Gerry Adams's Blog, page 87
February 19, 2011
Paying rent to the British for Leaders Graves
The general election in the south of Ireland has entered its final week. This blog has tramped the byways and streets and lanes in many previous campaigns in this part of the country, including in local government, EU referendum and Dáil elections.
Many years ago I campaigned in Louth when Paddy Agnew was the H-Block candidate and more recently for Arthur Morgan.
But this is my first time as a candidate. Consequently the perspective is quite different.
This blog is also used to drawing the fire of political opponents and others. That goes with the territory. But this time it took on an added intensity. Probably because as the FFers and Labour have been squeezed in the opinion polls – and this blog doesn't take any great interest in such polls – they have each become increasingly desperate to prevent their votes slipping away toward Sinn Féin.
This is one reason why Micheál Martin decided to let loose on this blog on the issue of the IRA. Elements of the media joined in also.
Regular readers will remember that when I announced my candidature for Louth and East Meath I warned there would be a tsunami of media and political vitriol. So, no surprises there.
The big issue in the campaign is the economy. And understandably so. It is in a mess. 440,000 people out of work. Thousands more jobs at risk. A thousand people, mainly young people, leaving the state every week.
The FFers and the Greens oversaw the collapse of the financial system and the banks. They then concocted a banking bailout with the IMF and the EU that will bankrupt the state if it is allowed to stand. They have heaped billions of private bankers debt on to the taxpayer. We cannot afford it.
The other main opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, have said they will implement this bailout. Budget 2011 contained €6 billion in cuts. All of them have agreed to a series of additional budgets which will further impoverish working families in this state in the years ahead.
While the crisis in the economy is understandably the most pressing issue at this time, fundamental political reform and the creation of a 21st century fit for purpose political system is also absolutely essential.
Did you know that nearly a hundred and fifty years after the land war there are thousands of citizens who still pay rent to abstentee landlords. And to its shame, almost 100 years after the Rising and the Proclamation of the Republic at Easter 1916, the Irish government is still paying rent on iconic state buildings, including Government Buildings, and Arbour Hill where the 1916 leaders are buried. For what died the sons of Roisin?
These ground rents should be abolished.
But all of this is a mark of the failure of the political system in Dublin. It has failed the people in so many ways. It is unaccountable and protects those who have abused public office.
This blog believes there is widespread public support for fundamental political and constitutional reform, including reform of local government.
Many of those entitled to vote do not do so, particularly young people and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This must change.
Many of the changes Sinn Féin advocates in the south could also be applied in the north. For example there should be automatic registration for voters, the voting age should be reduced to 16, there should be a focus on voter education and the right to vote should be extended to Irish citizens living and working abroad.
Sinn Féin would also establish an all-Ireland Constitutional Forum to bring forward proposals to amend the Irish constitution so that it is fully reflective of the values and aspirations of the Irish people today. And a template for a future 32-county Republic.
This would draw upon the equality provisions in the Good Friday Agreement to safeguard citizens' rights and should be soundly based on democratic principles and international human rights standards. This would be put to the people in referendum.
Reform must focus on ensuring that political institutions are inclusive, accessible and accountable.
If you want to see political opportunism in action the reader need look no further than at the eagerness with which political parties, who happily worked and milked the system for years without considering reform, are now falling over themselves trying to convince the electorate that they really are serious about changing the system.
They all failed to do so when they had the chance.
The reality is that those in power have always protected their own interests. The citizens of this state deserve political reform, full rights,equality and fairness – that is what Sinn Féin is committed to delivering.
February 17, 2011
State colluded in Clerical Abuse
There has been an avalanche of exposes in recent years of scandals in Church and state. Clerical sex abuse, the mistreatment of children in the industrial school system and the failure of the state to prevent all of this and to protect victims, has caused great distress.
Citizens have been bombarded by tragic accounts of children whose childhood was brutally stolen by predatory clerics, and of vulnerable adults, especially young girls and women reduced to the status of slaves in some Catholic Church institutions.
As the Ryan Report revealed great hurt was inflicted in the name of social conformity and religious doctrine. The Irish state was complicit in this.
But the Catholic Church was not the only Church which ran institutions, in association with the state, and which abused children and adults.
Niall Meehan, an academic researcher from Griffith College in Dublin has written extensively about the horrifying litany of abuse which took place in Bethany Home in Rathgar, in south Dublin, in the period 1922 to 1972.
Bethany Home was run by an independent protestant group as an evangelical institution for unmarried mothers and their children. It also took in prostitutes, alcoholics, and young people under 17. Women and young people convicted in the courts were also sent there. In 1945 the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin recommended it as a place of detention.
Bethany's management committee included clergy who were part of a Church of Ireland body whose objective was to convert Catholics – the Society of Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics (ICM-RC).
After February 1935 management committee members had to sign a 'Doctrinal Pledge'. It declared 'the utter depravity of human nature ... and the eternal punishment of the wicked.'
Nursing staff had to be evangelical missionaries.
Thus far it has been established that at least 219 children died between 1922 when the Home opened and 1949, two-thirds between 1935-44. They were buried in unmarked graves. Some died from marasumus – a form of malnutrition.
As Niall Meehan has said: 'A desire to save more souls accompanied inadequate provision for the bodies they inhabited.'
In 1939 reports from St. Ultan's and the Coombe Hospitals revealed that children from Bethany suffered from a range of medical problems including, rickets, scalding, whooping coughs and conjunctivitis.
The failure of the Irish state to properly monitor and manage conditions in Bethany was exposed in reports by the then Deputy Chief Medical Adviser. He explained away neglect criticised by his own inspectors and higher than average mortality by claiming that 'it is well recognised that a large number of illegitimate children are delicate ... '
Another aspect of Bethany's function was the export of children to similar organisations in England, including Barnardo's; the Salvation Army and Fegan's Homes for Boys. From these and from Catholic organisations many children were then transferred on to colonies of the British Empire. Many were sent direct from the north of Ireland. Fegan's for example, described itself as a 'Protestant, evangelical undenominational' home. It advertised the fact that it received 'destitute and orphan boys to educate and train in farm work for migration to Canada'.
Under the Empire Settlement Act of 1922 the British government could pay up to 50% of the cost of transporting a child to one of its colonies. By 1931 Barnardo's had deported 30,000, almost one third of the 100,000 children transplanted by that time. Many of these children were simply stolen from their parents who were told they were dead or adopted. The children who were never adopted were told similar lies.
The Imperialist mindset which underpinned all of this is evident in a letter carried in the London Times in April 1928 in which David C Lamb the Commissioner of the Salvation Army said 'it is particularly refreshing to find Australia is keeping her doors wide open, and, at the same time, is, of course, taking every reasonable precaution to build imperially by selecting children coming from a clean, healthy British stock.'
The exploitation, physical and sexual abuse these stolen children received was horrendous. A film on the subject, Oranges and Sunshine, by Ken Loach's son, Jim, starring Emily Watson, will be released on April 1.
The Irish state refused to send Irish children to Australia, but knew they were being sent Britain and did not interfere. The Irish state also knew that large numbers of children were dying from preventable diseases and neglect and abuse but did nothing. But Bethany Home and other similar agencies run by religious groups allowed the state to off load its responsibilities through the provision of a cheap private welfare system.
The survivors of Bethany have called on the Irish government to accept responsibility for what happened in Bethany Home. On a day last June that former residents met in Mount Jerome Cemetery to remember those buried there in unmarked graves, the Irish government refused to add Bethany Home to the government's scheme of redress for those who suffered in institutions.
Citizens have been bombarded by tragic accounts of children whose childhood was brutally stolen by predatory clerics, and of vulnerable adults, especially young girls and women reduced to the status of slaves in some Catholic Church institutions.
As the Ryan Report revealed great hurt was inflicted in the name of social conformity and religious doctrine. The Irish state was complicit in this.
But the Catholic Church was not the only Church which ran institutions, in association with the state, and which abused children and adults.
Niall Meehan, an academic researcher from Griffith College in Dublin has written extensively about the horrifying litany of abuse which took place in Bethany Home in Rathgar, in south Dublin, in the period 1922 to 1972.
Bethany Home was run by an independent protestant group as an evangelical institution for unmarried mothers and their children. It also took in prostitutes, alcoholics, and young people under 17. Women and young people convicted in the courts were also sent there. In 1945 the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin recommended it as a place of detention.
Bethany's management committee included clergy who were part of a Church of Ireland body whose objective was to convert Catholics – the Society of Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics (ICM-RC).
After February 1935 management committee members had to sign a 'Doctrinal Pledge'. It declared 'the utter depravity of human nature ... and the eternal punishment of the wicked.'
Nursing staff had to be evangelical missionaries.
Thus far it has been established that at least 219 children died between 1922 when the Home opened and 1949, two-thirds between 1935-44. They were buried in unmarked graves. Some died from marasumus – a form of malnutrition.
As Niall Meehan has said: 'A desire to save more souls accompanied inadequate provision for the bodies they inhabited.'
In 1939 reports from St. Ultan's and the Coombe Hospitals revealed that children from Bethany suffered from a range of medical problems including, rickets, scalding, whooping coughs and conjunctivitis.
The failure of the Irish state to properly monitor and manage conditions in Bethany was exposed in reports by the then Deputy Chief Medical Adviser. He explained away neglect criticised by his own inspectors and higher than average mortality by claiming that 'it is well recognised that a large number of illegitimate children are delicate ... '
Another aspect of Bethany's function was the export of children to similar organisations in England, including Barnardo's; the Salvation Army and Fegan's Homes for Boys. From these and from Catholic organisations many children were then transferred on to colonies of the British Empire. Many were sent direct from the north of Ireland. Fegan's for example, described itself as a 'Protestant, evangelical undenominational' home. It advertised the fact that it received 'destitute and orphan boys to educate and train in farm work for migration to Canada'.
Under the Empire Settlement Act of 1922 the British government could pay up to 50% of the cost of transporting a child to one of its colonies. By 1931 Barnardo's had deported 30,000, almost one third of the 100,000 children transplanted by that time. Many of these children were simply stolen from their parents who were told they were dead or adopted. The children who were never adopted were told similar lies.
The Imperialist mindset which underpinned all of this is evident in a letter carried in the London Times in April 1928 in which David C Lamb the Commissioner of the Salvation Army said 'it is particularly refreshing to find Australia is keeping her doors wide open, and, at the same time, is, of course, taking every reasonable precaution to build imperially by selecting children coming from a clean, healthy British stock.'
The exploitation, physical and sexual abuse these stolen children received was horrendous. A film on the subject, Oranges and Sunshine, by Ken Loach's son, Jim, starring Emily Watson, will be released on April 1.
The Irish state refused to send Irish children to Australia, but knew they were being sent Britain and did not interfere. The Irish state also knew that large numbers of children were dying from preventable diseases and neglect and abuse but did nothing. But Bethany Home and other similar agencies run by religious groups allowed the state to off load its responsibilities through the provision of a cheap private welfare system.
The survivors of Bethany have called on the Irish government to accept responsibility for what happened in Bethany Home. On a day last June that former residents met in Mount Jerome Cemetery to remember those buried there in unmarked graves, the Irish government refused to add Bethany Home to the government's scheme of redress for those who suffered in institutions.
February 13, 2011
People Power – Nothing is impossible
Despite the intensity of the general election campaign this blog has been watching the extraordinary events unfolding each day in Egypt. It has been a remarkable journey which culminated in the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak.
Who would have thought it? A few weeks ago there seemed little evidence of dissent within Arab states about the absence of democracy. And then in January, in Tunisia, one person, an angry, unemployed young man Mohammed Bouazizi, burned himself to death. He was protesting at the dire economic conditions in his country and the dictatorship of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Weeks of protests and many more deaths led to the toppling of the regime after 23 years in power. Ben Ali fled the country.
The media reporting of this, including the televising of images all across the Arab world of thousands of people on the streets, and of riot police and secret police beating and killing protestors, galvanised opinion in Egypt.
In addition an internet campaign in Egypt demanding change encouraged people to make a stand against the regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of cities protesting against poverty and corruption and unemployment. There were fierce clashes with the police but less so with the army when it moved in.
Tahrir Square in Cairo became the focal point of the campaign for change and for days it was packed with men, women and children demanding that Mubarak go. For 18 days he hung on. Even when it was clear that the army wasn't prepared to confront the protestors, and with most countries around the world calling for his resignation, the Egyptian dictator refused to budge.
But last Friday the pressure became too great and Mubarak finally went. And the crowds went wild with excitement and jubilation. People power had triumphed. And not for the first time.
The scenes in Cairo reminded this blog of the similar scenes of elation and euphoria in Berlin in November 1989 when thousands of people, under the guns of border guards, began to dismantle the Berlin Wall. Using hammers and crow bars and their bare hands they tore down the hated Wall that had divided their city from 1961 and had symbolised the division of their country since the end of the Second World War in 1945.
In this blogs memory the first real example of people power was the black civil rights movement in the USA. Like many of my generation this blog watched in the 1950s and 60s as mainly black and some white citizens confronted the racism and bigotry of the southern states of the USA. They challenged the unwillingness of the federal government in Washington to legislate to end discrimination.
It was an uphill struggle that saw many brave activists die and go to prison. But it succeeded in bringing about fundamental change in that society.
In our own place the civil rights movement in the north of Ireland tried in the 1960s to copy the example set in the USA. The Civil Rights Movement successfully focused attention on discrimination and injustice but the unionist regime with British Government support, stubbornly resisted bringing in the necessary changes, the Irish Government stood idly by and the situation deteriorated into conflict.
Mass protests and people power are not new to Ireland. Daniel O Connell famously mobilised Catholics to secure Catholic Emancipation in the early part of the 19th century. However, O Connell's tactic of holding monster rallies, sometimes attracting hundreds of thousands of people, failed to win an end to the Act of Union.
Several decades later another form of people power was very effective during the Land War in achieving significant reform in land distribution in Ireland. Michael Davitt and others very successfully combined the tactic of boycott and protest to force changes to land ownership.
In more recent times people power has wrought huge changes across the world. In 1986 the 'Yellow Revolution' brought an end to the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Within a few years one eastern bloc country after another, beginning with Poland in 1989, threw out their communist one party systems and embraced democracy. In 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved into Russia and 14 other nations.
Mostly these transformations were peaceful, although the threat of potential violence was never far away. Some as in Romania and Yugoslavia were brutal. Others failed, most notably in Burma and China were pro-democracy movements were crushed.
People power, often led by children in places like Soweto, confronted the apartheid regime in South Africa. The violence of the apartheid state and the armed struggle of Umkhonto we Sizwe, allied to people power on the streets brought the White apartheid government to the negotiating table and in 1994 Mandela became the President of a free South Africa.
So, people power has had its successes and its failures. And its success has often hinged on the explicit or implicit threat of greater violence.
But two things are certain. There is nothing more legitimate than the power of the people. And no political problem is intractable. No injustice is irreversible. Nothing is impossible. Every difficulty, however extreme, can be overcome if people are determined to make a stand for change.
Who would have thought it? A few weeks ago there seemed little evidence of dissent within Arab states about the absence of democracy. And then in January, in Tunisia, one person, an angry, unemployed young man Mohammed Bouazizi, burned himself to death. He was protesting at the dire economic conditions in his country and the dictatorship of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Weeks of protests and many more deaths led to the toppling of the regime after 23 years in power. Ben Ali fled the country.
The media reporting of this, including the televising of images all across the Arab world of thousands of people on the streets, and of riot police and secret police beating and killing protestors, galvanised opinion in Egypt.
In addition an internet campaign in Egypt demanding change encouraged people to make a stand against the regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of cities protesting against poverty and corruption and unemployment. There were fierce clashes with the police but less so with the army when it moved in.
Tahrir Square in Cairo became the focal point of the campaign for change and for days it was packed with men, women and children demanding that Mubarak go. For 18 days he hung on. Even when it was clear that the army wasn't prepared to confront the protestors, and with most countries around the world calling for his resignation, the Egyptian dictator refused to budge.
But last Friday the pressure became too great and Mubarak finally went. And the crowds went wild with excitement and jubilation. People power had triumphed. And not for the first time.
The scenes in Cairo reminded this blog of the similar scenes of elation and euphoria in Berlin in November 1989 when thousands of people, under the guns of border guards, began to dismantle the Berlin Wall. Using hammers and crow bars and their bare hands they tore down the hated Wall that had divided their city from 1961 and had symbolised the division of their country since the end of the Second World War in 1945.
In this blogs memory the first real example of people power was the black civil rights movement in the USA. Like many of my generation this blog watched in the 1950s and 60s as mainly black and some white citizens confronted the racism and bigotry of the southern states of the USA. They challenged the unwillingness of the federal government in Washington to legislate to end discrimination.
It was an uphill struggle that saw many brave activists die and go to prison. But it succeeded in bringing about fundamental change in that society.
In our own place the civil rights movement in the north of Ireland tried in the 1960s to copy the example set in the USA. The Civil Rights Movement successfully focused attention on discrimination and injustice but the unionist regime with British Government support, stubbornly resisted bringing in the necessary changes, the Irish Government stood idly by and the situation deteriorated into conflict.
Mass protests and people power are not new to Ireland. Daniel O Connell famously mobilised Catholics to secure Catholic Emancipation in the early part of the 19th century. However, O Connell's tactic of holding monster rallies, sometimes attracting hundreds of thousands of people, failed to win an end to the Act of Union.
Several decades later another form of people power was very effective during the Land War in achieving significant reform in land distribution in Ireland. Michael Davitt and others very successfully combined the tactic of boycott and protest to force changes to land ownership.
In more recent times people power has wrought huge changes across the world. In 1986 the 'Yellow Revolution' brought an end to the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Within a few years one eastern bloc country after another, beginning with Poland in 1989, threw out their communist one party systems and embraced democracy. In 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved into Russia and 14 other nations.
Mostly these transformations were peaceful, although the threat of potential violence was never far away. Some as in Romania and Yugoslavia were brutal. Others failed, most notably in Burma and China were pro-democracy movements were crushed.
People power, often led by children in places like Soweto, confronted the apartheid regime in South Africa. The violence of the apartheid state and the armed struggle of Umkhonto we Sizwe, allied to people power on the streets brought the White apartheid government to the negotiating table and in 1994 Mandela became the President of a free South Africa.
So, people power has had its successes and its failures. And its success has often hinged on the explicit or implicit threat of greater violence.
But two things are certain. There is nothing more legitimate than the power of the people. And no political problem is intractable. No injustice is irreversible. Nothing is impossible. Every difficulty, however extreme, can be overcome if people are determined to make a stand for change.
February 8, 2011
Policing - "...representative of the society it polices."
This blog has written to the British Secretary of State, Owen Patterson setting my view of the review he is conducting into 5050 recruitment of the PSNI.
The concern of this blog is that he is doing this at the behest of the unionist parties who have stridently opposed 50:50 from the outset.
Given Patterson's close links to the unionist parties and his efforts to construct a unionist electoral pact prior to the last Westminster election between the UUP, DUP and Orange Order, these concerns are justified.
Policing reform was one of the great challenges of the peace process. It took years of hard work and very difficult negotiations to get republicans and nationalists to the point that we could feel confident about endorsing the policing arrangements.
One of the key elements of the new arrangements was 50:50 recruitment. This is an affirmative action programme in the recruitment of the policing service. It has its roots in the Good Friday Agreement 1998 which set as the goal for policing a "..new beginning to policing ... with a police service capable of attracting and sustaining support from the community as a whole."
The Agreement stipulated that a new policing service should be "...representative of the society it polices."
The Patten Commission recognised that in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness as well as achieving fairness and representativeness : "the police service ... needs to include appropriately large numbers of nationalists, including republicans, if it is likely to be full effective."
In order to achieve this Patten concluded that the 50:50 recruitment model was necessary for at least a ten year period. The Patten Commission made no recommendation that this should be time-limited or that the recruitment of PSNI civilian staff should be exempt.
But now this important element of the new policing dispensation is under threat by the British government.
Currently Catholics only make up 30% of officers in the PSNI. This is an important distinction. Because the NIO refuses to apply 50:50 to civilian workers employed by the PSNI the 30% is an inflated statistic and Catholic representation in the PSNI is actually lower.
Moreover, nowhere in the Patten report does it claim that the height of the Commission's ambition should be a proportion of officers of 30% for Catholics. In fact, the Commission made clear that if all of their proposals for change in recruitment practices were adopted, "the figure (of Catholics) after ten years would be 40%"
The Patten Commission made it clear that any decision about the future of affirmative action in recruitment procedures can only be made in the context of the prevailing circumstances and the objective evidence. Patten states: "In light of the recruitment experience and other developments between now and then, a judgement would need to be made as to whether special measures were still needed to achieve a police service representative of the community...."
According to the 2001 census the percentage of the population in the north who come from a Catholic background was 43.8%. The next census is due to be held next year and it is predicted that this figure will continue to rise. The proportion of Catholics within the total PSNI workforce is substantially less than this. This inequality remains particularly pronounced in the civilian PSNI staff with less than 20% of Staff members coming from a Catholic background.
The phasing out of 50:50 recruitment provisions would reduce the number of Catholics joining the PSNI and impact badly on the need to ensure that the PSNI reflects the society it polices.
The figure of Catholic representation within PSNI Officers (cited as 29.38% ) also disguises the fact that there is extreme under-representation of Catholics in the higher ranks of the PSNI. Catholics are mainly located at the rank of student officers and Constables. Only 15% of Sergeants are Catholic, 14.5% of Inspectors, 13% of Chief Inspectors, 10% of Superintendents and 16% of Senior Officers.
In addition, of those 132 officers who have left the police, having been recruited between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2006, 40 (i.e. 30%) were Protestant, 89 (i.e. 67.4%) were Roman Catholic and three were non-determined. This prompted the Equality Commission to seek information from the PSNI about the retention rates of Protestant and Catholic officers and to propose that the reasons for differential retention rate should be further investigated.
The Criminal Justice Inspectorate noted this with concern and made clear that these were of critical importance to the success of arrangements to ensure that the PSNI became representative.
The composition of the PSNI is manifestly not representative of the whole community.
The inequalities and underrepresentation of Catholics is especially pronounced in the middle and higher ranks of the PSNI and civilian policing staff. No evidence has been generated to indicate that the PSNI now "include appropriately large numbers of nationalists, including republicans..." as recommended by Patten.
Given the available evidence, and the importance of ensuring that progress to a new beginning to policing is made irreversible, this blog believes, and I have told Mr. Patterson this, that there is no objective basis for the withdrawal of 50:50 recruitment provisions in 2011.
The concern of this blog is that he is doing this at the behest of the unionist parties who have stridently opposed 50:50 from the outset.
Given Patterson's close links to the unionist parties and his efforts to construct a unionist electoral pact prior to the last Westminster election between the UUP, DUP and Orange Order, these concerns are justified.
Policing reform was one of the great challenges of the peace process. It took years of hard work and very difficult negotiations to get republicans and nationalists to the point that we could feel confident about endorsing the policing arrangements.
One of the key elements of the new arrangements was 50:50 recruitment. This is an affirmative action programme in the recruitment of the policing service. It has its roots in the Good Friday Agreement 1998 which set as the goal for policing a "..new beginning to policing ... with a police service capable of attracting and sustaining support from the community as a whole."
The Agreement stipulated that a new policing service should be "...representative of the society it polices."
The Patten Commission recognised that in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness as well as achieving fairness and representativeness : "the police service ... needs to include appropriately large numbers of nationalists, including republicans, if it is likely to be full effective."
In order to achieve this Patten concluded that the 50:50 recruitment model was necessary for at least a ten year period. The Patten Commission made no recommendation that this should be time-limited or that the recruitment of PSNI civilian staff should be exempt.
But now this important element of the new policing dispensation is under threat by the British government.
Currently Catholics only make up 30% of officers in the PSNI. This is an important distinction. Because the NIO refuses to apply 50:50 to civilian workers employed by the PSNI the 30% is an inflated statistic and Catholic representation in the PSNI is actually lower.
Moreover, nowhere in the Patten report does it claim that the height of the Commission's ambition should be a proportion of officers of 30% for Catholics. In fact, the Commission made clear that if all of their proposals for change in recruitment practices were adopted, "the figure (of Catholics) after ten years would be 40%"
The Patten Commission made it clear that any decision about the future of affirmative action in recruitment procedures can only be made in the context of the prevailing circumstances and the objective evidence. Patten states: "In light of the recruitment experience and other developments between now and then, a judgement would need to be made as to whether special measures were still needed to achieve a police service representative of the community...."
According to the 2001 census the percentage of the population in the north who come from a Catholic background was 43.8%. The next census is due to be held next year and it is predicted that this figure will continue to rise. The proportion of Catholics within the total PSNI workforce is substantially less than this. This inequality remains particularly pronounced in the civilian PSNI staff with less than 20% of Staff members coming from a Catholic background.
The phasing out of 50:50 recruitment provisions would reduce the number of Catholics joining the PSNI and impact badly on the need to ensure that the PSNI reflects the society it polices.
The figure of Catholic representation within PSNI Officers (cited as 29.38% ) also disguises the fact that there is extreme under-representation of Catholics in the higher ranks of the PSNI. Catholics are mainly located at the rank of student officers and Constables. Only 15% of Sergeants are Catholic, 14.5% of Inspectors, 13% of Chief Inspectors, 10% of Superintendents and 16% of Senior Officers.
In addition, of those 132 officers who have left the police, having been recruited between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2006, 40 (i.e. 30%) were Protestant, 89 (i.e. 67.4%) were Roman Catholic and three were non-determined. This prompted the Equality Commission to seek information from the PSNI about the retention rates of Protestant and Catholic officers and to propose that the reasons for differential retention rate should be further investigated.
The Criminal Justice Inspectorate noted this with concern and made clear that these were of critical importance to the success of arrangements to ensure that the PSNI became representative.
The composition of the PSNI is manifestly not representative of the whole community.
The inequalities and underrepresentation of Catholics is especially pronounced in the middle and higher ranks of the PSNI and civilian policing staff. No evidence has been generated to indicate that the PSNI now "include appropriately large numbers of nationalists, including republicans..." as recommended by Patten.
Given the available evidence, and the importance of ensuring that progress to a new beginning to policing is made irreversible, this blog believes, and I have told Mr. Patterson this, that there is no objective basis for the withdrawal of 50:50 recruitment provisions in 2011.
February 7, 2011
THAT'S A TERROR.
'Lá Feile Brigid faoi mhaise duit' I said to your man.
We were up in the low hills above Ravensdale with Jim Loughran the local Sinn Féin councillor. Jim is a wise man. This is his home patch. It is very beautiful. He knows every inch of it and every body in it.
'Happy Saint Brigids Day' I repeated to your man.
'To you too mo chara' he replied.
'Brigid was a mighty woman' I said. 'we don't know near enough about her. Today is the first day of Spring. The Celts marked February 1st as the festival of Imbolc. It announced the arrival of new life. A turning point in the Celtic year. February was the Mí na Féile Bríde. The month of the Festival of Brigid'.
'That's a terror' Jim .
They say that a lot around these parts. At least that's what it sounds like. A terror. Or it could be a tarra. Anyway terror or tarra this blog hasn't a notion about what it means. There was a friend of mine in New York who was coming home last year to visit his ancestral home in the Louth/Armagh border country for the first time.
'You know they have a saying there 'That's a terror' that they say all the time in response to nearly anything' one of his New York buddies warned him. My friend arrived home and dutifully told the story to his long lost cousin at their very first meeting.
'That's a terror' his cousin agreed.
So I wasn't surprised at Jim's use of the phrase. It a bit like some Belfast people saying 'what about ya? By way of a greeting. All localities have their own little phrases. Many of them from the Irish. In Dublin the greeting is 'What's the story'? In Derry its 'Well'. I like 'Dia duit' (God be with you.)
When I was younger we used to say 'A bully Mickey' or 'a bully Jimmy.' Or a bully whoever we were greeting. We never talked to girls in those days which is why I say Mickey or Jimmy. Our acquaintances were male gendered only. Girls came later.
I don't think Saint Brigid would have approved. She was a wise woman who upheld the rights of all women. She secured women's property rights, freed women slaves and organised vulnerable women. She certainly would not have allowed male domination or men only associations.
'She was a weaver. A peace weaver' I told your man.
' Distinguished women were given that title in the olden days' Jim informed us.
'Such women were sometimes married into their enemy's tribe to weave peace. These women had great negotiating skills'.
'Saint Brigid did a lot of peacemaking work. She was a famous weaver and an authority figure in her time.'
'Aye luk at her cross'. Your man agreed ' whoever would have thought of weaving a cross out of rushes.'
'Thats the Christian Brigid' I said. ' the abbess and the saint. But there is also the Celtic Brigid, the Godess of poetry,healing and smithwork.'
'How do you know all this? Your man asked me.
'I picked it up along the way. And I just read a piece by a woman called Mary Condren. She knows tons of stuff about Brigid '
'That's a terror' your man said.
'This isn't getting the vote out' Jim reminded us.
'T hat's a terror as well' I said 'Beannachtai Bhríd daoibh. The blessings of Brigid to you all.'
.........................................................................................................
Mary Condren ThD teaches at Trinity. She is the director of the Institute for Feminism and Religion.
Instituteforfeminismandreligion.org
We were up in the low hills above Ravensdale with Jim Loughran the local Sinn Féin councillor. Jim is a wise man. This is his home patch. It is very beautiful. He knows every inch of it and every body in it.
'Happy Saint Brigids Day' I repeated to your man.
'To you too mo chara' he replied.
'Brigid was a mighty woman' I said. 'we don't know near enough about her. Today is the first day of Spring. The Celts marked February 1st as the festival of Imbolc. It announced the arrival of new life. A turning point in the Celtic year. February was the Mí na Féile Bríde. The month of the Festival of Brigid'.
'That's a terror' Jim .
They say that a lot around these parts. At least that's what it sounds like. A terror. Or it could be a tarra. Anyway terror or tarra this blog hasn't a notion about what it means. There was a friend of mine in New York who was coming home last year to visit his ancestral home in the Louth/Armagh border country for the first time.
'You know they have a saying there 'That's a terror' that they say all the time in response to nearly anything' one of his New York buddies warned him. My friend arrived home and dutifully told the story to his long lost cousin at their very first meeting.
'That's a terror' his cousin agreed.
So I wasn't surprised at Jim's use of the phrase. It a bit like some Belfast people saying 'what about ya? By way of a greeting. All localities have their own little phrases. Many of them from the Irish. In Dublin the greeting is 'What's the story'? In Derry its 'Well'. I like 'Dia duit' (God be with you.)
When I was younger we used to say 'A bully Mickey' or 'a bully Jimmy.' Or a bully whoever we were greeting. We never talked to girls in those days which is why I say Mickey or Jimmy. Our acquaintances were male gendered only. Girls came later.
I don't think Saint Brigid would have approved. She was a wise woman who upheld the rights of all women. She secured women's property rights, freed women slaves and organised vulnerable women. She certainly would not have allowed male domination or men only associations.
'She was a weaver. A peace weaver' I told your man.
' Distinguished women were given that title in the olden days' Jim informed us.
'Such women were sometimes married into their enemy's tribe to weave peace. These women had great negotiating skills'.
'Saint Brigid did a lot of peacemaking work. She was a famous weaver and an authority figure in her time.'
'Aye luk at her cross'. Your man agreed ' whoever would have thought of weaving a cross out of rushes.'
'Thats the Christian Brigid' I said. ' the abbess and the saint. But there is also the Celtic Brigid, the Godess of poetry,healing and smithwork.'
'How do you know all this? Your man asked me.
'I picked it up along the way. And I just read a piece by a woman called Mary Condren. She knows tons of stuff about Brigid '
'That's a terror' your man said.
'This isn't getting the vote out' Jim reminded us.
'T hat's a terror as well' I said 'Beannachtai Bhríd daoibh. The blessings of Brigid to you all.'
.........................................................................................................
Mary Condren ThD teaches at Trinity. She is the director of the Institute for Feminism and Religion.
Instituteforfeminismandreligion.org
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