Dublin Rail Line Collapse raises many Questions

Iarnród Éireann, Ireland's state-owned national railway company, has announced that an official investigation into the collapse of a part of the main Dublin to Belfast railway line near Malahide in Co. Dublin (see yesterday's entry) is going to take place.

Well, this is the least one could and should expect after such a disastrous and embarrassing incident.
In fact, this investigation should not be held just by Iarnród Éireann's own staff, but augmented by Gardai and specialists from the Health & Safety Executive.
After all, lives could easily have been lost and much further damage could have been done had the collapsed segment of the viaduct across the Broadmeadow estuary not been spotted and reported by a train driver.
As operator of the line, Iarnród Éireann has a vested interest in the matter, as well as the full and sole responsibility for the maintenance of track, structures, engines and rolling stock.
So a public investigation, or one with participation of experts from outside the railway company, would make a big difference and could prevent an internal cover-up.

A spokesperson for Iarnród Éireann said that "the collapsed section of the railway bridge has undergone a structural examination" only a few days ago. This inspection was "carried out on the line by an engineer on Tuesday, and no issues were identified".

According to Iarnród Éireann all its railway lines are "inspected three times a week by a patrol man, and given a structural assessment by an engineer every two years".

These statements are not satisfactory at all and raise a number of further questions:

• Was the inspecting engineer qualified for his job?
• Did he do his job well? And if he did, why did the railway bridge collapse three days later?
• Was it the regular two-year structural assessment?
• Or was it a special inspection because a patrol man had noticed something unusual? If so, what was it?
• Did Iarnród Éireann's management know that there was something wrong with this part of the line? Or that it was in a bad state of maintenance?
• What exactly did the engineer find and report on Tuesday?
• Did he spot a problem, but was overruled or ignored by his superiors in the company?

Concrete is a solid substance and does not crumble easily. There is, however, even for concrete an element of wear and tear (like for everything), and it can be particularly prone to deterioration or erosion when it is in close proximity to water. In the case of the collapsed segment of railway line this is certainly the case.
It is very hard to believe that the structure was in perfect order when inspected on Tuesday, and then collapsed completely on Friday, only three days later.

Iarnród Éireann states that it will take at least three months before the damage is repaired.

In the meantime trains will only operate between Drogheda and Skerries, and Iarnród Éireann has advised customers travelling between Dublin city and all stations north of Malahide to use Dublin Bus or Bus Éireann services.

Belfast Enterprise services will operate trains between Belfast and Drogheda, and organise bus transfers between Drogheda and Connolly station in Dublin.
But DART (Dublin area railway) services between Malahide and Howth Junction are operating normally.
Up to 10,000 passengers per day are facing disruption and inconvenience for at least three months. Commuters who normally use the Belfast to Dublin trains have been told to add around 30 minutes to their usual journey time.

The passengers' lobby organisation Rail Users Ireland has said it is "extremely concerned" following the collapse, which "raises serious questions of Irish Rail's maintenance and inspection regime".
It also called for cash refunds for all holders of weekly, monthly and annual tickets that are now unable to travel.

Although I am not a member of Rail Users Ireland, I wholeheartedly agree with their statement and demands. The overall state of Ireland's railway system is pretty bad for a long time. It is a run-down service, unloved by the government, which would like to privatise it, if it could find someone mad enough to buy it.

For a long time both the government and Iarnród Éireann completely overlook the great potential rail travel could have here, if it was done the right way. Not even to mention how much more we could do for the environment if major transports of large-size items and goods in bulk would be shifted from Ireland's narrow roads to the railways.

A hundred years ago Ireland had one of the most impressive and effective railway systems in Europe, and even fifty years ago there was still plenty of it around. But due to deliberate State vandalism and extreme ignorance during the 1950s and 1960s the once splendid network was savaged and ripped to pieces. What we are left with is a broken skeleton structure of what we had when railways were en vogue. But instead of improving the situation and making Ireland's railways fit for the 21st century, the people in charge close their eyes, don't want to know about the various problems inside the system, and some are even permanently asleep on the job.

To begin with, we need a Minister for Transport who likes and understands railways. As long as Noel Dempsey, the government's bouncer from Co. Meath, is in charge, things can - and will - only go from bad to worse.

The Emerald Islander

Ian Paisley Jr. 'in Contempt of Court'

Ian Paisley Jr (photo) has been found 'in contempt of court' and fined £ 5000 for refusing to reveal a source to an inquiry that investigates the death of the late Billy Wright, a Protestant and Unionist terrorist in the North who was for some time leader of a radical splinter group, the so-called 'Loyalist Volunteer Force' (LVF).

Paisley Jr, who is the MLA for North Antrim (and son of former DUP leader and First Minister of the Northern administration Ian Paisley) was also told that he would have to pay £ 3000 toward the inquiry team's legal costs.

At the Belfast High Court Mr Justice Gillen said he would give Paisley Jr three months "to reconsider and to comply with the requests to reveal his source".

Ian Paisley Jr served from May 2007 to February 2008 as a junior minister in the office of the First Minister & Deputy First Minister in the North, but resigned from this position under a cloud over alleged irregularities.

He has consistently refused to reveal the identity of a prison officer working in the Maze Prison at the time of Wright's death in December 1997, who had told him that over 5000 prison files had been destroyed after the fatal shooting of the terrorist.

In a recent interview Paisley Jr defended his right to withhold the information, as it was given to him confidentially in his capacity as an elected member of the Northern Assembly. He declared that - if necessary - he would "rather go to prison than reveal the identity of the source".

The Emerald Islander

Unionist Terrorist Groups in the North follow the IRA's Example and put Weapons "beyond Use"

The leadership of the so-called 'Ulster Volunteer Force' (UVF) and the 'Red Hand Commando' (which is a nome-de-guerre for elements of the same organisation) have today confirmed that they have completed the process of "putting all their weaponry irreversibly beyond use".

The official announcement was made at a press conference in Belfast this morning, held by Billy Hutchinson (right), a former UVF activist who has spent time in prison for his involvement in terrorism, but who renounced violence many years ago and is now a supporter of the peace process in the North of Ireland.

The UVF declared that its weapons were "put beyond use" in conjunction with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), and in the presence of independent international witnesses.

"We have done so to further augment the establishment of accountable democratic governance in this region of the UK, to remove the pretext that loyalist weaponry is an obstacle to the development of our communities and to compound our legacy of integrity to the peace process," a spokesman of the terror group said.

The IICD, an international group of military experts and political observers which is chaired by the retired Canadian General John de Chastelain (left), confirmed the decommissioning of UVF (and 'Red Hand Commando') weapons.

In another part of Belfast the so-called 'Ulster Defence Association' (UDA), an even larger Unionist terror organisation, released a separate statement, confirming that it has now "decommissioned a portion of its arsenal" and has started a process that would lead to the destruction of all its arms.

With these announcements the Unionist (and Protestant) terror groups in the North are at last following the positive example of the Nationalist 'Provisional Irish Republican Army' (PIRA, but commonly often just called the IRA), which had already decommissioned all its weapons in several stages between 2002 and 2005.
This process was also witnessed and confirmed by General de Chastelain and other members of the IICD.

Politicians from all parties - in the North, in the Republic and in Britain - have welcomed today's announcement in a number of individual statements.

Making one of her quite rare political comments, Mary McAleese (right) - the President of the Republic of Ireland, who comes from the North herself - also welcomed the long-awaited development, which is one of the last steps in the peace process that began in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement.

Speaking in Dublin, the President said: "This is a very important step in building and consolidating peace in Northern Ireland. It signals a turning away from a culture of conflict towards a culture of good neighbourliness, within the North and on the entire island of Ireland."

Are the Unionist Terror Groups in the North now ready to decommission their Weapons?

The Taoiseach has welcomed unconfirmed reports that Unionist terror organisations in the North have begun to decommission their weapons.

Speaking to RTÉ News, Brian Cowen (above right) stressed the need to wait for an official report from the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), which oversees the process of putting terrorist weapons 'beyond use'.

The North's First Minister Peter Robinson (left) said that his party [the DUP] would "certainly welcome any move by the organisations to decommission their weapons and cease from their paramilitary activity".
"The DUP will continue to engage with these organisations in order to impress upon them the need to leave violence and criminality behind and to complete the decommissioning process," he added.

So far unconfirmed reports from the North suggest that the chairman of the IICD, the retired Canadian General John de Chastelain, has "witnessed decommissioning acts by two Unionist terror groups", the 'Ulster Volunteer Force' (UVF) and the 'Ulster Defence Association' (UDA). Those groups were responsible for the killing of about 1000 people - most of them Catholics and Nationalists - during the 'Troubles' in the North since 1969.

Making these pro-British terrorists, who had plenty of unofficial support from the British Army and the Northern security forces in the past, to give up their weapons has been one of the most serious and significant challenges of the still evolving peace process in the North of Ireland.

These groups of thugs and fanatics are not significant political players, and this factor has made persuading them to renounce violence all the more difficult.

However, for the best part of two years considerable efforts have been made behind the scenes to cajole and pressurise the Unionist terror groups to decommission.

General John de Chastelain (right), who oversaw the long decommissioning process of the PIRA (or IRA) weapons between 2002 and 2005, was in Belfast last month.
During that time the two main Unionist terror organisations - the UVF and the UDA - have apparently put weapons "beyond use".

According to the report, they have not yet decommissioned all their weapons, but are expected to continue with the process.

Sir Hugh Orde (left), Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), hailed the possibility of Unionist decommissioning as "very good news".
"More guns are off the streets as a result of the decision by both the UDA, as I understand it, and the UVF."

The decision to decommission finally had "not come as a surprise", Orde stated. New legislation that [Britain's] Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward introduced earlier this year was giving the Unionists until August to decommission their weapons.

"I think the legislation put an additional pressure on these groups, and they have to make a decision," the PSNI Chief added.

Let us hope that the leaked - and as yet unconfirmed - news are true and will soon be verified by the IICD.

The North of Ireland has seen more than enough violence since 1969, and as the PIRA/IRA decommissioned its weapons already years ago, the Unionist terror groups - although officially on 'cease fire' - are the last obstacles on the path to a normal and civilised political system in the Six Counties.

The Emerald Islander

Ex-Policeman charged with trafficking Women

A former police officer in the North and a woman have been remanded in custody and charged with human trafficking and controlling prostitution.

The accused, who appeared at Belfast Magistrates Court this morning, are the former policeman Simon Dempsey (39) from Newtownards in Co. Down and Chen Rong (32), a Chinese woman with an address at Kidderminster, in the English county of Worcestershire.

Both are alleged to "have facilitated the arrival of people in the UK, knowing a sexual offence would be committed".
Or, in normal English: They are accused of having smuggled Chinese prostitutes into Britain.

Last Thursday police officers raided a number of suspected brothels in Belfast, Derry and Newry and liberated six Chinese women who had been forced by a Chinese criminal gang to work there as prostitutes.

The women are now being cared for by specialist officers from Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Police opposed bail for both accused, because the detective said he feared that they would flee the country, and interfere with identified and as yet unidentified victims.

A solicitor for Chen Rong claimed that the accused had herself been a prostitute before "being used by sinister people", while Simon Dempsey's lawyer claimed that the Chinese woman "had duped him" and that in fact "he knew nothing about the women being used as prostitutes".

Looks and sounds as if the two of them rather deserve each other.

The Magistrate refused bail for both defendants, and they were remanded in custody until June 26th.

Mass Demostrations for Peace in Ireland

The first terrorist murder of a PSNI officer has led to an unprecedented wave of condemnation and a widespread rejection of the terror that criminal splinter groups are trying to bring to the British-ruled Six Counties of Ulster once again.

Tens of thousands of people have joined peace rallies in the North of Ireland today, in protest against the brutal killings of a local policeman in Co. Armagh on Monday and two British soldiers in Co. Antrim last Saturday.

Separate rallies were held in Belfast, Lisburn, Newry, Downpatrick and Derry, showing solidarity for peace in Ireland and condemnation of the two deadly attacks for which two terrorist splinter groups have claimed responsibility.

In Belfast traffic in the streets around the City Hall was brought to a standstill as thousands of people gathered for a rally organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).
The protesters observed a couple of minutes' silence and a lone piper played 'Amazing Grace' and 'Abide with me'.

"The callous attacks of the last few days were an assault on every citizen who supports peace," ICTU's assistant general secretary Peter Bunting told the crowd.
“This show of strength from civil society will send a clear message to the killers who do not deserve the monopoly of the word ‘dissident’. The word is too good for them. They are nothing but delinquents.”

Several speakers from the Irish Trade Union movement addressed the gatherings in the other cities.

Meanwhile this afternoon in London about two dozen British MPs from various parties stood in silence outside the Houses of Parliament in solidarity with those who have been taking part in protest marches and silent vigils against the killings in the North of Ireland .
The Republic of Ireland was represented at this event by the Charge d'Affaires at our London embassy, Mr. Kevin Conmy.

Tonight more than 500 local people gathered for a silent vigil in Craigavon, Co. Armagh close to the spot where PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll was shot dead by terrorists on Monday evening.

Earlier today Pope Benedict XVI also condemned the recent violence in Ireland in a speech at the Vatican.
"I condemn in the strongest terms these abominable acts of terrorism which, apart from desecrating human life, seriously endanger the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland," the Pontiff said during his weekly general audience.
"I ask the Lord that no one will again give in to the horrendous temptation of violence," he added.

In a separate development, the historian and senior Sinn Féin politician Tom Hartley (right), currently the Lord Mayor of Belfast, is having talks with members of the Unionist Ulster Political Research Group, which has links to loyalist paramilitary groups in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Morgan Tsvangirai attends Congress in Belfast

The past few days have been very busy and eventful for me, and thus I did not have the chance to write entries on Friday and Saturday. I have just returned from a visit to Belfast, where I had the opportunity to meet Morgan Tsvangirai (photo), the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe.

The MDC, Zimbabwe's largest opposition party, has won the parliamentary elections held on March 29th, thus ending a long and dominant majority of ZANU-PF, the party of President Robert Mugabe. In the presidential election, held on the same day, Mr. Tsvangirai also emerged as the clear winner, although it is disputed that he won more than 50% of the popular vote, as the MDC has claimed on the basis of the added-up results from all local polling stations in the country.

After an unprecedented delay of more than four weeks, the Electoral Commission of Zimbabwe, which is in charge of holding elections and declaring the results, has eventually said that Morgan Tsvangirai did indeed win the presidential election, but that he fell short of an outright majority (of more than 50%). Under the electoral rules of Zimbabwe this requires a second round, where a simple majority will decide who is the next president.

The MDC and many international observers, analysts and commentators - myself included - are certain that the result of the presidential election on March 29th has been manipulated during the month of political limbo. According to reports from inside Zimbabwe the current government printed three million more voting papers than there are voters in the country. During the long and protruded counting process, which was the longest known in any election, it is alleged that ZANU-PF manipulated the result by adding fake ballot papers in favour of Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF. There were also reports of 'phantom polling stations' in tents on empty fields, to which ZANU-PF was bringing supporters to vote a second time.
As nobody in Zimbabwe would believe a result that declares a win for Robert Mugabe, ZANU-PF have stuffed ballot boxes only to the extent that Morgan Tsvangirai lost his outright win of the presidency in the first round.
Mugabe and his strategists in ZANU-PF have since embarked on a massive campaign of terror and intimidation against politicians and supporters of the MDC, and observers doubt that the second round of the election can be held under fair and democratic conditions.

The government campaign of terror, supported by police and the Zimbabwean army, reached a level of unprecedented intensity in recent weeks. Thus the MDC decided that it was currently not safe for Morgan Tsvangirai to stay in the country. The opposition leader has therefore spent a couple of weeks in neighbouring South Africa (whose President Thabo M'beki has so far - to the anger and annoyance of his own ANC party - taken the side of Mugabe and excused any crime and terror he is responsible for) and also visited Botswana, Namibia and Angola, where he had political consultations with the presidents of those countries and other politicians.

Before he returns home to Zimbabwe and prepares himself for the now once again postponed second round of the presidential election, Morgan Tsvangirai added another surprise visit to his busy schedule. He attended the 55th Congress of Liberal International in Belfast and addressed the gathered delegates from more than 100 liberal parties from around the world.

The annual congress of the world's liberal parties was for the very first time held in the North of Ireland, and the small local liberal party - the non-confessional and cross-community Alliance Party - was the proud host of the event.

In his address to the conference, which welcomed him as their guest of honour with a standing ovation, Morgan Tsvangirai gave a brief report about the catastrophic situation in Zimbabwe (where - due to Mugabe's rule of terror and incompetence - unemployment is now at 80% and inflation has reached the all-time world record of 250,000%) and outlined his own political plans.

"I must return to Zimbabwe to be with our people and to lift them out of the darkness," he said.
"On the 29th of March the people of Zimbabwe voted. Mugabe lost that first round. 57% of the people who cast their vote did not vote for him. I am so confident that in spite of the violence, come the second round they will reconfirm that rejection."

Mr. Tsvangirai denied reports that he was in exile and urged President Mugabe to peacefully accept the verdict of the second round vote.
"I did not run away, and I am not in exile," he emphasised. "It was for strategic reasons that I left the country for some time. We had to engage with all the African leaders about the crisis."

Former Alliance Party leader Lord Alderdice, currently the President of Liberal International, said it was a special honour that Morgan Tsvangirai attended the congress. The same warm welcome was also extended to the President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade.

Alliance Party leader David Ford said: "Getting the chance to host this congress is a massive boost for Belfast. This is the first time that Northern Ireland has ever hosted the prestigious gathering of Liberal International. It gives us the chance of a lifetime to showcase Northern Ireland to politicians and power brokers from across the whole globe."

Even though I am neither a politician nor a power broker, and not member of a liberal party, the congress was very interesting and inspiring for me, too. One does not often have the chance to speak with politicians from so many different countries, among them government ministers and opposition leaders of great significance. However, the highlight of the gathering was without any doubt the presence of Morgan Tsvangirai, his impressive speech and the chance to meet him in person afterwards.

I never had the chance to meet Nelson Mandela, but in the past I was one of the many activists in the long campaign for his release from prison. Time has moved on, history has restored Nelson Mandela to his rightful place and rewarded him with the South African presidency and many international honours.
But there is still a lot of terror and injustice in Africa. And even though the continent has many decent people who struggle for freedom and democracy, there is currently no-one who is more prominent in this fight for political rights, fairness and true democracy than Morgan Tsvangirai, who - in my opinion - would be a very deserving candidate for the Nobel Price for Peace. I feel privileged and honoured that I had the chance of a brief meeting with this exceptional man, and I wish him all the best for the future - personally as well as politically.

The Emerald Islander

Loyalist Killer on Trial for attempted Murder

The convicted "loyalist" killer Michael Stone (photo) went on trial in Belfast yesterday, charged with attempting to murder Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams and the North's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

The former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) gunman faces a total of 14 charges at Belfast Crown Court, related to his violent storming into the Northern Ireland Assembly in November of 2006.

Stone has denied any intention to harm anyone at Stormont and described his attack as "performance art". If this line of defence would be accepted by the court, in principal any crime could be in future made legal by such a ridiculous excuse. However, there are actually experts in 'performance art' who have been called to give evidence in Stone's defence. (We should take notice of the names of those 'experts' and of what they say.)

In 1988 Michael Stone was convicted of killing three mourners who were attending a funeral of IRA members - shot dead in Gibraltar by British SAS soldiers - at Milltown Cemetery.
After serving years in prison he was released early under the reconciliation provisions of the Good Friday Agreement. But in contrast to most of the released prisoners, Stone seems to be still living in the olden days of senseless adversity and violence.

The Emerald Islander

Two Nights of Rioting in East Belfast

New riots have broken out between rival nationalist and loyalist groups in Belfast last night. For the second night running, missiles were thrown by rival gangs in the Mountpottinger and Albert Bridge areas in the east of Northern Ireland's capital city.
Three police vehicles were damaged during the trouble near the interface with the nationalist Short Strand area in east Belfast.

The rioting involved up to a hundred youths at its height, and continued intermittently for several hours, forcing the closure of a number of roads. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said that it had not established what sparked the clashes.

The PSNI also warned motorists to stay clear of the effected areas, as both the extent of the violence and the numbers of people involved increased. Politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have condemned the violent clashes.

The Emerald Islander

The "Good Friday Agreement" - Ten Years on

Until ten years ago April 10th was most remembered in this part of the world as the day on which "The Beatles" broke up in 1970. It always puzzled me why so many people seem to be so deeply concerned about any music group, but it appears that certain trivial things are a lot more important to a certain part of the population than the important ones.

Well, for the past ten years now we have something worthwhile to remember on April 10th, something that really stands out over many other events on the Emerald Isle and beyond. Ten years ago - and I remember it well - we were poised to the radio and waited for news from Belfast. It was indeed the Friday before Easter, the day Jesus died on the Cross, and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair had vowed not to go home to London before an agreement was reached.

This was a young Tony Blair, still enthusiastic and believing in the power of goodness, and still of the opinion that peace was better than war. It was a world where Bill Clinton was President of the USA (and very supportive of peace in Ireland) and no one here had even heard of George W. Bush.

Tony Blair had won his first general election with a landslide for Labour less than a year before, and the Republic of Ireland also had a new and relatively young leader, Bertie Ahern, who also had won his first general election in 1997.
Both men - Blair and Ahern - were determined to start the political era they both would share with a strong signal on Northern Ireland. There had been various talks and even agreements before, from the first Anglo-Irish agreement between Garreth FitzGerald and Margaret Thatcher to the "Downing Street Declaration" that brought Albert Reynolds and John Major together in front of a Christmas tree.

But all these efforts, made with more or less sincere and honest commitment to real and lasting change, did still leave the door open for sectarian conflict, thug warfare and the sanctimonious hypocrisy of radical preachers, in particular Ian Paisley and his ilk. When Tony Blair was elected on May 1st, 1997, one of his first decisions was to ruffle the feathers of the old established structures in Northern Ireland.

By appointing the independent minded Marjory "Mo" Mowlam (right) to the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tony Blair made clear that things were going to change, and to change for good.
Within less than six months the peace process was well underway, and the strong personal involvement of both Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern gave it a momentum that had not been seen before. However, there remained still plenty of obstacles, many of them really of a minor character, but that did not prevent the various battle-hardened factions of Northern Ireland's long and bitter political warfare to drag the negotiations on and on.

Eventually Tony Blair went to Belfast and took personally charge of the final round of negotiations. In those days the main parties were the UUP under the leadership of David Trimble and the SDLP under John Hume and Seamus Mallon. Ian Paisley's DUP was still refusing any positive and constructive participation in Irish politics, and Sinn Fein was simply excluded from any participation, under the excuse of having links to the provisional IRA. I still remember the pictures of Gerry Adam and Martin McGuinness standing outside the closed gates of Stormont Castle, trying to get in but being refused even access to the grounds.

When the Good Friday Agreement was eventually signed by all negotiating parties, it was a first step on a long path, whose end we have not reached yet. It took more than nine years and many days of further negotiations to put all the details agreed on Good Friday 1998 into operation. But eventually even the most difficult looking obstacles were removed. Ian Paisley and his DUP gave up shouting "No" after they became the largest Unionist party, and Sinn Fein was brought in from the cold as well after the provisional IRA decommissioned its weapons. As the legitimate main representatives of both communities DUP and Sinn Fein have even become the two pillars of the new political structure in the North.

Good progress has been made since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, and many obstacles were removed from Irish politics on both sides of the border. But there is much more left to do in the years and decades to come. Right now, as we remember the agreement, we are going through a period of change in the Republic and in the North. In May both parts of Ireland will have a new political leader, and they will have to find their rapport with each other.
But one thing is certain: Regardless who will be Taoiseach and First Minister, the future of the island of Ireland will be peaceful and co-operative, thanks to the agreement signed after much trouble and pain on this day, ten years ago.

The Emerald Islander