News in Brief

Government stalls justice for Dublin and Monaghan families

The Dublin Government announced on Friday that it intends to establish a private inquiry into the Garda investigation of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which will also deal with the issue of missing documentation.

The announcement was criticised by Sinn Féin TD Seán Crowe who, along with the families of those killed, is calling for the establishment of a full public inquiry into the bombings.

Crowe said the families have waited 30 years for justice and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern can no longer allow people to hide behind private inquiries.

DUP urged to act on councillor's outburst

DUP Councillor Ruth Patterson was slammed on Tuesday after comments she made concerning an attack on a Protestant woman's home in the Donegall Pass area on Monday.

Patterson demanded that unionist paramilitaries explain why a Protestant pensioner from Donegall Pass was intimidated from her home, as she "was not from an ethnic minority community or a Catholic". Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey said the clear inference from her remarks was that such attacks on groups other than Protestants were acceptable.

"The approach adopted by Ruth Patterson, a member of local policing structures, has added to the difficulties experienced by ethnic minorities and Catholics attempting to live in parts of south Belfast free from harassment and attack," Maskey said. "It is now up to the DUP to act after her latest outburst."

Appeal to Translink over GAA train service

Translink and Irish Rail have been asked to reconsider their decision not to operate trains to Dublin on the days of forthcoming GAA matches in Croke Park. Translink announced last week that due to engineering works, their Enterprise service will terminate at Drogheda every weekend and Bank Holiday until Spring 2005. Sinn Féin MP Michelle Gildernew said she had received complaints from people who were charged the full fare to travel to Dublin but had found the buses laid on from Drogheda to be well below standard. She said that the volume of people travelling to Dublin for games warranted some effort on Translink's part to ensure proper transport.

And Donegal Sinn Féin Councillor Pearse Doherty has taken Iarnród Éireann to task over its current cut-price travel promotion, which takes in 87 destinations but has completely excluded the Six Counties.

Doherty said the promotion disenfranchises citizens from the Six Counties and those who make daily trips between Belfast and Dublin and has urged that the offer be extended to Northern destinations.

Academic challenged over Irish News story

The Irish News came in for criticism last week after a front-page article claimed that West Belfast children were playing games that mimicked sectarian clashes.

Sinn Féin Councillor Tom Hartley challenged the academic behind the story, saying he had lived in the area all his life and had never seen children playing what Professor Cairns called 'Catholics and Protestants', wearing Rangers and Celtic football jerseys.

"Is this academic really suggesting that children in West Belfast are going out and spending £40 or £50 on Rangers jerseys simply to play this game?" Hartley asked. "This sort of story is fairly typical of what this community has come to expect from so-called experts and academics, who have little or no understanding of working-class communities."

Hartley added that it would be more beneficial if academics turned their attentions to seeking mechanisms to bring divided communities together rather than indulging in upper class fantasy theories about working-class communities.

DUP attempt to halt Irish language campaign in EU

Sinn Féin MEP for the Six Counties, Bairbre de Brún, said on Friday that DUP belligerence towards the Irish language would not deter the campaign to have Irish recognised as a full official working language of the EU.

De Brún was responding to comments made by the DUP's MEP Jim Allister, who said that to make Irish an official language within the EU would be a "waste of taxpayers' money".

The Sinn Féin MEP said that Irish-language activists had tirelessly lobbied to ensure that the Irish language would no longer be treated as a second-class language and that Allister had to understand that equality threatens no one.

Sinn Féin MEPs announce EU committees

Sinn Féin MEPs Bairbre de Brún and Mary Lou McDonald announced last week which Committees they will sit on in the European Parliament. McDonald will sit on the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, while de Brún will sit on the Regional Policy Committee. The Sinn Féin MEPs will also be on standby to sit on the Citizens Freedom and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs Committee and the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy Committee, if the members from their group cannot attend meetings.

The two MEPs said that the Employment Committee will allow Sinn Féin to "lobby vigorously against privatisation within the EU", while the Regional Policy Committee will "allow them to work towards a programme of rural regeneration for Irish communities".

Government not dealing with drugs problem

An Eastern Region Health Authority report revealed on Thursday last that the Southeast of Ireland has the highest numbers of people presenting for drug treatment.

Waterford Sinn Féin Councillor David Cullinane reacted to the report by saying that the figures did not surprise him, as the Southeast is a gateway for drugs coming into Ireland, making its inhabitants even more vulnerable. Cullinane criticised the government for the narrow-minded approach to the drugs problem, saying that they were too focused on Dublin and even then, their policies weren't working.

He called for an immediate overhaul of drugs policies.

An Post slammed for SDS sellout

Sinn Féin TD Seán Crowe has called An Post's decision to close its SDS service "a complete sellout". He says the closure will not improve the overall viability of the company.

Crowe says An Post management have no consideration for their workforce, many of whom have been with them for decades, and that they are simply asset-stripping. He adds that while the management may want to concentrate on their core business of delivering letters, An Post has an obligation to deliver parcels, both within and outside Ireland.

Minister to be quizzed on Dublin City flat sales

A Sinn Féin delegation is to meet with Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen to question him about the proposal by Dublin City Council to offer its stock of almost 16,500 council flats for sale to its tenants.

Arthur Morgan TD recognised that tenants often wish to buy their flats and that tenants in local authority houses already have that right. But Sinn Féin has concerns, he said, that unless there is a significant social housing building programme put in place, the proposals from the council will result in a dramatic diminution in the level of local authority social housing rental stock.

Greater consultation needed for decentralisation

Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan says the party has been vindicated for its criticism of the ill-planned and opportunistic manner in which Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy and his colleagues have approached decentralisation.

Morgan made his comments after the publication of the second section of the Flynn report on decentralisation implementation last Friday, which recommended that outside expertise be used to discover why many staff don't want to move.

Morgan said there was no consultation and no research in terms of the numbers to be relocated and the chosen locations, and that this had undermined the claim that the scheme is voluntary.

Ógra visit Catalonia

Two members of Ógra Shinn Féin attended a youth conference in Catalonia in July. The Acampada Jove festival in Arbucies, just outside Barcelona, was organised by the Catalan youth Movement JERC. It has been running for the past nine years and is a huge event, this year attracting over 30,000 people aged 15 and upwards.

Andrea O'Kane from Derry and Pat Desmond from Cork were among the international delegates at the festival, each of whom gave a brief talk on their relevant political struggles and paid tribute to their hosts in the town square.

The festival featured live music each night from various bands and DJs. It was a memorable experience as it enabled young people from many different struggles to meet and discuss their relevant political situations. It also allowed Ógra to strengthen links with international organisations of the same political outlook.