Gerry Adams's Blog, page 77

State assets sell-off a mistake

It's not often this blog gets a chance to step in for the Taoiseach and break news to the Dáil but it was that sort of morning.

For those of you not familiar with the Dáil system we have Leaders Questions each Wednesday morning at 10.30. It's an opportunity for myself and others to quiz Enda Kenny on what we believe to be an issue of importance.

It had been my intention to use my two minutes for a question and one minute for a supplementary to raise the health crisis.

Each day brings new reports of the impact of government cuts on the health service. On Wednesday morning the media was reporting a statement from the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine which revealed that the number of sick children awaiting admission to hospitals and waiting on trolleys has increased by almost 700% in three years. Many children spend longer than 12 hours on a trolley and in some cases more than 24 hours.

Several days earlier the Health Service Executive also revealed that almost 60,000 patients – adults and children - are on waiting lists - a 50% increase on 2010.

And all of this is taking place on Enda Kenny's watch – the same Enda Kenny who five years ago in opposition, and when 41,000 patients were on the waiting list – stood in the Dáil and listed one cutback after another in the health service. He warned that 'patients die at the end of waiting lists because services cannot be provided for them.'

There is a depth of hypocrisy and double standards in this that is breathtaking in its brazenness.

That's what I had wanted to speak to the Taoiseach about. But governments seek to manage news so the Taoiseach and his friends had arranged for the Labour Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin TD, to hold a press conference at exactly the same time as Leaders Questions began. The Minister released details on the government's plan to sell-off state assets.

Obviously the purpose was to minimise the chance of any of the opposition leaders raising this issue. It's an old trick and one Enda used to get very angry about when the last government regularly did it to him. Now he's happy to do it to others. But where there is a will there is a way. And when I stood at 10.40 to put my question I had sufficient information to challenge the Taoiseach.

'As we sit here' I said, 'Minister Howlin is in another building announcing the sale of State assets to the tune of €3 billion. And I as a person who has the privilege of leading the Sinn Féin party as part of the Opposition, I must depend on someone sending me a text to tell me this.'

'Is this not a matter that should have come to the chamber for us to discuss?'

It is an indictment of this government that this blog had to give details of this planned sell-off to the chamber instead of Minister Howlin or the Taoiseach. The government was treating the Dáil with discourtesy.

It is also trying to hide its decision to sell-off state assets by claiming that this is part of the agreement with the Troika (the European Commission; the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank) and of the bailout.

This is untrue. There is no commitment in the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika for the sell-off of state assets. Sinn Féin has met with the Troika and they told us that while they believe in privatisation that the Memorandum of Understanding does not bind Fine Gael and Labour to this sell-off of state assets. This is a decision taken by the government.

Claims by the government that this will provide funding for job creation have to be set against the government's decision to give away taxpayers money to unguaranteed bondholders and bad banks, including €3.1 billion to Anglo-Irish bank at the end of March.

The government is selling off successful self-financing state companies such as Bord Gais Éireann's energy business and some elements of ESB's power generation capacity, as well as the possible sale of some assets of Coillte and the states remaining shares in Aer Lingus.

These successful state companies should be part of a job creation strategy that is part and parcel of the solution in creating jobs and delivering growth. They shouldn't be sold off to private interests whose sole interest is profit.

It is a myth that privatisation and deregulation brings competitiveness and efficiency. In reality it was the right wing deregulation strategies of Thatcher and Reagan and others in the 1980s and the growing gap these policies created between the rich and poor which led to the current economic crisis.

The pattern wherever privatisation has been pursued and profitable state companies have been sold off is one of job losses, increased prices for the consumers and big profits for private speculators. Labour should be ashamed of its endorsement of this right wing conservative economic philosophy.

Protecting their class interests

There is an arrogance about this Fine Gael and Labour government, as there was with the last. They talk and think like economists. But unlike good economists who understand the connection between people and the economy, this government doesn't look at the social consequences of its actions and policies.

Do they care about what will happen to pensioners unable to keep their homes warm? Are they are at all interested in the efforts of lone parents to make ends meet on dwindling benefits? Do they worry about children going to school without a warm breakfast or the thousands of families who have had to give up their private health insurance and are now left to the mercies of a public health service in crisis?

There is a fundamental disconnect which allows Fine Gael and Labour deputies in the Dáil to repeatedly vote for policies they know are hurting people and against alternative propositions which can work.

The social consequences are all around them in the cuts to essential public services; the numbers of young people leaving our shores; the cuts to DEIS schools; the slashing of school guidance counsellors; the attack on rural communities through the septic tanks debacle; stealth taxes; the crisis in our health service, and now the imposition of cuts to Community Employment schemes which will in effect see the end of many such schemes.

One news report at the weekend produced new figures that confirmed what many of us have been saying for some time; that the government's austerity taxes are disproportionately impacting on lower and middle income families while those at the other end of the scale are slightly better off.

The figures revealed that anyone earning between €17,542 and €20,000 have seen a 215% increase in their tax and are now paying three times more than they did in 2010.

Those earning between €20,000 and €30,000 are paying 36% more and those earning between €40,000 and €50,000 are paying 23% more.

In stark contrast those earning between €100,000 and €125,000 paid and increase of 6.8% while those between €400,000 and €450,000 paid only 1.1% more.

At the same time at the government is imposing harsh new stealth taxes on low and middle income families it is insisting in handing billions of taxpayers money over to criminal banks – as much as €20 billion last year. Next month €3.1 billion – almost as much as the total the government cut in its pre-Christmas budget – will be paid to Anglo-Irish Bank – a bank that is dead and no longer trades.

People are being squeezed. They can't take anymore. The accumulation of three years of austerity has not fixed the economy but more importantly, it has pushed people too far. And this Government not only plans four more years of the same but has signed up to an Austerity Treaty that will make austerity a legal requirement on any government and impose even more cuts.

That's why hardly a day goes past when one community organisation or another, or group of school children or trade union isn't outside the gates of Leinster House protesting.

Week after week this blog challenges the Taoiseach in the Dáil and other shinners confront his Ministerial colleagues on these vital issues. He and they are immune to the detrimental affects of their decisions.

The same cannot be said about the government party's backbenchers, especially the Labour TDs. They sit and squirm and occasionally shout back but it is clear from their body language that they know their constituency is deeply unhappy with the course of action being pursued by the government.

So, why does the Government believe its economic model and not ours or some other will work?

This is a question which tugs at my mind when common sense, never mind the economic imperative, demands an end to the austerity strategy.

To break it down simply, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore and their friends in Government are for austerity. So too is Fianna Fail.

Their thinking runs like this. There is a deficit. The way to reduce the deficit is to cut spending and increase taxes. They believe the tax to spending cuts ratio must entail more spending cuts. They believe the taxes must be levied across society rather than targeted at high earners. This means low and middle income families taking up the burden of stealth taxes and increases in VAT.

They want spending cuts across all spending areas, rather than targeted at waste etc. They pretend to want to create jobs because they know the public is demanding this but in reality they make no substantial investment available to achieve this. And anyway they believe that the private sector will create the jobs.

Sinn Féin differs from them in many ways but especially in that we do not focus on the deficit alone. We believe the deficit is the result of a crisis. Leaving the causes of that crisis untreated means the crisis won't go away. One cause is a collapse in employment as a result of an economy being built on the back of unsustainable industry, in this case, property. Another is the collapse in the banking sector as a result of corruption and of right wing policies which refused to regulate the banks.

Republicans want to create jobs which in turn will increase the amount of tax going to the state, increase consumer spending (keeping businesses going) and lower social welfare spending. In the meantime, we want a change in the tax system to make it fairer, so we would target high earners, and we want spending waste trimmed.

We also believe that the state should stop paying billions of taxpayers money out to criminal banks.

But for now Fine Gael and Labour are locked into austerity policies. Why. Because they protect their class interests and the status quo.

Jobs Action Plan deeply flawed

At the start of the week the Taoiseach finally launched his 'Jobs Action Plan'. Today this blog asked the Taoiseach to specify clearly the number of citizens he expects this plan will have taken off the live register by March, or June or September or by year's end?

He couldn't answer the question. Why? Because the Taoiseach's 'Plan' contains no new money to create jobs, and no meaningful targets to judge it by or to aim for.

While I welcome the Governments renewed focus on the Jobs crisis and the Taoiseach's decision to take personal responsibility for delivering on this plan, there is a serious flaw in the government's approach to tackling the economic crisis and in particular the creation of jobs.

This is because the government is locked into an austerity programme that is about cutting jobs and funding from the public sector, and is driving down growth through stealth taxes.

Since the Government came to power a year ago there has been a consistent increase in the number of citizens on the live register in county Louth. In January this figure reached 17,775.

There has also been a slight increase in the number of under 25s on the live register in recent months.

This figure would have been much worse but for the 6,000 citizens, mainly young people, who are immigrating each month across the state, including from Louth.

Across the state there are 440,000 people on the Live Register. 200,000 people (an increase in 14.5% over the year) have been unemployed for a year or more.

Business insolvency has increased with over 1640 businesses going under in the last year. This an increase in 7% over the year. These companies leave behind €1.1 billion in debt.

The government's response to this has been to cut, cut and cut. In 2009 Enterprise Ireland received €359.49 million. This year its budget has been reduced to €307.8 million - a reduction of 14.3% over four years.

In 2009 City and County Enterprise Boards received €21.67 million. This year they are set to receive €15 million - a reduction of 30% over four years.

The IDAs funding has been cut by €10 million from last years budget.

It should also be remembered that although Foreign Direct Investment is important, over 72% of our employment is in small and micro sized industries.

The total amount invested by the government in the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Enterprise Boards for this year will be less than half a billion euro.

In stark contrast next month the Anglo Irish Promissory note will cost the people of this state €3.1 billion.

This is the contradiction at the heart of the government's approach to this jobs crisis. You cannot stick to austerity policies, which are further depressing the economy, pushing down growth and restricting its ability to stimulate the economy, while also claiming to have a meaningful policy to create jobs! It won't work.

The government is also engaging in smoke and mirrors by producing job plans that it has launched before – some of them several times. For example, the government has again launched a Micro Finance Loan Fund. This is a much needed initiative but it has been announced now on four occasions and is still not operational after a year.

It is worth noting that the EU PROGRESS MICRO ENTERPRISE Fund has been running since June and Business can avail of up to €25k. The overall programme is worth €200million. This programme needs a sponsor in this state i.e. bank or the credit union sector. The Government has yet to put this in place.

The same approach has been taken by the government to the 'Temporary Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme'. This too has now been announced four times and is still not operational.

What is needed is a different economic strategy which puts citizens first and invests in jobs and growth. In our pre-budget submission Sinn Féin set out a €3.5 billion package of new measures to close the deficit in 2012. This contained a €7 billion jobs stimulus package and a €596 million household stimulus package.

It focussed on job creation, on non-deflationary taxes for those who can afford them, on slashing public spending waste instead of frontline services, and on placing the needs of the Irish people above the needs of banks and bondholders.

This is a costed route by which the economy of this state can be put back on track without imposing hardship on low and middle income families."

Freedom is shaped by people

Last Friday was spent in the Boyne Valley Hotel in Drogheda where key leadership activists from all levels of Sinn Féin and from all parts of the island, Britain, and the USA came together to discuss the party's strategy of building toward a united Ireland.

This blog had the honour of opening the day's proceedings before several keynote speakers set out the multiplicity of tasks before us. Martin McGuinness, Mary Lou McDonald, Caral Ní Chuilin and Lucilita Bhreatnach who has the onerous task of leading our uniting Ireland project, were among those taking part in the workshops and discussions.

The 'away day' took place after a very successful conference in the Millennium Forum in Derry. Almost 1000 people, including a sizeable section of unionist opinion, attended that event. The Millennium conference was the sixth in a series that have attracted large numbers of people from every walk of life to capacity packed halls in Monaghan, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Newry and Derry.



Uniting Ireland is Sinn Féin's key political objective. The Good Friday Agreement and the all-Ireland political institutions are an important step in this direction but more effort is needed.

Suffice to say there are many difficulties and challenges facing us but this blog believes there are also many, many opportunities.

Republicans need to have the confidence to rise to these challenges and to seize the opportunities to advance our cause.

We are republicans, we are socialist republicans. We want to see that type of society shaped on this island. We can't get that until we get rid of partition. Partition has failed the people of Ireland, north and south, the unionists and the rest of us.

A new agreed Ireland based on the rights of citizens is needed. This is best achieved by unity through reconciliation. That means building on the progress that has been made toward uniting Ireland.

So, this isn't just an emotional or patriotic or inspirational dream that we have. This is a very hardnosed realisable objective as part of that process of building a new republic.

It is worth going back to read Tone. Read Connolly and Pearse. Take a half an hour and read what Bobby Sands wrote about these big issues.

What they all had in common, and Connolly famously talked about the re-conquest of Ireland by the Irish people, is a recognition that we can't free Ireland. An elite, a vanguard cannot free Ireland. Obviously there is work for a vanguard. The people who take the initiatives; who take the chances; who make the sacrifices; and who go on the offence, can create the political conditions for change.

But the only true freedom of people is when people shape that for themselves. So this is the big democratic phase of our struggle.

It's also worth reminding ourselves that this isn't 1798. This isn't 1916. This isn't 1981. So what did all these men and women have in common with us?

They took these core principles of republicanism and they modernised them and made them relevant to their own times. That's what we have to do – we have to take the core values of our political ethos and make them relevant to our time.

That's what Friday's meeting was about.

The fact is Sinn Féin is still too small. Republicans therefore have to punch above our weight. We have to find ways to get the maximum effect, of making the maximum contribution, while at the same time we have to build capacity; build the party; educate; and recruit and fundraise. We have to build the necessary critical mass of activism to make a difference in a very positive way.

We also need cohesion. We need joined-up-ness. We need political integration across the island, from the national down to the local of all of our structures, our programmes of work and our agendas.

We also need to tap into the international good will. Sinn Féin and the broad republican struggle enjoy huge support, sympathy, affection and admiration from progressive people throughout the world, not least in our own diaspora, and it is not limited to our own diaspora. Wherever people struggle for freedom they know about Ireland.

As well as doing all these things we also need time to think. That's what today's about. It's about arguing; it's about debating; it's about strategising; it's about finding ways for us to integrate our uniting Ireland project into our daily work.

Wherever that work is the uniting Ireland objective and process must be part of it. This has to become as natural to us as breathing.

A new structure is in place within the party leadership to drive this project. So we will continue to come forward with initiatives, events, publications and so on but that has to be integrated into the party as well.

The key objective is to turn the broad emotional, in many cases passive, support for Irish unity, into core political commitment. It's also to win over a section of unionist opinion and persuade them that Irish unity serves their interests better than partition.

So, Friday's conference was about raising awareness about how the party integrates this big historic project into our work and to agree a consensus around a number of big things that we can do in the upcoming period.

It was a good days work but only the beginning. There will be other 'away days' as this process of integration and cohesion moves up a gear. If you are interested in joining this endeavour than join Sinn Féin and help complete the work of Tone and Emmet, of McCracken and Pearse and Connolly and Sands and Farrell.

Demand a referendum

In his television address on December 4th, just prior to the budget, the Taoiseach said:

"I want to be the Taoiseach who retrieves Ireland's economic sovereignty, and who leads a Government that will help our country to succeed."

Yet last Monday this same Taoiseach signed up to an austerity treaty that hands significant new powers over to the European Court of Justice and European Commission to impose economic policies on democratically elected governments and to impose heavy fines where they believe these policies have not been adhered to.

How can he claim to be for restoring sovereignty while giving away important Irish fiscal and budgetary powers to unelected bureaucrats, and at the same time refusing the people their right to vote on an issue that will significantly affect their lives for years to come?

The austerity treaty confers significant new powers on the European Commission and European Court of Justice to compel member states to alter their fiscal and budgetary policies or face significant fines.

The Treaty is anti-growth and anti-jobs.

If ratified, it will place an economic straight jacket on this state for decades.
Its debt and deficit limits are draconian and will mean decades of austerity imposed on a people crying out for investment in jobs and growth.

No one should be surprised by the Taoiseach's support for the Treaty. He has long advocated cuts to public services and stealth taxes as the way of tackling the financial crisis.

In addition it is abundantly clear that fearful of the anger of the Irish people to this strategy the government negotiated a treaty text that would avoid the necessity to hold a referendum.

A high level EU official confirmed this in the Irish Times on Wednesday.

So too did the Tánaiste, speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs. He confirmed that government negotiators actively sought to weaken that text and to put in the words "preferably constitutional" in order to avoid the requirement to put this proposition before the people.

But rather than face up to this and tell the public the truth the Taoiseach and his colleagues are now passing the buck to a cabinet colleague – the Attorney General – to decide whether a referendum is necessary. They already know the answer. They negotiated a treaty text to avoid a referendum!!!

This is one time when TDs and Seanadóirí from the every party and none need to put the people above party self-interest and come out publicly to demand a referendum.
This blog believes that if it is ratified this austerity treaty will have a profound and adverse impact on the Irish economy and people for decades to come.

Thursday saw the Irish Central Bank downgrade the growth forecast for 2012 by 1.3%. This is the sixth downgrade of Irish growth forecasts for 2012.

Thursday's figures represent a serious challenge to the government. The Minister for Finance is on the record in response to questions from Pearse Doherty that a 1% reduction in GDP as a rule would see a loss of €800 million in revenue from the state.

This may well force the government to introduce a mini budget to make more cuts.
It already plans to cut €8.6 Billion from the economy in the next three years to meet the Troika Deficit target of 3%. Monday's austerity treaty demands that this be reduced to a 0.5% target. This is predicted to mean a further €6 billion in cuts and new taxes!!

What is needed is a strategy for jobs and growth through stimulus.

The summit noted that there are 23 million citizens unemployed across the EU but not one additional cent has been allocated to job creation.

But there are solutions.

Sinn Féin is for:

Investment in jobs and growth. We have a National Pensions Reserve Fund with €5.3 billion. Combine this to the resources of the European Investment Bank and utilise that to invest in various projects, for example, the roll-out of next generation broadband.

Cleanse the European Banking system of toxic debts through a new round of rigorous stress tests and deleveraging followed by recapitalisation where necessary funded by the European Central Bank.

There should be debt-restructuring agreements for over indebted economies involving debt-write-downs to assist them return to debt-sustainability. This would allow the state to end the €3.1 billion annual payment to Anglo which will cost the Irish taxpayers up to €76 billion before it concludes in 20 years.

Within existing EU treaty provisions the European Council must ensure that the European Central Bank takes all necessary action to stabilise sovereign bond interest rates and ensure market access for all member states.

On the day after the treaty was agreed the EU released its youth unemployment statistics. Nearly one third of young people in Ireland and almost half of Spanish young people out of work.

Thousands of young people have to leave the State every week to try to make a living elsewhere.

This austerity treaty will only make this dire situation worse.

Demand a referendum.

Slán

Wee Harry was buried yesterday. Hundreds of his friends and comrades from all parts of the island and further afield came to pay their final respects to a good friend, a generous friend, a hero.

Martin McGuinness paid a wonderful tribute to Harry earlier in the day at the mass that was celebrated by Fr. Matt Wallace. Grainne Holland gave fine renditions in Irish and English.



Here's some of what I said:
"This is St. Brigid's day, the celtic day, the first day of spring. St. Brigid was a mighty woman and it's very appropriate because Harry had a great grá for the women in his life, and for Irish women in struggle.

The big loss here is Kathy's and I want to acknowledge her mother who is here as well. Harry called her granny. And other brothers and sisters of Kathy who are here also.

Harry's immediate family; his brother Tony the Master, Seamus, John and Joe and his sister Lily.

And then Áine and Tommy and KC. And Máire and Kieran, Gabrielle and Harry óg; Ellen and Steve, Louise, Niall and Niamh with Colin, and Kieran eile with Mairead, and Aisling with the Wolf.

I knew Harry over 40 years and for those of you who were in the chapel Martin McGuinness spoke for me in all that he said; except that he said that I wasn't a good singer and Harry actually thought I was a brilliant singer.

Harry was also Colette's best friend.

That friendship was forged in the dark days after Kathleen Largey died. Harry was left with Áine and Máire, and Colette was there with Gearoid and the three of them were reared to a large extent together.

Everybody here has their own little story to tell about Harry. But in all the ins and outs, and ups and downs of our lives, as Martin said of his clann, and of my family's life, our lives have been tied up with his.

A year or so after Kathleen's death he went down to Galway. And what could a fella do. Her hair was blond and her eyes were blue; and that was it and along came five more.
Kathy must have the heart of a lioness. She didn't know the north.

Belfast was a city under occupation at that time. Collusion was going full blast.
And even worse she had to take on Áine and Máire.

She did and she came to live among us.

And I have to say that in the last months she has been a rock, for Harry, for all of us and for her family.

She is one mighty woman.

Harry was born in 1944, which was less than 30 years after the 1916 Rising.
He was from Ballymacarrett and that stayed with him.

At the time of partition the people of that little community had been abandoned but they were such a resilient and versatile people.

The 'master' (his brother) taught him his trade.

He became a plumber and was active in the trade union movement.

Now this was the 60s. Belfast was a mean city.

Harry started to be influenced by members of the old communist party some of whom worked in the shipyard and was on May Day marches.

He joined the Army but always retained that sense of acute progressive social consciousness.

And the notion that all struggle is about people, particularly working people.
He also retained friends from amongst our protestant and unionist neighbours.

Through all the 30 years of conflict there would be someone in Harry's house visiting from Sandy Row, or the lower Shankill or the Donegal Road or East Belfast.
He had a great gift for friendship.

One of the things he taught me is that friendship is greater than anything else; more important than anything else; transcends anything else. Is bigger than politics. Bigger than differences.

And he had a gift of giving that friendship to people and of connecting to people in a very quiet and unassuming way.
We were in jail together for a short time. And like many others there are lots of stories of our time behind the wire. But its too cold today to take you through those.
Harry travelled with me a wee bit in more recent times.

He bought me a big green coat when we were going to Downing Street so that we would look ok when we were meeting the Brits. He bought Martin McGuinness a big black coat.

And then when I was elected the TD for Louth he bought me this coat because he thought the other one was looking a bit threadbare.

He was generous to a fault.

He must have been the worst businessman in the world. Because he was always helping people. Very frequently when work needed to be done in the house, and I hope no one takes offences at this, he would engage recovering alcoholics, recovering gamblers and recovering republicans, with very limited skills to do plumbing and renovation and other repairs.

We went to Gaza most recently. It's a brutal place. Worse than anything ever happened here in this city.

I can't think of circumstances except in Cromwellian times here that people are being treated in Gaza City and the Gaza strip.

We stayed for a couple of days and we met dozens of groups and we were very well receuived.

And we had to go and meet the Prime Minister Ismail Haniy of Hamas and of course he was target for attack by the Israelis so we were taken away secretly to meet him.
And our delegraiton presented themselves. Ted Howell, Sinn Féin; Richard McAuley, Sinn Féin. And all the Palestinians looked over to Harry and he said I'm their military wing.

So, I'll miss him a huge amount, and so will Colette, and so will Gearoid but of course as I said at the beginning the big loss is Kathy's.

The girls - Harry had a special unique relationship with every one of these seven girls and also with the twin, and with Nicky.

It's a sign of the man that he was able to do that.

We were walking, myself and Bill and Tangus and Brendan and Harry used togo for a walk on the Hill up here behind us and he couldn't get a breath.

That's how we knew he was sick.

A friend of mine who isn't a republican but has a huge affection for Harry said he'll get six months if he's lucky and that's when it hit me like a sledge hammer.

And Harry faced up to that. He could have his ups and downs. He could be a bit depressed in himself at different times but he was a star.

He was a hero.

He prepared everybody for what was coming.

And on Saturday last we had a big Uniting Ireland conference in Derry and Harry had wanted to go and of course he wasn't well enough.

And I went up to see him before we went.

And when we were driving up I wrote this little verse:

Ar an slí go Doire
Daichead bliain i ndiaidh Domhnach na Fola
Níl Harry liom
Bhí sé ina luí i mBéal Feirste ar maidin
Ag caint faoi sean uaireanta liom
'S é ag fanacht sa bhaile anois
Ag fanacht is ag fanacht
Agus muidinne ag dul trasna ag Kyber Pass go Dungiven
Sneachta ar na sléibhte
Agus an spéir liath le fearthainn
Is Ted ina chodladh, Tangus ciuin, is Bill ag tiomaint
Ar an slí go Doire
Gan Harry
Tá súil agam go mbeidh sé ann nuair a thiocfaidh muid arais arís
Daichead bliain i ndiaidh Domhnach na Fola

Harry died well.

We were all with him.

And he died bravely.

He also said to me – because he could be quite caustic at times – youse will not be too long behind me.

I hope he's wrong about that.

To Kathy and especially to the girls and the gar paistí – your Daddy was great – your Daideo was brilliant – your husband was wonderful your brother was smashing.

Ní chifidh a leitheid an arís.

Slán Harry

Ravensdale Residents reject septic tank legislation

Councillor Tomás Sharkey, Councillor Jim Loughran, mise agus Councillor Edel Corrigan

Monday night was cold. Then that could be said of most nights recently. But it was especially sharp in Ravensdale, in the Cooley Mountains, on the border between south and north.

Ravensdale is one of those idyllic places. It's full of history and culture. A mix of mountain, forest, long walks and a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water. On the north by Carlingford Lough. To the east by the Irish Sea, and to the south by Dundalk Bay.

I have been in and out of it for decades and I never tire of driving or walking its roads and lanes.

And like many rural parts of the south many local residents depend on septic tanks to deal with sewage waste and are now facing additional costs and the possibility of significant bills for upgrading or replacing these systems.

This blog wrote about this issue a few weeks ago. I return to it briefly because on Monday night over 100 people braved the cold and packed into Ravensdale Community Centre for a public meeting on septic tanks organised by Sinn Féin.

It was an opportunity for the shinners to set out our efforts on this issue, listen to the views of those directly affected by the government's legislation and to plan for future action.

Local councillor Jim Loughran opened the community centre, turned on the heating, helped set out the seats and then chaired the meeting. Councillors Edel Corrigan and Tómas Sharkey joined this blog on the platform.



The meeting lasted just over a hour. It was clear from the outset that people are angry.

Angry that the government is foisting another charge on families already faced with a host of other stealth taxes from the household charge to the universal social charge to VAT increases and more.

Angry that urban communities have seen billions of euro put into improving or constructing new waste water systems – which rural taxpayers helped pay for – while rural dwellers are expected to carry the financial burden on septic tank improvements.

Angry that the EU Waste Directive (75/442/EEC) regarding domestic wastewater disposed of via onsite wastewater treatment systems, was imposed in 1975 and despite Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and Labour all having been in power since then they did nothing about it.

Angry that the government, which was elected in part on a commitment to be more accountable, open and transparent, refused to listen to the concerns of rural dwellers, ignored the arguments and amendments put by the opposition parties and guillotined the Dáil debate and rushed through the Water Services legislation.

Everyone at Monday night's meeting recognised the need to protect our environment, our water and the health and welfare of citizens. No one had any objection to registering septic tanks and inspecting and upgrading where necessary.

But to force rural households to bear the financial brunt of this when billions of public money was spent on urban systems and at a time when families are finding it difficult to make ends meet, was criticised by speakers as discriminatory and inequitable.

In my contribution to the conversation I explained that the government will publish in February the date for the commencement of a four week consultation period. Sinn Fein will make a submission to the consultation which will call on the government to:
• Provide clear standards to be applied to septic tanks.
• The need for a fully funded grants scheme.
• Withdraw the threat of criminalising rural communities.

It is very important that the government receive thousands, tens of thousands of submissions from groups and individuals. I asked those in Ravensdale to make submissions to the Consultation once the date and its remit is known and to encourage their relatives and friends and neighbours to do the same. Some said they would organise public meetings. They also agreed to lobby Fine Gael and Labour TDs, and the Minister for the Environment.

The legislation may have been passed but the campaign around the rights of rural dwellers and septic tank charges is far from over.

'Wee' Harry Thompson

Harry Thompson



Richard; wee Harry and Gerry at the separation Wall in Bethlehem



Congress member Richie Neal; Billy Tranghese and wee Harry at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in the Waterfront last September


Harry Thompson died yesterday at home surrounded by his family and friends.

I have known wee Harry for over 40 years. We were always close.

Harry was a republican activist for most of his adult life. He was a very proud son of Ballymacarrett in East Belfast. He was born in Bryson Street in 1944, the youngest of eight sons and two daughters to Elizabeth and Arthur Thompson.

At 15 he left school and went to work as an apprentice in the heating and plumbing trade. He claims that during this time he worked in every hospital in Belfast.

In 1962, as the 50's campaign was coming to an end, Harry joined the republican struggle. He was recruited into the IRA by Liam Mulholland, who was himself a well known and long standing republican activist. Liam had been involved in the Tan War and in every subsequent campaign and was one of over a hundred republican prisoners who escaped from Dundalk prison during the civil war when its wall was breached in an explosion.

Harry was also active in the Sinn Féin. In 1964 Sinn Fein was a banned organisation. But the party stood candidates in the October Westminster general election campaign under the banner of 'Republican' in each of the 12 constituencies. Harry was active in east Belfast where David McConnell was the candidate. They won almost 2,000 votes to add to the just over 100,000 total taken across the north.

Despite a credible 15.9% of the vote for republican candidates the 1964 election is best remembered for Ian Paisley's threat to take the Tricolour out of the election office window in Divis Street and for the days of rioting that followed the violent removal of the national flag by the RUC.

Harry remained active throughout the sixties. It was a turbulent time within Irish republicanism as efforts were made to learn the lessons of the failed 50s campaign and to map a new way forward.

At the end of that decade Harry briefly went to England. On his return in 1971 he was soon back in the thick of the struggle. In 1973 he was involved in establishing Green Cross which over the years did amazing work in providing financial and other support for the families of political prisoners.

In 1974 he was interned and he was held in Long Kesh until December 1975 when he was among the last of the internees to be released.

In June 1976 Harry married Kathleen Largey, who was the voice of The Flying Column, and one of the finest ballad singers of her generation.

Kathleen, a member of Cumann na mBan, sang patriotic songs and ballads that told the story of heroic resistance to the British military occupation in Ireland.

Her first husband Eamonn Largey was killed in a car accident in July 1973. He and Kathleen had two daughters. Áine was about 18 months old while Máire was six weeks.

Harry and Kathleen married shortly after she had been diagnosed with cancer. He was a devoted husband and father to the two girls and together Harry and Kathleen worked hard in support of the political prisoners. Kathleen died in February 1979.

Throughout this time Harry remained a full time activist. He was also a small businessman working in the leisure industry.

In 1980 he moved to Galway where he stayed active in the republican struggle.

Four years later he married Kathy Lydon, a Galway woman and they moved back to Belfast. Harry and Kathy have five beautiful daughters over whom Harry doted; Ellen; Louise; Mairead; Niamh and Aisling.

He and Kathy were also blessed with three grandchildren – Harry óg, Gabrielle and K.C. He is also survived by his sister Lily, brothers Seamus, Tony the Master, Joe and John.

From then until now Harry has remained an active republican. He was a trusted friend. When John Hume and I started our talks in the 1980s we used to meet regularly in Harry's home.

He has travelled with me to the USA, to meetings in Downing Street, and three years ago he was part of a Sinn Féin delegation which visited the Middle East, including Gaza.

Harry was very well known in republican circles throughout Ireland. He was a quiet, soft spoken unassuming person but was fierce in his support and advocacy of the republican struggle, and totally dedicated to its successful conclusion.

On behalf of republicans everywhere I want to extend my deepest condolences to Kathy, Áine, Máire, Ellen; Louise; Mairead; Niamh and Aisling.
Go ndeanfaidh dia trocaire ar a n'anam dílis.

Bloody Sunday – The untold story

This weekend I was in Derry. Sinn Féin held the latest of our very successful Uniting Ireland conferences which drew a capacity crowd in the Millennium Forum.

Derry is a beautiful city, full of history and culture and art. And the people are great.

But for many people, particularly in the USA, the name Derry is synonymous with the terrible events that occurred there on January 30th 1972. On that day – exactly 40 years ago – British Paratroopers shot dead 14 civil rights marchers and wounded others in what has passed into history as Bloody Sunday.

For the 39 years following that atrocity the families and the people of Derry campaigned for truth and justice for those who died and were injured. At great personal cost they organised and marched and lobbied.

In this they received invaluable support from Irish America. Noraid, the AoH, Clann na nGael and many others enthusiastically and relentlessly lobbied US politicians. Irish people throughout the globe and Irish America in particular in the Arts, academia, the labour movement supported the families.

Motions of support were passed in local and state legislatures and hearings were held in Washington. It was a long drawn out battle as successive British government's lied, opposed, and obstructed every effort by the families to get the truth.

The British Widgery Inquiry had blamed the organizers of the march, the victims and the IRA. Widgery accused the dead of being 'gunmen and bombers'. According to the British the Paras actions were legal.

The Saville report in June 2010 finally binned that lie and established that the victims were innocent. The Saville report was a vindication for the families who had campaigned for so long. It also concluded that the organizers of the march were not to blame for what happened. Saville decided that the IRA or members of the IRA had not taken any action that precipitated events.

Saville acknowledged that British soldiers fired the first shot and continued firing without any provocation. He dismissed any suggestion that soldiers acted out of panic or fear or confusion. Their actions were "unjustified and unjustifiable".

But Saville 's conclusions are not the end of the matter. It is clear that the report tries very hard to limit blame for what happened to the soldiers on the ground who carried out the killings. In doing so it seeks to exonerate their military and political masters.

And it is here that Saville fails. The report makes only a tokenisitic nod towards the British Army command and there is minimal criticism of the Para commander who was present in Derry.

The reality is that the Paras were acting within a political and military regime constructed by their political masters and by the top generals.

In the months before Bloody Sunday a secret British Cabinet committee – GEN 42 - had been discussing policy in the north. It was chaired by the British Prime Minister Ted Heath. It involved senior British Army figures and senior politicians, including Quentin Hogg, Lord Hailsham, who was on the far right of the Tory party, and was regarded as a hard militarist.

In 1971, during an interview in which he was asked about US Senator Ted Kennedy Hailsham had banged the table with his fist and cried; "Those Roman Catholic bawstards! How dare they interfere!"

Over 20 years later Michael Carver, who had been the British Army Chief of the General Staff, and was a member of GEN42 at that time, admitted that Heath had wanted soldiers to be able to shoot citizens irrespective of whether they were armed or not.

He claimed that Heath had been told by Hailsham, who as Lord Chancellor was the head of the British judiciary, that this was legal.

During a meeting of GEN42 on October 6 1971 – four months before Bloody Sunday - it is reported that Heath said: "the first priority should be the defeat of the gunman by military means and that we would have to accept whatever political penalties were inevitable".

Mindful of the public and international response to state killings and the legal consequences GEN 42 debated at length how best to cover-up any killings with Carver arguing that in a colonial situation the British army restores order but not law and order. It was therefore free to do whatever was necessary to protect British interests.

Others didn't like this approach. So Hailsham suggested that citizens involved in rebellion or who resisted state measures to deal with that rebellion, were guilty of treason and therefore the state was free to deal with them.

All of this dovetailed into the approach being articulated by Britain's foremost military strategist Frank Kitson. He had served in almost every colonial war fought by the British after World War 2 including Belfast in the early 70's. Kitson defined the 'enemy' as subversives and insurgents and subversives included people who seek political change or reform by peaceful means.

He argued that to win the state must bring together all of its resources and agencies into one overarching strategy. These included everything from law and order, through policing, to government departments like planning and education, to propaganda and the manipulation of the media. Everything had to be subservient to the needs of achieving a military victory, including killing citizens.

This was the political and military climate in which General Robert Ford, who was the British Commander of Land Forces in the north of Ireland, wrote a memo after visiting Derry on January 7 1972.

In his memo Ford states that he is "coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders amongst the DYH (Derry young hooligans)".

In Derry on January 30 1972, a senior correspondent from the London Times was standing next to Ford when paratroopers were ordered into the Bogside. Brian Cashinelle reported Ford, waving his swagger stick and shouting "Go on the Paras, go and get them, go on, go and get them".

However, in his report Saville ring-fences blame around the small number of Paras who shot the marchers and attaches no blame to the generals and the politicians who made it happen. That is a fault. Especially when one considers the role of the British state in collusion, and in other similar atrocities like the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the Ballymurphy Massacre.

It is also worth noting that Hailsham's son Douglas Hogg was the British Minister who in 1989 claimed in the British Parliament that there were solicitors in the north who "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA". Weeks later human rights lawyer Pat Finucane was murdered by a UDA death squad made up entirely of British Army and RUC Special Branch agents!




Finally, the weekend's Uniting Ireland conference in Derry demonstrates the great resilience of the citizens of that fine city and the work that is going on to unite and re-imagine a new Ireland.

It is also proof that British military policy – including the murders of Bloody Sunday have failed. For that we give thanks to the Bloody Sunday families and everyone who supported them.

Attacking rural communities

There are many issues exercising the minds of citizens in this part of the island at this time. Today, Wednesday, the government will hand €1.25 billion of taxpayers money over what are called unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders. These are people who bought bonds in Anglo-Irish bank when the boom times were booming on the basis if it all went belly up there was no moral or legal obligation for them to be paid back.

They are financial gamblers on the world economic market.

The Fine Gael and Labour government are insisting that they must be paid. The deference being shown attached to these bondholders by the government contrasts sharply with its attitude to citizens. It is also at odds with what it said was its attitude before last year's general election.

One year ago, in January of last year, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore criticising the then Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Brian Cowen, said: 'If the Taoiseach's government knew Anglo Irish Bank was insolvent and he asked the Irish taxpayers to bail it out and to pay the cost we are now paying for it, that was and is economic treason."

If it was treason for Cowen why is it not treason for Kenny and Gilmore? They know that Anglo Irish is a toxic bank. They know the huge financial burden it is imposing on citizens. €4 billion was given by Fianna Fáil to Anglo in 2009; €3.1 billion was given last year; and €3.1 billion will be given in March. That's over €10 billion of taxpayers money being paid over to a criminal bank that is now dead. By 2031 the total cost will be close to €80 billion.

To put this in context. Just before Christmas the government cut huge swathes of money out of the health system. The impact of this means the loss of 3.300 jobs, the closure of up to ten public nursing homes, and the loss of half a million home help hours. Yesterday Gerry Burke, a Consultant Obstetrician in Limerick warned that the loss of 47 midwives at the Mid-Western Regional Maternity Hospital in Limerick next month may cost lives.

The money that is being given away today would have more than paid for the cuts to health.

And then there is the issue of septic tanks. Not something most readers of the Andersonstown News would be familiar with. Like urban dwellers the length of this island you are connected to a mains sewage system.

But not everyone is that lucky and before I comment further let me declare an interest in this issue in that I have a septic tank – albeit a relatively new one in Donegal.

In this state there are 1,462,296 private dwellings of which 418,033, or just over a quarter, have septic tanks. The Water Services Amendment Bill is expected to be passed by the Oireachtas tomorrow thanks to the overwhelming majority enjoyed by the coalition by Fine Gael and Labour.

The government's legislation imposes a €50 registration fee for a mandatory inspection of septic tanks which is on top of a €100 household charge recently imposed on all households. But this is only part of the story.

There's also the possibility of a €200 fee for follow-up inspections and should the inspections find that the tank is not up to EU standards then those 400,000 plus rural households could find themselves with a repair or replacement bill than could be anywhere between 8,000 and 15,000 euro.

Rural communities are outraged and justly so. In the last decade in the region of €3 billion was spent by the government on waste water services throughout the south. All of it went to providing urban services. What rural dwellers want to know is why is that urban households can have their sewage upgraded out of public monies but they have to pay for theirs. Is that fair?

And it's not as if this issue sneaked up on the government. The EU directive which is at the heart of this issue came into effect in 1975 but successive governments failed to deal with it. But now it's all rush, rush, rush, with the government trying to scare the public and brow beat the opposition parties by claiming that if it fails to pass this legislation by February 3rd the state will be liable to an initial fine of €2.7 million and €26,173 each day after that until it implements the EU directive.

This isn't quite true. The European Commission has said that the European Court of Justice won't make a ruling on this issue until at least the summer and maybe even later than that. So there is time for a proper debate.

Sinn Féin proposed a series of amendments to the government's Bill. Our goal was to remove any cost to the householder by forcing the government to come forward with a fair grants system that would ensure that people in rural Ireland would not have to bear the cost for the failure of successive Governments on this issue.

If necessary the government should apply to the EU for finance which they should match to grant aid households in upgrading their septic tanks.

However, the government moved to guillotine the debate and to close down any proper discussion of this issue.

In addition the Minister for the Environment has added significantly to peoples' worries and concerns by his failure to provide clarity for householders as to what the standards will be that will now be applied to Septic Tanks and Treatment Systems.
In my own constituency of Louth and right across rural Ireland this issue has caused genuine anger amongst people.

It is right that government protects our environment and the health and welfare of citizens. Registering septic tanks makes sense. Inspecting these tanks also makes sense. But to force rural households to bear the financial brunt of this when billions of public money – which rural taxpayers contributed to – has been spent on urban systems is not equitable.

It is not right that rural householders should be discriminated in this way.

There is now a widespread campaign against paying the registration fee and opposing the government's plans. The passing of the Water Services Bill will not be the end of the matter.