O'Conall Street

Recall of Assembly’s Regional Development Committee essential in light of Permanent Secretary’s suspension

The suspension of DRD Permanent Secretary, Paul Priestly,  is a very serious development for the department and the Northern Ireland Executive.

It follows a robust and assertive defence of the official by the minister on UTV on Monday night.

This raises serious questions about whether the Minister Conor Murphy MLA knew about the situation inside the department and Northern Ireland Water and whether he was fully appraised of all developments by his senior officials.

I am calling for an immediate recall of the Regional Development Committee to hear witness from the minister himself and other senior officials involved in the suspension of the permanent secretary.

It’s essential that all steps are taken to maintain public confidence in the minister’s stewardship of the department and regional development policy.

Lord Carlile should come here and listen to all sides before condemning those who seek greater accountability

The Independent Reviewer of British anti terrorist laws comments this morning on radio Ulster about MI5’s involvement in Northern Ireland showed a lack of basic understanding about the situation with regard to dissident republicans.

Lord Carlile’s interview was inaccurate in many ways but most fundamentally failed to address the basic issue which is the lack of any local accountability for intelligence services.  SDLP Leader, Margaret Ritchie, has invited him to Belfast to listen to all sides and get his facts straight before condemning those who want to move the situation forward.

Dissident republicans are not a threat to British national security, they are a threat to the stability of Northern Ireland and the reconciliation of the people of Ireland . They claim to be at war with Britain but in fact it is fellow Irish men and women who want to build a new Ireland who they hate.

He is asking the people of Northern Ireland to take his word for the fact that MI5 are doing their best. But the fact remains that he is an English Lord who is no way accountable to the people of Northern Ireland or the Republic and who’s principal duty is to his government and the security of Britain .

The British government will never defeat dissident republicans. It will be the security services of Ireland with the full support and co-operation of the people of this island, North and South, who will undermine the activities of those who seek to drag us back to the past.

The SDLP wishes to see intelligence devolved to the PSNI because there is no accountability in the current arrangements. We do not understand why Sinn Fein are happy to allow unaccountable spies to control intelligence in this part of Ireland .

Who controls intelligence

The world of intelligence gathering is my definition a complicated one. Who secret services are accountable to and how has long exercised legislatures across the developed world.

During the troubles we had an unaccountable special branch operating within the RUC. Some believed it to be a force within a force, acting on the margins of permissability and with an agenda of its own. The key issue was the lack of accountability.

The SDLP argued long and hard for intelligence gathering and functions to be devolved along with policing and justice. We opposed SF and the DUP’s desire to see MI5, a secret organisation accountable to no organ of government on this island, being given responsibility for security and intelligence.

In fact despite claims by the British government many wonder whether MI5 is accountable even to them.

The dissidents say Britain’s presence in Ireland is the justification for their actions. The fact that SF has left security in MI5’s hands is mana from heaven for those looking an excuse to kill. It also undermines accountable policing. SF ducked responsibility for security and now we are paying the price.

Security services are a necessary evil. Our argument is that they should be locally accountable. That’s why the SDLP favours the devolution of such responsibilities to the PSNI. We want intelligence services on the island of Ireland working together and accountable to the people of Ireland, North and South.

That’s what we told NIO Minister Hugo Swire when we met him earlier.

SDLP Leader, Ritchie: Time for North – South fightback against dissidents

Margaret Ritchie has asked for urgent meetings with Taoiseach, Brian Cowen and Secretary of State,  Owen Paterson to press the need for new approaches to dealing with the threat of dissident violence.

In a statement issued this afternoon the SDLP Leader said:

It is time for everyone to face up to some inconvenient political truths about this violence. It is now very clear that MI5 is not up to the task of leading intelligence-gathering in the north. By sidelining or standing down their political wings the dissident gangs have cut the flow of human intelligence.

This internal security strategy, which also involves deliberate avoidance of mobile phones, is being driven by ONH which is now acting as a secure superstructure for all the groups. And that brings us to the most inconvenient political truth of all, because enhanced security and reduced danger of informants is permitting and encouraging a flow of Provisional expertise into all the dissident groups. This reality must no longer be denied just because it makes some people uncomfortable, for it has raised the threat level enormously.

There is no evidence that MI5 puts a high priority on the dissident threat beyond providing some signals and background intelligence, which may amount to nothing more than listening to gossip and monitoring a few dodgy websites. The whole point about MI5 intelligence primacy since 2007 is that it was really just a political fix designed to ease Sinn Fein’s path onto the Policing Board and thus into power in the Executive. Nor does MI5 have to explain its deplorable lack of effectiveness because it operates beyond our policing accountability structures.

The SDLP believes we need an aggressive, high-profile, all-Ireland intelligence-gathering operation based on the bond of trust which has grown between police and public. We believe the relative success of An Garda Siochana demonstrates the need for a new approach and that the PSNI should again lead intelligence-gathering in the north. We believe the people will rally to protect their accountable, representative policing service if they are asked properly.  I will be pressing An Taoiseach and the Secretary of State to raise north-south policing and intelligence-gathering to a new level now, before we suffer another major tragedy.

‘Nothing stops a bullet like a job’ homeboys and jesuits; O’Conall St Virtual Summer School III

Fr Greg  Boyle is an LA Jesuit.

He runs Homeboy Industries. He doesn’t work with gangs, he works with gang members and he is an inspiration to anyone interested in tackling social exclusion.

Here is a lecture he gave on the simple fact that nothing stops a bullet like a job.

McCluskey Summer School programmme 2010

The 3rd McCluskey Civil Rights Summer School will take place at
The Heritage Centre (Old CoI Holy Trinity Church), Carlingford, Co Louth on August 28, 2010

“THE LEGACY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN”

The Summer School will, this year, examine the long-term legacy of the Civil Rights agitation, and where it has brought us today. We ask a number of serious questions. How might things have turned out had there been no recourse to violence? What is the future for moderate nationalism and moderate Unionism, now that each has been eclipsed within its own community, by the supposedly more “extreme” parties on both sides? Can the present Executive survive, and bed down? And if it falls, can the “centre parties” take the weight again, and regain the necessary voting strength? The four sessions of the Summer School are devoted to discussion of these questions. In each session the Chair will open the discussion with a short address, setting out the main issues needing debate, and perhaps offering a personal view in brief terms. The chair will then introduce the contributors who will speak for about 15 minutes each, leaving an hour for audience participation, (moderated by the Chair), by way of questions, or the offering of viewpoints.

PROGRAMME

Saturday 28th August 2010

9.30amRegistration and Refreshments

10.30-12.00
How might the Civil Rights campaign have developed, had there been no “armed struggle”?

Chair: Dr. Brendan Lynn

Austin Currie
Danny Morrison

12.00-1.30
What is the Future of Constitutional Nationalism?

Chair: Dr. Eamon Phoenix

Margaret Ritchie MP MLA
Dr. Martin Mansergh TD

3.00-4.30
What is the Future of Progressive/Liberal Unionism?

Chair: Prof. Arthur Aughey

Tom Elliot MLA
Roy Garland

4.30-6.00
If the present Executive falls…. is there an alternative?
(Can we go back to the centre?)

Chair: A.N. Other

Alex Attwood MLA
David McKittrick

Time to devolve security powers and tackle dissidents locally

Writing in today’s Irish Times SDLP Leader Margaret Ritchie calls for the devolution of security powers to the PSNI.

THE RECENT car bomb at Strand Road police station in Derry, swiftly followed by an attempted under-car bomb in Bangor, has underlined that dissident republicans are now able and willing to bring murder and mayhem to almost every part of Northern Ireland.

Without any vestige of popular support, without even a coherent political statement, they seek to emulate the purely technical prowess of the Provisionals who brought devastation to our cities, towns and villages for so long.

The born-again Provos now operate in a very different political, social and policing environment. Twelve years ago, in the first all-Ireland poll for 80 years, the people of Ireland voted overwhelmingly for the Belfast Agreement. It set up our devolved institutions and also laid down the principle of consent – Ireland can only be united by the votes of the people of both jurisdictions.

The principle of consent is now the settled democratic will of the people of Ireland. Violent dissidents have therefore directly challenged Irish democracy; they have excluded themselves from all democratic political discourse. They have no claim on the political sympathies of anyone. It is not a question of branding them as criminals, but rather of recognising that they have made themselves criminals by setting themselves outside and against the community. They are not a political problem; they are a community policing problem.

The first and greatest triumph of the peace process was the establishment of an accountable, representative policing service which is accepted in every part of our community. Indeed, that very success largely accounts for the fact that the PSNI is the primary target of the dissidents.

In acting against violent dissidents, the PSNI is acknowledged to be acting in the interests of, and in co-operation with, the whole community.

For almost 10 years the flow of intelligence from the community to the PSNI and An Garda Síochána has been the key to containing the dissident threat. However, I believe that flow may have been weakened by the 2007 transfer of intelligence-gathering primacy from the PSNI to MI5, and we may have been paying the price over the last year or more.

The transfer of control to MI5 was largely done at the behest of Sinn Féin, which wanted to distance itself from what it called “political policing” before joining the Policing Board. The party insisted that Special Branch, which was indeed a deeply flawed body, should not be reformed as part of the Patten process, but simply abolished. This was a serious political error, and we repeatedly told them so.

Control of intelligence- gathering was removed from the PSNI and from the control of the accountability mechanisms set up under the Belfast Agreement, including the Policing Board and the Policing Ombudsman.

We have an accountable policing service facing violent dissidents, but it is reliant for intelligence-gathering on an unaccountable, shadowy service with its own agenda and a deeply dubious record in Northern Ireland. This cuts right across the grain of co-operation between people and police which must be the very bedrock of dealing with the dissident problem.

There is now clear evidence that there have been intelligence failures over the last two years, starting with the huge bomb abandoned at Castlewellan on its way to Ballykinlar and continuing with the murder of two soldiers at Massarene Barracks and of Constable Carroll in Craigavon. But those who point the finger of blame at the PSNI are facing in the wrong direction.

The dissidents were regrouping, reorganising and co-operating across factional lines since late 2008, not least against those they perceived as informers, and there may have been a loss of human intelligence sources. The greater technical expertise the dissidents showed in bomb-making technology may have extended to frustrating the signals intelligence-gathering on which MI5 is thought to be over-reliant. It is notable that in the same period there was no downturn in intelligence success on the part of the Garda, which continues to frustrate dissident attacks and make arrests.

The SDLP believes we need to go back to the first principles of the Belfast Agreement to defeat the dissidents. Sinn Féin’s MI5 experiment has been a failure. Primacy in intelligence-gathering should be returned to the PSNI, where it would be subject to full accountability mechanisms of the Policing Board and Policing Ombudsman. Protocols governing PSNI use of informants should be extended to all informants.

There is a place for technical wizardry in this fight, but any agencies whose expertise is sought must be under the operational control of accountable PSNI officers.

The absolutely crucial source of intelligence is human, and consists of ordinary people telling what they know to a policing service they trust. There is no other way.

Its takes talent, technology and tolerance to grow an economy. O’Conall St Summer School II

Professor Richard Florida is a great advocate of creative economies. Not places making all their money from arts and culture but societies which are capable of transforming knowledge into product and attracting new people from outside to do likewise.

He argues that three key conditions are necessary for a successful creative economy; talent, technology and tolerance.

Here in the north we have the technology and the talent. Big question – when will we start being tolerant?

Read In Touch – a new community newsletter for South Belfast

In Touch is a new community newsletter for South Belfast which I have produced. If you live in the Balmoral or Newtonbreda areas you’ll probably get one through your door. All feedback very welcome.

InTouch Web

Death in custody of teenager is deeply worrying

The death in custody of 19 year old Allyn Baxter is a worrying development. Mr Baxter was being held at Hydebank Young Offenders Centre. The teenager died following an apparent suicide attempt in the south Belfast detention centre earlier this week. 

There will be a full Prison Ombudsman’s investigation into Mr Baxter’s death. I would urge the Minster of Justice, David Ford, to also review the regime at Hydebank to ensure that vulnerable boys and young men are identified and supported. This young man was on remand. In fact a very large proportion of boys and young men detained at Hydebank have not been convicted of any crime. This in itself is a wholly unacceptable situation and out of step with best international practice. 

Way too many boys and young men detained at Hydebank are also suffering from mental illness. The resources are not in place to provide these at risk young people with the support they need in detention. There is an urgent need for the Executive to develop much stronger polices to address the incidence of mental health problems in the criminal justice system. I have proposed that the Justice Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly look into establishing a joint committee with the Assembly’s Health Committee to better understand and respond to this issue.