Archive for the ‘Double Standards’ Category
Reilly left red-faced as he’s named on debt-default list – National News – Independent.ie
Health Minister Dr James Reilly Named in Stubbs Gazette – Debts of €1.9
The Irish Independent highlights another Government Minister in trouble :
Dr James Reilly, Fine Gael Minister for Health, joins a growing list of Cabinet Members surrounded by dodgy financial deals. Just like the Ahern-Cowen Fianna Fail governments of 1997 – 2011 – Spot the difference?
NUJ Dismay over Boston Tapes Ruling | Boston College Subpoena News
National Union of Journalists : Dismay Over Boston Tapes Ruling
NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet said the ruling has “significant implications” for academic and journalistic research.
She said:
“These interviews were recorded between 2001 and 2006 and each participant understood the recording would not be released prior to their death. We salute the stand taken by Ed Moloney, Belfast Project Director and Anthony McIntyre, who carried out the interviews in good faith. It is regrettable that Boston College did not support their legal challenge in relation to the Price interview. It is deeply disappointing that the challenge has failed. As a union we are concerned at the chilling effect which this ruling will have on academic and journalistic research but we are also concerned at the possible threat to the safety of Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney.”
This Henry McDonald Guardian article is also worth reading:
Disclosure of IRA testimony held in Boston could stall search for truth
Link :
Stanford University California – Ex-Taoiseach Brian Cowen is a $58,000 student on a Six-Week Course
The Irish Daily Mail is running a story on ex-Taoiseach Brian Cowen :
Link :
Brian Cowen at Stanford University
Let’s wait and see how this story develops.
The words “Stanford University” rang a bell here :
Reilly’s special advisor paid €160,000 for 80% of his time, works here ‘on average’ 2 weeks a month
Health Analyst Sara Burke reported about Mr Martin Connor on February 17 2012 :
Connor, a special advisor to Health Minister James Reilly, divides his time between Ireland and Stanford University, California :
Word was out in the health system that Martin Connor worked here just eight days out of 24 and was based in California. When I asked the Department of Health how much of his time was dedicated to his special delivery unit work and where was he based, I was told, ‘The time commitment is of the order of 80%. Dr Connor is currently completing a research fellowship in Stanford University. He is in Ireland for two weeks a month on average but also conducts work by teleconference on a daily basis.’ Teleconferences on a daily basis must be difficult given the time difference between California and Dublin.
Link :
Health Minister Reilly’s Special Advisor Paid €160,000; Studies at Stanford University California
In recent days mainstream Irish media outlets ran a story about an alleged “scandal” – 3 United Left Alliance TD’s travelled outside their Dublin constituencies to support the Campaign Against the Household Tax.
Link :
Smear Campaign Against ULA TD’s on Travel Expenses
Makes you wonder about the calibre of wealthy students at Stanford University California, Irish State Bodies Paying Very Expensive Fees, and Double Standards in the Main Irish media outlets.
Update 1 :
Link :
John Meehan
SECOND FRONT OPENED IN LEGAL FIGHT TO SAVE BOSTON COLLEGE ARCHIVES
SECOND FRONT OPENED IN LEGAL FIGHT TO SAVE BOSTON COLLEGE ARCHIVES
Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre are pleased to announce that they are opening a second front in their fight to prevent the Police Service of Northern Ireland gaining access to the Belfast Archive at Boston College. In addition to the legal action currently ongoing in the federal appeals court in Boston, they have this week filed papers in the Belfast courts seeking a judicial review of the PSNI action alleging that the UK authorities are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and the British Human RIghts Act of 1998. The Judicial Review asks that the British Home Office’s request of assistance from the United States be quashed, the subpoenas be declared unlawful, a discontinuation of the PSNI’s application for the material, and for an injunction stopping any material from Boston College being received by the PSNI. The two legal actions in Belfast and Boston emphasise our utter determination that the enormously valuable historical documents in the Boston College archive will never fall into the hands of anyone except those authorised by the terms of the solemn and unbreakable contracts we made with the interviewees. Ultimately these papers tell a part of Ireland’s recent troubled history and they should be used for no reason other than to educate and inform. Read the rest of this entry »
The Right to Die With Dignity – Is Ireland on the Brink of a New X Case?
Ireland’s legislators have delayed taking action on the infamous X Case for more than twenty years.
In 1992 the State tried to prevent the parents of a raped suicidal pregnant 14 year old girl bringing their daughter to England for an abortion.
In 2011 the State prevented Bernadette Forde, who was suffering from a horrible disease – Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS) – that was getting worse all the time – from visiting the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland in order to end her own life. The Gardaí intervened, threatening legal action against Bernadette and other people who might be helping her.
Shortly afterwards Bernadette took her own life in Ireland.
A file is now with the Director of Public prosecutions.
The 2011 General Election saw Ireland swinging to the left on such matters – Clare Daly TD, with the support of other Leinster House colleagues, took legislative “Action on X”, and this struggle will continue :
http://politico.ie/crisisjam/8310-the-x-case-twenty-years-is-too-long.html
Similar establishment inertia surrounds the “Right to Die” issue, and Ireland could experience a political crisis similar to the X Case unless legislative action is taken.
Bernadette Forde’s story – “Forbidden to Leave” was published in the Sunday Business Post on April 15 2012 : Read the rest of this entry »
Violent Legacy of Irish Troubles, British Double-Standards – Boston College Row Revisited
Ed Moloney’s Irish Echo Editorial (an Irish-American Newspaper) on the Boston tapes controversy is required reading for all people genuinely interested in dealing with the violent legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles (1969-1998, signing of the Good Friday Agreement).
Two key quotes :
Number 1 :But the war has now ended, peace reigns and there is a desperate need for dealing with the past in a way that solidifies that peace and ensures an untroubled future.
The British have chosen a way that does the opposite. The Boston College subpoenas symbolize an approach to this issue based on revenge and the view that alleged combatants in that war should be dragged before the courts, convicted and jailed.
Number 2 :
There will be those, of course, who will say that if Gerry Adams did order Jean McConville’s “disappearance” then he deserves to be prosecuted. In a normal society, one ruled by a normal government, that would be a difficult argument to answer. But Northern Ireland is not, even with the peace process, a normal society and nowhere is this more evident than in the administration of justice.
The plain, undeniable fact is that there are double standards in the way justice is doled out in Northern Ireland.
Read, Circulate, and Act.
Slowly, but inexorably, the penny is dropping, both here in the United States as well as back in Ireland.
The Boston College subpoenas seeking access to oral history interviews with former IRA activists on behalf of the police in Northern Ireland are about the dumbest things that have ever happened in the long relationship between the United States, Britain and Ireland.
The difficulty is not how to describe why they are so dumb, but in counting the ways in which they are so dumb.
First of all, this is not the way in which to heal a conflict like that in the North of Ireland.
Over 3,000 people died and tens of thousands were scarred, physically and mentally, by a war that was undoubtedly one of the longest and most violent, if not the most violent in Irish history.
But the…
View original post 1,543 more words
Belfast to Boston Via Afghanistan
Eamonn McCann has written a fascinating account of former Royal Ulster Constabulary Officers who urged a legal assault on the Boston Archive in order to settle old scores :
Norman Baxter’s Long Crusade
Well worth reading :
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/13/norman-baxters-long-crusade/
Mr Baxter was part of the police team that unsuccessfully investigated the 1998 Omagh Bombing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8356020.stm
Boston College has undermined all researchers and journalists who rely on confidential sources – Liam Clarke Article
A huge amount has been written about the Boston College Saga – and there is plenty more to come – but Liam Clarke sums up the central issues very well
His full article is here :
We need full open and honest debate on the troubles – that cannot happen when the state uses its power to prosecute people for actions they took during the 1969-98 Northern Ireland war which ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
The state is biased and will never – taking the most blatant example – prosecute the people responsible for the murder of fourteen unarmed demonstrators in Derry on Bloody Sunday at the end of January 1972.
The Saville Inquiry Found British Paratroopers Guilty of Murdering 14 Innocent Civilians - Nobody Prosecuted
Ed Moloney offers the example of Patrick McCullough :
http://thebrokenelbow.com/2012/01/16/no-subpoenas-for-patrick-mccullough/
Tomás Ó Flatharta 