From: "Stasi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 19:39:34 +0100
To: "Peoples War" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Peoples War] Sinn Fein: Republican News, 23-25 July, 2001
IRISH NEWS ROUND-UP
http://irlnet.com/rmlist/
Monday-Wednesday, 23-25 July, 2001
1. CRITICAL TALKS PACKAGE DELAYED
2. Unionist silence on sectarian attacks 'appalling'
3. Family flees home after loyalist mob attacks
4. Unionist human rights move slammed
5. Castlerea prisoners should be released
6. Sinn Fein calls for resolution of Turkish Hunger Strike
7. Cork City Manager rejects waste motion
8. Feature: Police brutality in Genoa
9. Analysis: Govts must do the right thing by the people - Adams
10. Analysis: Time for action on education
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>>>>>> CRITICAL TALKS PACKAGE DELAYED
Proposals aimed at finally implementing the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement are not now expected to be issued to the North's
political parties until next week following last minute
"refinements" to the package's contents.
The Irish Prime Minister, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the British
Prime Minister Tony Blair may meet on the final package of
proposals to be put to the parties by the two governments before
Mr Blair leaves for South America on Sunday.
Mr Ahern said today: "What we are trying to do at present is to
make sure that the work completed at Weston park a fortnight ago
is acceptable, so far as it can be, for everybody".
Ahern is due to meet Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin
McGuinness in Dublin this evening. Sinn Fein are insisting
package of proposals must stay within the bounds of the GFA if
they are to be accepted by republicans.
The key areas of the Agreement which have not been implemented
are policing and jusicial reform, demilitarisation, the operation
of the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission and
the right to live free from sectarian harassment.
Other unresolved issues to be addressed in the package include
the integrity of the new political institutions set up under the
GFA, and unionist demands forfurther moves on IRA arms
decommissioning.
But the main focus at the moment appears to be on policing. In
the absence of trust that the British government will keep its
word, Sinn Fein will require the text of new amending
legislation. The new legislation should contain the Patten
reforms which the British government reneged on as a concession
to unionist rejectionists.
Since it was published in 1999, the Patten report was gutted by
British securocrats and it is understood there are some 20 areas
in the current Police Act which Sinn Fein want amended to bring
it into line with Patten.
Included among these are:
* greater powers for the new policing board which will hold the
new police service accountable, giving them access during
inquiries to information which can currently be withheld
* the lifting of hurdles to inquiries conducted by the board such
as the chief constable enjoying the right to refuse to report to
the board, the Northern secretary's ability to uphold that
decision and the government's ability to overrule any decision to
conduct an inquiry
* the removal of the ban on ex-political prisoners participating
on local police partnership boards
* a ban on the use of plastic bullets
* the downsizing of the special branch and erosion of its
dominant position in police culture
* the phasing out of the full-time police reserve with a date for
its commencement
* the consistent use of the new title, the Police Service of
Northern Ireland, and the disappearance of references to the RUC
* all officers taking the new human rights oath recommended by
Patten rather than the Police Act's insistence that only new
officers should swear it.
Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly said that the new beginning to policing
enivisaged by the Good Friday Agreement was something that
residents in his area were "crying out for".
Kelly was speaking following a meeting yesterday with Dublin
Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen and a delegation of
residents from North Belfast to discuss ongoing sectarian attacks
in the area.
He said the policing issue would require amending legislation and
that the British government must return to the Patten Commission
report.
"We need to see amending legislation. If it does not stay within
the bounds of the Good Friday Agreement then it will not be
acceptable. I've no great confidence in the ability of the
British government to deliver. We'll wait and see."
Meanwhile, there has been speculation over a possible review of
the Parades Commission, which makes decisions on the routes of
contentious Protestant parades through nationalist areas in the
absence of local agreements.
Unionists have sought the abolition of the Parades Commission
after it rerouted the infamous Drumcree marches away from the
nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
But Garvaghy Road residents' spokesman Breandan Mac Cionnaith
said any moves to review the parades body should be rejected
warning it fell outside the Good Friday agreement.
"We would be calling on the Irish government, the SDLP and Sinn
Fein to reject it," he said.
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>>>>>> Unionist silence on sectarian attacks 'appalling'
Sinn Fein assembly member Alex Maskey is calling on unionist
leaders to act in the face of the ongoing sectarian campaign of
attacks against nationalists.
"The increase in loyalist attacks on Catholics right across the
North can only be described as a sectarian pogrom," he said. "The
silence of unionism and unionist leaders in the face of such a
sustained pogrom is nothing short of appalling. Unionist leaders
such as David Trimble need to use their undoubted influence to
halt this sectarian pogrom."
In the week after the Twelfth, sustained attacks by loyalist
gangs saw nationalists in the Duncairn, Limestone and Whitewell
areas of North Belfast as well as the Short Strand in the East of
the city, endure some of the worst loyalist violence since 1969.
And while most commentators saw that violence as the high point
of the loyalist onslaught, the reality proved to be different in
the past seven days or so.
An attack on the Ashton Community Centre on Friday 20 July saw
UDA gunmen fire 8 shots at two workers. Neither of the men were
injured but as they made their escape into the centre the gun
gang fired indiscriminately into the building, which houses a
creche and where a summer school for five- to eight-year-old
children was in progress.
Then on Saturday 21 July, a group of loyalists, possibly as many
as 14 men, purporting to be from the LVF, assaulted six security
guards in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. The gang
described the Royal as a "fenian hospital" and told the security
men they "would be dead within two weeks".
While these incidents may represent the more serious threat posed
by loyalists, the reality for dozens of Catholics throughout the
Six Counties is that for no reason other than their religion,
loyalists are attempting to kill them.
A Catholic family of four from Cloughmills in County Antrim is
the latest to be targeted by loyalist pipe bombers.
Eamon Morrison and his wife Maura were asleep in their home when
the device was hurled at the front door at about 1.30am on
Wednesday morning, 25 July. The bomb exploded in the porch
causing some minor damage. The couple's 13 year old son was in
his room using a computer at the time of the attack while their
eldest son was out.
A second unexploded pipe bomb was later found on the window sill
of the house.
Sinn Fein councillor for the area, Philip McGuigan, accused
loyalists of being involved in an "anti-Catholic pogrom in the
North and East Antrim areas".
Bombay Street
Eight-year-old Geordie Devine was lucky to escape serious injury
after he was struck on the head by a brick thrown over the peace
wall by loyalists at Bombay Street on Monday night, 23 July.
According to the boy's mother, Betty, he is now too frightened to
sleep in his bedroom as it faces out towards the so-called peace
line.
The incident happened as Geordie was playing in Bombay Street
with his friends.
The mother of seven is worried that a child may be killed as
loyalists target the area in nightly attacks.
She complained that the RUC are turning a blind eye to the
attacks: "When the trouble starts the RUC come into our street
instead going across to the loyalist side of the peace line and
stopping the attackers."
North Antrim attacks
Sinn Fein North Antrim spokesperson John Kelly has poured scorn
on RUC promises to "step up security" in the area after a
loyalist pipe bomb attack on the home of a Catholic man in
Portrush County Antrim on Monday night, 23 July.
The man escaped injury in the attack on his home in Glenmanus
Park, the eleventh in the area this year. The bomb failed to go
off.
And in Ballycastle, two hoax pipe bombs were discovered on Monday
morning, 23 July. The devices were attached to telephone poles
where loyalists had attached loyalist flags following an Orange
Twelfth parade last week.
"If the RUC's record of action against loyalists in the past is
anything to go by then these latest assurances will prove to be
worthless," said Kelly.
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>>>>>> Family flees home after loyalist mob attacks
A young mixed marriage couple and their two children have fled
their Serpentine Road home in north Belfast in fear after a
loyalist mob attacked their home. The house was one of a number
of homes targeted by loyalist gangs in the Whitewell area of
Belfast in the early hours of Thursday morning last week.
The couple said that "this was the most intense attack on our
home yet". Describing the effect on their two children, aged two
and seven, as "traumatising", John and Gillian say they don't
care what happens to the house now - they are just going to move
out. John and Gillian explained that their home and that of their
neighbours have been under nightly attack from loyalist youths
coming to and from the community centre, which is on the White
City side of the 'peace wall' that faces their home.
Wednesday night, however, was the most terrifying attack, as
their house was hit with a sustained barrage of missiles. "It was
around 1am when it all got serious," said Gillian. "There were
hundreds of bricks thrown at the house, breaking all the front
windows, and a petrol bomb hit the roof. It was mostly my
seven-year-old daughter's bedroom which got the damage."
"We phoned the RUC five times and told them what was happening
and they still didn't come," said John.
Sinn Fein councillor Danny Lavery, who visited the area on
Thursday morning, accused the UDA of being behind a concerted
campaign of violence and intimidation against nationalists in the
area.
"Since Monday night, there have been numerous attacks on the
homes of residents in the area and I totally refute claims made
by loyalists that the trouble was in any way instigated by
nationalists living here," he said.
According to Lavery, there has been nightly trouble with
loyalists stoning homes in Whitewell. Anne Nee, who works in the
area, explained that the attacks had been constant over the past
number of days, "especially since the trouble erupted in Duncairn
Gardens and Limestone Road".
Nee said: "It's grown men doing it all. They come from Gunnell
Hill and White City armed with baseball bats and stoning the
front of all the houses in Whitewell Road. There were at least 80
of them on Saturday night attacking the residents around this
area."
Another family from Serpentine Gardens, whose car was targeted a
few weeks ago and who were threatened, had their home
petrolbombed and their windows broken in Wednesday night's
trouble.
The family were threatened by loyalists who came to the 'peace
wall' fence at the back of their garden. "There were three of
them yelling and shouting, 'we're going to burn you out, or
you'll be blown out and if that doesn't work you'll be shot
out'," said Nee. The men then put on balaclavas. The family next
door were also attacked and their windows were broken.
These residents said that the loyalists were holding the fire
brigade back, telling them it wasn't safe, while another group
were petrol bombing the houses. As we spoke to them, residents
were trying to clear the bricks and stones from their back
gardens, but the broken glass and scorch marks from the petrol
bombs were all still visible. In an effort to protect their homes
from further attack, the residents were fixing plywood across the
windows.
"The only protection we have is if we stand together," said Anne
Nee. "Since Tuesday night, the RUC have not helped." Another
resident told how she witnessed the RUC going in front of the up
to 80-strong loyalist mob and covered them while they hurled
bricks and petrol bombs.
Danny Lavery rubbished loyalist claims that nationalist residents
had instigated the trouble on Wednesday night: "All the evidence
is pointing towards the UDA shipping people into the area, as
carloads of men have been seen driving to the community centre in
White City prior to the attacks. And while nationalists did
engage in stone throwing and threw a number of petrol bombs into
White City, it was an angry response to four nights of attacks
that have seen at least eight nationalist homes attacked and
badly damaged."
DELEGATION MEETS COWEN
A delegation of North Belfast residents met yesterday with Dublin
Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen to discuss ongoing sectarian
attacks in the area.
The three men and three women who made up the delegation,
including Ardoyne Sinn Fein councillor Margaret McClenaghan, told
Cowen that they were of "one mind" that the UDA was orchestrating
nightly attacks on their area and that they were dissatisfied
with the behaviour of the RUC.
As they were meeting, a loyalist mob emerged from the Tigers Bay
area of North Belfast and attacked homes on the nationalist
Limestone Road.
One of the main concerns raised at the meeting was personal
security arrangements for nationalist people and their homes,
Kelly said. He pointed to an incident where phone numbers, "not
names, or addresses" of RUC members were found in a stolen car
recently, and each one of the RUC personnel was given #50,000 to
secure their homes. "This is in stark contrast to the treatment
of nationalists, who have been ignored by the Housing Executive.
Brian Cowen has pledged to raise this issue and others with the
NIO."
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Unionist human rights move slammed
Sinn Fein equality spokesperson Conor Murphy has reacted angrily
to news that former British Army [UDR] major and unionist MP Ken
Maginnis has been shortlisted for a job as a Human Rights
Commissioner in the Six Counties.
He was interviewed by a panel of British civil servants last
Friday as a possible candidate to replace Angela Hegarty, a
former member of the SDLP, who retired from the commission
earlier this year.
"One of the key faults of the current Human Rights Commission is
the underrepresentation of nationalists among its commissioners,"
said Murphy. "How the British government expects to instil
confidence in the Human Rights Commission among the nationalist
community by appointing Maginnis, a former senior member of an
organisation that existed to attack the human rights of an entire
community, is beyond me."
But Maginnis dismissed nationalist objections, and claimed his
record on human rights was "exemplary". Commenting on the
Commission, he said: "What we have really, it appears to me, is a
group of academics who are well-intentioned by and large, but who
leave a lot of the public quite cold in terms of human rights.
They see it as those who will support the interests of rioters
rather than the police."
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Castlerea prisoners should be released
Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly has called for the immediate release of
all those prisoners who come under the terms of the Good Friday
Agreement. Speaking after the High Court in Dublin's deferral of
its decision in the sentence review case taken by the State
against republican prisoners Kevin Walsh and Pearse McAuley,
Kelly said:
"The decision by the State to appeal these sentences is
completely at odds with the Good Friday Agreement. These men
should already have been released. The terms of the Agreement are
very explicit.
"The Good Friday Agreement covers all IRA prisoners imprisoned
for incidents which occurred before 10 April 1998, regardless of
the jurisdiction they were or are jailed in or what their
conviction was for.
"There can be no two-tier system discriminating against certain
prisoners of the conflict.
"Sinn Fein is conscious of the pain felt by the family of Garda
Jerry McCabe when this issue is raised but many, many other
families throughout this island have found the release of
prisoners difficult yet have accepted its centrality to the peace
process.
"These prisoners should have been released by now and Sinn Fein
will continue to campaign for their immediate release."
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Sinn Fein calls for resolution of Turkish Hunger Strike
Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain has called on the Turkish
government to engage with representatives of those on hunger
strike to achieve a resolution to the protest, which has already
claimed 29 lives.
O Caolain was speaking after the Sinn Fein Ard Chomhairle,
meeting last weekend, unanimously backed a motion proposed by him
on the issue calling on the Dublin government to use its
influence as a member of the UN Security Council to lobby the
Turkish government to achieve a resolution.
O Caolain said: "It is imperative that action is taken now to
ensure that no more lives are lost in this hunger strike. The
Sinn Fein leadership believes that the demands of the prisoners
are just and should be met.
"I am calling on the Irish government, through its membership of
the UN Security Council and as a member state of the European
Union to raise this matter both with the Turkish government and
internationally to achieve a positive resolution."
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, speaking yesterday after a
protest outside the EU offices In Belfast to highlight the plight
of the hunger strikers, spoke of his alarm that the crisis had
been largely ignored by the world's media. He called on the
Turkish government to act to resolve the situation and on EU
member states to impress on the Turkish government that its
application would not be considered until such time as the hunger
strike has been resolved.
Like O Caolain, he stressed that Sinn Fein would continue to
pursue the matter with the Dublin government.
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Cork City Manager rejects waste motion
In an extraordinary abuse of power, the Cork City Manager has
refused to accept a Section 4 motion from Sinn Fein Councillor
Jonathan O'Brien, which called on the manager to present the
city's waste management plan, which councillors have amended, for
decision at a special meeting.
Under the new legislation, passed two weeks ago, the city manager
is empowered to formulate a waste management plan in place of the
democratically elected councillors, where the local authority
members have failed to do so.
So far, Cork has failed to adopt a waste management strategy
because successive city managers have refused to endorse the
unanimous view of the Corporation in support of local opinion
that the Materials Recovery Station (MRS), where waste would be
sorted, should not be sited at the Old Kinsale Road Dump.
Councillors O'Brien, Dan Boyle and Con O'Leary called for the
Section 4 motion last week, but the manager refused to accept the
motion, on what Councillor O'Brien calls a technicality - that
the motion used the word 'wish' instead of the word 'intend.'
"The effect of the motion," says Jonathan, "would have been to
give the councillors the opportunity they want to express the
democratic will of the Corporation to adopt a waste management
plan based on minimising waste production and maximising waste
recycling. But the City Manager and the Minister of the
Environment have an alternative strategy, which is to incinerate
all the waste with a token policy of recycling. This strategy is
deeply unpopular with the people of Cork City."
"I believe that this explains the quite illegimate decision by
the manager to refuse our motion. After all it is the Chairperson
of the council who ultimately should decide the agenda of the
council, not the manager. This decision raises the fundamental
question of who runs this council?
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Feature: Police brutality in Genoa
-------------------------------------------------------------
JUSTIN MORAN examines the lessons to be learned from Genoa.
-------------------------------------------------------------
To republicans, the scenes broadcast from Genoa that shocked the
world last week were hauntingly familiar. Images at once
recognisable and foreign rolled across the screen as
demonstrators fought running battles with heavily armed police
units. It could almost have been Ardoyne, Garvaghy, the Bogside
or anywhere else in Ireland where the state let the police loose
on peaceful protestors. And like many such clashes, it left
hundreds injured and a family in mourning.
The unforgettable image of Carlo Giuliani, a 23-year-old
demonstrator from Rome, lying in a pool of blood where he had
been shot at point blank range and run over by a police Land
Rover, brought home to viewers just how far the Italian state was
prepared to go to protect the G8 summit.
The hope of moderate groups like the Genoa Social Forum for
peaceful direct action to be the tool of choice for protestors
had been dashed. They had not taken into account an Italian
police force psyched up for confrontation. Media reports in the
week leading up to Genoa only served to raise tension. The
announcement that the Italian Army was deploying SAM missile
sites, presumably to take on the demonstrators armed with rocks
and sticks, raised the feeling of impending violence to a new
level.
But few of the demonstrators, many of them veterans of
Gothenburg, Prague and Seattle, can have expected the brutality
with which the Italian police force treated anyone who got in
their way. Among the Irish protestors, possession of a Swiss army
knife was enough to get one protestor arrested, beaten and
strip-searched. Accounts of police brutality, accompanied in many
cases by images, have been sped across the globe by independent
non-corporate media groups.
The raid on the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum was
possibly the greatest indicator of the depths to which the
Italian police had sunk. The Forum represented hundreds of groups
organising for Genoa and had played a key role all week in
attempting to defuse violent situations and keep marches calm. In
the middle of the night the police descended on the Forum,
clubbing people in their sleep, destroying media and computer
equipment. Images the next day of blood splattered on the walls
and pooled on the floor testified to the brutality of the Italian
police in a way words could not.
There are also suggestions that the police may have been involved
in provoking some of the incidents through the use of agents
provocateurs. Groups of 'anarchists' were seen alighting from
police vehicles before engaging in acts of destruction. Links
between shadowy element of the Italian security forces and
fascism have been uncovered in the past, none more famous than a
bomb attack on a railway station in Bologna in the '70s,
initially blamed on left-wing guerrillas and now linked to
collusion between the Italian far right and Italian security
forces.
The knowledge that the police went too far seems to have been
acknowledged by elements in the Italian government. At a protest
outside the Italian embassy on Tuesday night organised by
Globalise Resistance, a spokesperson for the embassy apologised
to Irish protestors for the behaviour of the police.
But the anti-globalisation movement is itself in crisis. The
debate on violence at the protests has begun anew following the
death of Carlo Giuliani. There is a fear that the violence of the
protests will discourage workers and official trade unions from
joining the protests. The aim of the anti-globalisation movement
has been to build a broad base from which to mobilise people but
the street battles between police and a small minority of the
protestors do nothing to help that strategy.
In the wake of Genoa the question facing the anti-globalisation
movement, particularly in Ireland, is where does it go from here?
Is it time for the Movement to police itself in regard to violent
protestors? Should the Movement concentrate on exposing the
police as the real source of violence and provocation at these
gatherings? Should the more moderate groups condemn those who get
involved in clashes or simply make clear the differences between
violent and non-violent protestors?
In an attempt to answer these questions, Globalise Resistance is
holding a series of workshops and talks on the subject at Liberty
Hall this Saturday, 28 July, as part of a day long carnival
including a march, live music and video showings.
Sinn Fein councillor Larry O'Toole, who is to speak at the march,
emphasised the importance of the meeting. "No-one knows better
than republicans the difficulty in fighting a battle against
overwhelming odds. It is vital that we show our solidarity with
the demonstrators in Genoa and play our part in the
anti-globalisation movement here in Ireland."
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Analysis: Govts must do the right thing by the people
BY GERRY ADAMS MP
Media and political speculation here continues to mount about the
contents of a much comment-ed upon and long overdue package
awaited from the Irish and British governments. This package has
been in the making since Sinn Fein and the other pro-agreement
parties met at Weston Park during the Twelfth week. It seems like
ages ago now. In the meantime loyalists have continued their
daily bomb attacks on Catholic homes, churches and businesses.
Over the weekend they reached a new low when a Loyalist Volunteer
Force gang attacked health care workers, medical staff and other
workers in the Royal Victoria Hospital. A few days before that an
armed gang opened fire on a community centre including a summer
scheme for young children in north Belfast.
These attacks came not long before a claim by former First
Minster David Trimble that the Good Friday agreement was
unworkable. He failed to say that this is because he refuses to
work it.
So it is clear that the agreement is under threat and under
continued pressure from a number of sources. The ending of their
ceasefires by most of the loyalist groups and the ongoing
campaign of violence by these groups presents a huge difficulty.
So too do Mr Trimble's tactics. The vacuum created by his
resignation has been filled by rejectionist loyalists. All of
this has created fear as well as anger among nationalists and
republicans. This has been heightened by the partisan behaviour
of the RUC.
But while the effects of all these dimensions to our current
difficulties should not be underestimated, the greatest
difficulty at this time comes from the British government. This
is because of that government's refusal to fully embrace the Good
Friday agreement and a tendency by it to reinvent it.
There are a number of examples of this. The most recent one came
at the beginning of the Weston Park talks when the propositions
put by the two governments fell short of the Good Friday
agreement. It could be that the British governments position, for
example on policing which falls significantly short of the Patten
recommendations, is predicated on a concern to manage unionism
including elements within the RUC and within its own system.
That's the case made by apologists for Mr Blair's position.
But whatever the rationale, the ongoing refusal of Downing Street
to commit itself to proposals that will create a genuinely new
beginning to policing is unacceptable. It is also
counterproductive and shortsighted.
If the British government is truly wedded to creating the vision
of the Good Friday agreement it needs to realise that the
democratic rights and entitlements of nationalists and
republicans on a wide range of issues cannot be conditional.
These rights are universal rights.
So the real focus of democratic opinion needs to be upon London's
stewardship of this process.
The real challenge facing the British government, and the Irish
government as well, is to produce a package that delivers on all
aspects of the agreement without pandering any further to
unionism outside or inside the British system.
This means London and Dublin delivering on their obligations and
commitments. If they fail to do this then their package cannot
match the objectives they set for it at Weston Park.
As Mr Blair finalises his government's proposals he will no doubt
reflect on this.
He needs also to consider how much progress has been achieved
here.
He needs to reflect on his huge majority in the last election and
on his obligations to and under the Good Friday agreement.
He is assured of the support and on going cooperation of the
majority of people and political parties on this island if he
sticks to the agreement.
He is also mandated by referendums and by the international
treaty he agreed with the Irish government.
He needs to reflect on the historic opportunity that has been
given to him.
And then.......?
And then he and the Taoiseach need to do the right thing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Analysis: Time for action on education
BY MICHAEL PIERSE
Educational inequality, and the indifference of the Dublin
government to the same, were brought into sharp focus by two
major news stories this month. One of them outraged the people of
Ireland, the other barely commanded a whimper.
Senator Joe O'Toole was correct when he branded the Supreme Court
judgement in the Jamie Sinnott case as "inhumane, selfish and
visionless". To deny a young autistic man and others in a similar
situation the right to receive primary education for as long as
it can be of use to them again highlights the 26-County state's
long-established policy of ignoring the plight of the disabled
until courts at home or in Europe force them to do otherwise.
One of the Supreme Court judges was entirely at odds with his two
other colleagues. Chief Justice Keane asserted that the High
Court was correct in its landmark ruling that the State was
obliged to provide Jamie with a free primary education "as long
as he is capable of benefiting from same". There was "no
principled basis", he found, for the cut-off point at 18 years of
age, which represented a "feat of intellectual legerdemain of
which I am incapable".
This case was not just about Jamie Sinnott. The High Court
judgement, if upheld, would apply to many more mentally disabled
young people, who would in turn seek the educational benefits of
the ruling, along with financial compensation for the adjudged
injustice. In short, the bill for the Department of Education
might run into billions. Far more palatable, then, to weather the
storm of public outrage at the Supreme Court ruling with vague
promises of 'blank cheques' for the disabled, as Education
Minister Michael Woods did.
And that brings us to the second, but equally significant news
story - the one that didn't provoke the columnists into a flurry
of moral indignation. It pertains to another group of disabled
young people. Not mentally disabled - by and large - not
physically disabled either. The victims of the government's
second insult were, of course, Ireland's financially disabled
young people - and there's a lot of them out there.
According to the most recent statistics from the Combat Poverty
agency, 230,000 young people in the 26 Counties, that's 23% of
the population under 18 years of age, are living, or subsisting,
below the poverty line. That poverty line is fairly low - only
households run on an income of less than half of the average wage
qualify as being below the poverty line. Those young people are
more likely to suffer from ill-health, drug/alcohol abuse and,
most prevalent of all, educational disadvantage.
That educational disadvantage, Minister Woods announced two weeks
ago, is to remain the status quo for those empoverished
youngsters who might dream of getting a third-level education.
Well, he didn't quite put it like that, but the decision to raise
the meagre third-level maintainance grant by only 6% can mean
little else. The increase amounts to less than #3 per week extra
onto the maximum #52 grant.
Just as Jamie Sinnott's mother Kathy was insulted and felt abused
at the hands of the Dublin government, students across the 26
Counties, and those who might aspire to break the poverty trap by
becoming students, will feel dejected by the government's
indifference to their plight.
Arguing that students can survive on #52 per week, living away
from home and inclusive of the cost of accommodation, is simply
indefensible. Added to this is the fact that it is only the
'privileged' few, whose parents receive earnings of less than
#5.20 per hour, who are eligible for that grant.
The #3 rise was all the more a shock, coming, as it did, a week
after the publication of findings by the governmental Action
Group on Third-Level Access that there is a strong link between
students' chances of going to college and the financial support
available to them.
This year's USI President is a member of Young Fine Gael - a
safer pair of careerist hands you won't find. What is needed is a
wake-up call for Michael Woods & Co, and with Sinn Fein and other
radical parties and campus societies increasing in support, now
is the time to do it.
c. RM Distribution and others. Articles may be reprinted with credit.
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Irish Republican News and Information
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