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October 30, 2005

LVF Stands Down

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LVF
Adios Amigos! So long, it's been good to know ye!

LVF

News about Ireland & the Irish

IT 10/31/05 Loyalist Feud Ends As LVF Stands Down
UT 10/30/05 Bid To Help Irish In The US
IT 10/31/05 Ferns Report Fallout (Links to 7 Articles)
IT 10/31/05 SF Review Plans 50% Tax Rate For Top Earners
GU 10/31/05 Rafferty: Wall Of Silence
IT 10/31/05 Crucial Records On Form And Racing Survive
IT 10/31/05 GPO To Become 1916 Monument

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/3101262033HM6LOYALIST.html

Loyalist Feud Ends As LVF Stands Down

Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor

The loyalist feud which has flared sporadically for years
and claimed four lives since the summer, is said to be
"permanently ended".

The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) last night dramatically
ordered its members to "stand down".

The move, which followed a similar announcement by the IRA
on July 28th followed an announcement earlier that the feud
between the LVF and the UVF which has flared sporadically
for years and claimed four lives since the summer, is
"permanently ended".

The move to disband the LVF, if enacted fully by its
members, brings to an end not just the feud itself, but
also a dangerous instability within loyalist paramilitaries
and unionism.

The LVF was formed in 1996 under Billy Wright who was later
murdered by the INLA at the Maze prison.

A statement issued earlier yesterday by an umbrella
organisation for loyalist paramilitaries, Protestant
clergy, unionist parties and community organisations
claimed that mediation efforts to end the feud had been
successful.

Loyalist Commission chairman, the Rev Mervyn Gibson, said:
"The primary aim of the initiative was to stop further hurt
and injury to any one person." He added: "A process of
extensive talks was embarked upon independently with the
UVF-Red Hand Commando and the LVF.

"Those initiating the process had the encouragement of many
within political and community life and the prayer support
of individuals and churches. We now believe that the feud
has permanently ended."

The UVF and the much smaller associate group, the Red Hand
Commando, may also issue a statement soon.

The spate of murders linked to the feud over the summer,
the IRA declaration in July that its campaign was over and
its subsequent decommissioning last month led to
expectations that mediators would make a breakthrough.

There has been no bloodshed since mid-August. However the
following month the violence led Northern Secretary Peter
Hain to declare the UVF ceasefire was over.

Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine, who was
earlier urged to end his party's UVF links, forecast nearly
two weeks ago that a deal would be struck.

"I predict that loyalist guns will go silent," Mr Ervine
said. "I couldn't possibly achieve that, but I know those
who can and it is absolutely their determination to do so."

The news was welcomed by unionists and nationalists and the
Northern Ireland Office. A British government spokesman
said the development was welcome but that the government
stood by its insistence that all paramilitary activity had
to be ended.

North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds of the DUP said: "The ending
of murder and bloodshed on our streets will be particularly
welcome in the north Belfast area which has borne the brunt
of the trouble.

"Communities have been set on edge and put into turmoil. I
pay tribute to those who have worked so hard to bring this
resolution about. Let us hope and pray that this
announcement will be evidenced on the ground and that
people's lives will return to normal."

The SDLP's Alex Attwood greeted the development with
caution.

"This is a welcome development as far as it goes, but
everyone wants to see a lot more. The LVF, UVF, IRA and
others are judged against the same criteria - the end of
terror, the ending of organised crime, and the end of
control over communities. There have been a number of false
dawns around the LVF before. That is why people will be
cautious."

© The Irish Times

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http://www.utvinternet.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=66636&pt=n

Bid To Help Irish In The US

A senior minister is to take the Irish Government's
campaign for legal status for undocumented Irish people
living in the United States to Washington, it was confirmed
today.

By:Press Association

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern is meeting with
emigrant organisations in New York over the next few days
as part of a week-long visit to the US.

"My visit this week to New York and Boston comes at an
increasingly critical time as the legislative debate on
this issue is entering an important phase," Mr Ahern said.

"In addition to my visit to New York and Boston, I expect
to travel to Washington in a matter of weeks to underpin
the Irish Government`s campaign on behalf of the
undocumented Irish."

Mr Ahern, who is also expected to meet with US Secretary of
State Dr Condoleezza Rice during his visit later this
month, will be highlighting the matter with Senators and
Congressmen in Washington.

"The McCain/Kennedy immigration reform bill is of
particular interest to our undocumented community. This
important and positive initiative of Senators McCain and
Kennedy in the US Senate, mirrored by Representatives
Kolbe, Flake and Gutierrez in the House of Representatives
would enable undocumented Irish people to participate in
the life of their adopted country, free from fear and
uncertainty," Mr Ahern said.

The Kennedy/McCain Immigration Bill would allow some
illegal emigrants to the US to achieve legal status.

The minister said everyone appreciated that since the
September 11 atrocity there had been a dramatic change in
the security climate in the US.

"Tighter border security measures, being unable to travel
home for fear of being refused re-entry, and difficulties
in obtaining driving licences all serve to increase the
pressure on undocumented Irish, who are effectively living
in a kind of twilight zone," he said.

"We don`t want our people marginalised any further.
Together with their families here at home, they are
increasingly feeling under strain."

Mr Ahern said a dedicated unit had been set up within the
Foreign Affairs Department to focus on matters relating to
the Irish Abroad.

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Ferns Report Fallout (Click Links for full text)
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/2452857360HM7WEXFORD.html

Bishop Walsh welcomes report's findings

The findings of the Ferns report were publicly welcomed and
accepted yesterday by the Apostolic Administrator to Ferns
diocese, Most Rev Eamonn Walsh, at Mass in Wexford's Church
of the Immaculate Conception on Rowe Street.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/4007904804HM7PATSYTWO.html

Comiskey now being unfairly scapegoated, says victim

One of the four men who spoke of his abuse by Fr Sean
Fortune on the BBC's Suing the Pope programme, which led to
the Ferns Inquiry, said yesterday that he believed Bishop
Brendan Comiskey was being unfairly scapegoated.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/1897927031HM7CLONAKILTY.html

Priest declines to read out bishop's letter

A priest yesterday declined to read out a letter at Mass
from the Bishop of Cork and Ross that addressed the issue
of sexual abuse and the Ferns report, saying Dr John
Buckley's remarks "didn't go far enough".
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/2644565641HM7MONAGEER.html

Church ignored truth, says parish priest

The institutional church has sometimes chosen "self-
preservation" ahead of the principles of truth and justice,
the parish priest of Monageer told his congregation
yesterday.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/1699411849HM7SLIGOPRIEST.html

Priest 'steps aside' pending inquiry

A parish priest in the diocese of Elphin has "stepped
aside" from his ministry pending the outcome of an
investigation into abuse allegations against him.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/1964678749HM7TOIBIN.html

Writer recalls time at Wexford college

St Peter's College, the Wexford boarding school attached to
the seminary at the centre of the Ferns report into
clerical sex abuse, was "for its time a very liberal
place", according to writer Colm Tóibín.
----

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/1426092112HM7CHURCHWRAP.html

Allegations against 27 priests in Tuam

Allegations of child sexual abuse have been made against 27
priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Tuam, 19 of whom
were priests of the archdiocese, it was revealed yesterday.

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/1031/1219649112HM1SFTAX.html

SF Review Plans 50% Tax Rate For Top Earners

Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent

Income tax should be increased for top earners and stamp
duty revenue split between central and local government,
according to a nearly completed review of Sinn Féin's
economic policies.

Under the changes, those earning more than €100,000 a year
would face a 50 per cent tax rate, while capital gains tax
would also rise - but not by as much as the party has
demanded previously.

The review of the party's economic policies, led by Sinn
Féin's national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin and former
general secretary Robbie Smyth, has been under way for over
a year.

An enterprise policy document recommending that corporation
tax be raised to 17.5 per cent is expected to be concluded
tomorrow and launched later this month, The Irish Times
understands.

Significant tax breaks should be offered to Irish-owned
firms if they invest in research and development, in remote
regions and in environmentally sustainable industries, it
advocates.

Recommending an increase in corporation taxes from 12 per
cent to 17.5 per cent, the Sinn Féin expert group argues
that low business taxes have done little to spur the growth
of Irish companies.

The State should not become over-reliant on foreign
investment which increases vulnerability to a global
economic downturn, and should offer Irish-owned firms the
same tax breaks as those enjoyed by foreign investors, the
group believes.

Stamp duties raised from house sales should be split
between central and local government in a bid to deal with
local government's inability to generate sufficient local
taxation.

Councillors should have the power to set stamp duty rates,
which rise to 9 per cent on houses worth more than
€635,000, in their own local authority areas, the group
argues.

Capital gains tax should rise from its existing 20 per cent
rate, though the Sinn Féin group will argue that it should
not return to the 40 per cent rate that existed before
Charlie McCreevy's cuts.

"A final figure has not been agreed," said one source close
to the deliberations. The proposals will have to be
accepted by a party ardfheis if they are to become official
policy. Demands for increased business taxes will guarantee
business opposition, particularly after Sinn Féin leader
Gerry Adams told the Dublin Chamber of Commerce last year
that Sinn Féin had "no plans" to increase such taxes.

However, the Sinn Féin group is to recommend that
employers' PRSI should not be increased back to 12 per cent
- a move that, if implemented, would cost industry up to
€500 million annually. Though final work on a taxation
document is not completed, the committee has examined the
possibility of levying capital gains taxes on the sale of
family homes, in a bid to dampen down house price
inflation.

© The Irish Times

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,9061,1605238,00.html

Wall Of Silence

A brutal, unprovoked murder, a grieving family, accusations
of IRA involvement - and a community muted by fear. Three
months after the Belfast murder of Robert McCartney, Dublin
courier Joseph Rafferty was also killed, some believe by
republicans. Now the two families are working together for
justice. Angelique Chrisafis reports

Monday October 31, 2005
The Guardian

Like the murder of Robert McCartney, it began with a petty
scuffle on a night out. Joseph Rafferty was a hardworking
courier from the warren of working-class flats that nudge
up against the Georgian squares and glass towers of Celtic
Tiger, south-central Dublin. At a 21st birthday party in
April, a short walk from the Irish parliament, Rafferty's
sister was assaulted by a local hood. The next day,
Rafferty told him to leave his sister alone. When the man
said his family had connections to the IRA and could get
him killed, Rafferty laughed it off. But after six months
of threats that "the 'Ra" would "get him", he was shot dead
with a sawn-off shotgun in broad daylight.

Rafferty's sisters believe he was murdered by an IRA man
who is a Sinn Fein member and has worked on party election
campaigns. They say the case is a "carbon copy" of the
murder of Robert McCartney, who was stabbed and beaten to
death after an argument in a Belfast bar in January.

Like McCartney's partner and sisters, who took their
campaign for justice to the White House, Rafferty's family
accuse Sinn Fein of creating a "wall of silence", and
covering up for the killer and others who planned the
murder. They say they are still being intimidated and
witnesses are afraid to come forward. Seven months after
the murder, no one has been charged.

The case - with its echoes of the McCartney killing that
sickened public opinion in the Republic - threatens to
upset Sinn Fein's carefully laid plans to take electoral
advantage of the feelgood factor that has come with the
IRA's decision to renounce violence.

If the McCartney killing was seen as a shocking reflection
of life in a typical, nationalist area of Belfast, where
the IRA are the "protectors" of the community, the same was
not supposed to happen in wealthy, well-adjusted Dublin.
There, Sinn Fein has cast itself as a party "that gets
things done" on the ground, and is seen as untouched by the
corruption that engulfed Irish politics in the 1980s, when
it was still very much on the fringes. The party won 25% of
the vote across south-east Dublin in last year's local
elections, and is focused on the ultimate prize of a place
in an Irish coalition government.

But there has always been a deep ambiguity about the IRA in
Dublin. While sanctioning the murder of criminal lords such
as Martin Cahill - aka "The General", Ireland's most
notorious gangster - it had itself "licensed" other
criminals, allowing them to operate under its protection
and regulation.

Sinn Fein is adamant that no republican or party member
carried out the murder. But the Raffertys say the party
initially made similar claims about McCartney's killing,
before admitting that IRA members were involved.

In her flat, Esther Rafferty, a 38-year-old bank clerk who
has been on sick leave since her brother's murder, gives
her parrot some nuts to shut him up while she recounts the
story. The parrot has heard it all before, as residents and
politicians have filed in and out to hear about the
"Justice for Joe" campaign, run from a tiny computer table
in the corner.

Esther Rafferty drives everywhere, even to the local shops,
afraid she will bump into the "hoodlums" that threatened
her brother. Other family members are scared of walking
along certain streets. One afternoon, a councillor and two
journalists took a walk around the estates after meeting
Esther Rafferty. One of the writers, who already has police
protection after reporting on Dublin's armed drug gangs,
was approached by a local man on a bicycle, who told him to
back off the story or he would get "six of the best like
Veronica Guerin", the journalist shot dead in 1996 after
challenging Dublin's drug barons.

"I never would have expected anything like this down here
in Dublin," Esther Rafferty says. "I never knew anything
about the IRA. I heard the odd story here and there about a
man being put into a van and having his legs broken or
something, but that was it."

Rafferty, 29, was a courier five days a week and on
Saturdays ran a window-cleaning business to pay off his
mortgage. Like McCartney, he was determined to better
himself, and to move up and out of his working-class
enclave. He pumped iron and was one of a family of seven
that voted Sinn Fein. As his father, a Dublin lift
engineer, told the family: "If Sinn Fein are going to do
good, you have to give them a chance to do it."

He had just moved to up-and-coming west Dublin to be near
his four-year-old daughter. "He had loads of friends. You
couldn't get a nicer bloke," says Esther Rafferty. "The
plan was to move to be near enough to his daughter to
collect her from school. But he didn't live long enough to
see her start school."

One Saturday night in October last year, Rafferty went to a
21st birthday party in a hotel in central Dublin. Lots of
people from the estate were there and the younger crowd
went on to an after-party in a flat. Rafferty went home to
bed. Meanwhile, at the party, a man whom the Raffertys
describe as a local troublemaker began taunting Rafferty's
25-year-old sister Carmel about him, saying, "Go and get
'Muscles'", and threatening to give him a hiding. He threw
a drink at Carmel Rafferty, kicked her and a group then
beat up the Raffertys' 19-year-old nephew.

"This guy bore a grudge," says Esther Rafferty. "He was a
fat, ugly low-life on social welfare, who never did a day's
work in his life. Joe was well-educated, he was the
opposite. He was fixated on Joe and jealous of him. He
seemed to think his girlfriend fancied Joe. That is a small
thing to get someone killed over."

On the Sunday after the party, Rafferty came back to his
mum's for dinner as he did every week. He saw the man and
asked him why he had attacked his sister. "My family's
bigger than yours. You don't know who you're dealing with,"
the man told him. When Esther's husband, a taxi driver,
dropped Rafferty at the bus stop that afternoon, the man
told him: "The 'Ra will put you in a van and bring you up
the mountain." Rafferty's mother, a 67-year-old who
delivered meals on wheels, was told this trouble would all
end up "at your door".

Rafferty laughed it off. But his family started to panic at
the mention of the IRA. "We had heard rumours that another
man who stood up to the same brothers on the estate had
been driven up to the mountains and given a hiding," says
Esther Rafferty. She went down to the surgery of the
popular local Sinn Fein councillor and rising star in the
party, Daithí Doolan, to ask if he could do anything to get
the threats lifted. According to the family, Doolan said he
would look into it.

For six months, the threats against Rafferty continued.
There were six warnings that were taken to be death
threats. Silent hand signals of a gun were made; Rafferty
was told the IRA would "take him out"; property was
damaged; and threats were given to family members to pass
on. One of Rafferty's sisters was told to tell him he would
be "got at the gym". They seemed to be tracking Rafferty's
movements.

The family says that at the beginning of the year, Doolan
came back to them after his own investigation, assuring
Esther Rafferty that "these people had been spoken to", and
they should not worry. "I will never forget that
handshake," says Esther Rafferty. "It was a hearty
handshake, he said I didn't need to worry. I was crying. I
believed him."

But on April 12 this year, Rafferty was shot twice with a
sawn-off shotgun as he left his home to go to work.

When Doolan came round with a condolence card, Esther
Rafferty says: "I freaked and lashed out. I said, 'You
could have prevented this, you assured me that this was
sorted out'. He never even crossed the road and gave his
condolences to my mother and father."

Doolan's account of events is different. He says he met the
family three times but never told them he would
"investigate" the threats. He claims he never said that
"these people" - including the man whom the family and
others in Dublin believe killed Rafferty - had been "spoken
to". "I never said that," Doolan says. "Sometimes, what is
said and what is heard are two different things. I'm not
known to carry out investigations. I don't do
investigation[s] ... I know for sure, 100%, that the
murderer was not a republican or Sinn Fein activist."

Doolan says he has made a statement to the police,
condemned the murder and urged anyone with information to
come forward. "I am an innocent party in this equation," he
says. "I have become the focus for their anger ... This guy
[the murderer] is a criminal and I can't be held
accountable for every criminal action in Dublin."

In a speech to the senate last month, the Irish justice
minister Michael McDowell said: "A chief suspect in this
case remains someone who would be regarded as a member of
the IRA." He described the case as a "cold-blooded murder"
and a "death foretold". Like the McCartney murder, he said,
it was not a killing ordered by the IRA leadership, but by
people in Sinn Fein and the IRA who had information and
were not telling what they knew. Others were too frightened
to cross the "thugs who invoke the name of the IRA".

The minister said Doolan's cooperation with the police "has
extended to providing no more than an uninformative,
perfunctory written statement, which has done nothing to
progress the murder investigation". The British
government's ceasefire watchdog, the Independent Monitoring
Commission, said this month that "a member or former member
of the IRA" may have been involved in the Rafferty murder,
which it would be investigating further.

"Everybody knows who killed Joseph," says Esther Rafferty.
"We are 100% certain that person is a member of the IRA.
The killer is being protected in the same way Robert
McCartney's killers were. To have to plead with a political
party to hand over a murderer is an absolute disgrace. They
are tripping over themselves with lies."

As with McCartney's murder, a whispering campaign began
shortly after Rafferty was killed, suggesting that society
was better off without him. The month he was killed,
Ireland experienced its worst bout of gangland shootings in
years - five men were shot dead in just over a month. West
Dublin was notorious for drug gangs, and the rumour began
that the murder was one of the same spate of killings, and
that Rafferty was a dealer. Esther Rafferty says detectives
have raked over her brother's life and found nothing.

Earlier this month, when Gerry Adams went to Brussels to
talk to MEPs about the historic decommissioning of IRA
weapons and the IRA's transition from paramilitary group to
a purely political movement, the Rafferty murder was raised
by reporters. Adams said: "Joe Rafferty's killing was a
very, very brutal murder - one of a series of such murders
in Dublin in the recent past."

The family took this as another smear. Asked if the killer
was a Sinn Fein worker, Adams said: "I am quite ready to
meet the family of Joe Rafferty if they wish. We repudiate
the killing." The family has turned down the offer of a
meeting for now. They are wary of providing what they call
"a PR opportunity", and believe that Adams has not helped
the McCartney family, who are still being intimidated by
republicans.

Last week, Paula McCartney, the last sister living in the
Short Strand, reluctantly sold up and moved out after
intimidation, which the family say is getting worse.
McCartney's partner, Bridgeen Hagans, will soon move out of
the area, too, after her house was attacked. One man has
been charged with murdering McCartney and another with the
attempted murder of his friend. But the family say many
more people were involved in the killing and subsequent
cover-up.

Garry Keegan, a Dublin Fianna Fáil councillor who is
helping the Raffertys' campaign, said: "There are people in
Sinn Fein, or members or former members of the IRA, who are
still using the hard-man image to push their weight around
in local communities in Dublin. Even though they might be
out of the IRA, the indication to people is, 'You will be
sorted out. We will get the 'Ra to sort you out.' In the
community in the past, people have been taken away in vans,
beaten up and had their legs broken. People know if they
have an association with the IRA, they are untouchable.

"Since the family spoke out, other people have come to me.
One said he had been threatened [that] his legs would be
broken, but hadn't taken it seriously at all until Rafferty
was killed. People are saying, 'Well done' to the
Raffertys, 'It's about time somebody took these people
on'."

Keegan says he can detect an air of intimidation in inner-
city Dublin, as Sinn Fein gets stronger in the city; Doolan
has accused him of taking political advantage of the
murder.

The week after next, with the backing of the McCartney
sisters, the Raffertys will meet the US ambassador to
Ireland. "A trip to Irish-American politicians in
Washington might be our only hope to put pressure on Sinn
Fein," Esther Rafferty says. America, where Sinn Fein
raises much of its funding, is the last place republicans
want to deal with such an embarrassing case.

"We are not going away until the murderer is where he
belongs," says Esther Rafferty. "If they hand him up, our
campaign is over. But I may as well be dead if they let
someone [get] away with this"

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/1690534933HM3TURFCLUBFIRE.html

Crucial Records On Form And Racing Survive

Kitty Holland

Turf Club management will decide today where it will
operate from for the next six months after a fire destroyed
the racing body's headquarters at the Curragh, Co Kildare,
on Saturday night.

The chief executive of the club, Denis Egan, said yesterday
evening the premises had been completely destroyed. "All we
have left are the walls."

He said, however, that 90 to 95 per cent of the club's form
and racing records, some of which date back to 1760, had
been saved. He also said the fire would have no effect on
racing.

The Turf Club is the regulatory body for both flat and
national hunt racing as well as point to point, across the
32 counties. Its Curragh headquarters were opened by former
taoiseach Liam Cosgrave in 1977. Some 25 people were
employed there.

"The speed at which the fire went through the building was
truly amazing. I was passing here last night," said Mr
Egan, "and looked over from my car at 7.10pm to the
premises as I always do. All was in darkness. Then I got
three messages on my phone saying there was a fire. I got
back here at 7.30 and it was a fireball. The flames were
being fanned by the wind - it was a very stormy night." By
7.45pm the building was destroyed, he said.

Four fire engines and two water trucks rushed to the scene
from the Curragh, Monasterevin,Naas and Newbridge fire
stations. Mr Egan said there was no indication about the
cause of the fire, though it appears to have started in the
attic. The roof collapsed and destroyed most of the
contents.

"But records were not as badly damaged as we feared. The
firemen were fantastic. They just went in and started
firing cabinets and files out." He said most of the files
were in metal filing cabinets and were saved.

Forensic detectives arrived at the scene at first light
yesterday and handed back the premises to Turf Club
management at 2.15pm. Mr Egan said about 15 people were
helping with the salvage operation throughout yesterday.

He said a significant proportion of records were
computerised and the club had a good computer back-up
system.

"We will decide [ today] where we will move to and hope to
be up and running by Tuesday."

The two options open to the club was to move "across the
road" to the Curragh racecourse where there was some vacant
accommodation and from where operations could continue for
the next six months, or to find a permanent new home.

Mr Egan said there would be no impact on race fixtures.

"Most of that work is done out on the racecourse. Our
biggest problem will be administration of the relicensing
of horses and jockeys, which will have to be done at the
end of the year, for 2006."

The mood among salvage workers yesterday was "optimistic",
he said. "It could have been a lot worse. No one was
injured. No one was on the premises at the time. Records
can be replaced. People can't."

© The Irish Times

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1031/4135877809HM6GPO.html

GPO To Become 1916 Monument

Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent

The General Post Office on O'Connell Street in Dublin
will cease to be used by An Post and will be converted into
a national monument.

Under plans being drafted by the Government, the GPO would
become the memorial for the 1916 Easter Rising, along with
other aspects of the State's history.

Last night, a Progressive Democrats spokesman for the
Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, said the GPO "would
cease to be an office block and post office" in time.

The GPO's main hall would become the entrance to the
memorial, leading onto a rotunda, he said. Mr McDowell has
said that both he and Minister for Finance Brian Cowen
believe the GPO should "have a more historic purpose".

Mr McDowell's spokesman denied comparisons made in the
Sunday Tribune yesterday between the Government's plans and
Napoleon's tomb, Les Invalides, in Paris.

Minister of State for Justice Brian Lenihan said the
Government would commemorate the men and women of the 1916
Rising next year.

Fine Gael Dublin MEP Gay Mitchell said Fianna Fáil and the
PDs were attempting to "hijack" 1916 for "narrow political
purposes". "The Taoiseach should not be using his role of
president of Fianna Fáil to make announcements about the
defence forces participating in a new Easter parade to
commemorate 1916.

"While Louis XIV once said that 'L' état c'est moi', the
FF/PD partners in Government now seem to be suffering under
the same delusion. But Fianna Fáil and the PDs are not the
State.They have no right to manipulate the State, the
centenary of 1916, or its Defence Forces for party
political purposes. It is worth recalling that in 1916 de
Valera served in Boland's Mills while Collins, Cosgrave and
Connolly all served in the GPO," he said.

"The political parties representing the continuation of the
tradition of these men should be part of the process in
deciding how the vicinity of the GPO, the centenary itself
and the years leading up to it are marked," Mr Mitchell
said.

© The Irish Times

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