Republican News · Thursday 24 January 2002

Flanagan must go

The rejection by RUC/PSNI Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan of the Police Ombudsman's call for an outside officer to be brought in to head the Omagh bomb investigation and his strong rebuttal of criticisms of the investigation, despite ample evidence of mishandling, speak volumes for the man and his force.

Flanagan was always going to defend his investigation, no matter what, even in defiance of the facts, which this week have brought yet more revelations about missing RUC files. His attitude is symptomatic of the RUC we know and mistrust, a force welded to Britain's counter-insurgency effort, both overt and covert, a force unaccountable to the people it is supposed to serve.

This week, republicans have been again picketing RUC/PSNI barracks, highlighting the demand for the Patten Report to be implemented in full, as promised in the Good Friday Agreement.

Unlike the SDLP, we will not settle for half a loaf. We want a policing service that everyone can trust and avail of without fear of prejudice.

We want a policing service where openness and accountability are watchwords. Ronnie Flanagan's record does not qualify him for such a service.

Privatisation has failed

So the public were "conned" by the government during the Telecom stock market floatation, and Michael Noonan wants to right the wrong. Our caped crusader's proposals, apart from smacking of pre-election opportunism, are also an admission from Fine Gael of the failure of privatisation as an economic policy.

While the losses of the 500,000 shareholders are a concern, especially if households are being impoverished by it, there are much more important issues that Noonan should address.

He said that he was not surprised that the "captains and the kings" were against his proposals. However, surely he should take the next step and ask about the asset stripping of Eircom after its privatisation, which has now left a vital economic resource out of the control of the Dublin government or Irish shreholders and is now being run by an international consortium whose overriding interest will be short-term profits.

How will our hero deal with this problem? Michael Noonan must go all the way and grasp this nettle if he really wants us to believe that he really wants a "fair, honest, and equitable way of treating people".

Privatisation has failed, Michael.