needed.
 
 
 
I regard my relationship with Albert Reynolds to be a very good one. He was very open. He and his wife Kathleen welcomed me and others into their home. They were welcoming, down to earth and straight forward. Albert was also very direct. He was a doer. He wasn’t satisfied with dialogue without aim, objective or concrete outcomes. Of course there were profound differences between us but I always felt that in Albert Reynolds we were dealing with someone who was serious about the task of building the peace process and who represented a new departure from the Irish Government failures which had marked previous decades. This in itself was important.
 
He was also prepared to listen. He came to the table with a determination to succeed and also with an ability to take risks.
 
He also knew the North much better than he was given credit for. Some of this goes back to the showband days and he had a very human contact with people in the business community and right across the Six Counties.
 
It is a testament to Albert's ability to get things done that although he was one of the shortest serving Taoisigh, he achieved so much in so short a space of time. In my opinion a lot of this was possible because he was an outsider. He wasn't part of the Fianna Fáil establishment or the Irish establishment at that time. In fact many of them looked down their noses at him. The establishment at that time was very partitionist. Some of the policy makers remain so to this day. But it took someone from outside that culture to turn the system around in the early days of his term as Taoiseach.
 
 
I suppose it is part of the nature of politics that Albert Reynolds was removed from office well before the election of Tony Blair in 1997 and the creation of the sort of inclusive, all-party negotiations which he recognised were necessary but which the Major government failed to deliver in the period after the 1994 cessation.
 
Given the time he had invested in helping to develop the peace process there is little doubt that Albert would have brought his own dynamic to those talks and helped put his own stamp on what would ultimately emerge as the Good Friday Agreement.
 
After his retirement from public life Albert Reynolds remained a firm supporter of the peace process. If there was a role that he was asked to play it was done without fuss or without question. I was in contact with him many times and he was a particular assistance in advising in how we deal with the Irish Government of the day. He also developed a very warm personal relationship with Martin McGuinness.
 
Under Fr Reid's guidance Albert also opened up dialogue with loyalist paramilitaries and their representatives.
 
On occasions over the past 20 years I have heard numerous people described as being architects of the Irish Peace Process. I have to say on many of these occasions I raise my eyes in surprise. Such a description however sits well with the contribution made by Albert Reynolds.
 
 
Albert stepped forward to make peace when it was a risky thing to do. When it was not popular with either the political or the media establishments. He did the right thing. He acted on the North when positive action was needed. As the political process faces into more difficulties, An Taoiseach Enda Kenny would do well if he emulated the actions of Albert Reynolds.
 
At this sad time I wish to extend my condolences to his wife Kathleen, to their children and to the wider Reynolds family.
 
 
Kathleen was hugely supportive of Albert. At times Fr Alec must have driven her to distraction but she was and remains a very sound and solid woman.





 


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Protecting the most historic site in modern Ireland

April 24, 2014, 3:23 am
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Mise agus James Connolly Heron in Moore Street
 
 
I was in Dublin on Easter Sunday morning for the annual Sinn Féin commemoration to mark the Easter Rising of 1916. The Dublin event was one of hundreds organized by republicans to take place across the island of Ireland and in far off places. Not that you would have known from the coverage of the day’s events by RTE. Section 31 may be gone but sadly its legacy remains.

For regular readers of this blog you will already know of the concern I have about the government’s failure to properly plan for a Revolutionary Quarter in Dublin around the iconic sites that are linked to the Easter Rising. In particular, like many others, including relatives of the leaders who were executed, I believe the government’s proposals for the Moore Street National Monument, where the leaders met for the last time, to be woefully inadequate and shameful.

Republicans are determined to ensure that 2016, the 1916 Centenary, is marked in the most appropriate way possible, as a fitting popular acknowledgement of the past but also, and just as importantly, as a pointer to a better future.

In a sad metaphor of the state we live in, the Moore Street buildings that survived British bombardment in 1916 now face destruction from property developers who plan to reduce it to rubble and build a shopping centre in its place.

The deterioration of the National Monument which has languished in a vacant and neglected state for many years and the potential threat to the monument under a current planning application is a matter of serious concern to Sinn Féin and many other citizens.

So, on Sunday I launched ‘The 1916 Revolutionary Quarter. A vision for Dublin’s historic centre.’ A set of proposals published by Sinn Féin Átha Cliath.

The document is aimed at ensuring that the 1916 National Monument at Nos. 14-17 Moore Street is fully protected and preserved in its entirety as designated and that the surrounding buildings, streets and laneways are retained in such a manner that the potential to develop this area into a 1916 historic/cultural quarter can be fulfilled.

The last Headquarters of the 1916 leaders has come far closer to demolition than their place of execution in Kilmainham Jail.  Kilmainham provides an exact parallel with the National Monument in Moore Street. Kilmainham Jail stands today as one of the best preserved and documented and one of the most visited historical buildings in Europe.
Only for the dedication of a group of private citizens Kilmainham Jail would have fallen into ruin and would have been erased from our capital city. A group of volunteers, many of whom had themselves fought for Irish freedom, banded together and through voluntary work and campaigning they ensured that the Jail was saved and turned into a museum. Only then did the State step in.

Similarly, it was the efforts of private citizens, including relatives of the leaders and participants in the 1916 Rising, that saved 14-17 Moore Street from destruction thus far.
The buildings and lanes of history where the last act in the drama of the 1916 Easter Week Rising took place need to be preserved and enhanced. This part of the centre of our capital city needs to be cherished for its unique historical and educational value and for its heritage of revolutionary history.

For this to be possible, the entire terrace, 10 to 25 Moore Street, first needs to be protected, preserved and restored. The terrace must be seen as a unit, a block of buildings occupied by republican forces at the end of the Rising and the site, in No. 16, of the last meeting of the Provisional Government.

Lynn Boylan, mise agus James Connolly Heron
 
In addition, the Block encompassed by Moore Street, Henry Street/GPO/O’Connell St and Parnell St should be designated as a 1916 Revolutionary Quarter, with an Architectural survey of the block to be carried and original features and shop fronts to be preserved and restored.

The 1916 Revolutionary Quarter would have ample scope for commercial and retail development, helping to rejuvenate this neglected part of our capital. A special aim would be to renew and sensitively develop the traditional small shop and street trading role of Moore Street (as recommended by the Dublin City Council Moore Street Advisory Committee Report).

The 1916 Revolutionary Quarter could also link up with the plan for the Parnell Square Cultural Quarter, including the new Central Library, the Garden of Remembrance and the Municipal Gallery, thus rejuvenating a very large part of the centre of Ireland’s capital city.

It is imperative that the Government act without further delay to ensure the full preservation of the national monument and to develop a plan to transform the GPO/Moore Street area into an historic quarter and battlefield site so as to protect and preserve the 1916 National Monument and the associated streetscapes and laneways, thus greatly enhancing our national heritage and tourist potential in our capital city as we approach the centenary of the Easter Rising.

In his last letter before his execution in Kilmainham Jail, on 8 May 1916, Eamonn Ceannt wrote:

“In the years to come Ireland will honour those who risked all for her honour at Easter in 1916.”

 We should live up to those words.
 
 
The Sinn Féin proposals for the National Monument on Moore Street and for the Revolutionary Quarter can be accessed through the Sinn Féin website at www.sinnfein.ie

 

 
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Irish government needs to act on Palestine (from 2nd September)

September 11, 2014, 3:49 pm
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The Israeli government has decided to seize 400 hectares of Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. This is said to be the largest land grab in 30 years.  Coming in the wake of the recent widely welcomed ceasefire in Gaza this is a profoundly negative and retrograde development. It raises serious questions again about the Israeli government’s commitment to peace and a negotiated 2 state settlement. Of course this latest provocation is in line with the ongoing building of settlements and the Separation Wall, home demolitions, movement restrictions and detentions. The recent Israeli Government aggression against the Occupied Gaza Governorates ran in parallel with the oppression in the rest of the Occupied State of Palestine.

 

I have been raising the need for the Irish government to take the lead within the European Union on the issue of peace in the Middle East, and the need for the international community to uphold international law for a very long time now. Since my election to the Dáil I have raised this directly with the Taoiseach in writing, in the Dáil chamber, on the eve of EU summit meetings, and in the wake of particular developments in the Middle East.

 

So far Mr Kenny has ignored what I have to say. When I say ignored I don’t mean that he hasn’t responded. I mean he hasn’t acted.

So this week I wrote to him again. I also wrote to a number of EU premiers. This is a copy of my letter:

 

“A Thaoisigh, a chara, 

Like me, I am sure you will welcome the latest ceasefire announcement in Gaza. Hopefully this can lead to a resolution and an end to recurring onslaughts against the Palestinian people.

The international community must now ensure that the ceasefire is respected and sustained but what is also clear is the need for a long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It cannot be acceptable for this conflict to erupt with depressing frequency every few years leading to thousands of needless deaths.

With this in mind I have written to a number of EU premiers asking them to work to obtain a resolution at the United Nations Security Council requesting the resumption of serious peace negotiations within a defined period of time.

These should be aimed at securing a two-State solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State on the borders of 4th of June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its Capital. All European states should now formally recognize the State of Palestine.

I believe also that European states should support the deployment of a UN protection force in Gaza on the lines of that deployed in Kosovo.

I am asking that you support this approach and that you head up an initiative on behalf of the Irish State to achieve these objectives.

It is clear that the people of Gaza need urgent and massive humanitarian aid. There is now a pressing need to rebuild Gaza. There are now 450,000 people there without homes. There is no electricity, no running water and no sewage system as hundreds of thousands of boys and girls are due to start a new school year. The international community must begin immediately to restore the food, medical, fuel, and electricity needs of 1.7 million people.

The people of Gaza and of the Palestinian territories need hope. They need to believe that there is a real possibility of positive change in their conditions. They need their rights as human beings and their national rights as Palestinians respected and upheld by the international community. They also need to know that international law will be respected.

The Irish Government must do all that it can to ensure that international law is upheld and I ask that you use your influence within the European Union to advance this.

I have travelled to the region on several occasions and have met many of the representatives of the Palestinian people, including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. I also met Israeli citizens and NGOs. In my conversations I have stressed that inclusive dialogue, involving substantive and inclusive negotiations, and involving all of the participants is the only way forward. They need the help of the international community to achieve this. I would appeal to you to use your influence positively in this regard.”
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Up For The Match

September 11, 2014, 4:04 pm
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The  first barrier beyond which ticketless mortals cannot venture is at the mouth of Clonliffe Avenue opposite Quinns on Dorset street. Traffic  slows down as easy going Gardai marshall the throngs of hurling fans who congest the usually busy Dublin thoroughfare. There is a babble of noise. Shouts and guffaws. Laughter.  The cries of street hawkers and ticket touts. The excited chatter of rival fans. Tipp gansaí's mingle with the black and amber of Kilkenny and the emerald green of Limerick minors. 

Its the same down at Gills corner and other entry points to Croke Park. It is the All Ireland Hurling Final. Me and my older brother Paddy slip through the barrier at Gills. The huge shoulder of the Canal end of Croke Park looms into sight. A duo of street musicians rent the air with traditional ballads. The street is filled with an epidemic of hurling fans. There is a sense of expectation. Of hope. A palpable expectation of being witness to  a feast of sporting and cultural magic.

 Then through the turnstiles and into the Hogan Stand. We take our seats. The minor game is already underway. Kilkenny is edging ahead of a brave Limerick side. The stadium is rapidly filling up. Our Paddy turns to me as he does at this point every year during our annual pilgrimage to the best stadium in the world to watch the best players in the world playing the best game in the world.

' Aren't we lucky to be here? in  Croke Park?  isn't it great to be a Gael?' 

We study the Match Programme. Pore over the clár. Soak up the atmosphere. Discuss the pros and cons, deplore the absence of ground hurling. Debate tactics. check how the winds is blowing the national and provincial flags. Chat with other fans in neighbouring seats. Shake hands with old friends. Applaud the Minors as they conclude the game with a victory for the Cats. Commiserate with each other at the sight of the dejected Limerick lads lying despondently in the background while the jubilant Kilkenny victors celebrate at the plinth  in the Hogan Stand. 

Then the atmosphere builds. The Tipperary All Ireland Champions of 25 years ago line up  and are introduced. Heroes. They beat Antrim that day. I am disappointed that the Antrim  team don't get to parade.  I was looking forward to applauding them as well. Heroes also. 

Huge banners representing the All Ireland Senior teams are carried aloft on to the field  by throngs of young people. The Artane Boys Band assemble below us. Then the Cats take to the field as Croke Park explodes with a roar of rapturous  approval from their supporters. Tipperary follow soon afterwards. 

             
The red carpet is rolled out. We rise to greet the President as he and The Uachtaran of  Cumann Lúthchleas Gael meet the players. The teams parade. Then Amhran na bhFiann.  82 thousand proud Irish voices raised in rousing chorus and conclude in a united roar of support for their county.  The Artane Boys Band exits off the pitch. 

The hurlers shake hands with each other and with the ref and the linesmen.  The ref throws the sliothar in. The midfielders draw on it. The Hurling Final begin. The fastest field game on the planet is underway. 

It's over to the hurlers now. This is their arena. Our arena. Their game. Our game. They are warriors. Gladiators.  Magicans.  Wizards with camans. They will not disappoint us. 

 
They didn't. It all went by in a flash. Point for point. Goal for goal. To and fro. Up and down. 
 

 
Acrobatic high  fielding. Precision passing. Long diagonal pucking of the sliothar. Long distance point scoring. Quick as a flash hand  passing. Side line cuts. Great clearances.  Tight marking. Great goal keeping. Great goals scored. Inspirational solo runs. The ash clashing in close combat dunting. Courageous blocking. Not a malicious stroke the whole game. 

 
 
' It's a pity it will soon be over' our Paddy says at half time. 

'Liam O Neill predicts a draw' I tell him. 

'Now wudn't  that be something' he says in wonderment as the second half starts at break neck speed, 'A draw?'

And it was.  The best game of hurling I ever saw since our school beat Saint Galls in 1958 and I got the best player award. 

Hurling? 

The sport of heroes.

 Kilkenny and Tipperary? 

Legends. 
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