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    Cold, and Hot

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    Someone has finally said it. The Cold War is back. The man who made the statement was Antonio Gutierres and he carries some weight on the matter as Secretary General of the United Nations. Up to now most commentators and experts have stopped short of using those two words. They have spoken of a “deterioration in relations” between Russia and the United States and an end of trust between the two countries. But to those of us who remember the First Cold War certain alarm bells have started to ring. There are people alive today who remember the Cuban Missile Crisis which brought us to the verge of annihilation. In those days both the Soviet Union and the United States had enough weaponry to destroy the planet several times over but the two sides were led by men whose political flexibility served to bring the crisis to an end. Back then the US was led by John F Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union was Nikita Khrushchev. Today both powers can still destroy the world but they are led by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. A direct military clash between the two in Syria has been avoided so far and, hopefully, will be avoided in the future but the hostile propaganda that characterised the old Cold War is being used to full effect. As in hot wars the first casualty in cold wars is the truth. Nuclear warheads remain in both camps but in today’s world a new set of weaponry exists that was unheard of back in the days of Kennedy and Khrushchev. Propaganda used to be issued on radio, TV, the newspapers and, occasionally, from the pulpit. There were lots of opinions doing the rounds but the Soviets saw to it that very little news, fake or otherwise, emerged from their territory. Back then we were told that the, Soviet peoples, and the Russians in particular, were brainwashed automatons ready to give their lives at a moment’s notice if their leaders asked them to. The Red Army would pour through the Fulda Gap in its hundreds of thousands to end what we considered to be civilisation. Before long we would be as brainwashed as they were and would be ready to do the bidding of our masters. For me that particular vision of Russia came to an end on a warm July evening in Moscow in 1991. I had arrived a month earlier as the Irish Times correspondent and was settling in to life in what was still the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. On that afternoon my wife and I decided to visit the Novodevichy Monastery one of the city’s numerous historic sites, famous for its beautiful frescoes in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Smolensk. It was there that we caught our first glimpse of a member of the dreaded Red Army that was all set to annihilate us. What we saw was not what we had expected. The soldier’s appearance was far from terrifying. He was a raw-looking kid in his late teens or early twenties. His uniform cap was slouched back on his head in a manner that would engender the ire of a sergeant in that far less threatening military organisation known to us at home as the FCA. But that was not all. This boy in uniform was not alone. He walked arm-in-arm with his mother. It was a striking message to us that Russians are as human as we are and in this case perhaps more so. As for the automatons who believed everything their leaders told them, well that wasn’t true either. There was a burgeoning industry in jokes about the past leader Leonid Brezhnev’s ineptitude. The current leader Mikhail Gorbachev was mocked by sophisticated Muscovites as a country bumpkin with a south-Russian accent. Workers took things easy under the slogan: “They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work”. Intellectuals had their own slogan which went: “How can we know what our future is today when we don’t know what our history will be tomorrow”. Russians didn’t need western propaganda to persuade them that things were not working well. So how have they ended up supporting Putin? The answer has a lot to do with Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin brought hope initially but eventually Russia’s economy and its moral compass disintegrated under his rule. Crony capitalism took over from crony communism. Some people became immensely rich while others were selling their belongings in Moscow’s underpasses in order barely to exist. The gun became a major business tool. The Russian Mafia emerged from the shadows and many of its members had backgrounds in the security services. The tradition of the razborka, the settling of matters by the gun, became a major feature of everyday life. On one occasion that I particularly remember a family visited the grave of one of its members only to be blown to pieces by a bomb planted by a rival group. TV pictures showed the crows picking at human flesh on the branches of the cemetery’s trees. While this was going on the West indulged Yeltsin. If the 1996 presidential election was rigged then it was done to save the country. If Yeltsin wandered at night in the Washington streets in his underpants it was endearing. If he couldn’t manage to get off the plane in Shannon he was “tired”. Russians knew better. Ordinary people rang the Irish Times Moscow office to apologise for their president’s behaviour. The word stabilnost (stability) was on everyone’s lips. Then along came Putin. Russians craved stability and they got it. The West’s tone changed. Here was someone who might make Russia strong again. Bit by bit the demonisation of Vladimir Putin began. Relentlessly he was portrayed as the evil emperor. As time went on he helped the propagandists by behaving as they predicted. We have now reached the stage that any allegations against him are instantly believed. He was responsible for Trump’s election even though it

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    Fight for Autonomy and then Solidarity

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    There has been a perception that Travellers North of the border have benefited from progressive legislation which recognised our ethnic status some two decades before the South. In the Republic, our legal status was that of a social group, until 2017 when we were Formally recognised as an indigenous ethnic group. Irish Travellers are a minority native to the island of Ireland and according to the 2011 census represent 0.07 percent (ie 1,267 individuals) of the population in Northern Ireland. On the other hand, the All-Ireland Traveller Health Survey in 2010 concluded, based on its own statistical research that at least 3,905 Travellers resided in the North indicating that much more research is necessary, but also that there is an enormous disparity between the number of travellers residing in the six counties and those who are engaging with agencies. Tellingly in a report of just that name, launched in April, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission launched a report in april, citing 13 systematic concerns about traveller accommodation. These included inadequacy of sites for travellers, lack of funding and racial discrimination. Researchers recognised that there is “evidence that Travellers have been subject to discriminatory behaviours and attitudes from public authorities and the settled community”. This emerges “through actions, but also through inaction and general inertia regarding Travellers’ issues”. The report found that “negative public opinions and bias towards travellers also impacts negatively on Travellers, in particular concerning planning applications”. It considered that “efforts to ensure the participation of travellers in decision-making processes regarding accommodation by public authorities are ineffective and inadequate”. Irish Travellers have been recognised as an ethnic minority in the North for 21 years and yet it has clearly not been a panacaea that was pitched during the 2016 #TravellerEthnicityNow campaign. How are we to address the marked lack of improve- ment in terms of health inequalities, education, employment and civic participation? There is an absence of Travellers in key positions in statutory agencies and no political representation whatsoever. While many Traveller organisations throughout the country produce excellent work, too often Travellers are touted as the public face of a project while settled people maintain actual authority. Despite community-development rhetoric, NGOs in the six counties have made little or no progress in recruiting Travellers in any meaningful way. While all organisations or projects receiving funding claim that inclusivity and community empowerment is their goal, without substantive input on how these organisations should serve us, Travellers are relegated to being mere recipients of philanthropy rather than becoming active partners in our communities’ success. Even in board positions, Travellers are not provided with the requisite resources, support or authority to act as mandated for an organisation. There are no Traveller-led NGOs or advocacy groups and very few full-time Traveller employees in Traveller organisations. Had the equality and community empowerment discourse we’ve been fed since 1997 been in any way sincere there would be Traveller-led organisations across the six counties and already established projects would now be headed by community members, the fact that they’re not is a glaring indictment of the failings of the Traveller community-development sector. Although lack of engagement can’t be laid solely at the door of such Traveller organisations, responding to the absence of representation without investigation as to why dedicated and educated activists choose to pursue other avenues is key. Those recruited simply to diversify often fail to finish their terms, leaving organisations in a quota-filling cycle instead of assessing why Travellers may not feel comfortable or appreciated in their organisation. If we’re to address this issue, we need to understand both the power dynamics within the sector and the mistrust it can inspire in the Traveller community. Included primarily to legitimise a particular project, when Travellers attempt to exercise leadership, they are often discouraged or directed elsewhere, in line with the organisation’s own requirements. Employing a minority for purposes of meeting funders’ demands and as a means of potential access to a traditionally inaccessible community, yet failing to invest in their personal education and training, which would inevitably have a multiplier effect, is the opposite of community development. While the majority of organisations have good intentions, a lack of accountability and a culture of catering to funders’ requirements rather than the community’s needs is making many able and talented Travellers, who have the capacity to influence real change, disengage. When I worked with Traveller projects in my youth on a tokenistic basis, my presence was little more than a symbol of the organisation’s progressive credentials and a justification for their failing to engage in more meaningful work. The alienation begins in governance, where policies and funding requirements are set. Diversity statements and commitments mean little without dedicated action. Aggressive reform of this process is long overdue. When an organisation’s only experience of Travellers is as a service user at crisis point, there is a risk that certain opinions can develop and, though individuals may feel exoneration through protesting or providing tick-box employability courses, there is hypocrisy in ignoring the disparity within their own ranks. In this situation, charity doesn’t only affirm the moral superiority of the donor – despite profiting from social injustice, it also effectively buys permission to control the recipient, rendering it entirely counterproductive. Stigmatised individuals such as Travellers are already acutely aware that others may judge and treat them stereotypically and so, in professional settings, often feel increased pressure to perform well, generating passivity, and this includes remaining passive for fear of seeming confrontational or confirming prejudices. Evidence shows that this very specific form of internalised oppression can harm the progress of any individual for whom there is a stereotype-based expectation of poor performance. I found it particularly challenging to work in organisations whose primary focus was that of chasing funding to pay our own wages. My colleagues, who had no personal responsibility to the community they were employed to serve, could leave at 5pm and return to their own lives. Those of us who are community members feel added guilt and pressure,

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    50 years since 1968

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    Not a week has gone by in 2018 Ireland without several street demonstrations, especially about abortion and the housing crisis. In France, protesting is part of the vernacular. Riots are common: just look at 1789 and 1968. Ireland and France share a reputation for feistiness. A comparison between Irish and French demonstrations could be instructive. “What do we want? Public housing! When do we want it? Now!”. More than 10,000 people are currently home- less in Ireland. The demonstration I attended, organised by the National Homeless and Housing Coalition, on 7 April was good-natured: festive and serene. People played and sang music as they marched. The Garda seemed engaged and smiled while overseeing the demonstration: a safe protest. It appeared the crowd was representative of the general population, as perhaps you might want. It started at the Garden of Remembrance and ended in front of the Custom House in Dublin in light rain, as cheerful as the weather allowed. Its effectiveness was its mainstream attendance; there was no danger here. It would, I reflected, be different: more fractious, less representative, angrier – in France. Ireland fights for Human Rights At the moment Ireland is in arms over: abortion, education, sex education, health, animal welfare, drugs. But I have the sense that some of these campaigns are not mainstream, even as protests. Certainly the Water Protests were successful, albeit the underlying political message (no new taxes?) and symbolic value were not too clear. Abortion is a long-standing divisive issue in Ireland, symbolising the hegemony and, later, decline of the Catholic Church. Protests date back to 1983 when an unwise blanket prohibition was approved in a referendum. In May there will be a rerun. There are many events, debates and demonstrations on both sides, with pro-choice as fashionable politically as pro-life must have been a generation ago. The demonstration I attended in April was ‘pro-choice’- for ‘Equality, Freedom and Choice’, organised by Rosa. The rally was jubilant and confident, almost over-confident. The Daddy of all modern Irish marches is the PAYE protests from 1979-1980. Around 700,000 Dubliners marched against the stifling ‘Pay As You Earn’ tax. The BBC called it “the largest peaceful protest in post-war Europe”. But I sense things have changed since then. There is no longer an Ireland the sense that the regime is fundamentally at odds with its electorate. Perhaps it’s because the country now mostly complies with international norms or is fast moving in that direction; perhaps it’s because the country is simply much wealthier and has never been so confident. In 2003, Irish anti-war protesters organised a demonstration for peace in Iraq. The British and Americans had invaded Iraq. 100,000 walked on the streets of Dublin. It was a thoroughly internationalist protest. In 2006, a violent demonstration took place in Dublin’s O’Connell Street. For some reason Northern Unionists wanted to organise a ‘Love Ulster’ Parade to honour the victims of the IRA. A counter demonstration materialised and a riot started. Several Molotov cocktails were thrown and cars were burnt. A total amount of 14 persons were wounded and 41 arrested by Garda. Locals put the intense violence down to the alien influence of recalcitrant Northerners: it didn’t symptomise a new riot mentality. These kinds of demonstrations are pretty rare in Ireland compared to in France, where there are wide-ranging politically-driven strikes and demonstrations every year. Governments can fall as a result of demonstration culture in France. If France had had an international bailout that was forcibly inflicted on the population; if France had had the iniquities of Nama bailing out the richest failed developers there would have been strikes and riots. A country’s protest mentality varies from generation to generation. We’ll put down the Irish monster meetings and boycotts of the nineteenth century as the fruits of a different era. Where a country is colonised and not run for the benefit of the majority – or a significant minority – wideranging subversion is to be expected. In Ireland it culminated in the Easter Rising in 1916 and the War of Independence 1919-21. In the North of course discrimination against Catholics fuelled a later whirlwind. In the Bogside riots of 1969, eight people were killed, a majority Catholic, and over 150 homes destroyed; and the IRA campaign resulted in 1696 deaths. But, though important, this all speaks little to the modern-day Republic of Ireland.   France, protest pioneer French demonstrations have been well-known and lethal since at least the 18th century with a sustained and celebrated (though not of course by Edmund Burke) historic riot: the French Revolution, facilitating a declaration of the rights of man and changing forever the notion of the political establishment. In the twenty-first century, protests are still an important political phenomenon. France has been a global leader in dissent. The rockstar of street opposition was May 1968 when strikes and demonstrations led by students and workers and the occupation of universities and factories across France brought the entire economy of France to its knees and political leaders feared civil war or revolution. The moribund government itself ceased to function for a while after President Charles de Gaulle secretly fled France for a few hours in Germany. ‘68 changed France’s democracy: the super-annuated President De Gaulle resigned, the Assemblée Nationale was dissolved, and government committees were formed to restructure secondary schooling, universities, the film industry, the theatre and the news media. The Grenelle Accord gave better conditions for the unemployed, a 35% increase in the minimum wage and a fourth week of paid leave for those in employment. Mentalities started to change too with a sexual revolution from the young. Mixed schools became more common. 1968 sundered a post-War France of austerity, conservatism and asceticism. Nevertheless the movement succeeded “as a social revolution, not as a political one”. President of the Republic (2007-12) Nicolas Sarkozy famously denounced May 1968 as the source of contemporary France’s problems. The student revolts against bourgeois society introduced a “relativism”, he argued, that undermined national identity, the spirit of

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    The appeal of Repeal

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    There have been many turning points and defining moments as the debate over repealing the Eighth Amendment has unfolded over recent weeks. Some of these have been the powerful stories of individual women or groups of women; others have been the remarkable statements of specific organisations and yet others have been the unexpected campaigning experiences on the ground. Not least of these turning points has been the remarkable fund-raising campaign launched by Together for Yes just two weeks ago. It had a target of €50,000 initially but quickly increased to €100,000, €250,000,€300,000, €450,000 and surpassed €500,000 in the space of just ten days. But what moved even veteran campaigners were the heart-breaking stories and compelling responses of many of the almost 15,000 thousands who contributed. And for some, who made the decision to contribute despite being hardly in any position to afford to, they were matched in turn by other women and men welcoming the chance to make a public statement and many other thousands who contributed in silence. It was truly amazing the way you could see, feel and watch the secrecy that still thrives in Ireland as many who contributed asked to be anonymous, but were glad that they had found a way to make their statement within a society that silences and renders invisible their actual experiences as women in this country. Other defining moments have been the courageous statements by some organisations that have refused to have their stories manipulated in the interests of those who want to deny women access to health services in their own country and to reproductive justice for all women in Ireland – including migrant women, adoptees and women with disabilities. I would highlight in particular the statements of Downs Syndrome Ireland (DSI), Migrants and Ethnic-Minorities for Reproductive Justice (MERJ), Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) and Inclusion Ireland (II). Without the timely intervention of Downs Syndrome Ireland (DSI) appealing against the exploitative use of images of children with Downs Syndrome, such images would have been far more pervasive. DSI has been joined by Inclusion Ireland making visible the often hidden experiences of women with disabilities, too many of whom have been denied the right to have a child or who have experienced disrespect and marginalisation within the maternity services in Ireland. It has been the persistent campaigning and activism of MERJ that has ensured that the rights and experiences of migrants and ethnic minorities have been kept in the forefront of the campaign for Repeal: “We often hear about Irish women who are forced to travel to England to access abortion. But what about the stories of the people who can’t travel to access healthcare due to legal status, lack of money, lack of childcare, disability, etc? Migrants and ethnic-minorities face enormous barriers to accessing abortion and maternity services and are disproportionately affected by the 8th amendment. Let’s remember Savita Halapanavar, Ms. Y and the countless others”. Another critical turning point and special moment in this Together for Yes Campaign has to be the very powerful and unstinting voice rarely heard in the mainstream debate on reproductive justice. The Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) puts forward its compelling case for Repeal in the strongest possible terms. “For our organisation, the Eighth Amendment represents the latest incarnation of the control that was exerted over the thousands of women and girls who were forced to relinquish their children for adoption and who were incarcerated in Mother and Baby Homes, Magdalene Laundries and other institutions. Since 1983, all pregnant women in Ireland have been denied the right to choose whether to proceed with a pregnancy, just as adopted people’s natural mothers were denied any choice. ARA is opposed in the strongest possible terms to the notion that adoption represents a viable alternative to abortion. We firmly recognise the right of a woman to choose not to pro- ceed with a pregnancy. Adoption should only ever be utilised in situations where a child genuinely needs a home, and not as a mechanism whereby women and girls are forced to carry to term and then relinquish the child to a closed, secret system”. Individual voices have also brought new and unexpected emotional experiences to the urgent Repeal cause – in the last few days the story recounted by Chris Fitzpatrick, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist has caught the imagination of many. “I am a doctor. I am supposed to look after people. The woman sitting in front of me is crying. She has had a scan. Her baby’s brain has not developed. The baby will not survive. The woman is 20 weeks pregnant. Her partner has his arm around her. Her mother and father are on their way. Some of her in-laws too. I go over the options. It’s too early to make any decisions. Emotions are too raw. The midwife is very kind to them. We go through everything again the next day. The woman says she cannot go through the rest of the pregnancy. She is too upset. She is wringing her hands in anguish. I cannot help her. She will have to go to England. She and her partner will have to make their own arrangements. Of course, I’ll see her back afterwards. She has our number. She will have to talk to the doctors in England about how to bring the baby home. She wants to bury her baby with her grandparents. The woman is still crying. I offer her a tissue. I have a ticket for the hospital car park. They won’t have to pay on the way out. Inadequate gestures. Cold comfort. There is nothing more I can do. Doctors in another country will look after her. Everyone tells us how important communication between doctors is. I don’t lift a phone. I don’t write a letter. My hands are tied. As they leave, they thank me. I wonder: for what? I close the door of my office. I can hear the woman crying on the corridor.” (Chris Fitzpatrick, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist (and former

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    Pervasive effects of precarious work

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    Employment in Ireland is often spoken about in terms of the economic recovery and falling unemployment rates. However, the real issue that needs to be addressed is job quality and the types of jobs that are being created. There has been increasing recognition that for many workers in Ireland and Europe employment has become insecure, with temporary and casual work increasing. The FEPS-TASC Report, ‘Living with uncertainty: the social implications of precarious work’, sets out to map precarious work in Ireland, and the impact this type of work has on precarious workers’ lives. This research involved 40 in-depth interviews with men and women living in Ireland, aged between 18 and 40, who work or had worked in temporary employment, were employed on a part-time basis with irregular hours and/or were hired on a self-employed basis. There are many definitions of precarious work, as no agreed definition exists. However, for the purpose of this report, we are focusing on employment that is contractually insecure, which includes part-time with variable numbers of highly skilled people are now being locked into insecure employment. A number of sectors of the Irish labour market have a disproportionate share of precarious work. Eight sectors scored higher than the national average. Transportation had high levels of solo self-employment, human health was characterised by a high level of part-time work, and education had a high level of temporary work. The remaining sectors (construction, wholesale and retail, accommodation and administration and support) had two or more dimensions of precarious work at relatively high levels. “Other NACE sectors”, which include occupations such as hairdressers, sports facilities workers and artists, scored high on all three dimensions. To understand the effects of precarious work, we need to look at life outside of the workplace, like the house-hold situation and access to social supports and services. We need to examine the consequences of precarious work for quality of life because, even though the basis of contractually precarious work might be similar in different countries, the experiences differ as a consequence of the availability of public services and state subsidies – for example, universal healthcare or child-care. The following are our main findings in the report. Precarious workers did not choose to be precarious First, the report found that none of our participants chose to be in temporary and “part-time with variable hour” employment. Much of solo self-employment was also not entered by choice but interviewees were forced into this arrangement as a condition for their employment. Importantly, we discovered that many people are unaware that they are working precariously; there are many workers who are working without a contract, or who assume a rolling contract to mean permanency. This finding points to the need for employers to be up-front about contractual status. Precarious workers cannot afford to be sick The report found that precarious working conditions can have a negative effect on physical and mental health. On top of that, the majority of participants cannot afford to be ill. The burden of expense is felt in two ways: through no paid sick leave, and as well as the expenses of paying to see a GP and for medication, tests and follow-up appointments. This lack of support can result in having to make hard decisions such as whether to first buy food, or pay bills or rent. Medical cards and GP cards are means-tested and most precarious workers do not fit the eligibility criteria to obtain them even though they are not able to afford primary care services. Precarious workers have difficulty finding stable housing The housing crisis in Ireland affects families and individuals with very different backgrounds. However, the difficulties that people in non-standard employment encounter are even more pronounced, as they lack economic stability. Precarious workers are not left with any other choice but to rent, or if the option was available to them, to live in the family home. With tightening mortgage regulations, (which followed the economic crash), and soaring property prices, people working in non-standard employment are unlikely to be approved by any lending bank. At the same time, renting in the private market has become prohibitively expensive in the last number of years. This has resulted in bouts of ‘hidden homelessness’ for many of our participants, situations during which they have nowhere to live and are forced to sleep on friends’ couches or stay with their parents. Precarious workers postpone having families It emerged from our interviews that having children was often challenging for precarious workers. While some decided to have children regardless, the majority of our participants continued to postpone childbearing. Postponement of childrearing amongst precarious workers is often not a choice based on individual preference. Instead, while precarious workers want to have children, their financial insecurity, directly related to their contractual insecurity, prevents them from becoming parents. For those who already had children, maternity leave and childcare are the most important issues that they face. It became clear through the interviews that maternity leave is challenging for women in precarious employment, especially for those who are on temporary contracts. First of all, the contract may be shorter than the actual leave. Likewise, for those who were on temporary contracts, maternity leave is a possible obstacle for the continuity of their employment. Formal childcare is too expensive for participants who have insecure incomes and thus alternative arrangements are often necessary. In the most extreme cases, one of the parents has no other choice but to quit their job. Such a decision is usually not based on traditional gender roles, but on employment status. Based on the interviews, precarious work does not appear conducive to having a family. Precarious work leads to insecure lives Contract insecurity and wage unpredictability lead to workplace insecurity and create insecure and unpredictable lives. The lack of independence that precarious work entails often creates a situation in which many people must live with their parents and thus are unable to develop independent lives. Public benefits and support services, such as state access to free primary care services, accommodation,

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    Island of Tyreland

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    Carndonagh is an area of outstanding natural beauty that nestles in the shadow of the Grinlieve Mountain, only eight kilometres from the designated Natura 2000 sites, Trawbreaga Bay Spa and the North Innishowen Coast. Safeguarded by the 1992 Habitats Directive both these ecological wonders are home to protected animal species and diverse wetlands. Outwardly this area seems idyllic and well-protected; however, on 4 December 2011 Sunday Life newspaper exposed Meenyollan, Carndonagh, as the location of a vast illegal tyre dump fed by KF Tyres, Corody Road, Derry (top right). The landowner, Michael McLaughlin, was also claimed to be complicit in the dumping. Nearly ten million tyres had been buried, unregulated, in the period 2008-2011 alone. At least one for everyone in the audience. It has made Carndonagh Europe’s largest illegal tyre dump. Following the Sunday Life exposé in 2011, Donegal County Council promised robust enforcement including an extensive cleanup operation. KF Tyres should have been made responsible in whole or in part for the cleanup operation Donegal County Council promised. However, seven years on, there is still clear evidence of tyres being illegally buried at this location and there is little evidence of a cleanup. The pristine fields, underpinned by tyres which leach into the meandering water table, contrast starkly with the surrounding boglands and call to mind previous violations and unseen toxicity (bottom right). Although it is difficult to find out the exact composition of a tyre, and there are lots of different types most of them include synthetic carcinogens, solvents and heavy metals, for example. KF Tyres and Michael McLaughlin escaped prosecution and in fact subsequently applied for and were granted a range of permits and planning permissions by both Donegal County Council and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) allowing them to legally operate at the same site. These incongruous decisions, some of which were granted in breach of the legally-man-dated sequence, reduced the promised enforcement to no more than knuckle raps. After an abortive attempt by planning consultant Jim Harley to get McLaughlin’s development deemed “exempt” from planning permission, an unlikely new wheeze was to tout it as land reclamation with secondary drainage benefit. Yet still the terms of the new permits permissions have been flouted. Photographic evidence clearly shows that illegal dumping is still going on at the site. In 2018 KF Tyres and Michael McLaughlin are still controversially involved on this site, while Donegal County Council behaves as if it is unaware of this. In 2015, Planning Permission was obtained for the use of 8448 tyres in 105 bales (80 tyres per bale) over a five- year period, suggesting even what Donegal County Council considers reasonable has been overwhelmed by illegal dumping on a much greater – indeed unconscionable – scale.   The photographic evidence (left) shows that neither McLaughlin nor KF Tyres appear to be compliant with the terms of the planning permission, which demands that the tyres that are used be baled, not loose (left, bottom right); nor do they seem to care. Moreover, Donegal County Council evidently does not appear to know what is going on. For example, after the Sunday Life article in 2011, Donegal County Council promised an investigation and robust enforcement. However, in January 2012, mere weeks after the article, Donegal County Council granted McLaughlin a five-year Waste Management Facility permit (WMP) (top right). Why? No planning permission had been granted though one is mandatory before a WMP can be issued. Without the requisite planning permission all tyres taken to Cardonagh around that time continued to be transported and dumped illegally. Jim Harley, formerly of Harley Planning Consultants, has figured in strong criticisms levelled against the Donegal County Council planning department when he worked there a decade ago. These are currently being reviewed by a senior counsel on behalf of the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Harley acted as a planning consultant for McLaughlin when he was granted planning permission in November 2015. There was one condition: that he apply for a WMP. But there was an existing WMP that had been issued illegally. It was illegal precisely because it should not have been issued before planning permission was granted. The Sunday Life article stated in 2011 that KF Tyres had a WCP (waste carriers permit) with Donegal County Council to collect “end of life tyres” but it had no permission to bury tyres at Carndonagh. It is yet another anomaly that KF Tyres obtained a valid Waste Carriers Licence for the South in 2011 but no planning permission or commensurate licence for the site it operated from in Derry. It is strange that Donegal County Council neglected to contact the NIEA about KF Tyres in 2011. The NIEA went on to grant Ken Ferguson a WMP (bottom right) allegedly oblivious to the illegal dumping. This information would have been immeasurably beneficial in averting the current situation. Donegal County Council should have been monitoring the site, verifying the number of tyres being buried both by KF Tyres and McLaughlin. No assessment appears to have been made, north or south of the border, of how many Trans Frontier shipments (TFS) and what tonnage of tyres, KF Tyres declared to the NIEA it had transported between 2012 and 2015.   It is not clear how many physical border and site inspections were made by Donegal County Council and the NIEA during this period. As stated both the WMPs (previous page) were granted under Appendix II of the EU Waste Frame Directive 2008/98EC: recovery operations. R10-Land Treatment resulting in benefit to agriculture or ecological improvement; R13 – storage of waste pending (right). Amazingly there is no reference to waste tyres or indeed anything like rubber within this directive, nor to the burial of solid waste in any form. Land reclamation using tyres is deemed dangerous and illegal in Northern Ireland , but not in the Republic – yet both countries are bound by the same European Directives. Given the toxicity of tyres and the stringent legislation on their

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    Judge Horner brazens it out

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    The Fourth Defendant in the recent rape trial of rugby players in Belfast was Rory Harrison of Manse Road Belfast. He was acquitted of perverting the course of justice by lying to police when he gave a witness statement about his dealings with the complainant woman and deliberately omitting information. He was also acquitted of withholding information from the police. After dropping the woman home and walking her up her driveway, the court heard Mr Harrison texted the woman: “keep the chin up you wonderful woman” and she said she had absolutely no complaint against him. The day after the incident Harrison wrote to Blane McIlroy: “Mate the scenes last night were hilarious. Walked upstairs and there were more flutes than July 12”. Rory who has lived in Dublin and played as prop for UCD and Terenure College Club, is the son of Terence Harrison, a solicitor and partner in Harrison & Hardstaff, 7 Donegal square West Belfast. A former partner is Ian Hardstaff, current Master of the High Court in Belfast. Terence Harrison is the present sole director of TMKK limited, a property company registered in Belfast and incorporated on 13 February 2001. TMKK limited came to prominence last year when a lay litigant was defending an action by Bank of Ireland which was seeking repossession of some property in Northern Ireland. The action had taken nearly four years and was finally heard by Judge Horner. At the very last moment in March 2017 the litigant in question received information, quite accidentally, that the Judge was a shareholder and former Director of TMKK limited; that his wife Karin Horner at that time was a director; and that the company was grossly indebted to the Bank of Ireland, having borrowed substantial sums to fund the purchase of property in Belfast. Checking the records in companies house it was discovered that not only was the company indebted to the Bank but that in 2016 its assets had been devalued from £2,0650,40.00 to £950,000.00, having remained unchanged in value since mortgages were taken out in 2007 when Judge Horner was a QC – barrister – and Director of the company. Property values generally in Northern Ireland had collapsed in that same period but, uniquely, not those owned by TMKK limited. In the notes to the 2016 accounts it was stated that the company was considered a going concern only because of the support of Bank of Ireland: it is questionable whether or not the company was trading while insolvent and whether the value of its assets was properly reported between 2007 and 2016. If its directors knew that the value of the assets was being overstated further issues might arise. The lay litigant brought these matters to the attention of Judge Horner forcing him to recuse himself from the trial while, bizarrely, claiming that he was doing so not because he had been caught out in a manifest conflict of interest that he had not disclosed but because the defendant would not accept any judgment he made. On 14 March the lay litigant made an official complaint to the lord chief Justice’s office but has not yet received a substantive reply, as the office seems wrongfooted. The Lord Chief Justice’s office still seems nowhere close to convening the Tribunal envisaged in the Code of Practice on Judicial complaints. It has produced increasingly forlorn excuses as to why this has not happened. On 27 March 2017 Justice Horner recused himself from the lay litigant’s case giving a statement saying that the reason he recused himself was because the litigant in person would not accept his judgment. This is judicial nonsense. No judge ever should doubt the acceptance of his judgment by a party. The Lord Chief Justice’s office told Village: “Mr Justice Horner stated in open court that he was recusing himself in the case involving the Bank of Ireland and the lay litigant. He said he was satisfied that there was no question of actual bias or that he had any conflict of interest in the case, but that it was apparent to him that ‘the party would never feel able to accept [his] verdict’”. Judge Horner was forced to recuse himself from another long-running trial involving Bank of Ireland at the same time. In that case it was the Bank that asked him to recuse himself and not the other party: he admitted to counsel involved that he was “seriously under water” with the Bank. It appears that he may have given a personal guarantee or guarantees to the Bank to cover at least part of the company’s borrowing in the normal way and that with the company now a loss-making venture those guarantees would fail to be paid. It is the belief of the litigants and of the NI Bar, where this subject is still hot news, that the Bank was well aware of the conflict of interest as were the solicitors then instructed. The failure by the judge to raise the conflict of interest is seen as a very serious matter and the later application by the Bank itself that he recuse himself from a case in which things were not going well for the Bank is seen as scandalous. A question remains as to whether the Bank did not raise the issue of his conflict of interest in cases that were going well for it: if that were the case then it would be shockingly serious for the administration of justice. Further questions remain as to how many other judicial officers including those holding the office of master or similar in NI are or ever have been in the same position as Judge Horner and the extent of the potential hold that the Bank of Ireland, and other banks, may have over others. Bank of Ireland still holds a charge over the assets of TMKK limited of which Terence Harrison is now the sole director. There can be little doubt that officials of the Bank will have been

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