Gerry Adams's Blog, page 73

Rory’s Law

I fist met Rory Staunton when he was a baby. He is the son of Ciaran and Orlaith Staunton.
Ciaran is from County Mayo and Orlaith from Louth. Ciaran is the co-founder of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform in the USA and has been active in support of the undocumented and lobbying in the US government to regularise their status. In the early 1990’s he was also a key activist in winning support within Irish America for the peace process.
When I first travelled to the USA on my 48 hour Clinton visa to New York in February 1994 Ciaran was there. Later after the IRA cessation he was intimately involved in the planning of the visits by Sinn Féin delegations to the USA.
In those first post cessation visits the media interest was enormous and Irish America wanted to hear what we had to say. I remember on one trip in which we did 14 cities coast to coast in 14 days.
Ciaran never stopped. He was constantly planning, organising meetings, transport and hotels. He exhausted us.
I got to know him very well in that time and his soon to be wife Orlaith. When they married the wedding and reception were held in County Cavan and we were all there to celebrate it with them.
Rory was their first born. Ciaran brought him along to our hotel in New York for us to meet. He was a proud, doting father and Orlaith was an attentive loving mother.
In the subsequent years I watched Rory grow and grow and grow. I met him in Ireland and the USA - the last time in Drogheda during the general election. At 12 years old Rory was five foot nine with a bright mop of red hair. He was an enthusiastic, intelligent, politically astute young person. Like me one of his heroes was Rosa Parks – who refused to sit at the back of the bus. He was enthralled by John F Kennedy’s idealism and by Barak Obama’s desire to achieve change. He was also very proud of the contribution his father and his uncle – publisher Niall O Dowd – made to the Irish peace process.
Rory also wanted to fly. He was in awe of the successful ditching by pilot Chesley B Sullenberger of his passenger airline in the Hudson River. And at 12 years of age he succeeded in persuading Ciaran and Orlaith to let him learn to fly.
And then on Wednesday March 28thhe fell playing basketball in school and cut his arm. Overnight he became feverish, vomited and developed a pain in his leg. He saw his doctor and she advised that he go to Langone Medical Center where he was diagnosed with an upset stomach and dehydration. He was given fluids and Tylenol and sent home.
However Rory’s condition grew worse.
At the same time results from blood tests that had been taken revealed that he was producing neutrophilsand bands, white blood cells, at an abnormal rate and which suggested that he had a bacterial infection. The family were not told and essential warning signs were missed by the doctors in the hospital.
Rory was taken back to the hospital where he was put into the intensive care unit. His condition deteriorated and on Sunday April 1st four days after his school accident Rory died from septic shock.
The family was devastated. I rang Ciaran. His grief was plain. Rory was brought home to Ireland to be buried with his grandmother in Drogheda.  I attended the funeral. It was a deeply sad, tragic and moving celebration of a young life.
But Ciaran and Orlaith were not prepared to ignore the failings in the medical system. Two weeks ago I was sitting in my Dáil office and realised in the course of a meeting that the voice in the background was Ciaran. He was being interviewed on the RTE news about Rory’s loss and the family’s demand for a change to the law.
Ciaran and Orliath are campaigning for ‘Rory’s Law’ to be introduced to ensure that parents have full access to blood and lab tests done and that as soon as these are available that they will be assessed by a doctor.
They believe that had Rory’s results been acted on he would have received the antibiotics needed to save his life. They also believe that ‘Rory’s Law’ can save the lives of countless others.
Ciaran and Orliath have my support and I would urge everyone to join with them in their efforts to ensure that no other parents have to go through the trauma they have experienced.

Challenging the Money Lenders

Money lending and loan sharks are not a new phenomenon. They are probably the second oldest profession in the world.

Where there is poverty you will always find those who are prepared to exploit the vulnerable and the desperate.

The island of Ireland has long borne witness to their activities. There are few working families that haven’t availed of money lenders and loan sharks. The cheque man used to call to our house every week. Between that and the pawn shop my mother reared ten of us.

The north was recently described as a ‘personal debt hotspot’ and in its annual report for 2011 the PSNI’s Organised Crime Task Force claimed that loan sharks are targeting citizens on benefits, small business people, those buying drugs and families trying to manage their way through poverty and disadvantage.

The report said that because the recession means that it is harder for someone with a ‘less than perfect’ credit rating to secure a loan from financial institutions, more and more people are consequently turning to ‘alternative lending options such as Social Fund and Budgeting Loans, Credit Unions, pawnbrokers, door step lenders, pay day loan companies and also illegal money lenders (‘loan sharks’)’.

In the north loan sharks often hold benefits books and Post Office cards as collateral against the loan, and any delay or failure on the part of the person holding the loan to repay it often leads to threats, physical assault, seizure of goods or the debtor being coerced into carrying out an illegal task for the criminal.

One example of this emerged recently in a court in Dublin where a mother of five received a suspended sentence after it emerged that she had been forced to turn her home – in this case her children’s two bedrooms - into a cannabis grow house because she owed money to a loan shark.

But this problem of money lending is not isolated to loan sharks.

Financial companies providing loans also charge exorbitant rates of interest.

This issue took centre stage this week in the Dáil when Sinn Féin introduced a Private Members Bill to set a cap of 40% on the amount that these companies can charge.

A recent survey from the Irish League of Credit Unions revealed that over 1.8 million people in the southern state now have just €100 to spare at the end of each month. That’s €25 a week! While 17 per cent of adults – which equates to 602,000 people –have absolutely nothing left for discretionary spending once all bills are paid.

These are the citizens who are being forced to borrow short term to pay utility bills, make mortgage payments or put food on their family’s table.

The Credit Union study found that 10% of households are turning to moneylenders to pay household bills, and it is likely that the real figure is significantly higher.

And many find that once caught in the money lending trap it is almost impossible to escape. Some of these licensed money lenders are charging up to 210% APR. They are making super profits on the back of hard pressed families.

And they can only do this because the Irish government has done nothing to tackle excessive interest rates. And why do they do nothing? The Minister of State Brian Hayes revealed all when he stood up in the Dáil and told us that the government intended to oppose our Bill. Why? Because he thinks that the ‘likely impact of applying a cap rate of 40% APR is that money lending would no longer be viable, licence renewals would not be sought and it would effectively close down the industry.’

Hayes then went on to describe how ‘money lending is an inherently expensive business’ and that ‘licenced money lenders service a high risk borrower segment.’

His defence of money lenders who regularly charge over 100% APR and sometimes over twice that had this blog’s blood boiling. It was a disgraceful and outrageous defence of one of the worst examples of financial exploitation of families desperately trying to manage a shrinking budget, mostly as a consequence of the new stealth taxes and charges that Minister Hayes government is responsible for.

It is also not representative of the European experience. A 2010 European Commission study identified 13 states that operated such a cap.

In Belgium for example the cap ranges from 10% to 19.5% APR. In France the range is from 5.7% to 21.6%. In Spain the rate is 10%.

In these and other states, politicians have decided that there is a limit to the amount of interest that licensed money lenders can charge, particularly when lending to low income families struggling under the weight of household debt.

Hayes claim that a 40% cap would ‘close down the industry is not borne out by the Polish example where in 2006 a cap of 20% was introduced on licenced moneylenders. Like Ireland Provident is one of the largest lenders in that market. It continues to trade profitably in Poland even after the introduction of the cap.

The Minister is wrong.

But the problem of debt and money lenders and of austerity have other more profound human implications.

The Central Statistics Office in Dublin last week revealed that the number of suicides in this state rose to 525– an increase of 7%. 439 men and 86 women are recorded as having then their own lives in 2011.

The President of the Irish Association of Suicidology Dan Neville TD acknowledged that these figures were ‘frightening but not surprising’ given the state of the economy.

The Suicide Support and Information System in its report on Monday made a clear connection between austerity and suicide. It revealed that of the 190 deaths in Cork from suicide 38.1% of the victims were unemployed.

The excessive interest rates being charged by licensed moneylenders are pushing hard pressed families further into financial stress and poverty. There is no moral or economic justification for the absence of a cap on interest rates charged by licensed moneylenders.

The Bill Sinn Féin brought forward proposed a cap of 40% which would be fairer to customers while allowing licenced lenders to operate on a sound commercial basis.

But the government parties voted it down and chose to defend the money lenders over the rights and needs of citizens.

The Labour Party TDs on the government benches should hide with shame. If they had any shred of compassion for those caught in the poverty and debt trap or any allegiance to the politics of Connolly they would have rejected the Ministers stand.

Instead they acquiesced and defended it. There were the usual crocodile tears about the plight of low and middle income families and those caught in the poverty trap but there was no stomach for standing up to the right wing ideology of Fine Gael.

Reflections

Last Sunday I spent a short time, along with scores of other republicans, remembering and celebrating the live and courage of IRA Volunteer Joe McDonnell.

It was the anniversary of Joe’s death. He died on hunger strike on July 8th 1981 after 61 days without food. Sinn Féin had organised a white line picket along the Andersonstown Road in west Belfast. Such pickets involve protestors standing along the dividing white line on the road holding a placard or in this instance photo of Joe. It was a method of highlighting the hunger strike frequently used then and since. Big Bobby and the party executive in Belfast thought it was an appropriate way of remembering Joe.

I was standing not far from the party’s Connolly House office and close to the junction with St. Agnes’s Drive.

In the busyness of my life I don’t often get the opportunity to just reflect. To take a few minutes and allow the mind to relax and wander. To look around and recall events or people connected to wherever I am. But for about 30 minutes last Sunday, standing there on my own, with lines of republican activists stretching away on either side of me, my memory journeyed back to the day we walked from Joe’s home in Lenadoon, down the Shaw’s Road and along the Andersonstown Road to Milltown Cemetery.

It was a beautiful summers day. There were thousands of people standing along the footpaths and many more following the cortege. Joe’s coffin was set on trestles just outside Connolly House – which was then an empty building - and an IRA firing party stepped forward and gave their comrade his last salute.

They then disappeared into the crowd and slipped up through the houses toward St. Agnes’s Drive. Unbeknownst to any of us British soldiers had moved in to the street. They raided a house in a bid to capture the volunteers.

I remember hearing the shots being fired and then the British troops and RUC attacked the mourners firing plastic bullets. Men, women and children screamed and scattered, desperately trying to avoid being hit by a plastic. Mothers held their children close to them desperately trying to shield them with their own bodies. Others lay on the ground or hunkered down in shop doorways or behind cars. There was pandemonium along the Andersonstown Road.

That summer was a bleak time for many reasons but not least because of the widespread and devastating use of plastic bullets by the British Army and RUC. Seven people were killed, three of them children, and hundreds more were injured, some permanently. It was a weapon of control and intimidation and was used indiscriminately and extensively.

We were determined not to allow the Brits to hijack or obstruct the burial of our friend and with difficulty we moved on down the Andersonstown Road toward Milltown.

It was only as we approached the cemetery a short time later that I learned that my brother Paddy had just been shot and seriously wounded.

The same morning Joe died, 16 year old John Dempsey, a member of Na Fianna Éireann was shot dead just across the road from Milltown cemetery.

I attended John’s wake and his funeral to Milltown before I went to Lenadoon and Joe’s funeral.

Three years after those awful events 23 year old John Downes was shot and killed by a plastic bullet in August 1984 almost on the spot that Joe’s body had rested for that final salute. He was struck by a plastic fired an RUC man, as the RUC attacked a peaceful public demonstration and stormed the building.

Connolly House like many other Sinn Féin offices was targeted not just by the Brits and RUC but also by their Loyalist allies. Several activists were shot and wounded in one incident and an RPG rocket was fired on another.

It was also the location for many of our meetings with Irish Americans in the early days of the peace process and in 2004 we discovered a sophisticated listen device hidden in the floor of the building. MI5 apparently described this as a ‘super bug’. We brought the bug with us – or most of it – when we travelled to Leeds Castle for more talks aimed at getting the peace process back on track. Martin and I ceremoniously handed it back to Tony Blair. Although those bits that were kept were auctioned on ebay and the money raised was put to good use by the party.

Around the corner from the Sinn Féin office is a shopping area still known locally as the Busy Bee, even though the supermarket of that name is no longer there. For many years, and especially during the hunger strike period, most republican marches ended there as the car park provided an almost natural amphitheatre.

A few hundred yards in the opposite direction from where I was standing is Casement Park. Just outside its main gates in March 1988 two armed British soldiers attacked mourners attending the funeral of Caoimhín MacBradaigh, who had been killed when UDA gunman Michael Stone attacked the Gibraltar funerals. They themselves were overpowered and subsequently killed by the IRA.

So, it was a moment in space for reflection. Mostly about the hard times, the difficult times and the friends and neighbours who are no longer with us. And that’s good. We should never forget what happened or the bravery and audacity of those who created the opportunity for the republican struggle to grow.

Remembering the Springhill Massacre

Tonight - Monday - there will be a Special Mass in Memory of the 40th Anniversary of the Springhill Westrock Massacre in Corpus Christi Chapel on Monday 9th July at 6pm.

This will be followed by a presentation in the hall at the back of the chapel about the Historical Enquiries Team examinations into Royal Military Police by Dr Patricia Lundy of University of Ulster. There will also be a panel discussion.
Afterwards there will be a candle light vigil to the Westrock Garden of Remembrance.


There have been many dark days arising out of the conflict. Most families in the north have been touched by these. One such was Bloody Sunday. 14 civilians were killed by the British Paras when they attacked a civil rights march in Derry on January 30th 1972.

Two years ago, and following a lengthy public inquiry the Saville Commission, exonerated all of those killed and the British Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for what happened, describing the killing of the marchers as ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’.

Saville took 12 years to publish its report. Among its conclusions were:

• No warning was given to any civilians before the soldiers opened fire


• None of the soldiers fired in response to attacks by petrol bombers or stone throwers


• Some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to help those injured or dying


• None of the casualties was posing a threat or doing anything that would justify their shooting


• Many of the soldiers lied about their actions

Last Friday the PSNI announced that it is to hold a murder investigation into the events on Bloody Sunday.

Regrettably, Bloody Sunday was not the exception to the rule in the history of British Army’s actions in the north. Two other military operations against civilians by the Paras fit the same pattern of Bloody Sunday and one is 40 years old today.

On July 9th 1972 five citizens from the Springhill estate in west Belfast were shot and killed by British snipers from the parachute regiment hiding in Corry’s timber yard on the Springfield Road.

Among the dead was the second Catholic priest to be killed in greater Ballymurphy area; Fr Noel Fitzpatrick. He was shot in the neck while administering the Last Rites. Of the four others to die three were teenagers - Margaret Gargan was 13, David McCafferty was 14 and John Dougall was 16 - and the fourth, Paddy Butler (38), was a father of six children.

Margaret Gargan, from Westrock Drive was killed by a single bullet wound to the head. She was thirteen years old. John Dougal from Springhill Avenue died after being shot in the chest. He was sixteen years old. David McCafferty from Ballymurphy Drive was also killed when he was shot in the chest. He was fifteen years old. Patrick Butler from Westrock Drive was killed by a single shot to the head.

All were shot by British Paras operating from Corry’s, all were civilians, and according to local eye witnesses, there was no IRA activity in the area at that time.

Immediately adjacent to the Springhill estate lies Ballymurphy. 11 months earlier, following the introduction of internment in August 1971, the Parachute Regiment was sent into the Ballymurphy estate. In the subsequent 48 hours 11 were civilians were shot dead, one was the parish priest, Fr Hugh Mullan, who like Fr Fitzpatrick was giving the last rites to victims, and another was Joan Connolly, the mother of eight children.

In the same period the paras killed another two people in Belfast; Desmond Healey, aged 14, in Lenadoon and John Beattie, who was 17, was killed in the Clonard area.

On January 30th 1972 it the Paras who went into Derry and in a matter of minutes shot dead 13 men. Another 14 men and women were injured, some seriously and a 14th man died later of his wounds.

Briege Voyle, whose mother Joan was killed in the Ballymurphy Massacre believes that:

“Had the soldiers who killed my mother been investigated properly and held to account, Bloody Sunday would never have happened.”

The following March (1973) the Parachute Regiment arrived in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast for a ‘tour of duty’. Within days Eddie Sharp (28) was shot dead and in the following weeks they had killed another four people. One of these was 12-year-old Tony McDowell. Tony was in a car being driven by his uncle when paratroopers opened fire, hitting the child in the back.

Another infamous victim of the Paras’ violence was South Armagh schoolgirl Majella O’Hare (12) who was shot dead in the churchyard at Ballymoyer, near Whitecross, on 14 August 1976.

Like Bloody Sunday the British Paras involved in the Springhill and Ballymurphy Massacres gave no warning of their intent; were under no threat from their victims; many of those who died were either fleeing or going to help others who were injured; and the soldiers lied about their actions. The victims were all civilians and many of them were teenagers.

The Springhill and Ballymurphy families have campaigned for 40 years for the truth about the deaths of their loved ones. It has been a long and difficult road for them but this blog is always amazed by their tenacity and fortitude.

The Burden of History

Drew Nelson, the Grand Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland today paid an official visit to Seanad Éireann. Last week Martin McGuinness met Elizabeth 11. Yesterday he and Peter publicly shook hands for the first time at the opening of the new visitors centre at the Giants Causeway.

And today the first meeting of the North South Parliamentary Association took place at Parliament Buildings in Stormont. The Association was part of the Good Friday Agreement and is jointly chaired by the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil Sean Barrett and the Speaker of the northern Assembly Willie Hay.

So all in all it’s been a busy and arguably historic period for the island of Ireland and for the reshaping of relationships between the people of this island and with our nearest neighbour in Britain.

The visit by the Orange Order to the Dáil is of particular importance coming as it does at the beginning of the most intense period of marches by the main loyal orders – the Orange Order, the Royal Black Preceptory, the Apprentice Boys of Derry and the Independent Orange Order.

This blog has often remarked that the Irish national flag is orange as well as green and that we have a responsibility to listen to and engage with our unionist neighbours who make up the various loyal orders. If we want respect for our views then we must also respect the views of those who differ from us.

Most frequently this debate takes place around the issue of contentious marches – a fact that makes dialogue more difficult and in itself detracts from the imperative of having a broader conversation around building relationships between the wider unionist and nationalist sections of our people.

Clearly the issue of these marches has to be resolved. The refusal thus far by the loyal orders to speak to host communities has made this task much more difficult. But last weeks meeting between Martin McGuinness and Queen Elizabeth 11 must make that prospect now more likely.

If their Queen is prepared to talk and meet in friendship and mutual respect with an Irish republican then it’s difficult to see how any in the loyal orders can continue to refuse to speak to Sinn Féin much less community leaders from host communities.

This is especially so when one considers the human, economic and community cost that conflict over such marches has caused in the past. The number of contentious marches involved in literally a handful. Thousands of others take place without rancour. So why can’t we have a dialogue which respects and validates the views of marchers and host communities and find a way that sees this period of our year become one which families and communities can enjoy instead of fear.

But we have to go beyond settling contentious parades. We need to build a new relationship. Irish republicans want to understand and appreciate the position of the Orange. We accept the right of the Order to parade and to promote its sense of Orangeism. But this has to be on the basis of equality and mutual respect and tolerance.

Drew Nelson’s address to the Seanad marks another page turned – a new phase – in the process of building new relationships. It is the first time that a member of the Orange Order has addressed the Oireachtas.

And while this blog and other republicans have met with members of the Portadown Orange Order and there have been other private meetings, this is also the first time that the Orange Order has publicly engaged with Sinn Féin. This is a welcome development.

His speech to the Seanad was measured and thoughtful, linking the religous elements of the orders with the political and historical and community. There are aspects of what Drew Nelson said that I would agree with and aspects I would disagree with, particularly his belief that republicans orchestrated opposition to orange marches and attacks on orange halls.

That is not true. Even a cursory examination of the fraught and often violent relationship between the loyal orders and the nationalist community going back 200 years to its foundation would produce countless examples of such actions.

And Mr. Nelson ignored the role of the Order in promoting sectarianism and building a unionist orange state in the north which treated nationalists dreadfully.

However that is his perspective and republicans have to start our dialogue with him and the orange on that basis.

Drew Nelson presented an interesting and cogent case which must be listened to. The Orange Order is an important organisation. It is a part of what we are as a nation.

The idea that somehow there can be a lasting peace on this island without a dialogue between us is daft.

So, we need to talk and we need to listen.

Drew Nelson is right when he speaks about the burden of history. It is a burden that this far we have shared separately. Perhaps it’s time we shared the burden together.

The Orange visit Seanad Éireann

96 years ago it was day two of the Somme offensive. The Battle of the Somme was to last until November 18th and was one of the biggest battles of the first world war. At the end of almost five months the battle lines had shifted by a mere six miles but the cost in lives lost and damaged was enormous.

Day one had witnessed the British Army suffer nearly 60,000 casualties – the worst day in its history. 19,240 dead; 35,493 wounded and 2152 missing.

Day one had also seen the 36th Ulster Division, largely made up of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, attack the Schwaben Redoubt. Unlike most other elements of the British Army on that first day the Ulster Division succeeded in capturing its initial objectives. The Redoubt itself did not fall until mid October.

By the end of Day two it had lost 5500 men killed, wounded or missing. By the end of the Battle five months later there were over one million casualties on all sides.

The impact on local, mainly protestant, communities across Ulster - from Antrim to Cavan, and from Down to Donegal was profound. Tens of thousands of families were touched by the colossal losses at the Somme. Local history tells of the three Donaldson brothers from Comber in county Down who were aged between 19 and 21 and who all died together on Day one at Thiepval, and the three Hobbs brothers – David, Andrew and Robert - from Union Street in Lurgan who all died on the Somme.

The Battle of the Somme is still remembered. Each year commemorations are held in towns and villages throughout the north.

The Orange Order, many of whose members fought and died at the Somme, plays a central part in these.

Tomorrow Drew Nelson the Grand Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland leads a delegation from the Orange Order to address Seanad Éireann. It is a first and a historic occasion in its own right. Along with the meeting last week between Martin McGuinness and Elizabeth 11 it is a measure of how much the peace process is reshaping relationships on the island of Ireland.

It will also mark the first public occasion that a member of Sinn Féin, Senator David Cullinane, will address the Orange.

More on this tomorrow.

The great electronic voting machine scandal
There are countless irresponsible decisions from the Celtic Tiger days which expose the incompetence and corrupt practices of the political system. Fraudulent planning processes, bad policies, a failure to invest for the future in public services, and the greed of the golden circles of politicians, financiers and developers all pushed the state to the verge of bankruptcy.

One ill considered example of this was the decision by the Fianna Fail government in 2002 to spend €52 million on an electronic voting machine system.

The machines were used on a trial basis in 3 constituencies in the 2002 general election - Dublin North, Dublin West and Meath and in seven constituencies during the Nice referendum of the same year. The government planned to extend their use. However a 2002 report raised concerns about the security of the machines. The absence of a paper trail to verify conclusions also worried many.

In 2004 the government set up the Independent Commission on Electronic Voting and Counting at Elections (CEV) which produced a number of reports. In July 06 a report by CEV suggested that the machines were still usable but needed further modifications and a new software package.

However it emerged in tests that the ‘foolproof’ software wasn’t quite as foolproof as first claimed. In a tied election the machines could select the wrong candidate. There was also a suggestion that it might be possible to manipulate the vote data without detection, opening up the possibility of accusations of serious malpractice or corruption.

Sorting all of this out would have required an additional €10 million on to the original price tag. Fianna Fáil wanted to proceed but their partners in government the Progressive Democrats said no.

The then Minister for the Environment Dick Roche fell back on the much used, abused but frequently successful devise of establishing a committee, in this case a Cabinet Sub-committee, to consider the recommendations by the CEV. It pushed the decision back a few years.

In the meantime the machines were put into cold storage in 14 locations around the state where they have sat ever since gathering dust but at a huge continuing cost to the tax payer.

In 2004 the cost of storage was €658,000. In the subsequent four years it varied between €696,000, €706,000, €489,000 and €204,000. Finally in 2009 the proposal to use them in elections was scrapped.

It has taken the powers that be another three years since then to finally agree a contract with a recycling company to get rid of the machines.

This scandal has cost the Irish taxpayer somewhere in the region of €55 million. Imagine the hospital beds that could have paid for or the local schools it could have built. The great electronic voting machine scandal is an example of all that was wrong during the Celtic tiger years.

Europe on the edge

An Taoiseach Enda Kenny is off this morning to Brussels for a two day summit of European leaders who are meeting for the 20th time in the last two years to try and resolve the debt and banking crisis within the EU.

At the start of the week Spain formally requested European aid of up to €100 billion for its banks making it the fourth state to require an EU bailout.

Within hours of Spain’s request for help Cyprus became the fifth state seeking a bailout for its financial sector. And on Tuesday Italy had to pay more at a bond auction.

The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy told his Parliament that he will demand in Brussels that existing "instruments" are used to calm financial markets. He warned that Spain ‘cannot finance ourselves for a long time at prices like those we are now paying.’

He was standing up for Spain. That’s his job and his mandate.

He said: "I will propose measures to stabilize financial markets, using the instruments at our disposal right now."

In stark contrast the Taoiseach is quoted in the Irish Times saying that he will not be looking for a deal on the Irish bank debt, ‘It is not Ireland that is in focus this time.’

Regrettably this has been his constant mantra through successive EU Council meetings and he repeated it in the Dáil on Wednesday. The negotiating position of the government has been disastrous. It has failed to stand up for the interests of Irish citizens.

The EU summit has been billed as a growth and jobs summit but it will inevitably be dominated by the worsening crisis in Spain and Italy, the situation in Greece and the weakness of the European banks.

And there is no sense from the Irish government of a strategy going into this summit that will ease the burden on Irish citizens. The Taoiseach promised to remove the weight of the banking debt from taxpayers but this has not happened. He promised jobs, investment and stability and this has not happened.

And after three years of dithering and poorly planned economic and fiscal initiatives the crisis grows worse. Europe's leaders are failing.

Last July, they and the Taoiseach agreed to a restructuring of Greek debt but almost one year later and the situation is as bad as ever. Last autumn, the European Central Bank provided large-scale liquidity to banks to try to ease the situation in Spain and Italy. This has not worked either.

Last December, the Eurozone agreed the fiscal treaty – which the government and Fianna Fáil persuaded citizens to vote for in May - and for more money to end the crisis. That hasn’t worked.

Many have been pinning their hopes on the creation of Eurobonds and an agreement on shared liability within Europe for banking debt. The government is belatedly arguing that shared liability also needs to be retrospective and to apply to Irish banking debt.

And now into the mix is the report drawn up by Herman Van Rompuy, Jean Claude Juncker, José Manuel Barroso and Mario Draghi. It is a charter for a even closer EU integration and a banking, fiscal and political union which would allow the EU to intervene directly in the budgets of member states.

According to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso a fiscal union is ‘about much more than just euro bonds or stability bonds. It also means more co-ordination in taxation policy and a much stronger European approach to budgetary matters at national and European level.’

Remember Enda Kenny’s leaders address on RTE last December? He said: ‘I want to be the Taoiseach who retrieves Ireland’s economic sovereignty and who leads a Government that will help our country succeed.’

His only success thus far has been in signing up to a process that will see a further erosion of sovereignty and the continued impoverishment of citizens.

There is also speculation about Euro bonds. But the German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly told a private meeting this week that there would be no Eurobonds ‘in her lifetime’. And in a contribution in the Bundestag on Wednesday she described short-term crisis remedies, like joint liability of Eurozone debt as ‘eyewash and fake solutions.

She added that; ‘Apart from the fact that instruments like eurobonds, eurobill, debt repayment funds and so on are unconstitutional in Germany, I consider them economically wrong and counterproductive.’

So, the Brussels summit has its work cut out for it. It needs to give the people of Europe some hope that their leaders have learned from the mistakes already made and have a coherent plan for the future. There is little evidence of that at this time.

The policies of austerity are driving Europe deeper into recession. That is especially true in this state where the government is taking money from working people and from the most vulnerable and essential public services to pay off the debts of the banks and the elites.

This week another tranche of €1.14 Billion worth of unguaranteed unsecured bonds, formerly held by Irish Nationwide and Anglo Irish Bank, were paid to senior bondholders. One of these, at €598 million, was more than the €500 million the government is committed to taking from the Social Welfare Budget.

So, all in all the EU summit promises to be an interesting meeting. Possibly more for what is not done or agreed, than for what is done and agreed. And in this respect the crisis within the EU is unlikely to be significantly reduced by what emerges.

A Cordial Union

The peace process has seen some strange and unexpected and remarkable developments in its almost 20 years. Sinn Féin leaders in Downing St and the White House; US Presidents shaking hands with Sinn Féin leaders; unionist leaders, who wouldn’t sit in the same television studios or talk to us in the negotiations, now sitting in an Executive and all-Ireland Ministerial Council; and Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley demonstrating that former enemies can be friends. And that work being continued by Martin and Peter Robinson. There has been much more.

It is evidence of the success of the process in achieving change. Of course, it doesn’t mean that unionists are now republicans and prepared to agree to a united Ireland or that republicans have become unionists. And there are still many issues of difference and concern between us. But we have a process, rooted in equality, which has the capacity to resolve these with patience.

This week will see another historic moment. Martin McGuinness has received an invitation from Co-operation Ireland to attend an event in Belfast next week – unconnected to the Jubilee - to celebrate the arts and culture across Ireland. The event will also be attended by the President of Ireland, the Queen of England and by First Minister Peter Robinson.

Last Friday the Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle agreed that Martin could accept the invitation. This is a significant initiative involving major political and symbolic challenges for Irish republicans.

As the record of the peace process demonstrates Irish republicans have frequently been prepared to take bold and historic initiatives and risks for peace to break stalemates and find agreements.

We do so as activists whose primary political objective is the re-unification and independence of Ireland, and we have a coherent and viable strategy to achieve this.

Key to uniting Ireland is our ability to persuade a section of unionists that this is the right decision for them. To make it work it has to be part of a genuine process of national reconciliation and transformation.

I understand that a meeting between a Sinn Fein leader and the Queen of England is difficult for some republicans and for the victims of British state violence, even if the President of Ireland and the First Minister Peter Robinson is present and they are all participating as equals.

The Irish republican and nationalist experience with the British monarchy and the British state over centuries has been tragic and difficult and the vexed and unresolved issue of sovereignty remains paramount.

But Irish republicanism is rooted in the ethos and philosophy of Wolfe Tone and the United Irish Society, who sought the unity of Catholics, Protestants and dissenters. We are about the work of building a new republic, a new Ireland. And that means demonstrating to our unionist neighbours that we are serious about creating a society on this island that they will be comfortable in.

The British Queen has a unique place in the hearts and minds and sentiments of the unionists. As republicans we reject the idea of royalty or monarchy or elites or hierarchies but unionists have a different perspective. We have to understand that if our conversations are to have relevance and make sense to them.

Last year, Queen Elizabeth II visited Dublin. Sinn Féin declined to participate. That was exactly the right decision. That visit marked a rapprochement in relations between that state and the British monarchy. That was a good thing. It took 100 years to achieve.

In the course of her visit she made some important gestures and remarks, including an acknowledgement of the pain of all victims, which demonstrated the beginning of a new understanding and acceptance of the realities of past. I welcomed that at the time and said it should be built upon.

This is a different visit — in a different context.

This week’s meeting is a clear expression of the determination of Irish republicans to engage with our unionist neighbours and to demonstrate that we are prepared, once again to go beyond rhetoric, as we seek to persuade them that our new Ireland will not be a cold house for unionists or any other section of our people.

Unionists don’t need me to tell them that they have lived on this island for centuries. This is their home. It is where they belong and it is where they will remain.

Our Protestant neighbours also have a proud history of progressive and radical thinking. The founders of Irish republicanism where mainly Protestant. They were for the emancipation of their Catholic neighbours and for equality.

Republicans are democrats and the new republic we seek is pluralist. An Ireland of equals in which there is space for all opinions and identities. Sinn Féin is for a new dispensation in which a citizen can be Irish and unionist. Where one can also claim Britishness and be comfortable on this island.

Our vision of a new Republic is one in which, in Tone’s words, Orange and Green unite in a cordial union.

The Sinn Féin decision reflects a confident, dynamic, forward-looking Sinn Féin demonstrating our genuine desire to embrace our unionist neighbours.

It also reflects the equality and parity of esteem arrangements that are now in place. It will also create new platforms and open up a new phase in our relationships and will be another important and necessary step on our collective journey.

James Craig, the first unionist Prime Minister of the North recognised this when he said: "In this island we cannot live always separated from one another. We are too small to be apart or for the border to be there for all time. The change will not come in my time but it will come."

It is clear that legacy issues have to be dealt with and Sinn Féin will continue to engage in that work.

By our actions Irish republicans will be judged, as well as our beliefs. We have to change Irish society now, North and South, to accommodate the unionist population and their cultural identity. The meeting between Martin McGuinness and the Queen of England will assist in that process.

If the peace process has taught us anything, it is that the process cannot remain static. It must continue to expand and we must constantly build on the progress that has been made.

A record of Death and Shame

The publication of the report by the Independent Child Death Review Group is a chilling indictment of the child protection systems in the Irish state that repeatedly failed to save children from abuse and in some cases death.

The last few years have seen a succession of reports and revelations around abuse. 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 ICDRG report provides a disturbing and harrowing insight into the systemic failure of the Irish state’s child protection systems between 2000 and 2010. It is also a damning reflection on previous governments which failed to use the wealth of the boom years of the Celtic Tiger to invest in child protection services and strategies.

The system was so bad and the state of organisation so poor that when the Independent Child Death Review Group was established in 2010 the Health Service Executive (HSE) could not provide the ICDRG with accurate data on the scale of the problem.

The ICDRG report records how bad this was. It reveals that ‘there was considerable confusion in relation to the numbers of children who had died while in care of or known to the HSE. Initial figures reported by the HSE fell far short of the actual number of cases subsequently uncovered by the HSE. Once cases had been identified there was significant delay in the handover of the files to the ICDRG...However many files were incomplete and the ICDRG requested missing components from the HSE on an ongoing basis, specifically death certificates and reports from coroners which continued to arrive throughout the period of the review. The piecemeal manner in which the HSE provided the information endured throughout the review and significantly hampered the review team in producing this report.’

In addition successive governments had failed to provide for a national framework for service delivery or a standard approach to assessing risk and referring cases, and there was no co-ordination between agencies dealing with children and young people.

This emerges most clearly in the individual case histories that are recorded in the report. They make distressing reading. Although the names have been withheld nonetheless the tragedy of children and young people in desperate circumstances comes through.

For example, the report tells the story of ‘Young person in Care 6’ who died in 2000 at the age of 15. ‘She was known to the HSE for three years prior to her death and she was in care for most of this time...This young person had six different placement during her time in care. She was also missing for some periods and believed to have been living on the streets. She travelled abroad at one point...She had four different social workers and there appears to have been one period of 7 months when no Social Worker was allocated to this case despite the high risk to her well bring noted on her files...This young person was identified as being at severe risk of harming herself or others ...’

At the conclusion of each account the ICDRG identifies concerns arising from each person’s experience. There is a stark similarity in conclusions across most of those who died from unnatural causes.

In this young girls case there was:

• No information on the file regarding the circumstances of her death.

• The file recording is very poor, confusing and difficult to follow.

• There are multiple copies of reports, many not dated so it is difficult to ascertain the sequence of the documents and the events involved in this young person’s care.

• Four different social workers in the three years this young person was in care.

• Some periods where no Social Worker was assigned to this young person.

• High number of placements for this young person.

• It appears that there may have been a failure to follow up allegations of abuse made by this young person and a failure to follow up a disclosure of her involvement in prostitution

• Inappropriate care plans were put in place

• Interagency working was less than optimal.

• There is no record of notification to the High Court of this young person’s death.


It’s almost as if with this latter omission the system was erasing her life – treating it and her as of no consequence, as if she never existed.

Page after page of the report records the lives and deaths of one young person after another and with each conclusion it is clear that the child protection system failed time after time.

The state abdicated its duty in respect of these young people and failed to provide the adequate child protection support that should be expected of a modern state in the 21st century.

The key to successfully protecting children is early intervention. The ICDRG found that too often there was a sporadic approach to dealing with young people at risk and that earlier and more consistent intervention could have helped these young people to overcome their vulnerabilities. This didn’t happen.

In other words lives could have been saved but these young people and their families were failed by the state. This is a long way from cherishing the children of the nation equally.

While I have welcomed the appointment of a full cabinet Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and the publication of the Children’s First Bill, it clear from this report that much more needs to be done.

There is an onus on the government to ensure that the inadequacies identified by the ICDRG, in relation to the systems of care for vulnerable children and young people, are rectified.

It also has a duty of care to our young people to implement the recommendations emerging from the ICDRG report, particularly in respect of transparency and accountability. That especially means it has to provide the necessary resources in terms of personnel, social workers or other resources to guarantee that there is no reoccurrence of this appalling litany of death and shame.

On Your Bike.

This blog is one of Sinn Fein's cadre of athletes. Aside from Martin Ferris who believes he still has a promising GAA career I am one of the few practising athletes in my peer group. But fitness comes at a cost as I discovered once again.

Last week I badly wrenched myself while cycling. Nothing unusual in that and I never paid much heed to it at the time. But the pain in my arm and chest continued for a few days so eventually at the behest of your man I nipped into the hospital for a check up. And thus commenced yet another adventure.

It ended you, like me will be relieved to know, with an all clear for yours truly. That is the most important personal outcome. But that to one side I also had a very useful and uplifting insight into the wonderful professionalism and kindness of our health workers from the tea ladies to the senior medical staff, and everyone else in between.

From the minute I arrived at The Minor Injuries Unit at the Louth County Hospital, in Dundalk, I was hugely impressed by the quality of care of the nurses and doctor on duty there. The only problem was they did not have the facilities to treat me at the Louth. So despite my protestations Kitty the duty nurse ruled out me driving myself and I was transported by Tony and Eric in an ambulance to Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda. That's where I became acquainted with a hospital trolley.

Again the care and professionalism of the health workers was impressive. The problem is the system is failing them. And the patients. I arrived in Drogheda at 7.25 pm and I didn’t see a doctor until 12.15 am. I got an x-ray at 1.15. I spent the night on a trolley. But at least I wasn't in a corridor.

I was in a cubicle and had some privacy but others weren't so lucky. The corridors in Our Lady of Lourdes are like O Connell Street. Noisy and busy. People constantly coming and going. No privacy whatsoever. Other patients told me they waited 7 and 8 hours on trollies waiting for a doctor. They included very elderly men and at least one young woman.

And it isn't the doctors’ fault. They and especially the nurses work under totally unacceptable pressure. And they do so with grace and good humour. The problem in Louth and Our Lady of Lourdes is a capacity issue. The removal of services from the Louth was a mistake. To do so before an alternative was in place compounds this. And patients suffer. When I was released the next day I was in Drogheda and my car was in Dundalk. Not a big problem for me but what of others from up the county dependent on public transport?

I had to return for tests and again the quality of care was extraordinarily good. The craic was also ninety. People, in some cases with their family members, dealing with illness with great fortitude and good humour. This blog got lots of slagging.

When I finished my range of tests in the Lourdes my extremely kind and thorough consultant decided I needed one last test. She also advised me not to travel to an event I was en route to in London. So I had to reluctantly stand aside from the inaugural Redmond O Neill Lecture. Thankfully Pearse Doherty stepped in, and by all accounts, he did a better job than me. Go raibh Maith agat P.

Meantime I was travelling back and forth from the Dáil to Our Lady of Lourdes. No big deal. The last test was for The Mater so that at least was handy. Only thing was I had to go to Drogheda to be admitted there and to be taken, this time by Michael and John, by ambulance to The Mater in Dublin. Again the craic was ninety. And again the care was first rate.

And I was extremely delighted to be given the all clear. And so into the ambulance again to Drogheda. So why am I telling you all this. For the record I suppose. Some media heads have been nosing around this story and it has already made its way on to the BBC and RTE websites.

But I am also very pleased to pay tribute to our hard pressed health workers. I ended up in three hospitals and the staff in all of them were first rate. Go raibh mile maith agaibh go leir.

My abiding memory is of great kindness allied to terrific commitment and tremendous skill. My sojourn with the trolley? An insight into how others suffer. It is not the way to treat sick citizens. Especially the elderly and vulnerable.

And the blame for that - and the solution - lies with the government.