Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Topics - Minder

#1
General discussion / Ryder Cup thread ???
October 02, 2016, 10:36:29 PM
????
#4
Hurling Discussion / JJ Delaney retires
December 05, 2014, 10:19:10 AM
Deserves a thread of its own, one of the best ever
#5
GAA Discussion / Canavan steps down from Fermanagh job
September 02, 2013, 09:37:54 PM
Surprise?
#6
General discussion / Minders caption competition
April 20, 2013, 12:22:24 PM
#7
Statement From Kilkenny County Board
Posted about 9 hours ago
Kilkenny Senior Hurling Manager Brian Cody underwent pre-planned cardiac surgery today and is currently recovering in hospital. He is in good form but has to take a break from team affairs for a number of weeks. In his absence Martin Fogarty and Michael Dempsey will be taking charge of the Senior Hurling Panel. The Co. Board asks that Brian and his family be afforded privacy for the duration of his recovery and will not be issuing any further statements

Sincerely
Mr. Ned Quinn

#8
This is a pretty dirty episode.


http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1213/garda-ombudsman-sends-kieran-boylan-file-to-dpp.html

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission has sent a file to the DPP on the case of Kieran Boylan, a convicted drug dealer against whom further drugs charges were dropped in July 2008.
The public interest inquiry has examined the nature of the gardaí's relationship with the drug dealer, whether or not he was permitted to continue dealing drugs while working as an informant, and whether a conviction based on information supplied by Boylan has been rendered unsafe.
It is the longest-ever inquiry conducted by the commission.

The DPP will now consider whether criminal charges should be preferred against members of the gardaí.

For the last four years, the commission has been investigating the circumstances surrounding the case and whether or not gardaí colluded with him in the movement and supply of drugs.
The convicted drug dealer faced six charges in connection with the seizure of €1.7m worth of cocaine and heroin at a transport yard in Co Louth in October 2005.

He was on bail at the time after he had been caught with €700,000 worth of cocaine and heroin in Dublin and Louth for which he was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.
However on the last day of the court sittings in July 2008, the 2005 drugs charges against Boylan were dropped without explanation.

The Ombudsman's investigation into why those charges were dropped has also examined:

- The nature of Boylan's relationship with the gardaí

- If he was acting as an informant for gardaí, registered or not

- Whether any gardaí knew he was dealing drugs while acting as an informant

- If he supplied drugs to other drug dealers and then gave information about those drugs to the gardaí

- Whether or not a conviction secured on the basis of such information is now unsafe

The Ombudsman said there had been ongoing issues during the four-year investigation between GSOC and the gardaí in relation to the sharing of information, but would not comment on any specific case.
However, twice in the past month, the Garda Commissioner has denied any lack of co-operation.
The Ombudsman has also examined alleged threats against a Louth couple after they reported, in confidence to gardaí, drugs linked to Boylan, allegations that gardaí knew Boylan had a mobile phone in prison, which is against the law, and how Boylan managed to secure an International Road Haulage Operators Licence even though he was a convicted drug dealer.
The file of more than 600 pages is now with the DPP who will decide whether or not criminal charges will be preferred.


#9
What do yis think?

This place looks like a hand grenade for our politicians.
#10
General discussion / Ulster Covenant march
September 29, 2012, 04:53:59 PM
I had to go into Belfast City centre this morning on unavoidable business and have to say i have never seen so many scumbags in my life. Hoors standing beside the peelers drinking their carryouts on Royal Avenue, i thought that wasnt allowed.

Must have cost a fortune to police it and clean up after it, should they not have to contribute to the clean up costs ?
#11
Should be on the programme guide north and south today.

Anyone know if it is on yet?
#12
I actually thought this was a piss take when I heard it earlier. Are those two fools the best we can offer ?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0509/breaking42.html



#13
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17366868

An independent panel has decided that assembly members pay should rise by almost £5,000 from April 2013.
The 11% increase to £48,000 will be financed by a cut in office costs.
An MLA's basic pay is currently £43,101. MLAs who are committee chairs get another £11,331, while deputy chairs get an extra £5,667.
Junior ministers get £19,609 on top of the basic while ministers get £37,801. The first and deputy first ministers are entitled to £114,535 each.
The Independent Financial Review Panel published its report on MLAs salaries and expenses on Wednesday.
The pay issue has been so controversial the assembly agreed an independent panel should decide wages.
In recent years, assembly member salaries have not risen in line with those paid in the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly.
Its key decision was that basic pay should rise to £48,000.
To mitigate the cost to the public purse, the panel said that office cost expenses which are higher than Scotland, should be cut by 3% per year by 2014.
Sinn Fein MLA Barry McElduff said his party, throughout the consultation period, had maintained there should be no increase to the salary arrangements for MLAs.
"We believe it would be hypocritical for MLAs to be contemplating an increase in the current economic climate when everyone else is expected to cope with the effects of the recession," he said.
"It is our view that the current remuneration is adequate."
However, both Sinn Fein and the DUP questioned the reduction in the office costs allowances and the knock-on effect that would have on constituency services.
Mr McElduff said Sinn Fein would look at how they could "ensure that constituency services are maintained at the current level".
In a statement, the DUP said it fully supported an independent body setting salaries and allowances.
"MLAs should have no role in the setting of their terms and conditions," it said.
"However, the proposition that MLAs should have a salary increase funded at the expense of their constituency service is totally unacceptable.
"The DUP provides the largest number of advice centres and we want to maintain this vital frontline service. DUP members' priority will be to maintain their constituency service rather than benefiting themselves."
SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell said his party did not support an 11% pay increase.
"It would be plain wrong for MLAs to accept a pay increase at a time when people in our communities are suffering and dole queues are lengthening," he added.
Cost of politics
MLAs will also pay an extra 1% a year in pension contributions.
Official figures currently suggest the average full time wage in Northern Ireland is £23,882.
The average full time wage in the public sector is £29,011 and the average full time wage in the best paid group, the professional occupations, is £36,629.
Panel chair, Pat McCartan, said the "assembly should be applauded for having the courage to place these decisions in the hands of an independent panel totally free of political influence".
As well as a cut in general office costs, the panel also ruled that MLAs who are also councillors will have 100% of their basic councillor allowance progressively deducted from their MLA salary by 1 April, 2013.
The eight MLAs who are also MPs will have their Assembly Office Costs Expenses progressively reduced from £37,928 per year to £8,655 per year by 1 April, 2014.
The report said that despite the pay rise, the package in its entirety would save £3.16m over the remaining three years of the assembly mandate.
"This represents a significant real cut in the cost of politics," it said.
Also, in future, salaries and expenses must be paid into accounts in their own names and the employment of family members has been limited to not more than one by the end of the mandate.
The panel, comprised of Mr McCartan, Dr Henrietta Campbell and Alan McQuillan began work in July 2011.
*Subject to salary protection for existing office holders - see IFRP Report page 38.
Share this
   
#15
General discussion / Inviting on Demonoid
January 16, 2012, 08:36:03 PM
My mate got an invite to Demonoid the other day and in turn he is trying to invite me, is there a period of time you have to wait before you can issue an invite?
#16
Dunno about the rest of you, but that is pretty deplorable behaviour from the RTE reporter.

Irish Times

"GAA: Former Clare hurler and manager Ger Loughnane has strongly criticised some sections of the media for their conduct during his battle with leukaemia.

The RTE hurling pundit is recovering from treatment and returning to good health but has been left with "nothing but absolute contempt" for certain journalists after he was requested to do an interview days after he started treatment and it was then reported to have died last July.

"The lowest point of all was when the rumours that I was dead went around. That was the hardest thing to deal with," said Loughnane. "I had the first phase of chemotherapy just finished and the first phase is very, very difficult."

After such an ordeal he and his wife Mary had to calm his distraught son Conor, who had rung from Australia upon hearing and reading reports of his father's death.

"He saw it all over the internet and he couldn't be convinced that I wasn't (dead), even when he was talking to Mary. He thought she was just trying to calm him down," told The Star . "I had to ring Conor back to reassure him that everything was fine."

The 58-year-old was also angered by requests for an interview from a reporter that came two days after he started treatment.

"I got a message from an RTE reporter looking to do an interview. I didn't even reply to it."

The request was re-routed through a friend. "I was on the chemo for three days, he knew I was on chemo but he wanted to do an interview for his own gratification. Worse still then, he wanted to do an interview at the end of the year.

"He sent me a text saying he was thinking of me and praying for me, and was there any chance I'd do an interview. That's despicable stuff altogether.

"It shows the kind of insincerity that is there with a certain section. When you see it as barefaced as that, you have nothing but absolute contempt for the people who are trying to pull that kind of stunt." "
#17
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/half-of-all-top-ira-men-worked-for-security-services-

Half of all top IRA men 'worked for security services'

By Liam Clarke
Wednesday, 21 December 2011


Half of all senior IRA members in the Troubles were working for intelligence services, a secret dossier of evidence into the murder of two RUC men has claimed.

The remarkable document has laid bare a startling series of claims about the infiltration of both the police and terror groups during the 'Dirty War'.

It claims the IRA ran agents in the RUC and also that Dundalk Garda station was regarded by British intelligence as "a nest of vipers", with at least two officers actively assisting the Provos.

The information is contained in a secret 24-page document in the name of Ian Hurst — a British intelligence whistleblower — which has been seen by the Belfast Telegraph.

The sensational claims are due to be made to Justice Peter Smithwick's Dublin tribunal of inquiry into the murder of two senior RUC officers in 1989.

The victims, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan, died in a hail of IRA gunfire as they crossed the border following an intelligence exchange with the Garda in Dundalk.

The dossier also claims:

The shadowy Force Research Unit (FRU) had a file on suspected rogue gardai prepared to pass information to the IRA and act as its agents. MI5 also had a network of agents with the Garda.
The IRA had a network of informants in public agencies such as social security offices and vehicle licensing departments.
One in four IRA members was an agent, rising to one in two among senior members.
Martin McGuinness was involved in all strategic military decisions taken by the IRA.
At the centre of the web of intrigue sat the IRA's head of internal security, the agent known as Stakeknife, who took information from rogue gardai while himself working for British intelligence.

Perhaps the most shocking claim is that a rogue Garda Sergeant leaked intelligence to Stakeknife. Stakeknife has been identified as Freddie Scappaticci, a veteran Belfast republican.

Scappaticci has strongly denied working for British intelligence and said he had cut his links with the IRA in 1990. He is legally represented at the Smitwick Tribunal and is now considering giving evidence in person.

Last night Mr Hurst refused to comment on the document.

He said: "I believe that this was made public to mess me about. I cannot comment on it because of an injunction preventing me from giving details of my career in special forces."

Mr Hurst worked in military intelligence between 1981 and 1990, spending most of that time in the FRU, responsible for handling agents and informants in Irish paramilitary groups. The injunction has been varied to allow him to give evidence to Smithwick in Dublin.

However tribunal lawyers are insisting that he give his testimony in closed session, something he suspects is part of a deal with the British authorities to limit potentially embarrassing disclosures.

One of the alleged rogue officers in Dundalk has already been indentified. Owen Corrigan, a detective sergeant, was named by Jeffrey Donaldson under Parliamentary privilege. Mr Corrigan, now retired, has always denied the allegation and appeared at the tribunal to reject them. He is one of three gardai, two based in Dundalk and one in Donegal, named in the document.

In the document Mr Hurst says "the fact that a Garda was passing information to the IRA did not bother me anymore or any less than in the same way members of the RUC/UDR/BA (British Army) occasionally passed information to the IRA and regularly to members of various loyalist paramilitaries."

Mr Hurst assisted John Stevens' inquiry into security force collusion with terrorists in Northern Ireland.

The document states Lord Stevens told him that of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested, only three were not security force agents, and some worked for several agencies.

Background

The Smithwick Tribunal is examining claims that members of the Irish police or other employees of the Irish State colluded in the murders of the two most senior RUC officers to die in the Troubles. Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Supt Robert Buchanan were shot dead while returning from a meeting at Dundalk Garda station in the Republic. The tribunal has so far heard evidence from a number of witnesses, some of whom have alleged that members of the Garda passed information to the IRA.

A MAN FROM THE DARK CORNER OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Doubts about Ian Hurst's reliability were dispelled after I published stories based on his information back in 1999.

The first, an unlikely sounding tale claiming military intelligence had doctored bullets used to shoot Gerry Adams, was immediately confirmed by the Defence Advisory Committee. After that he was arrested, and I was questioned under caution.

For a time I gave him the pseudonym Martin Ingram to obscure his identity, but now that alias has been dropped.

He was the first member of the Force Research Unit (FRU) — the dark corner of military intelligence which ran agents in terrorist groups — to speak publicly.

He had two tours of duty in Northern Ireland. Between 1982 and 1990 he was in Londonderry handling agents like Frank Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster later murdered for betraying a cache of Libyan weapons, and Willie Carlin, who got out just ahead of the execution squad.

A second tour was in Enniskillen between 1990 and 1991. There he met his wife, from a Donegal republican family. That affected his vetting and he bought himself out of the Army in 2003.

Penetration of the Provisionals

Mr Hurst was responsible for handling agents in the IRA and for a time had enhanced access to other agents' reports, though not their names, on military intelligence computers. He has painted a picture of an organisation penetrated at almost every level and with its head of security, Stakeknife, working for the other side. The document says: "As a rough guide you should expect one in four PIRA volunteers to be agents of one agency or another." Lord Stevens (above), the former Met chief, is quoted as

saying that only three out of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested in a collusion probe in Northern Ireland were not working for either the RUC, MI5 or the Army. The document claims that Hurst secretly taped a conversation with RAF Air Vice Marshal Andrew Vallance, who was quoted as telling him that the most sensitive matter was the identity of Stakeknife and his role as a British agent.

IRA agents within the Garda

The document claims that the FRU had a file on suspected rogue gardai prepared to pass information to the IRA and act as its agents. It names three people who were allegedly on the list, two in Dundalk and one in Donegal. It quotes Basil Walsh, a senior Garda officer who Mr Hurst met in 1999, as saying he was aware of one named Garda who worked for the IRA. Mr Walsh allegedly told him "that every time something was done to try and eradicate the mess something happened to intervene". The document also claims MI5 had a network of agents with the Garda. MP Jeffrey Donaldson has named retired detective sergeant Owen Corrigan under Parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons in April 2000, as being a "rogue garda". Mr Corrigan denies all allegations of collusion. Last week former agent Kevin Fulton claimed Corrigan was passing information to the IRA and was regarded as a "friend" of the group

Role of McGuinness in the IRA

MR Hurst once backed claims that Martin McGuinness reported to MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency. This was based on a document passed to him, and accepted by him in good faith, after he left the Army but which appears to have been a forgery. The document does not repeat that claim but it does put Mr McGuinness in a central role in the IRA. It states the IRA's "security unit came under the operational command of Northern Command" and adds "the person in charge of that unit throughout the entire Troubles was PIRA member Mr James Martin McGuinness". It accuses McGuinness of being "directly involved in matters of life and death for persons rightly or indeed wrongly suspected of informing on PIRA members. Mr McGuinness was also a key player in the long-term strategic strategies used by PIRA". McGuinness has always denied such a leading role and stated that he left the IRA in the early 1970s.

Republican intelligence gathering

It is claimed that the IRA had a network of informants in public agencies such as social security offices and vehicle licensing, North and South. This echoes claims by Martin McGartland , a former RUC agent in the IRA. One section of the document reads: "PIRA was extensively penetrated at all levels, most sources of the information to PIRA were readily identified (by military intelligence) but seldom compromised." To back up its claims that the intelligence services turned a blind eye to IRA intelligence sources, it claims that in the early 1990s a FRU agent was targeted by the IRA with the help of a social security employee who is still working in the same office. It claims that the IRA could informally "obtain information from driver licensing, social security, councils, utilities far quicker than the FRU", especially in cross-border areas where red tape was involved in working through the RUC and Garda.

Stakeknife, the Army's key agent

Stakeknife was a key military intelligence agent within the IRA, a man with a hotline of his own which gave him direct contact with dedicated handlers in an office known as the 'rat hole'. When he called, he identified himself with a code number, but Mr Hurst learned his true identify by chance while manning the phone. Stakeknife had been caught drink-driving and gave uniformed police the hotline number in an effort to extricate himself. Hurst vouched for him, and it has been claimed that Stakeknife was Freddie Scappaticci, though Mr Scappaticci strongly denies this. The document expands on Stakeknife's role as head of the IRA internal security. It claims he controlled IRA agents in the Garda. The most corrosive suggestion which Justice Peter Smithwick will have to consider is that officers Breen and Buchanan were allowed to die rather than risk compromising the Army's most important agent in Ireland.

The web of collusion and spies

MR Hurst has frequently claimed some members of the RUC, UDR and Army colluded with terror groups. The statement portrays a wilderness of mirrors in which every organisation has the other penetrated to some degree and "all sources have a shelf life". It talks of British agents in the Garda, Garda agents in Northern Ireland, IRA agents in the RUC and Garda and RUC agents in the IRA. It states "the fact that a Garda was passing information to the IRA did not bother me any more or any less than in the same way members of the RUC/UDR/BA (British Army) passed information to the IRA and members of various loyalist paramilitaries. It was a matter for HQNI and the RUC and way above my pay grade ... in other words it was a strategic and not a tactical problem". It concludes that none of this "registered massively on the Richter scale, it was just a fact of life, indeed it was well within the rules of our game!"



Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/half-of-all-top-ira-men-worked-for-security-services-16093721.html#ixzz1hD2sVoM7
#18
3 dead, possibly
#19
General discussion / Europa Cup - Last 32 draw
December 16, 2011, 10:21:51 AM
Some brilliant teams left in this, like Man City, Valencia, Udinese and FC Metalist Kharkiv.
#20
General discussion / Great news for everyone
December 05, 2011, 05:52:48 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-16039052

Daniel to take a break


The Donegal singer, Daniel O'Donnell, has announced he is taking a break from touring in 2012 after 30 years on the road.
The Kincasslagh man will be scaling back on his usual gruelling schedule, performing only a handful of times to his most faithful fans.
He is due to celebrate his 50th birthday this month.
Earlier this year, he became the first artist to have an album in the UK charts for 24 consecutive weeks.
His album, Moon Over Ireland, made it to number 11 just a week after its release.
"To be in the charts is great after all these years," he said.
It is understood he will spend Christmas with his mother in his native Donegal. He usually sings at Christmas Mass there.
Daniel O'Donnell first stepped onto a stage in 1982 with an electric guitar he could not play - all he wanted to do was sing. He made his first record the following year.
During his career O'Donnell has made albums of gospel music, and songs from the 1950s and 60s but he said it was a pleasure to record an album full of songs about his homeland.
"There's a song about every crossroads and every dog fight," he said.
"You know there's somebody writes the words about every event that happens and very often they become very popular songs."
And, he said, his own part of the country has more songs than most.
"Donegal is the county that I come from. I am sure it must have a hundred songs and I have recorded a good few of them," he said.
O'Donnell makes it a priority after his concerts to stay behind and meet the people who have turned up to support him - which may explain why his career has lasted so long.
"It's always nice to meet people. I suppose for me it seems like the most natural thing in the world.
"I always think if you go somewhere and meet nobody you haven't been."