New Clare refuse charges a ‘national scandal’

A THIRTY-three per cent increase in refuse collection charges imposed on old-age pensioners in Co Clare has been described as a national scandal by Des Long, the Clare-based Vice-President of Republican Sinn Féin.

Coupled with a rise of over 65% for standard household bins, the new charges add an intolerable burden to many families, he said.

Speaking at a meeting of the Clare Comhairle Ceantair of Republican Sinn Féin in Ennis, he attacked Clare County Council for imposing what he described as cruel and savage increases.

“There can be no justification for such huge increase – from £120 to £200 for standard housing bins, and from £75 to £100 for old-age pensioners,” he said. “Old-age pensioners are being hit by a 33% increase – this can only be described as a cruel and heartless attack on their standard of living.

While Clare County Council may claim that the increases are necessary because of the transportation costs involved in refuse disposal, the fact is the crisis was created by the inaction of the Council. A waste management facility in Clare will not be available until July so the reality is that old-age pensioners and already hard-pressed families are being penalised because of the lack of forward planning by the Council.

“Today we see those most vulnerable in the community are once again paying the price of political inertia.”
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Beannachtaí

REPUBLICAN Sinn Féin, Limerick, wish Michael Ryan a speedy recovery after his operation.

Get well wishes to Mick Ryan, Limerick. From Christy Dunne, Limerick.

Get well wishes to Mick Ryan, Limerick. From Joe and Nora Lynch.

Get well wishes to Mick Ryan, Limerick. From Ger Brommell, Limerick.

Get well wishes to Mick Ryan, Limerick. From Mick Hanley, Limerick.

Get well wishes to Mick Ryan, Limerick. From Mickey Finucane, Limerick.
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Comhbhrón

BRIGDALE, The James Connolly Cumann, Ennis, would like to extend its deepest sympathy to the Brigdale family, Ennis, on the death of Edward, who died recently in Wexford and was buried in his native Clare. He will be missed and never forgotten.

GREENSMITH, Deepest sympathy is extended to the Greensmith family, Co Kerry, on the recent tragic death of their daughter Rachel. From Kerry Comhairle Ceantair, Republican Sinn Féin.

GREENSMITH, The Republican Movement Kerry express deepest sympathy to Richard and Helen Greensmith on the sad death of their daughter Rachel who died tragically with her friend in a car accident.

GREENSMITH, Deepest sympathy is extended to Richard and Helen Greensmith on the sad death of their daughter Rachel. From Republicans in Castleisland, Co Kerry.

GREENSMITH, Deepest sympathy is extended to Richard and Helen Greensmith on the sad death of their daughter Rachel. From Mike and Diane Mitchell, Castleisland, Co. Kerry.

GREENSMITH, Deepest sympathy is extended to Richard and Helen Greensmith on the sad death of their daughter Rachel. From Republican Sinn Féin, West Limerick.

HANRATTY, Deepest sympathy is extended to Betty Hanratty Dawestown, Dundalk, on the death of her brother Jack Nolan, Listowel, Co Kerry. From the Willie Stewart Cumann, Dundalk.

SAVAGE, Deepest sympathy is extended to Jimmy Savage, Dawestown, Dundalk, on the death of his sister Eileen Mallon in Newry. From the Magill family, Dundalk. Go ndéana Dia Trócaire ar a h-anam Usual.

SAVAGE, Deepest sympathy is extended to Jimmy Savage, Dawestown, Dundalk, on the death of his sister Eileen Mallon in Newry. From the Willie Stewart Cumann, Dundalk.
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I gCuimhne

DUIGNAN 11th Anniversary – In proud and loving memory of Leo Duignan, veteran Republican, who died on March 20, 1990. From Liam Mellows Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, Dublin Central.
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What They Said

And you cannot, in turn, blame the judiciary for dealing sympathetically with the pipe-bombers when they are blessed by tacit political support as well as express pastoral support.
— Sunday Tribune’s Brenda Power, January 28, 2001.

Former Attorney-General and Irish EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland has urged MEPs to postpone approving the Nice Treaty for almost a year because the current draft runs counter to the interests of smaller member states, including Ireland.
— Sunday Tribune, January 28, 2001.

Sutherland told the Sunday Tribune that one of his major concerns about the Treaty is that it will involve the European Commission ceding powers to the four biggest EU States, Germany, France, Britain and Italy.
— Sunday Tribune.

“The Commission is being sidelined and that is not in the interest of smaller member states,” said Sutherland. “The process of negotiation is increasingly being taken on by some of the leading states rather than using the traditional (European) Community method.”
— Sunday Tribune.

The British government in principle has said it will move on the watchtowers in South Armagh, but there is a quid pro quo involved.
— Irish Times, Northern Editor, February 3, 2001. Will the Provos be required to police the area for the Brits if the towers are removed?

A week ago, Cork (Presbyterian) clergyman Rev David Armstrong received a death threat from loyalist extremists in Northern Ireland. “They said if I didn’t shut my mouth they would come down here and put a gun in it,” he told the Sunday Tribune. When the Catholic church in Limavady was blown up in 1982, Armstrong was one of the first to sympathise with the Catholic clergy and condemned the bombing.
— Sunday Tribune, February 4, 2001.

His [John Bruton’s] inflexible attitude, at times during the peace process was alarming and his astonishing performance in the presence of Prince Charles in Dublin bordered on abject fawning and was hard to forgive.
— Sunday Business Post TV Reviewer, February 4, 2001.

And furthermore it is simply an embarrassment for the EU that the discrepancies between Ireland and the rest of Europe have so clearly exposed the weaknesses of a one-size-fits-all monetary policy.
— Sunday Business Post’s Catherine O’Mahony, February 4, 2001.

For what transpires is that all peoples who feel their identities under pressure seek the inspiration for resistance in their history. Whether they find it or not depends on a whole host of circumstances.
— Professor Joe Lee, Sunday Tribune, February 4, 2001.

In the longer view, the current failure of any agreement on policing is creating a political and administrative vacuum in which the nocturnal pipe-bombers are operating. The sooner the whole political picture is in place, the sooner we will be able to step back and see who the real enemies of society are and deal with them accordingly.
— Tom McGurk, Sunday Business Post, February 11, 2001. Are the pro-British pipe-bombers being allowed to strike fear into the nationalist community in order to pave the way for the new version of the RUC?

A chief negotiator of the settlement which ended apartheid in South Africa has concluded that the Belfast Agreement has failed.
— Roelf Meyer, former government minister for the National Party, interviewed in the Irish Times, February 12, 2001.

The Good Friday arrangements have failed to meet their objectives and have failed to serve the people. . . . What is the common goal? What is the endgame to which you all wish to proceed?
— Roelf Meyer.

“This is a daily occurrence which is happening throughout the town week in week out. Things like assaults, cars being damaged, windows broken, the odd petrol bomb and now pipe-bombs are going on continually, and nothing is done about it,” said Mr William McCambridge, who escaped the attack with his wife and children.
— Irish Times, February 13, 2001.

The [British] Police Act (2000) states that “the body of constables known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary shall continue in being as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary).
— Irish Times, Northern Editor Gerry Moriarty, February 23, 2001.

The peace process is stalling, mired in gloomy predictions that the Belfast Agreement could yet collapse.
— Dr Colin Irwin in the Irish Times, February 23, 2001.

Apart from the controversial dirty tricks era and the shoot-to-kill period in the RUC, the policing of what could be described as nationalist occasions was simply disgraceful. Who will ever forget RUC behaviour during Republican funerals, or their behaviour when controversial Orange marches were set on invading nationalist areas.
— Tom McGurk, Sunday Business Post, February 25, 2001.

When one considers that the ambition for the new police force (sic) is to recruit large numbers of nationalists out of the very communities who saw themselves under attack from the RUC the scale of what is envisioned becomes apparent.
— Tom McGurk.

Will the new Northern police force be so radically different from anything in the past that even former IRA members would be able to encourage their communities to join, and would themselves sit on the local board?
— Tom McGurk. And would ex-Volunteers not alone direct but actually join the new RUC?

In the early 1970s the SDLP decided to encourage young nationalists to join the new UDR regiment that was being set up to replace the B-Specials. It was an unmitigated disaster. The UDR became an even more effective version of the B-Specials (and eventually had to be disbanded as well), and the divisions that resulted in the nationalist communities have perhaps still not healed.
— Tom McGurk.

I may be wrong, but I fail to believe that many in working class nationalist areas in the North, where the massive majority of under-35s vote (Provisional) Sinn Féin and where potential recruiting is anticipated, would join up. The war with the RUC is too recent and the memories are too fresh.
— Tom McGurk.

In a week’s time the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the great hunger strike will occur. Dublin and the SDLP would do well to remember that those they are now hoping to enlist to the police, those communities (sic) who as young children followed the coffins out of Long Kesh. I’m sure they don’t want to throw a party to which nobody will come?
— Tom McGurk.

Against the backdrop of a continuing loyalist pipe-bomb campaign and the onset of the Orange marching season, the potential for a steady political deterioration and more widespread violence is evident.
— Sunday Business Post’s Frank Connolly, February 25, 2001.

The Commission president, Mr Romano Prodi, is unlikely to visit Ireland before the [Nice] referendum – he has privately explained his failure to visit Dublin by saying he can work out the Irish position by talking to Tony Blair.
— European Diary, Irish Times, February 27, 2001.

Ireland has been losing sympathy within the Commission for a number of years, not least because of Dublin’s perceived closeness to London on many issues.
— European Diary.

Is cinnte go mbeidh droch-chuma orthu [na Sealadaigh] má ghlacann na páirtithe eile leis an bfórsa [an RUC nua] agus má fhanann siadsan ar an gclaí. Ach is go díreach ar cheist achrannach mar seo a thiocfadh bagairt scoilte chun tosaigh i measc poblachtach (sic).
— Seán Ó hÉalaí (as Doire dhó) san cholún Beocheist, Irish Times, Feabhra 27, 2001.

Go dtí seo, d’fhéadfaí feidhm a bhaint as an débhríocht ghlic [constructive ambiguity?] atá mar bhunús le Chomhaontú Bhéal Feirste ach ní féidir le Sinn Féin [Sealadach] bheith “liom leat” faoi seo – ionadaithe a ainmniú don údarás agus gan tacú leis ag an am céanna. Tá an crú ag teacht ar na táirne. (It’s crunch-time in the policing debate . . .)
— Seán Ó hÉalaí.

Níl aon cheart ag glúin ar bith feall a dhéanamh ar bhunchearta mhuintir na hÉireann, ar na laochra a throid ar a son, ar na glúine atá romhainn, a íocfas praghas uafásach daor as an bhfeall céanna.
— Deasún Breatnach in alt do An Aimsir Óige ag tagairt do chomhaontú Stormont 1998.

Shocraíos go gcaithfinn mo vóta i gcoinne mholadh an Rialtais toisc, dar liom, an próiseas [“síochána”] a bheith míreádúil agus mímhorálta.
— Deasún Breatnach.

Maidir leis an gcéad phointe, níreádúlacht: ní éireodh leis an bhplean toisc é a beith bunaithe ar dhrochanailís, gur féidir an bhunfhadhb sna Sé Chontae a réiteach fad is atá an Bhreatain i seilbh an leathchúige, mar a mhalairt a deir stair na hÉireann.
— Deasún Breatnach.
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