The British government's proposals for additional police reform legislation announced on Monday have, despite Paul Murphy's claim this week that "Patten is the bedrock of the government's approach to policing change", fallen far short of the reforms promised by the Patten Report, particularly on the issues of representation, accountability, freedom from political control and human rights. Free article

Recently, a letter appeared in a Belfast paper from a woman who was watching her daughter struggle to raise six children on her own. She remarked that having lived through hard times herself, she had thought nothing could compare to the poverty and despair of those days. "I was wrong," she added. Free article

Sinn Féin councillor Lynn Fleming condemned a sectarian attack on Catholic homes and vehicles in Violet Street at the bottom of Chapel Road in Derry's Waterside. Free article

West Tyrone Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty, responding to last Thursday night's arson attack on popular nightspot Katy Daly's in Strabane, said that the 'Real' IRA should take the advice of its own leadership in Portlaoise Jail and stand down. Free article

I spent Saturday 16 November at the first Annual Conference of the Western Youth Forum. As a public representative and a member of the Western Education and Library Board (WELB), I receive many conference invitations but I was drawn to this one, because the opportunity to hear the concerns and views of young people should not be passed over. Free article

Louth Sinn Féin deputy Arthur Morgan attended his first meeting of the British Irish Inter Parliamentary Body in Manchester this week. Free article