Gerry Adams's Blog, page 68

A Treasure Trove of Art

  Our Lady's Nursing Home, Falls Road By Kieran Trainor The west Belfast Féile an Phobail is a remarkable community based enterprise. It never ceases to surprise and amaze me. This year marks 25 years as a thriving peoples’ festival. Over that time great playwrights’, poets, singers, writers, actors and extra-ordinary citizens have showcased their talent.
As a founding member and as a director of Féile I have had the pleasure to meet many of them. Sadly this week I opened an exhibition for one local exceptionally talented artist who tragically died very young but who left behind him a breath taking collection of paintings, drawings and sketches.
Kieran Trainor was born on October 19th 1964. He grew up in Beechview Park, just off the Whiterock Road, not far from where I lived in Ballymurphy.
Like most of his contemporaries Kieran attended St. Thomas’s Secondary School on the Whiterock road. But his talent was clearly recognised and he sat his A Level art at the early age of 16. Kieran achieved the joint highest grade for A Level art in the north that year.
The exhibition of his work is part of Féile an Earraigh – the Spring Festival of Féile. It is being held in An Cultúrlann and will run there, in one of the exhibition rooms upstairs, until the weekend.
If you get a chance go and look at it. If like me you are from the area you will recognise Our Lady’s Nursing Home, which was out Kieran’s back door, as well as the City Cemetery, St. Peter’s Secondary School, and the Falls Park. Our Lady’s is now part of the Meanscoil.
Some of the local scenes – like the plots – are long gone due to redevelopment. Kieran liked to paint these and the old house on the Giant’s Foot.
The British Army fort that occupied McCrory Park was right outside his front door and he painted it too.
Kieran went to Belfast Art College where I’m told he made a great impression on his tutors and fellow students. He was a prolific artist. His friend Brendan says Kieran loved landscape painting and painted in the style of the English painter Constable who he greatly admired, and could produce several paintings day.
Kieran was not keen on the abstract expression that was the norm in the Art College of that time but he studied for and achieved his BA Hons in three dimension design. He went on to work for several of the most important architectural practices in Ireland at that time.
Kieran was also a talented musician and was a founding member and guitarist in St. John’s Choir in Whiterock which I used to listen to on a Sunday at Mass there.
Tragically Kieran was killed in an accidental fall while living in Newry in 1997. And that could so easily have been the end of his story. For the next 15 years his paintings lay under covers in the family home.
 However, last year two of his friends Brendan and Matt went into the attic and undercovered this treasure trove of art work. They then had the great good fortune of taking some of them to an exhibition which Margaret McKernan had organised during last years’ Féile. Margaret immediately recognised the quality of the work and this year helped organise another art exhibition but this time of Kieran Trainor’s work.
Margaret was so captivated by the paintings that in her email ordering me to open the exhibition she described how Kieran’s work is ‘amazing, capturing the light and applying various mediums to produce such great art.’ It was, she said ‘so based on who and what Féile is about I had to make space.’
And she is right. This exhibition is exactly what Féile is about – providing a space for a local artist to exhibit his work. Regrettably Kieran is not here but his sister Colette was at the launch on Monday night. She had loyally protected and kept safe her brother’s work and she was now present to see it put on display.
Looking at Kieran’s paintings I was reminded of another west Belfast artist, Gerard Dillon who lived in lower Clonard Street. Gerard’s work is now eagerly sought and he is a world renowned artist. But although he spent his later years in Connemara he never forgot his roots.
In 1969, Dillon withdrew his work from the Belfast leg of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. In a letter to the Irish Times on August 20th only days after loyalist pogroms in Belfast he protested at the 'arrogance of the Unionist mob'.

So, if you have a wee bit of time drop into the Culturlann and marvel at the talent of a local artist who will now be remembered for the great artist he is.
Féile an Earraigh

Release Marian Price and Martin Corey

 I had the opportunity today (Tuesday) to raise the continued wrongful imprisonment of Marian Price and Martin Corey in prison in the Dáil during Taoiseach's Questions.

I said: "Marian Price and Martin Corey should not be in prison. Sinn Féin made representations to the parole hearing and was informed that these two individuals would be a threat to the peace process if released.

I wish to state on the record of the Dáil that they would not be a threat to the peace process if released.
 
Their detention is actually the threat to the peace process.

Ms Price and Mr. Corey are a threat to the peace process as a result of the circumstances in which they are illegally detained.

I look to the Government to raise this issue in the United States and also with the British authorities before the review of their detention concludes.

The last thing we want is a judgment handed down by a kangaroo court to the effect that Ms Price will be held in detention for ever and a day. She and Martin Corey need to be released.”

Israel flouts international law

In separate letters to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and in the Dáil on Tuesday, I urged the Irish government to use the good offices of the Presidency of the EU, which it currently holds, to raise the report of the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem at the next meeting of the EU Leaders. The Taoiseach agreed to do this.

The content of the EU report has only emerged in recent days although the report itself was handed over to EU governments in January.
It makes grim reading and is a scathing indictment of the Israeli government’s flouting of international law and its violation of the rights of Palestinian citizens living in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories. 
The report finds that the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the west bank are ‘the biggest single threat to the two state solution.’ 
The EU report accuses the Israeli government of implementing a settlement policy that is ‘systematic, deliberate and provocative’. 
It concludes that Israel is pursuing a deliberate policy of seeking to drive Palestinians out of East Jerusalem through restrictive zoning and planning, demolitions and evacuations, discriminatory access to religious sites, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care and inadequate provision of resources. 
The 15-page report from the EU diplomats identified settlement construction on the southern flank of east Jerusalem -- in Har Homa, Gilo and Givat HaMatos - as being the "most significant and problematic". 
The diplomats warned that this construction would likely cut the area off from Bethlehem by the end of the year. 
‘The construction of these three settlements is part of a political strategy aiming at making it impossible for Jerusalem to become the capital of two states … If the current pace of settlement activity on Jerusalem's southern flank persists, an effective buffer between east Jerusalem and Bethlehem may be in place by the end of 2013, thus making the realization of a viable two-state solution inordinately more difficult, if not impossible.’ 
The report also focuses on plans announced by Israel late last year to build 3,426 units in E1 -- a strip of West Bank land east of Jerusalem. If this project goes ahead the EU report concludes that it will effectively cut the West Bank in half. 
The Heads of Mission Jerusalem Report 2012 indicts Israel of violating ‘international humanitarian law’. 
The report, which was written by the EU heads of mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah, makes six recommendations. It calls on the European Union to ‘prevent, discourage and raise awareness about problematic implications of financial transactions, including foreign direct investments, from within the EU in support of settlement activities, infrastructure and services.’  
It recommends that the EU, which is Israel's largest import and export market and accounts for about a third of Israel’s total trade, should take sanctions against settlements in East Jerusalem and the west Bank. It wants settlement products clearly labelled to ensure that ‘imports of settlement products do not benefit from preferential tariffs’. “ 
The information in this report cannot be ignored or set aside.  
It also has to be seen in the context of the deteriorating political situation following the death in disputed circumstances of Arafat Jaradat, who was arrested by the Israeli Army for throwing a rock and who died five days later on Saturday February 23rdin Megiddo Prison. His family, who party colleague Pat Sheehan met several days ago in Palestine, have accused the Israeli authorities of torture. The UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry has called for an independent international inquiry into Israel's treatment of Palestinian detainees. I would echo that call.A letter sent by the Palestinian UN Ambassador to the security council revealed that Jaradat was ‘subject to severe beatings, abuse and medical negligence during his captivity’. The letter said that Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs along with other injuries.The situation was exacerbated by the shooting of two children by Israeli troops. 13 year old Mohammed Khaled Qurd was shot twice by an Israeli soldier. Film footage shows him standing some distance from where a petrol bomb was thrown at a heavily fortified Israeli outpost.The continuing detention of over 4,500 Palestinian prisoners and their conditions of imprisonment has been the catalyst for much of the recent violence. It is usual for prisoners to be held in solitary confinement, some for years, and they are frequently denied visits from their family. Many of those being held are also kept in constant lockup with little access to fresh air or exercise. The UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry has called for an independent international inquiry into Israel's treatment of Palestinian detainees. I would echo that call.I also believe that the Irish government needs to provide leadership on this issue. It currently holds the Presidency of the EU. This EU report provides clear evidence of Israeli breaches of international law and the implementation of policies that are reminiscent of the homeland policy of the old apartheid regime in South Africa. The Irish government should act urgently on the information and recommendations made by EU officials. This should include the introduction of EU wide legislation to prevent Israeli products manufactured or grown in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank from benefitting from preferential tariffs agreed under an Israeli-EU trade agreement.
 
 

Condolences on death of President Chávez

I learned tonight with sadness of the death of President Hugo Chávez.
On behalf of Sinn Féin I want to extend my sincere condolences to Vice President Nicolás Maduro and to the people and government of Venezuela and to the family of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who died this evening in Caracas.
President Chávez worked tirelessly to improve the lives of Venezuelan citizens. He dedicated himself to building a new and radical society in Venezuela.
His progressive social and economic changes took millions out of poverty. He extended free health care and education for all citizens and his re-lection last year with a huge majority was testimony to his vision.
President Chávez was a hugely influential figure in South America and in world politics. He was an energetic and enthusiastic leader and when it was discovered that he had cancer he confronted his illness with the same courage and determination that marked his political life. He will be greatly missed.

Protecting Workers Rights

 Mary Lou, mise agus Senator David Cullinane
 
Today Sinn Féin is holding a conference in Liberty Hall looking at the last century of workers in struggle.
I gave the opening speech, welcoming guest speakers, setting the historical context, and raising the issues of today, especially the role of the Labour Party and the Croke Park 2 agreement.
The initial bullet points gave a sense of the focus of my remarks and they I include the full text.
Protecting Workers Rights
·       100 years after the Lockout this state is only one of three EU member states in which workers have no legislated right to workplace representation – have no right to sit across from their employers and negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment.
·       Workers have no right to collective bargaining.
·       The government claimed that current legislation provides adequate protection.

·      Workers deserve protection and they don’t have that.

·       They deserve the legal protection of the government, particularly a government which has a Labour party component. 
·       Far from protecting workers on low and middle incomes the government has aggressively gone after their increments and unsocial hours pay.
·       The Government threatens worse if the trade unions don’t acquiesce to this plan.
·       This threat, understandably opened up a dilemma for Trade Union leaders.
·       Is the outcome of the recent negotiations better than one which would be produced in a Government legislated pay adjustment?
·       Clearly some think it is.
·       Which means that they have little confidence in this government, and while that may well be a given about Fine Gael what does this lack of confidence say about the relationship of the wider Labour movement and the Labour Party?
·       What is the point of Labour in government if it is not about protecting workers and working families and promoting equality?
·       And what say does the wider Labour movement have in these matters?
·       These are difficult times. Sinn Féin understands that.
·       The working people of this island, and I include workers from the unionist constituency, need to hear an alternative to the right wing ideology which underpins many of our political and media institutions.
·       There is a battle of ideas to be won and an alternative to be forged.
·       Surely the leaders of organised Labour in the trade unions have a role and a duty to be part of this.

Eamon Dunphy chairs panel discussion

Full Text remarks: 
Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chuir roimh na cainteoirí óna Ceardchumainn; na staraithe, na hiriseoirí, na ceoltoirí agus na scríbhneoirí atá ag glacadh páirt san ócáid speisialta ceiliúrtha seo “Céadbliain de streachailt oibrithe 1913 – 2013”
I want to welcome all of our guest speakers from the Trade Union Movement; the historians, journalists, musicians and writers who are participating in this very special event celebrating ‘A century of Workers in Struggle 1913-2013’.
I want to especially commend Seanadóir David Cullinane and the Sinn Féin organising committee who put a lot of time and effort into this event.
The Dublin of 1913 was a city of grinding poverty and exploitation. Infant mortality was among the highest in the world at that time. Thousands of families lived in single rooms in crumbling tenement houses.
Workers had no rights. They were hired and fired at the whim of employers. The children of workers had no childhood and no future. They often worked from a very young age. In my home city of Belfast at that time female and child labour predominated in the Linen Mills. Other citizens lived and worked in appalling conditions; in the Docks, the Shipyards and in casual labour.  In 1911 James Connolly was appointed Belfast organiser of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. Connolly organised the workers of Belfast and especially the Linen slaves.  He described their conditions: ‘Many Belfast Mills are slaughterhouses for the women and penitentiaries for the children …’ where ‘with clothes drenched with water, and hands torn and lacerated as a consequence of the speeding up of the machinery, a qualified spinner in Belfast receives a wage less than some of our pious millowners would spend weekly upon a dog.’

Ireland was also part of the British Empire.  As a colony Ireland was used and abused and exploited in the interests of British capitalism.  As our long history of struggle for freedom records, in every generation Irish men and women have opposed British government involvement in Ireland. But nationalists and republicans were not alone in combating the evil of colonialism.
The early trade unions of the 1700s – combinations of skilled and unskilled workers –like the Belfast Cabinetmakers Club, the Regular Carpenters of Dublin, and the Ancient Corporation of Carpenters of Cork and others, all stood in defiance of those who sought to exploit their members. The first anti-union laws were introduced in Ireland in the 1720’s.
But it also has to be acknowledged that colonialism and discriminatory industrial development, primarily in the Lagan basin around Belfast, and the use of sectarian politics, led to an early division among Irish trade unionists with the creation of Irish based and British based trade unions. In 1894, the year in which the Irish Trades Union Congress was established, there were 51 Irish based unions with a total membership of 11,000. British based unions had a similar number of members.
But for all trade unionists the 1913 Lockout was the tipping point in modern Irish trade union history. Workers and their families and their union, found themselves in a pitched battle against the political, economic and media establishment of their day.
When the Irish Transport and General Workers Union succeeded in recruiting the workers in the Dublin United Tramways, the Company proceeded to dismiss all known union members. The Dublin bosses demanded that employees across hundreds of workplaces sign a pledge never to join or associate with the ITGWU.
However, in a remarkable display of solidarity thousands of workers refused to sign and were dismissed as one after another places of work closed their gates to union members.
The employers had the backing of the British authorities in Dublin Castle and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. During the months of the Lockout, police and workers fought running battles, when the DMP moved against protesting workers.
James Nolan and John Byrne were killed. And on August 31 the British authorities banned a mass meeting in O’Connell Street which was then savagely attacked by the police resulting in Ireland’s first Bloody Sunday of the 20thcentury. One consequence of this was the formation of the Irish Citizen Army.
The end of the Lockout in early 1914 was inconclusive but the result was not. Poverty forced strikers back to work but far from breaking the trade union movement the Lockout saw it consolidate its strength and significantly grow in the following decades.
The central issue in that dispute was the right to join a union, to organise, to be able to engage in collective bargaining. It was about the right of workers to be treated decently and fairly. Regrettably, these problems still persist.
Connolly understood the importance of the connection between the national and the social. They are the opposite sides of the same coin. He famously linked the cause of Ireland with the cause of Labour - and was a fierce opponent of plans for partition. He argued, correctly, that it would create a carnival of reaction.
Connolly and Pearse and the leaders of 1916 presented a vision of a different Ireland. It is found in the words of the Proclamation. These, for me, should be the guiding principles for workers and republicans and socialists and democrats today.
It is anti-sectarian; it embraces every Irish citizen; it declares the ’right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland’.  The Proclamation: ‘guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities for all citizens … cherishing all the children of the nation equally.’
Those are great words – great ideas. These words are a promise to every Irish citizen that she and he can share in the dignity of humankind, as equals with equal opportunity; that we can enjoy freedom, educate our children, provide for our families and live together with tolerance and respect for each other.
However, the two states imposed by partition failed to deliver these principles. Both have been 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.
Those who built this state also turned their backs on the north. They turned their backs also on the ideals of independence and a genuine republic.
The Southern State that developed was in hock to the Catholic Hierarchy while the six counties became a ‘Protestant state for a Protestant people’ in which structured political and religious discrimination was endemic. Two conservative states ruled by two conservative elites in their own narrow interests. The old colonial system replaced by a neo-colonial one. And this is the context in which the trade union movement has laboured.
It has been a difficult 100 years. Conditions in the north saw the emergence of a trade unionism which many republicans and nationalists viewed as largely ineffective. There are exceptions. Among them my friend and our comrade Inez McCormack who died recently.
Inez was an exceptional trade union activist. She took part in the civil rights campaign in the ‘60s; was an extraordinary trade union leader; an internationalist; and a strong advocate for equality and for women’s rights. Inez spoke out against discrimination and supported the MacBride principles campaign for fair employment.
She also played a key role in the peace process. I found her advice on equality and anti-discrimination measures crucial in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations. Inez was a remarkable human being and I know she will be missed by everyone in this hall.
In this state workers’ rights have not been protected or advanced as they should. 100 years after the Lockout this state is only one of three EU member states in which workers have no legislated right to workplace representation – have no right to sit across from their employers and negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment. Workers have no right to collective bargaining.
When Sinn Féin introduced an Employment Rights Bill into the Dáil last May it was to provide adequate safeguards for workers, including, to enhance the period of notice for workers who are to be made redundant, and to expedite the hearing and processing of claims to entitlements. Fine Gael and Labour argued that it was unnecessary. The government claimed that current legislation provides adequate protection.
Does any trade unionist in this hall believe that? Ask workers from Waterford Crystal, or Vita Cortex, Visteon, Lagan Brick, Vodafone, GAME, La Senza, Diageo, HMV and many more if their rights as workers are protected. They have had to make a stand against injustice.
I am pleased to welcome to this conference today some of those who made a stand for themselves and for other workers. So, I would ask the hall to give a huge welcome to workers from Visteon, from Waterford Crystal, from Lagan Brick and from Vita Cortex.
Their courage is an example to us all.
But they shouldn’t have been forced into taking the action they did. Workers deserve protection and they don’t have that. They deserve the legal protection of the government, particularly a government which has a Labour party component. Today the rights of workers are under severe attack.
That includes the denial of a right to a job with decent terms and conditions. Unemployment is at 14.2%. Youth unemployment is 27.7%. 87,000 have emigrated in 2011 and that trend has continued. Companies are tearing up agreements with workers, arbitrarily paying them off or denying them wages or redundancy payments.
It is a truism that there are employers who do not believe in wasting a good recession. During the boom of the Celtic Tiger there was a stubborn and dismissive refusal to socialise the wealth and tackle inequality. Proposals by Sinn Féin for investment in sustainable jobs, social housing, infrastructure or hospitals and schools were ridiculed.
But when the bubble burst there was an immediate move to socialise the debt and to force the disadvantaged and those on low and middle incomes and other citizens to carry the burden of paying for the debts of the elites.
For right wing elites a recession is an opportunity to drive down wages; sack workers; hire others at cheaper rates; cut overtime payments; demand longer hours for less, and ignore the trade unions. The austerity policies of the British conservative government and of the Fine Gael and Labour government are a part of this approach.
 In the last two years there have been a succession of savage cuts to wages and incomes in the south and the introduction of new additional stealth taxes, like the Household charge and family home tax; water charges; increased VAT; Increased motor tax; as well as cuts to child benefit; cuts to homehelp hours, to the carer’s respite care grant and much more.
 This week the gov ernment again targeted the most vulnerable in our society by scrapping the Mobility Allowance Scheme and the Motorised Transport Grant Scheme.
 I believe the Croke Park 2 agreement will exacerbate the austerity driven agenda of this government and that working families – those on low and middle incomes – will be squeezed again.
Frontline workers have been especially and unfairly targeted. They have mortgages to pay; children to feed and clothe; school books to buy, and bills to pay. None of their outgoings are going to be cut, just their income. Far from protecting workers on low and middle incomes the government has aggressively gone after their increments and unsocial hours pay.

The Government threatens worse if the trade unions don’t acquiesce to this plan. This threat, understandably opened up a dilemma for Trade Union leaders. Is the outcome of the recent negotiations better than one which would be produced in a Government legislated pay adjustment?
Clearly some think it is. Which means that they have little confidence in this government, and while that may well be a given about Fine Gael what does this lack of confidence say about the relationship of the wider Labour movement and the Labour Party?
What is the point of Labour in government if it is not about protecting workers and working families and promoting equality? And what say does the wider Labour movement have in these matters? These are difficult times. Sinn Féin understands that. We also understand tactics and strategy and compromise.
But all of these matters need continuously contextualised in our vision for the future, our core values and our objectives so that decisions on these issues advance our vision, our core values and our objectives.
If we fail to do that then we risk losing our way. This may not be a disaster in itself provided we are alert enough to find our way again, before we lose all sense of what we are about and where we are going. But we have to be constantly mindful of who we are. Where we come from. What we stand for and where we want to go.
So, too with the Labour movement. The working people of this island, and I include workers from the unionist constituency, need to hear an alternative to the right wing ideology which underpins many of our political and media institutions.
There is a battle of ideas to be won and an alternative to be forged. Surely the leaders of organised Labour in the trade unions have a role and a duty to be part of this. Austerity is not working. The government has alternatives – it has other options. It could have brought in a wealth tax. It could have introduced a third band of tax on those earning more than €100,000.
Instead it is ordinary workers who will bear the burden – again. This is not fair. Public service workers will decide your position on the Croke Park proposals. That is a decision that you will come to.
We wish you well in your deliberations. But whatever the outcome of those deliberations it is important that you know that the trade union movement today is needed more than ever in the Ireland of the 21st century. Workers are looking to their respective unions for leadership and hope and solidarity in the difficult time ahead.
And we will continue to work with you in securing protection for workers and policy changes that will enhance the quality of life of all Irish citizens. Today’s event is part of Sinn Féin’s contribution to the centenary of events that marked the second decade of the 20th century.
It is a packed schedule of debate and discussion with many excellent contributors, including Brian O Donoghue from LIUNA.
I hope you all enjoy the day.


  

Irish government must act on EU Jerusalem Report

I have written to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste calling on them to use the good offices of the Presidency of the EU to publicly raise the details contained in a report by the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The content of the report has only emerged in recent days although the report itself was handed over to EU governments in January.

The report makes grim reading and is a scathing indictment of the Israeli government’s flouting of international law and its violation of the rights of Palestinian citizens living in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories.

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

The EU report accuses the Israeli government of implementing a settlement policy that is ‘systematic, deliberate and provocative’.

It concludes that Israel is pursuing a deliberate policy of seeking to drive Palestinians out of East Jerusalem through restrictive zoning and planning, demolitions and evacuations, discriminatory access to religious sites, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care and inadequate provision of resources.

The 15-page report from the EU diplomats identified settlement construction on the southern flank of east Jerusalem -- in Har Homa, Gilo and Givat HaMatos - as being the "most significant and problematic".

The diplomats warned that this construction would likely cut the area off from Bethlehem by the end of the year.

‘The construction of these three settlements is part of a political strategy aiming at making it impossible for Jerusalem to become the capital of two states … If the current pace of settlement activity on Jerusalem's southern flank persists, an effective buffer between east Jerusalem and Bethlehem may be in place by the end of 2013, thus making the realization of a viable two-state solution inordinately more difficult, if not impossible.’

The report also focuses on plans announced by Israel late last year to build 3,426 units in E1 -- a strip of West Bank land east of Jerusalem. If this project goes ahead the EU report concludes that it will effectively cut the West Bank in half.

The Heads of Mission Jerusalem Report 2012 indicts Israel of violating ‘international humanitarian law’.

The report, which was written by the EU heads of mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah, makes six recommendations. It calls on the European Union to ‘prevent, discourage and raise awareness about problematic implications of financial transactions, including foreign direct investments, from within the EU in support of settlement activities, infrastructure and services.’

It recommends that the EU, which is Israel's largest import and export market and accounts for about a third of Israel’s total trade, should take sanctions against settlements in East Jerusalem and the west Bank. It wants settlement products clearly labelled to ensure that ‘imports of settlement products do not benefit from preferential tariffs’. “

The information in this report cannot be ignored or set aside.

The Irish government currently holds the Presidency of the EU. This report provides clear evidence of Israeli breaches of international law and the implementation of policies that are reminiscent of the homeland policy of the old apartheid regime in South Africa.

The Irish government must give leadership on this vital matter of international concern and act urgently on the information and recommendations made by EU officials. This should include the introduction of EU wide legislation to prevent Israeli products manufactured or grown in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank from benefitting from preferential tariffs agreed under an Israeli-EU trade agreement.

Disabled targeted by government

On Monday evening the Fine Gael and Labour government announced that it was scrapping the Mobility Allowance Scheme and the Motorised Transport Grant Scheme. There was no prior notice given to the various disability groups, which the government claims to be regularly meeting, or to the Dáil. The Ombudsman described it as a ‘bolt out of the blue.’The two schemes have been in operation for some years and it has been known for at least 13 years that they have been operating illegally under the Equal Status Act. They discriminate against a sizeable number of citizens who have been denied access to them.The Ombudsman raised the Mobility Allowance Scheme with the Department of Health in February 2009 and pointed out that the upper age limit applied by the scheme was illegal. The Department would have known this from as long ago as 2000 when the Equal Status Act was enacted. Last October the Ombudsman told the Dáil and Seanad that the two schemes were “operating on the basis of eligibility conditions which are in breach of the Equal Status Acts. The mobility allowance operates with an upper age limit which excludes applicants who are over 66 years; the motorised transport grant operates on the basis of a very narrow definition of disability which discriminates unfairly within the category of people with disabilities”.In the same month the Tánaiste, in response to a question by Sinn Féin Deputy Leaders Mary Lou McDonald on this issue, said: ‘It is not the government’s wish to withdraw the Mobility Allowance from those who currently have it’. But that’s exactly what the government announced on Monday.So, instead of tackling this discrimination head on and bringing it to an end the government chose to end the schemes and discriminate against all of those with disability.
The government has tried to disguise its move by hiding behind the argument that the schemes are illegal and that its decision has nothing to do with cost. Nonsense.
The Ombudsman had already recorded that the Department of Health; “said that it was unable to accept the Ombudsman's recommendations that each of these schemes should be brought into compliance with the law. The Department said that the costs of bringing the schemes into compliance with the law could not be borne in present circumstances.”Cost therefore has had everything to do with this decision. The government won’t extend the two schemes because it will cost more. According to Kathleen Lynch the Labour Minister of State at Health the state would have to spend between €170 million and €300 million extra. The choice therefore for the government was between spending that or €10 million.

For Minister Lynch and later the Taoiseach the choice was easy. They took the cheaper option. The government’s claim that it was going to ring-fence the €10 million for this year simply adds insult to injury to all of those disabled citizens who continue to be discriminated against by the government. 
The result of the government’s manoeuvrings is that those currently in receipt of Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant Scheme will lose it in four months’ time, and many thousands of other citizens who should be receiving some form of disability support will continue to be denied their entitlements.  
The various political parties that have been in government over the last 13 years have all known of this problem. The fact is that Fianna Fáil, which was in government for most of that time, was actively discriminating against citizens with disabilities. So too has this government. Fine Gael and Labour have had two years to fix this problem. The way to do this is to bring these schemes into compliance with the law and to give citizens with disabilities, where appropriate, their entitlement to access to these schemes.That would be fair and legal. This is what the Ombudsman recommended. But the Department of Health has said these costs cannot be borne. So, the government chooses to scrap the schemes.  
Once again Fine Gael and Labour, in pursuit of their austerity policies, are targeting citizens who are least able to defend themselves. Having attacked the incomes of frontline workers they have now turned its attention to the disabled and elderly.This Government and its Fianna Fáil predecessor have failed people with disabilities.The government should lift this threat from the thousands of disabled citizens. It should apply the law equally and fairly for all disabled citizens and abandon a policy decision that is mean spirited and will impose severe hardship on more than 5,000 people with disabilities. The government needs to go back to the drawing board. Its starting point has to be the fact that discrimination is wrong. It also has a responsibility to provide for disabled citizens. It should reflect on the decision it has taken, rescind it; wait until the current review is completed, and consult with those representing disabled citizens before taking any decisions on this matter.
 
 

Gibraltar - 25 years on

Reimagining Ireland
25 years ago next week Mairead Farrell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage died on the streets of Gibraltar. They were three extraordinary republicans. In their short lives they repeatedly demonstrated courage; resilience in the face of brutality, imprisonment and hunger strike; compassion; loyalty and a fierce commitment to building a different society on this island – a better Ireland – than that in which they had grown up.
Their deaths at Gibraltar were a huge blow to their families. They were robbed of three warm, loving, and compassionate human beings. A father, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a son, a husband. For those of us who knew them we lost three good friends who still had much to offer the republican struggle, their communities and Ireland.
Mairead, Dan and Sean were shaped by the political conditions into which they were born but also by the republicanism they espoused. They were all well read, articulate and politically very well informed. They had read Tone and Connolly and Pearse and all the great Irish thinkers.
They were with Connolly in his belief in the re-conquest of Ireland by the Irish people. But they also understood that an elite cannot free Ireland. Yes, there is work for a vanguard; for the people who take initiatives, who take chances, who make sacrifices and who go on the political offensive.
But the only true freedom of people is that which is shaped by the people themselves.
James Connolly observed in 1913 during the dark days of the Dublin lock-out that: “we fought as conditions dictate; we meet new conditions with new policies. Those who choose may keep old policies to meet new conditions. We cannot and will not try.”
Connolly and his comrades applied that in 1916. Tone and Emmet and the Young Irelanders and the Fenians and those who led the Land League did the same. As did the republicans of this generation.
Each took Irish republicanism and shaped it to their specific political conditions. And that is what Sinn Féin is doing in 2013. We are taking Connolly’s maxim and our core republican values and making them relevant in our time and in our place of activism; whether that is in the community, in school, in our places of work, in local government, in the Assembly or the Oireachtas.
We are creating new strategies, formulating new policies, building political strength all with an eye on the prize. Like 25 years ago it is about achieving a united independent Ireland; bringing an end to partition; ending the union with Britain; and constructing on this island a new national democracy, a new republic based on equality and reconciliation between orange and green.
The struggle for freedom continues. Today it takes a different form from that in the past. Irish republicanism is now stronger and more vibrant and more relevant to people in their daily lives than at any time since partition. Sinn Féin in government in the Assembly and in opposition in the Oireachtas is leading the fight against austerity and in defence of citizen’s rights.
Across this island Sinn Féin activists are building a republican alternative to the bad and corrupt politics of the conservative elites north and south.
Our focus is on constructing a new Ireland that embraces all of the citizens of this island and especially those who feel themselves to be British.
A new Ireland that shares its wealth more equitably, looks after its’ aged and young, provides full rights for people with disabilities, liberates women, and delivers the highest standards of public services.
These are not new concepts. Take up the Proclamation and read it. Read too the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil. These visionary documents contain great words.
Pursuing the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all its parts; guaranteeing civil and religious liberty, and equal rights and equal opportunities; and cherishing all the children of the nation equally.
These words speak to the people of this island today.
This generation of Irish republicans  are re-imagining Ireland. A new Ireland for this century.
Tone captured the spirit of this when he wrote of “a cordial union among all the people of Ireland, to maintain that balance which is essential to the preservation of our liberties and the extension of our commerce.”
We are an island people in transition. For that we need a new Republic that reflects our genius and diversity, our dignity and our strengths – a new Republic that is inclusive and visionary.
A new Ireland where neither gender or race, age or disability, sexual orientation or class, or creed or skin colour or location will be used to deny citizens their full rights and entitlements.
A new Ireland where citizens will have the right to a job; to a home; to a decent standard of education and health, and to equality in the Irish language.

And a new Ireland that reaches out to our unionist neighbours and the children of the diaspora scattered around the globe.
This is the context in which I called several weeks ago for a border poll. The Good Friday Agreement allows for such a poll. Sinn Féin believes the time is right to campaign for the British and Irish governments to set a date in the next term of the Assembly and Oireachtas for a border poll.
This provides ample time for the debate that is necessary and the time that is needed to persuade unionists – or at least a section of unionism – that a united Ireland makes political, economic, social and cultural sense.  
This is the great historic challenge for the Irish people. To undo centuries of English and then British government involvement in Ireland and bring an end to the artificial divisions that involvement have created.
Irish republicans are in the vanguard of the struggle to achieve this.  
Join Sinn Féin. Join with us and help achieve the goals that Mairead and Dan and Sean and many others died for.
 

Wee Beau and Gael Arás Mhic Ardghail

 
Brother Beau agus mise
 Last night I came face to face – sort of – with a very old friend. Brother Thomas Finbar Beausang – or wee Beau, as he was endearingly called by those of us he taught in St. Mary’s grammar school in Barrack Street and then on the Glen Road, was a renowned Irish language activist.
His bust now proudly adorns the entrance to Gael Arás Mhic Ardghail, an Irish language cultural centre in Newry.
Gael Áras Mhic Ardghail is the culmination of a huge amount of work by the Newry branch of Conradh na Gaeilge, in co-operation with Newry and Mourne Council; An Ciste Infheistíocha Gaeilge and many others.
I was there to say a few words at the formal opening, in part because of the role Sinn Féin played in securing a £20 million package of funding for the Irish language from the British government at Hillsborough Castle in 2010. £8 million of this has gone to An Ciste Infheistíocha Gaeilge.
The Ciste provides capital funding for Irish language projects like Gael Arás Mhic Ardghail and many others across the north. Its role is to sustain and assist the development of Irish language communities; provide financial support and fund capital projects which will create jobs, and to develop cultural hubs. 
But before our time stalwart language activists, including those in the Newry Gaelic League, campaigned and pioneered for decades for language rights, including the right to education through Irish.
The Newry Branch was especially active. In its early days it helped establish the famous Omeath Feis in 1902; it helped found Coláiste Bhríde Ó Méith in 1912 where Pearse, it is reported, composed a draft of the Irish Proclamation; it appointed the first full-time, salaried Gaelic League travelling teacher in Ireland, an múinteor taistil from South Armagh Francis Nugent; and it encouraged the gaelicisation of the local press, especially the newly founded ‘Frontier Sentinel’ (1904).
The Newry Gaelic League also collaborated with Killeavy and Omeath Gaelic Leaguers in erecting what are believed to be the first Irish language road signs on the island at the Corr na Muclach junction half-way between Newry and Omeath.
After partition the unionist regime at Stormont discriminated against and actively oppressed the Irish language and culture. However, in the 1930s and 1940s, the Newry Urban Council, again in direct defiance of unionism, erected new bilingual street signage at James Connolly Park and Michael Mallin Park.
And, it was Newry and Mourne District Council who appointed Ireland’s first local government Irish Language Development Officer in Maolcholaim Scott.
So, Newry and its hinterland, which straddles the border, has a proud history of promoting the Irish language. This is the context for Gael Áras Mhic Ardghail and its role as a provider of Irish medium education, art, music, debate, and the promotion of Irish culture and heritage.
It is an exceptional building, well designed and constructed. At its heart is the family home of the McArdle family who in an exceptional and generous gesture donated it to this project. But it has been expanded to include exhibition space and class rooms.
  Audience at formal opening of Gael Áras Mhic Ardghail  As you enter the foyer there is an old desk, similar to those we had in Barrack Street and on a pedestal behind – as if looking over the pupils shoulder – is Brother Beau. The bust is a very good likeness of the man. And it is entirely appropriate that it should greet visitors as they enter Gael Arás Mhic Ardghail, not just because this is originally the site of St. Patrick’s – the first Christian Brothers school in Newry, but also because Brother Beau was such an influential figure in Irish language circles over many years.
He was a part of my experience of learning Irish. My own interest in the language began when I started primary school at St. Finian’s De La Salle School on the Falls Road.

However it was St. Mary’s Grammar School run by the Christian Brothers which really bonded me to the language. And Brother Beausang was a big part of that with his summer breaks to the Donegal Gaeltacht.
My next real opportunity to extend my limited knowledge of the language was in prison.  
Political prisoners, particularly in the cages of Long Kesh, created Irish language communities in prison – Gaeltacht huts – where they lived and breathed the language each day.

And because we had political status we were permitted Irish language text books. It was there that Bobby Sands learned Irish.
Subsequently, many of these prisoners and others who had been interned continued with their work on the language when they were released. Later when the cages were replaced by the H Blocks and when the Irish language became the daily language of most of the protesting prisoners at that time, this had a huge impact on the consciousness, particularly of young working-class nationalists.
When prisoners were released from the Blocks, many of them brought the language skills and teaching methods they had learned back into their communities conducting classes in pubs, clubs, community centres and homes.

But it was Irish language stalwarts like Brother Beau who helped keep the language alive in the north during the bad days. For that he will be fondly remembered by all of us who knew him.
Brother Beau is also remembered in far off places. Another person who was taught by him was catholic priest Kevin McGarry. Just over a decade ago when Father McGarry opened a school in the town of Embulbul, just outside greater Nairobi, in Kenya, he decided to name it after Brother Beausang. A fine gesture for a great teacher.  
 

Government fails households in mortgage distress

Last week the Irish Central Bank held a conference on ‘How to fix distressed property markets’. In this state this issue is of huge importance because of the numbers of citizens in mortgage arrears.
Despite the fact that the state has borrowed €67 billion and used €64 billion of this to recapitalise the banks there has been little evidence of the banks themselves seeking to address the mortgage arrears issue in a compassionate yet effective fashion. They have refused to engage credibly with distressed borrowers. And have stuck their heads in the sand over the obvious need for debt forgiveness for those borrowers who clearly cannot repay their debt.
As the Irish Times acknowledged last week, ‘Debt forgiveness is inevitable. It is an unavoidable part of any major debt resolution process.’
Last October Fiona Muldoon, the Head of Banking Regulation at the Irish Central Bank was scathing in her criticism of the bankers and their failure to address the issue of mortgage distress.
And on Wednesday Allied Irish Bank indicated that it plans to increase its variable interest rates once again - a move that will directly impact on 70,000 customers.
Every 0.25pc rise in rates adds €30 a month to the cost of repayments on every €200,000 borrowed. That’s €30 that many of these families simply don’t have.
Clearly the banks have learned nothing, and care less.
But worse, AIB is a fully owned state bank and the government is refusing to tackle this issue head on. It’s alright to give €64 billion to the banks but it’s not alright to helps citizens in mortgage distress.
This week Sinn Féin’s Private Members Business in the Dáil was devoted to the twin big issues in housing, of mortgage distress and the lack of social housing.
The government has failed to tackle these two issues in a planned and effective fashion and consequently is failing the tens of thousands of families in mortgage distress and on the social housing waiting lists.
Fine Gael and Labour came to power promising to prioritise those in mortgage distress – it has abandoned them.
Exactly two years ago in the days immediately before the general election vote the Labour told people in mortgage distress that, ‘if Labour is in government, they will enjoy peace of mind.’
The Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore said: ‘The banks have already received thousands of millions in taxpayers money. There has to be a ‘quid pro quo’ for that, and that is to give people who are in mortgage distress a breather …’
Another election promise made and another election promise broken by Labour.
Today, there are more citizens than ever in mortgage distress. The governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan told last week’s conference that household financial distress is at unprecedented levels. Last June one in five mortgages were in arrears amounting to some 167,000 households. The most recent figure puts that now at 180,000 households currently in trouble with 115 additional homeowners falling into distress every day.
The government’s Personal Insolvency legislation will not fix this problem. It hands a veto over any Personal Insolvency Arrangement to the banks. And as long as the Banks have a veto, and the government refuses to face them down, there is little prospect of real progress for struggling homeowners.
In respect of social housing; the policy of Fine Gael and Labour in depleting the social housing stock is exacerbating the crisis in housing and the numbers of citizens on waiting lists.
My constituency offices, in Dundalk and Drogheda, like many other TD’s offices, are dealing with increasing numbers of people who have been forced to leave what was the family home.

Sinn Féin believes there are solutions to this problem. The starting point must be to remove the veto given to lenders over proposed insolvency agreements in the Personal Insolvency Act 2012. The government should also prioritise the maintenance of the family home in any agreements dealing with residential mortgages.
In our Private Members Motion we set out several other proposals. These include:      ·       provide in the legislation for the independent adjudication and enforcement on mortgage distress cases, through a new category of agreement to be known as ‘independent agreement on mortgage distress’ which will be adjudicated by a ‘mortgage restructuring panel’ appointed by the Minister, who would have the statutory power to agree and impose agreements on lending institutions where the panel believes that such agreements would enable the mortgage holders to remain in the family home;
·       include the possibility of write downs on portions of the mortgage debt as well as other options such as debt for equity swaps, mortgage to rent and short selling in the options available when reaching ‘mortgage restructuring agreements’; ·       take more direct action with the Central Bank to force lending institutions to adopt a more proactive and lender friendly approach to the mortgage crisis;·       ensure that NAMA contributes to ‘the social and economic development of the State’ in providing any housing units in its portfolio suitable for social housing; ·       develop a plan to commence the building of at least 5,000 housing units by the end of 2013, with a further 4,000 houses by the second half of 2014 for the public housing system, including the use of social housing bonds to fund these projects; and ·       restore funding for Traveller accommodation to its 2010 level.”