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http://u.tv/News/Brown-to-publish-policing-budget/92b81c00-5911-40ea-bae9-fbbf55ba2c60
Prime Minister Gordon Brown will publish the budget he is offering to secure the devolution of responsibility for policing and justice on Wednesday.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness
The announcement came after Mr Brown met Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Downing Street for a third round of talks within a week.
Mr Robinson said once it was in the public domain he would discuss it with his party colleagues and other parties
The financial package is believed to amount to some £800m and Tuesday night's talks were the first Mr Robinson had left without saying he still needed clarification.
Mr McGuinness said the latest discussions had been "a good night's work" and said devolution to the power sharing Executive was achievable before Christmas.
Once the deal is in the public arena Mr Robinson wants to meet David Cameron to have it "Tory-proofed" against the Conservative leader possibly becoming the Prime Minister in the coming months.
Ahead of the discussions Mr McGuinness went to Dublin for talks with Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin.
Meanwhile Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams addressed the British/Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Swansea on Tuesday and said his party wanted to work with not against unionists.
He said: "Sinn Fein's vision of a new Ireland is of a shared Ireland, an integrated Ireland, an Ireland in which unionists have equal ownership, an Ireland in which there will be respect for cultural diversity, and a place in which there is political, social, economic and cultural equality."
He insisted: "There is no desire on the part of Irish republicans to conquer or humiliate unionists.
"There can be no place for revenge in the thinking or vocabulary of Irish republicanism."
He said the Northern Ireland border with the Irish Republic was more than just an inconvenience.
"The reality is that the economy of the North is too small to exist in isolation.
"The economies of both parts of the island are interlinked and interdependent. The delivery of public services is restricted and inefficient."
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1020/breaking78.htm
The owners of Lissadell Estate in Co Sligo today insisted before the High Court there are no public rights of way over the historic estate, the former home of Countess Constance Markievicz.
If such rights of way exist, it would be “impossible” to run Lissadell as a tourist attraction, Donal O’Donnell SC, for owners Eddie Walsh and Constance Cassidy argued.
An assertion of such rights of way over the 410-acre Lissadell Estate was “bizarre” and “unprecedented in law” as they do not exist, counsel said.
He was opening judicial review proceedings arising from the dispute between the owners of the estate and the Council. The case is being heard by Mr Justice Bryan McMahon and is expected to last for several weeks.
Ms Cassidy and Mr Walsh, with addresses at Morristown, Lattin, Naas, Co Kildare and Lissadell, are seeking declarations the routes in question are not subject to any public rights of way and an order restraining the Council and others wrongfully asserting the routes are subject to a public right of way.
The Council is also facing a claim for damages for alleged slander of title, negligence and intentional and/or unlawful interference with the owners economic interests.
The Council deny all the claims and, in a counter-claim, is seeking a declaration the four routes are subject to a right of way in favour of the public.
The proceedings were initiated after the Council i in December last passed a resolution to amend the Sligo County Development plan to include a provision for the “preservation of the public rights of way” along certain routes at Lissadell.
The Council has claimed no decision to commence the formal process of amending the plan has been made to date.
It also says it had assured the owners it had not determined that public rights of way exist over the lands.
However, as a result of the Council’s resolution, the owners closed Lissadell House, the former home of the Gore Booth family, to the public last January. The Gore Booth family owned the Lissadell Estate, which originally consisted of some 32,000 acres, for more than 400 years.
Today, Mr O’Donnell said the owners would not be able to operate the estate as a tourist amenity if the rights of way existed.
One of the four routes at issue went right up to the front of Lissadell House, which was built in 1830, he said. A right of way would mean it was open to all members of the public, be they “joy riders or truck drivers.”
Counsel said the estate was of great benefit to Co Sligo and had in 2008 attracted approximately 50,000 visitors. It offered guided tours and entry to gardens and also contained exhibits connected with its association with historical figures such as Countess Markievicz, the poet WB Yeats and the painter Jack Yeats.
Mr O’Dinnell said the claims of a public right of way were based “on low grade evidence”, including fragments of maps and memories and recollections of the distant past. It was his clients case this was a misunderstanding and that the reputed right of way was in fact trespass.
To be satisfied such a right existed, the court must be satisfied a land owner had dedicated a route on his property for public use, counsel said.
There was no evidence from documents, including family papers of the Gore Booths dedicated to the public library in Northern Ireland, ward of court papers related to one of the Gore Booth family heirs being a ward of court from 1944 until his death in the 1980’s or from Sligo Co Council’s own documents to show such a dedication ever took place.
A historian would give evidence the inner part of most landed estates were always kept private, counsel added.
Mr O’DOnnell also told the court his clients had purchased Lissadell from the Gore Booth family in 2003 for approximately €4 million and had since spent more than €9.5m restoring it. When they bought the estate, they were never informed by the Council about any public rights right of way, he said.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/orange-parades-will-have-role-in-united-ireland--adams-14536938.html
By Noel McAdam
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Orange Order marches would have a place in a new united Ireland, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said today. In an speech to the British Irish Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, meeting in Wales, he insisted republicans had no desire to conquer or humiliate unionists.
The veteran party leader, who recently appealed through the Belfast Telegraph for the Order to open talks with Sinn Fein, said the genuine fears and concerns of unionists — including their sense of Britishness — needed to be explored in a meaningful way.
And he also told the gathering in Swansea, made up of MPs, members of the regional Assemblies as well as elected representatives from the Isle of Man and Channel Islands, that the people of Britain have a duty “to themselves, to unionists in particular, to the Irish in general and even to the world” to give their opinion on Irish reunification.
“We need to look at ways in which the unionist people can find their place in a new Ireland. In other words it needs to be their united Ireland,” the West Belfast MP said.
Sinn Fein’s vision of a new Ireland was where unionists have “equal ownership” with respect for cultural diversity, and political, social, economic and cultural equality because nationalists and republicans did not seek to deny the rights of others.
“The real distinction that we have always drawn is between justice and privilege. Justice for all and privilege for none. This means, for example, that Orange marches will have their place in a new Ireland, albeit on the basis of respect and co-operation,” he said.
With the main focus of the two-day event on the recession, Mr Adams argued that in economic terms the border is more than just an inconvenience — it is an obstacle to progress.
“While its adverse affects are most clearly felt in the communities that straddle the border, it also impacts negatively throughout the island. The reality is that the economy of the North is too small to exist in isolation.
“There are some who suggest that because we live in a period of severe economic difficulty that Irish reunification should be put off for the foreseeable future. In fact the opposite is the case,” Mr Adams went on.
“There is now a need, more than ever, for the island economy to be brought into being in the fullest sense, and for the political and administrative structures to be instituted with that in mind.”
http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Suspended-sentence-for-man-who.5746588.jp
Published Date: 20 October 2009
By Staff reporter
A man captured on CCTV singing sectarian songs during August's Apprentice Boys parade in Derry has had a two month jail term suspended for 18 months. Ryan Finley, 21, of Aughlish Court, pleaded guilty to doing a provocative act on August 8 last.
Derry Magistrate's Court heard that police were monitoring footage as the parade made its way through the city centre.
A number of people began making verbal and physical gestures. Stones, bottles and petrol bombs were thrown and Finley was spotted singing sectarian songs directed towards members of the nationalist community.
Finley was arrested and admitted 'the insults' during interview.
Defence solicitor Keith Kyle said the 'height of his involvement was standing at the periphery of a large group. He did sing a couple of lines of this song but accepts he should not have been there doing this."
The solicitor said Finley did not 'hold sectarian views' and apologised for his behaviour.
Handing down the suspended jail term, District Judge Barney McElholm said: "If he is singing sectarian songs, how can he say he has no sectarian views?"
He told the 21-year-old he was 'treading a very fine line' and warned Finley that, if he appeared in court again in the next eighteen months, he would go to jail
http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Fury-as-cars-found-burned.5748382.jp
Published Date: 20 October 2009
Those responsible for burning cars in the Bogside and Brandywell area at the weekend are "terrorising their own community," a local councillor has said.
Sinn Féin councillor Peter Anderson made the comment after a number of cars were destroyed by fire in the area over the last three nights. On Friday night, a Vauxhall Corsa car was set alight at an entrance to the Brandywell Stadium on Brandywell Road. It had been taken from a house in the nearby Bluebell Hill Gardens.
On Saturday a Nissan Micra was damaged by fire at Rossville Street close to Joseph Place however the PSNI have said they do not believe the fire was suspicious. On Sunday the burned shell of the car was moved to the bottom of Westland Street by local youths where it was again set on fire outside the Bogside Inn.
Commenting on the incidents, Colr. Anderson said: "Those involved in these actions have only succeeded in terrorising their own communities by inflicting inconveniences upon them.
"The last thing any person wants to wake up to in the morning is to find that their car has been vandalised or destroyed overnight by anti-community elements. In the current economic climate it is very hard to afford to keep a car on the road at the best of times and no-one needs this extra expense and upset," he said
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8317094.stm
A man has been arrested in connection with the Real IRA murders of two soldiers at an Army base in March.
Sappers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey were shot dead outside Massereene barracks in Antrim.
The two young soldiers were the first to be murdered in Northern Ireland in 12 years.
The 47-year-old, who was arrested in Belfast on Tuesday, is also being questioned about five attempted murders during the attack.
The arrest was made by detectives from the PSNI's Serious Crime Branch.
Two men have appeared in court charged with murdering the soldiers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8285703.stm
People in the Republic feel better off than those in Northern Ireland and live longer, a new study says.
A paper being presented to a health conference on Friday examines health and lifestyle surveys in the two areas.
It said that 90% in the Republic rated their quality of life as 'very good' or 'good', compared with 86% in NI.
Life expectancy in the Republic of Ireland was 77.5 years for men and 82.2 years for women but 76.2 years for men and 81 years for women in NI.
In the Republic, 88%, rated their general health as 'excellent', 'very good' or 'good'. In Northern Ireland, somewhat fewer respondents, 75%, rated their general health as 'very good' or 'good'.
The most frequently reported diagnosed chronic condition in both the Republic and Northern Ireland was asthma, followed by diabetes.
The report, compiled by the Department of Health in the Republic, found that almost twice as many women in Northern Ireland, 30%, had been tested for cervical cancer in the previous 12 months compared to the Republic, 16%.
It said that women in higher social classes in the Republic were significantly more likely to have been tested than women in lower social classes.
Height and weight results were broadly similar with one-quarter of respondents in both the areas classified as 'obese' according to their BMI.
Only 1% of respondents in the Republic were 'underweight', compared to 5% in Northern Ireland.
Two-thirds of respondents in Northern Ireland, 65%, and almost half of respondents in the Republic, 46%, reported drinking alcohol at least once a week. Men were significantly more likely than women to drink weekly in both jurisdictions.
The report's authors said they hoped the findings would "further our understanding of the processes that shape health and social well-being".
The report is being launched at the Population Health Autumn School at Queen's University, Belfast, on Friday.
Updated: 11/5/2009
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