The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the 26-County Taoiseach,
Brian Cowen, met again in London today [Monday] for talks on the
deadlock over the devolution of policing and justice powers to Belfast.
Victims of clerical chid abuse have criticised the response of the
Dublin government to revelations that three decades of abuse by
paedophiles in the Dublin Archdiocese were covered up by the church
hierarchy.
A loyalist mob staged a ‘show of strength’ on Saturday to intimidate
Catholics from entering the town centre despite the PSNI having advance
knowledge of the planned incident.
The Parades Commission has said it will allow a loyalist band
commemorating a unionist paramilitary killer to parade past the scene
where one of his victims was killed.
Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond published details today of a
planned referendum on Scottish independence, setting out the case for
breaking the 300-year-old union with England.
The full text of the keynote address by Sinn Fein
strategist Declan Kearney to the commemoration this weekend in village
of Dunloy to mark the 20th anniversary of the deaths of Volunteers
Declan Martin and Henry Hogan.
There are few things that sum up the failure of the Provisional IRA
campaign more definitively than the recent call by one of its former
leaders for people to inform on those republicans still wedded to the
notion of armed struggle.
The Dublin government this afternoon apologised for “failures” by the
State in dealing with clerical child abuse and said the “deference”
shown to the church in this regard had been “misplaced”.
The British Army’s elite Special Reconnaisance Regiment were involved in
the ambush in county Fermanagh last week in which a number of shots were
fired, it has emerged.
Around a quarter of a million workers took to picket lines across the
Twenty-Six Counties today [Tuesday] as public sector staff struggle to
protect their pay and conditions.
Leading loyalist Andre Shoukri had to be re-released from prison after a
threat that his arrest could end hopes of a start to the UDA’s
decommissioning of its weapons in north Belfast.
The best and sure fire way to victory is an indefinite general strike
where public and private sector workers unite in a common battle to save
jobs and protect our services.
There have been warnings that armed struggle could once again begin to fill
the political vacuum following two incidents in Fermanagh and Belfast
involving the breakaway IRA groups.
The DUP was right to agree to power sharing in 2007 because “for the
first time in a generation unionism is winning”, party leader Peter
Robinson has claimed.
A member of the PSNI yesterday told Derry Magistrates Court on Friday
that he could not explain how leading dissident Gary Donnelly had
sustained a ‘three-way spiral fracture’ to his left arm after being
arrested.
Trade unions have scaled back plans for thousands of their members to go
on strike tomorrow in five local authority areas around the country
which have been severely hit by flood and storm damage.
A Belfast man is to face extradition to the North in regard to the
‘Tohill incident’ in which mainstream republicans allegedly kidnapped
and assaulted a dissident.
In his final address as President of Republican Sinn Fein, Ruairi O
Bradaigh has outlined the challenges which he believes lie ahead for
Ireland and his party.
The PSNI has ramped up a campaign of political arrests with the
detention of Marian Price, the National Secretary of the 32 County
Sovereignty Movement.
On Friday last week, following a lengthy legal battle, three men were
told that Crown prosecutors were no longer willing to stand over their
convictions for offences as teenagers.
An extraordinary wave of public outrage has gripped Ireland after the
national soccer team was robbed of a World Cup place on Wednesday night
following a blatant foul by France’s Thierry Henry.
The celebrations for the Fall of the Wall dividing Berlin were
spectacular and understandable. Not so understandable was some Irish
politicians joining in.
A number of republican prisoners were denied food for more than 48 hours
as a ‘lock down’ and search took place at Maghaberry Prison late last
week and over the weekend.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen has repeated exactly the infamous comment of
former Fianna Fail Taoiseach Charles Haughey that “We are living way
beyond our means”.
The PSNI have been accused of harassing the leadership of the Republican
Network for Unity group and provocatively arresting senior dissident
republican Tony Catney.
The PSNI’s apparently increasing reliance on the tactics of repression
was highlighted on Sunday a massive operation was deployed to deal with
a sponsored walk on Belfast’s Black Mountain.
A republican facing extradition for questioning about the death of a
British Army sergeant in England 17 years ago has accused the
authorities of “cherry-picking” who they try to extradite.
The manager of a pub in Derry popular with republicans has questioned
the motivation behind a so-called ‘security alert’ at the premises on
Tuesday, saying it was “pure PSNI/RUC intimidation”.
Sinn Fein has criticised police raids in south Armagh in which the
family assets of a friend of the MP for Newry and Armagh, Conor Murphy,
were seized.
The PSNI police have said they need ‘more time’ to hand over reports
into shoot-to-kill murders by the force (then RUC) in the Six Counties
in the 1980s.
Fears have been raised about the health and environmental risks to
Ireland after the British government gave the green light for the
construction of 10 new nuclear power plants -- seven of them along the
Irish Sea.
In recent times it has become increasingly clear that the Irish
government intends pursuing an economic strategy which is essentially
ignoring the advice from the unions and appears to be on a collision
course which could result in widespread industrial action.
Tens of thousands of workers took to the streets across Ireland on
Friday in a mass display of discontent with the policies of the Six and
Twenty-Six County administrations.
On Tuesday of last week, senior representatives of the IRSP, including
party spokesperson Willie Gallagher, were the subject of an SAS-style
operation by the British crown forces.
The passage of a bill through the lower house of the Dublin parliament
establishing the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has been
greeted with anger and dismay.
The PSNI police is to finally comply with a court order to hand over
top-secret reports on the shoot-to-kill policy widely believed to have
operated by the force in the North during the eighties and nineties, it
has been revealed.
A ruling by the 26 County state planning board against most of the
Corrib gas onshore pipeline has been strongly welcomed by north Mayo
residents and environmental activists.
In an unusual move, the 26 County foreign minister Micheal Martin has
intervened in the political process in the North to urge the DUP to
complete the devolution of policing and justice powers.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s day of protest organised by the ICTU (Irish
Congress of Trade Unions), the 26 County Taoiseaach Brian Cowen has said
that he is not seeking confrontations with workers.
An anti-drugs pressure group which operates in north Belfast has refuted
allegations that it is behind an increase in punishment attacks on
anti-social elements in the area.
As the Twenty-Six County budget looms ever nearer and Britain’s Stormont
administration considers cut backs, there is much uncertainty and fear
in working class communities throughout Ireland.
The 20 million pounds that’s going to be shovelled into the families of the
former part-time RUC reserve is a profoundly dishonourable deal and not
just because it’s so obviously a bribe.
The British government has been accused of conceding to unionist
blackmail after it emerged that a twenty million pound “gratuity
payment” is to be paid to former part-time members of the RUC.
The 32 County Sovereignty Committee has said one of its members, a
former political prisoner, clashed with the PSNI police on a country
road before an attempt was made to recruit him as an informer.
The Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) begins the first phase of its
swine flu vaccination campaign today by offering the H1N1 vaccine to
between 400,000 and 500,000 patients across the 26 Counties.
Well-informed sources in the North were suggesting last week that a
large compensation package from Libya for the victims of the troubles
may soon become available.