Tom Griffin, 18 July 2008

The Government this week apologised for smearing the victims of one of the first major bombings of the Troubles.

McGurk's Bar on North Queen Street in Belfast was blown up on 4 December 1971, killing 15 people including two women and three children. Allegations quick surfaced that the dead included IRA members who had accidentally detonated their own bomb.

Among those smeared was 73-year-old Philip Garry, the great-uncle of Linlithgow and East Falkirk MP Michael Connarty, who raised the case in a Commons adjournment debate on Monday.

Belfast Telegraph, David Gordon, 17/4/2008

Rebel unionist MEP Jim Allister made the call after he obtained a civil service memo on demands made to Prime Minister Tony Blair during the negotiations in 2006.

The Government email - issued days after the talks - described six constituency requests as coming from both Paisleys.

The DUP has claimed the north Antrim lobbying occurred "on the margins" of St Andrews, with party sources suggesting Ian Paisley Jnr had been on a " solo run" on these issues.

The newly-released email, issued under freedom of information, was sent by a senior civil servant at the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in October 2006.

It stated: "At last week's talks, Rev Ian Paisley and Ian Paisley Jnr took the opportunity to raise with the Prime Minister a number of issues on which they were seeking a positive outcome. Ministers here have been asked to pursue these and we have in turn been asked to make a report to David Hanson (direct rule Minister) and SofS (Secretary of State) by the end of the week."

The email went to permanent secretaries and other officials at a number of Government departments.

The DUP has again insisted that the six constituency issues had not formed any part of its St Andrews negotiations.

There was embarrassment within the party earlier this year when details of the north Antrim "shopping list" first emerged.

Two of the six demands were connected to property tycoon and DUP member Seymour Sweeney - development at the Giant's Causeway and a proposed Government land sale at Ballee, Ballymena.

Claiming the former DUP leader had now been implicated in the row, Mr Allister said: "It will be recalled that when I exposed the fact that Ian Paisley Jnr had wasted valuable negotiating leverage at St Andrews on lobbying for mere constituency and semi-commercial issues, I called specifically on Ian Paisley Snr to clarify any involvement or role which he had.

"That call was met by a deafening silence from Ian Paisley Snr and the message from the

DUP that Junior was 'on a solo run' and had no authority to raise any such issues."

The MEP, who left the DUP last year over its Sinn Fein power sharing deal, said his ex-leader should explain the email's contents if he "was not directly involved and present when it was decided to waste negotiating leverage with the Prime Minister on such irrelevant issues".

Mr Allister added: "This documentation strongly suggests that, contrary to DUP assertions, this abuse of St Andrews and taking the eye of the ball went to the very top of the party. Little wonder, the constitutional and political outcome for unionism was so disappointing."

A DUP spokesman said the party had "made it clear that none of the issues contained in correspondence from David Hanson to Ian Paisley Jnr were raised by the party in negotiations at any stage in the run-up to, during or after the St Andrews talks in Scotland".

"They were not raised by or with the party, nor were they included on any shopping list considered and approved by the party officers.

"Jim Allister has confirmed that these issues were not raised at any of the meetings in St Andrews at which he was present. The party can confirm that they were not raised at any of the negotiating meetings at which he was not present."

The spokesman added: "This is clearly another bitter attack by Jim Allister on the DUP and Dr Paisley in particular.

"At no time did the party 'take its eye of the ball' in the negotiations. While Jim chooses to attack his unionist colleagues, the DUP will continue to work and deliver for Northern Ireland."

The other issues on the "shopping list" were funding for the North West 200 motorbiking event, the future of the St Patrick's Barracks site in Ballymena, road improvements and planning permission for a hotel, spa and housing development scheme.

Belfast Telegraph , 17, October 2007

By David Gordon

The party said any representations at last year's St Andrews talks would have been made in an "individual capacity" without its " knowledge or consent".

It was responding to revelations in last week's Belfast Telegraph about lobbying by DUP politician Ian Paisley Jnr in support of developer Seymour Sweeney's plans for a commercial Causeway centre.

David Gordon

The DUP politician has been a champion of a number of Mr Sweeney's projects, particularly the controversial Causeway project.

By David Gordon, Belfast Telegraph

The Strategic Investment Board (SIB) is widely regarded as one of the most influential official bodies in Northern Ireland.

A Government-owned company, its remit involves encouraging private sector involvement in public sector projects

breakingnews.iol.ie, 29/11/2006 - 18:19:22

British security forces colluded in acts of international terrorism in the 1970s, a Dáil committee said in a hard-hitting report today.

“The spectre of collusion” was present in the attacks investigated by the probe into a series of bomb and gun attacks carried out on both sides of the border by loyalist paramilitaries.

At a press conference in the grounds of the Dáil in Dublin, the committee concluded that security force members were involved in the attacks: “We now have enough information to be fully satisfied not only that it (collusion) occurred, but that it was widespread.”

It added: “The sub-committee notes that the British cabinet was aware of the level to which the security forces had been infiltrated by terrorists and we believe that its inadequate response to this knowledge permitted the problem to continue and to grow.”

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the findings were very disturbing.

“The findings in this report regarding collusion are deeply troubling and a matter of most serious concern. They paint a very disturbing picture,” he said.

Ulster Secretary Peter Hain will be harassed everywhere he goes in Northern Ireland if water charges are not scrapped, campaigners vowed last night.

The Government was castigated for "lies and spin" by a series of speakers over the introduction of a tap tax next April at the public meeting in Belfast City hall.

January 20.2006

THE insidious erosion of the public’s basic right to information is one of the more cynical faces of the current administration.

World Socialist Website

By Steve James and Chris Marsden
19 January 2006

The exposure of Denis Donaldson, one of Sinn Fein’s leading figures in the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly, as a British intelligence agent of 20 years standing tears a hole in the democratic facade behind which politics in Northern Ireland and Britain is conducted, and reveals the real attitude held by the British government and an array of its intelligence agencies to democratic rights. Secondly, it reveals an astonishing level of intelligence penetration of Sinn Fein and the IRA, which raises disturbing questions on their conduct over decades. The near-silence of the British media on this question serves to emphasise its own indifference to such fundamental issues affecting democratic rights. 

January 15, 2006

Profile of Fintan Drury

What were the odds on the chairman of the RTE Authority, the Ryder Cup’s point man in Ireland, the football agent, the non-executive director of Anglo Irish Bank, the multiple board member and the event manager Fintan Drury finding himself in a conflict of interest? As chairman of Paddy Power bookmakers, no better man to tell you than himself.

January 15, 2006

The Government has created a culture of secrecy within public bodies by repeatedly trying to gag the Freedom of Information Act, it was claimed today.

THE importance of countering IRA propaganda was discussed by the NIO Information Policy Committee at a meeting in Stormont Castle in January 1975. A memo by an official, T M Roberts, noted that Fred Corbett who oversaw the NIO's Foreign Desk had concerns that "IRA propaganda is on the increase, particularly in America". Part of the reason for the increase, according to Mr Roberts, was to counter "strong criticism of those who supply funds to the IRA and its American front organisations (notably Noraid) by Dublin ministers such as Garret FitzGerald".

The breakdown of the IRA's extended ceasefire in 1975 was anticipated in Whitehall as an opportunity to launch "black propaganda" attacks and blame republicans for the return to violence.

Lisa O'Carroll
Monday December 12, 2005
The Guardian

The BBC was in an extraordinary and forceful political vice-grip. It was living under a long shadow cast by the rows over its coverage of a controversial war. The director general had already suffered several nasty and acrimonious encounters with politicians who had boasted about "roasting the BBC alive". The US and the UK were on edge over terrorism, the popular press was fervently patriotic and the BBC could seemingly do nothing right.