Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[Kidder81]

Who isn't getting equality glens ?

[orangeman]

I have to concede that I am surprised Gerry isn't out by now.

Tommy Gorman is talking about the cops exploring "other charges" must be a concern.

[glens abu]

Who isn't getting equality glens ?

Would take a long time to answer that but for me,working one parent families,low paid workers esp in the public sector,people in negative equality.I could also start about people who are discriminated against because of their background,colour,sexual preferences,could go on all night but like everything we can only strife to get things right and that will be the biggest test for us all.I know by reading your posts 81 that you will not agree with me because I am a Shinner but that's my opinion.

[glens abu]

I have to concede that I am surprised Gerry isn't out by now.

Tommy Gorman is talking about the cops exploring "other charges" must be a concern.

Not at all,they never were going to charge him regarding Jean McConville because that was just lies from the Boston Touts.They have been trying to get enough to charge him with membership.Sinn e

[orangeman]

I have to concede that I am surprised Gerry isn't out by now.

Tommy Gorman is talking about the cops exploring "other charges" must be a concern.

Not at all,they never were going to charge him regarding Jean McConville because that was just lies from the Boston Touts.They have been trying to get enough to charge him with membership.Sinn e

Keepng Gerry in for 4 days doesn't make sense if all they intend to charge him with is membership ?.

Surely they could have done that after day 1 ?.

What evidence had they for charging Bell with aiding and abetting ?.

[orangeman]

Sdlp view -

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood criticised Sinn Féin for staging the rally and said people must stand in support of the McConville family.
He said some people were "on the wrong side of where the great majority of people are".
"It begs many, many questions that a rally was held this afternoon in the shadow of Divis, from the very place where Jean McConville was taken and then murdered," added Mr Attwood.
He continued,"How can any organisation think it appropriate to convene a rally around the arrest of a person in relation to Jean McConville's murder yards from where she was abducted?"
Mr Attwood said the rally was "another example of Sinn Féin displaying fundamentally bad judgment, at the very least, around the recent arrest".
"Martin McGuinness has raised questions about support for policing. The new beginning to policing was hard won and no one should casually undermine it.
"The comments of Mr McGuinness are a challenge to Irish democracy, that somehow one person is bigger than peace or politics. As before, Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the people of Ireland. "

[Tony Baloney]

Sdlp view -

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood criticised Sinn Féin for staging the rally and said people must stand in support of the McConville family.
He said some people were "on the wrong side of where the great majority of people are".
"It begs many, many questions that a rally was held this afternoon in the shadow of Divis, from the very place where Jean McConville was taken and then murdered," added Mr Attwood.
He continued,"How can any organisation think it appropriate to convene a rally around the arrest of a person in relation to Jean McConville's murder yards from where she was abducted?"
Mr Attwood said the rally was "another example of Sinn Féin displaying fundamentally bad judgment, at the very least, around the recent arrest".
"Martin McGuinness has raised questions about support for policing. The new beginning to policing was hard won and no one should casually undermine it.
"The comments of Mr McGuinness are a challenge to Irish democracy, that somehow one person is bigger than peace or politics. As before, Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the people of Ireland. "

Have no time for Attwood at all but would agree with most of this. The placards they were holding earlier saying "Defend The Peace Process" were strange in my opinon. Do SF mean that people potentially involved in ordering these murders must be protected at all costs? The Disappeared are amongst the most divisive cases of the Troubles and aren't going away. Gerry getting sweated for a few days won't undermine the peace process, nor would him getting put inside if it is proved that he was involved. The detectives questioning him are probably sweating more than him!

[glens abu]

Sdlp view -

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood criticised Sinn Féin for staging the rally and said people must stand in support of the McConville family.
He said some people were "on the wrong side of where the great majority of people are".
"It begs many, many questions that a rally was held this afternoon in the shadow of Divis, from the very place where Jean McConville was taken and then murdered," added Mr Attwood.
He continued,"How can any organisation think it appropriate to convene a rally around the arrest of a person in relation to Jean McConville's murder yards from where she was abducted?"
Mr Attwood said the rally was "another example of Sinn Féin displaying fundamentally bad judgment, at the very least, around the recent arrest".
"Martin McGuinness has raised questions about support for policing. The new beginning to policing was hard won and no one should casually undermine it.
"The comments of Mr McGuinness are a challenge to Irish democracy, that somehow one person is bigger than peace or politics. As before, Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the people of Ireland. "

Ha ha what a dick,will see how many votes he gets in two weeks time.Having said that he will probably qbe a better leader than the present one.

[Tony Baloney]

Sdlp view -

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood criticised Sinn Féin for staging the rally and said people must stand in support of the McConville family.
He said some people were "on the wrong side of where the great majority of people are".
"It begs many, many questions that a rally was held this afternoon in the shadow of Divis, from the very place where Jean McConville was taken and then murdered," added Mr Attwood.
He continued,"How can any organisation think it appropriate to convene a rally around the arrest of a person in relation to Jean McConville's murder yards from where she was abducted?"
Mr Attwood said the rally was "another example of Sinn Féin displaying fundamentally bad judgment, at the very least, around the recent arrest".
"Martin McGuinness has raised questions about support for policing. The new beginning to policing was hard won and no one should casually undermine it.
"The comments of Mr McGuinness are a challenge to Irish democracy, that somehow one person is bigger than peace or politics. As before, Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the people of Ireland. "

Ha ha what a dick,will see how many votes he gets in two weeks time.Having said that he will probably qbe a better leader than the present one.

They have a leader? 

[glens abu]

Sdlp view -

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood criticised Sinn Féin for staging the rally and said people must stand in support of the McConville family.
He said some people were "on the wrong side of where the great majority of people are".
"It begs many, many questions that a rally was held this afternoon in the shadow of Divis, from the very place where Jean McConville was taken and then murdered," added Mr Attwood.
He continued,"How can any organisation think it appropriate to convene a rally around the arrest of a person in relation to Jean McConville's murder yards from where she was abducted?"
Mr Attwood said the rally was "another example of Sinn Féin displaying fundamentally bad judgment, at the very least, around the recent arrest".
"Martin McGuinness has raised questions about support for policing. The new beginning to policing was hard won and no one should casually undermine it.
"The comments of Mr McGuinness are a challenge to Irish democracy, that somehow one person is bigger than peace or politics. As before, Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the people of Ireland. "

Ha ha what a dick,will see how many votes he gets in two weeks time.Having said that he will probably qbe a better leader than the present one.

They have a leader? 

Tony so have we and he will still prove to be a better leader than the SDLP ever had.

[Syferus]

Sdlp view -

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood criticised Sinn Féin for staging the rally and said people must stand in support of the McConville family.
He said some people were "on the wrong side of where the great majority of people are".
"It begs many, many questions that a rally was held this afternoon in the shadow of Divis, from the very place where Jean McConville was taken and then murdered," added Mr Attwood.
He continued,"How can any organisation think it appropriate to convene a rally around the arrest of a person in relation to Jean McConville's murder yards from where she was abducted?"
Mr Attwood said the rally was "another example of Sinn Féin displaying fundamentally bad judgment, at the very least, around the recent arrest".
"Martin McGuinness has raised questions about support for policing. The new beginning to policing was hard won and no one should casually undermine it.
"The comments of Mr McGuinness are a challenge to Irish democracy, that somehow one person is bigger than peace or politics. As before, Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the people of Ireland. "

Ha ha what a dick,will see how many votes he gets in two weeks time.Having said that he will probably qbe a better leader than the present one.

They have a leader? 

Do Sinn Fein?

[lynchbhoy]

well there is no decent sf candidate in my constituency
im tempted to vote ff but their candidates are no better

independents are ok if you have the likes of a healey-rae blackmailing the gov into getting things for their area etc

funnily enough sf have come a long way right from their initial far left position in the 80's.

id have to be convinced that sf wont fcuk up workers with reasonable incomes as right now we are paying most of the taxes in the state and im afraid that the dole scroungers  and supposed 'poor' people (who get more in benefits than most just above avg industrial wage) will be getting more and we would be getting even less if sf get in...
ive yet to be fully convinced.
theres a few sf candidates in areas who shouldn't be let near the dail

one last thing
ming needs to stop smoking blow and campaign to get th roads in Roscommon improved.
driving to castlebar or Sligo you see the worst roads in Ireland are in Roscommon!

Spot on. Same would apply north and south. Economic policy has to extend to more than showing people how to fill in another claim/grant/bru form. I don't think the shinners are aware there is a private sector economy.

What makes you think that,SF have plenty of members who work in the private sector I myself manager a small company in Lisburn.

I thought SDLP used to be sneered at for being the "school teacher, Doctor, lawyer party" or something along those line and SF represented more of the working classes. SF have always been a self-proclaimed working class party and that has/is alienating people in the middle class. Using yourself as an example is misleading, you're one man in a large volume of people. I seen the lad protesting outside the barracks where Gerry is and he would fit into the demographic lynchboy is talking about quite well.

I'll put it to you this way, if the Shinners came to power would they favour the needs of small company managers like yourself or would they focus more on the families claiming benefits?

I never said I was a Doctor,school teacher,or a lawyer so don't know what you are trying to sAy but however I would like to think SF will look after all sectors including small business.A party that believes in equality  will make sure those on benefits and the working class will benefit from an Ireland of equals.The problem at present in this Ireland is it's the multi nationals,big business and bankers who benefit and the rest suffer.

Multinationals and big business employ tens of thousands of people in Ireland. They aren't perfect but big business is more sustainable and puts more back into the economy than carving Long Kesh souvenirs in some PEACE funded office up the Falls or worse than that, ignoring (and arguably perpetuating) the benefits culture in W. Belfast etc. All businesses need focus, from the self-employed to large multinational and everything in between, including encouraging the unemployed that employment is a more viable long-term option than the dole.

Tony I never said there wasn't a place for multinationals all I was saying is they shouldn't have a special place,they need to pay the right taxes and I know they are important regarding employment.It is all about equality in wages,taxes and opportunities.

Feck sake
It's larger scale business that I'm talking about.
I'm already screwed paying tax that's prob keeping some scrounger in beer money and 'disposable' prams!

Ok sf didn't bring in the over generous welfare system in the south but this gravy train needs to be pared back for the perennial Irish as well as new immigrant scroungers.
Civil service needs to get off their hole and create a proper database - retina scan or fingerprint based- as everything else is open to abuse.
Put the hoors out cleaning the streets.

I'd want the same benefit system as Europe.
Child Medical care mandatory.
But dole, housing, health etc on a reduced level but only after 2 years eligibility period.

Then maybe the workers who are the mainstay of the economy might get a bit of a tax break at last.

To be fair sf are no worse than the rest of the idiot parties down here who are simply self serving.
I just am afraid the higher  salaried will be shafted even more ( slightly larger salaries but paying massively more in tax/stealth tax )

Sorry glens- I don't know who the sf euro candidate is round here ( I don't know any candidates yet).
The council ones I have no clue who they are. Apart from one who runs for the dail and im less than impressed by him to be honest.
I'd love a couple of decent choices in the local constituency - but there isn't

[orangeman]

JEAN McConville's daughter is to speak to UK lawyers this week with a view to taking a civil action against Sinn Fein over her mother's murder and disappearance.


Helen McKendry and her husband Seamus, who began the campaign to discover the IRA's 'disappeared', say they hope to sue the party based upon their belief that "it's the political wing of the IRA".

They should know later today, when Adams's second 48-hour period of detention expires at 8pm, whether or not he is to face charges over his alleged role in the abduction and murder of Mrs McConville. This could then open the way to any civil action.

In the event that Adams is charged and convicted, Seamus said: "I'd like to take Gerry's holiday home off him. That place in Donegal (Adams' holiday home in Gortahork, which local people estimated would have been worth upwards of €600,000 during the property boom) must we worth a good few quid.

"But we want to sue the party. Sinn Fein is one of the richest parties in Europe. It is definitely the richest party in the British Isles and it is and was the political wing of the IRA which murdered Jean.

"What happened to Jean McConville was a war crime under the Geneva Convention on the forced disappearance of people. Sinn Fein was part of the IRA and it is culpable."

He referred to IRA leadership plans seized by gardai in the 1970s, which outlined how it was to control Sinn Fein and use it as a political tool for agitation alongside the IRA campaign.

The document, entitled 'Staff Report' found at the time of the arrest of IRA army council member, Seamus Twomey, in Dun Laoghaire in December 1977 outlined how the IRA leadership was to direct Sinn Fein to "broaden" its terrorism campaign.

Helen McKendry said she and Seamus "have tried for years to get lawyers interested but nothing happened". But she added: "I can't say exactly what happened but we were contacted and we are to speak to someone next week. All the publicity over Adams being lifted has caused this."

Mrs McKendry, who was left abandoned with her nine brothers and sisters after their mother's murder, said she would like to see her killers brought to justice. "I will do anything to get whoever killed my mother behind bars."

She said she had co-operated with the investigators and had given them names of people who were involved in the kidnapping and murder of her mother. She was unafraid of naming names – something that would have led to her murder in the past.

"What can they do to me that they haven't done, only come and shoot me and how would the world view that?"

She called on her brothers and sisters to also come forward to help the PSNI investigation into the murder.

Any civil case against Sinn Fein or Gerry Adams would likely to resemble the case taken by the families of the August 1998 Omagh 29 bombing victims.

Lawyers for the McConvilles would have to establish a basis for linking Sinn Fein to the leadership of the IRA which could centre around proving Gerry Adams' central role in both organisations, despite his frequent denials.

[orangeman]

EILIS O'HANLON – PUBLISHED 04 MAY 2014 02:30 AM

Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me. That was the standard Sinn Fein response last week to the arrest of Gerry Adams for questioning about the murder, 40 years ago, of a widowed mother of 10.


Regardless of one's political persuasion, it seemed an inadequate reaction, to say the least. As Newstalk's political editor Shane Coleman pointed out on Thursday's Right Hook, the arrest of a major political leader in Ireland in such circumstances is both dramatic and unprecedented.

Have we really grown so blase about Ireland's recent dark history that we can immediately shrug off this development and move on? Were our sensibilities really so dulled by the Troubles that we fail to even notice, let alone process, how strange the country has become?

Of course Sinn Fein was always going to allege that the timing of the arrest of Gerry Adams during an election campaign was "politically motivated". What else could it say?

History has slung this albatross called Adams around its neck. Sinn Fein has to explain its presence as best it can. Even Mary Lou McDonald, used to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear in interviews, was struggling to present this latest development in a positive light; but then she was caught in a dilemma of her own making.

When Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin recently went public with serious allegations about the internal cover-up of rape and sexual abuse by members of the republican movement, Sinn Fein's response was unequivocal: bring these matters to the proper authorities. Let the police decide what to do about them. In the meantime, shut up.

Suddenly, the narrative of trusting the police to be the final arbiters of what should and should not be prosecuted is replaced with a different line. Now, apparently, Sinn Fein reserves the right to the final say about which crimes should be investigated.

Mary Lou mutters darkly about "shadowy forces" within unionism and the Northern security services; the North's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness channels his inner Obi Wan Kenobi and blames the "dark side".

Niall O'Dowd at Irish Central even claims that Adams had been targeted for arrest because Sinn Fein "present a threat to the established order" and the establishment will "do anything to bring them down" and stop them ... well, what? Taking some seats in the European Parliament? That's hardly going to bring down the system from within. Form a coalition after the next election with Fine Gael or Fianna Fail? Ask the PDs, Greens and Labour if that's such a glittering prize. In fact, it could be said the best way to stop Sinn Fein's rise is to get it into coalition as soon as possible, as annihilation tends to follow swiftly for the junior partner in any such deal.

There are undoubtedly elements within unionism and the security forces who would love nothing better than to claim Gerry Adams's scalp, but it's hard to make a credible case that his arrest is part of some grand masterplan to thwart the rise of Sinn Fein when there is just as much chance that it would have the opposite effect.

The forces of which Mary Lou and McGuinness talk may be shadowy, but they're not stupid. Sinn Fein is simply discovering, once again, the perils of having a party leader who remains unable to meld the two parts of his character – tribal leader and bridge-building peacemaker – into a convincing whole. It's always going to be a hostage to fortune whilst Adams is around, and, even if this latest drama does blow over, it's only a matter of time before the next crisis comes along.

Sinn Fein doesn't own the past. Other people have memories and tales to tell too. They can't all be silenced. The attempt to uncover the truth about Jean McConville's fate is not an isolated conspiracy, but part of an ongoing effort to make sense of the past.

Speaking last week, Mary Lou almost made it sound as if Gerry was going North to answer questions about the abduction, murder and secret burial of this woman out of the goodness of his heart.

He had told the police "he was available", she said, and they had "taken him up" on his offer. He "voluntarily wished to speak to them".

She made being arrested sound almost jolly, like arranging drinkies with friends. Are you free on Thursday, old bean? You are? How splendid. See you there.

It may be to Sinn Fein's advantage to present what happened last week as proof that there is political interference in policing to damage the party's inexorable rise to power; but the real truth is that what political interference there has been in policing in the North in recent years has all been to Sinn Fein's advantage.

Take the recent revelations about the way the scheme to grant effective amnesties to so-called On The Runs was operated. Sinn Fein did not appear to have any objection to political policing when it was IRA bombers who were being granted Get Out Of Jail Free cards as a result. Sinn Fein representatives in the North openly admitted to acting as secret conduits who both sought, and then delivered, private agreements to known terrorists from the British government over the heads of the Northern assembly and the police and courts.

Last month, the Westminster committee dealing with the ongoing controversy over the On The Run scheme even heard claims from a former PSNI officer that Tony Blair, as prime minister, personally intervened in an effort to have two IRA gunmen released from custody. According to former detective chief superintendent Norman Baxter, Blair did so after receiving a call from the Sinn Fein leader asking him to intervene.

The former policeman's credentials have been called into question by Sinn Fein, and there is no way of confirming that Adams or Blair did make any such calls. But in their own way, the slew of similar allegations about political interference in policing in order to "save" the peace process are much more significant than the Sinn Fein leader's arrest last week. That can ultimately be explained away as dirty tricks. It's much harder to justify why Sinn Fein continues to believe the law of the land should apply equally to all ... except when it's republicans who are in the frame.

Imagine for a moment that senior figures within Fine Gael or Fianna Fail had been on the telephone last week secretly putting pressure on Judge Martin Nolan not to imprison Anglo executives Pat Whelan and Willie McAteer. We'd now be in the middle of a political crisis that would make the recent scandals around the Garda Siochana look like a walk in the park by comparison. Yet when Sinn Fein effectively does the same for On The Run terrorists, no one bats an eyelid.

The nonchalance in some quarters about the arrest of Gerry Adams is just more evidence that we don't know what normal political life looks like anymore.

Sunday Independent

[orangeman]

Surely this isn't right :


Gerry Adams is being questioned for up to 17 hours a day by detectives investigating the murder of Jean McConville, a source close to him says.