11 June 1998 Edition
British exposed in police commission row
by Laura Friel
``Too clever by half,'' was how one American columnist summed up British antics around the appointment of members of the new commission on policing in the Six counties.
Writing in `Ireland on Sunday', Niall O'Dowd accused the British of trying to ``put one over'' by selling Kathleen O Toole, a Catholic Irish American from Boston, as an appointee selected to represent the nationalist community, an agreed candidate between both the British and Irish governments and approved by the mainstream Irish American community. In fact, O'Toole has been drawn from a pool of Irish Americans who have been ``assiduously cultivated'' by the British, her nomination was not approved by Dublin and she is relatively unknown in Irish American circles.
Regardless of the many qualities O'Toole may offer to the commission, her former associations are with the British government and RUC rather than northern nationalists. O'Toole's associations include former NIO Secretary of State, Patrick Mayhew, and RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan.
Currently Secretary for Public Safety in Massachusetts, O'Toole began her career in the Boston police department and has previously worked with the RUC on a number of projects. British duplicity has been further exposed with the publication of confidential notes taken by the British Secretary of State's private secretary summarising the minister's contacts with Dublin, America, the SDLP and Sinn Fein in the 24 hours prior to the announcement of the appointments. Mowlam is shown riding roughshod over nationalist concerns and railroading the Dublin government by announcing the appointments before a request for further consultation had been met. The document shows a clear rift between the Dublin and British government, unease within the Irish American lobby, misgivings within the SDLP and anger within Sinn Fein.
By any standards it has been an inauspicious start to the implementation of the Good Friday document. To be chaired by former British Tory minister Chris Patten, other appointees include Peter Smith a barrister and former secretary of the Ulster Unionist party, Maurice Hayes, previously one of the highest ranking Catholic civil servants in the NIO, Clifford Shearing, Director of the Centre of Criminology at Toronto University in Canada, Gerard Lynch, an academic at John Jay College, New York and chief executive of British Telecom in the Six Counties, Lucy Woods.
``Too clever by half,'' was how one American columnist summed up British antics around the appointment of members of the new commission on policing in the Six counties.
Writing in `Ireland on Sunday', Niall O'Dowd accused the British of trying to ``put one over'' by selling Kathleen O Toole, a Catholic Irish American from Boston, as an appointee selected to represent the nationalist community, an agreed candidate between both the British and Irish governments and approved by the mainstream Irish American community. In fact, O'Toole has been drawn from a pool of Irish Americans who have been ``assiduously cultivated'' by the British, her nomination was not approved by Dublin and she is relatively unknown in Irish American circles.
Regardless of the many qualities O'Toole may offer to the commission, her former associations are with the British government and RUC rather than northern nationalists. O'Toole's associations include former NIO Secretary of State, Patrick Mayhew, and RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan.
Currently Secretary for Public Safety in Massachusetts, O'Toole began her career in the Boston police department and has previously worked with the RUC on a number of projects. British duplicity has been further exposed with the publication of confidential notes taken by the British Secretary of State's private secretary summarising the minister's contacts with Dublin, America, the SDLP and Sinn Fein in the 24 hours prior to the announcement of the appointments. Mowlam is shown riding roughshod over nationalist concerns and railroading the Dublin government by announcing the appointments before a request for further consultation had been met. The document shows a clear rift between the Dublin and British government, unease within the Irish American lobby, misgivings within the SDLP and anger within Sinn Fein.
By any standards it has been an inauspicious start to the implementation of the Good Friday document. To be chaired by former British Tory minister Chris Patten, other appointees include Peter Smith a barrister and former secretary of the Ulster Unionist party, Maurice Hayes, previously one of the highest ranking Catholic civil servants in the NIO, Clifford Shearing, Director of the Centre of Criminology at Toronto University in Canada, Gerard Lynch, an academic at John Jay College, New York and chief executive of British Telecom in the Six Counties, Lucy Woods.