EU – Page 57 – Slugger O'Toole

Diane Dodds gets the DUP’s nomination for Europe…

Mick Fealty on November 8, 2013, 11:54 pm

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And for balance’s sake, this evening the DUP nominated their sitting MEP, Diane Dodds. Here’s the FM’s pitch: Diane hasn’t been one of those MEPs who lives in Strasbourg and Brussels but forgets about their constituents. She has been a tireless advocate for citizens all across the Province, publishing three Funding Directories, highlighting funding opportunities for businesses and communities. These were supplemented with dozens of funding workshops and public meetings across every District Council. The Party Officers have decided to …

Attwood launches unambiguous pro EU pitch for MEP job…

Mick Fealty on November 8, 2013, 11:00 pm

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The SDLP’s conference kicked off with Alex Attwood’s interestingly on topic (and actually quite intelligent) pitch for a seat in the European Parliament. I say intelligent because there’s no peace process ambiguity here. He’s actually selling membership of the EU as, erm, in a very Sellar and Yeatman way, ‘a good thing’: “The SDLP has always been the most pro-European voice in Northern politics. We remain the most pro-European voice. “We are steadfastly for Europe; for the European Union; for …

Updated: European Parliament rejects abortion as a `human right` – Sinn Fein & Labour support motion

Kilsally on October 22, 2013, 3:00 pm

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The European Parliament has today voted by 351 MEPs in favour of referring the resolution by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality back to committee, with 319 voted against. Fianna Fáil MEPs oppose EU parliament’s attempt to make abortion a human right: http://t.co/jEakLwqUF1 — Paul Anthony Ward (@PaulAnthonyWard) October 22, 2013 The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Union (which includes Irish Labour, UK Labour and the SDLP) passed a draft report last month declaring that abortion …

“His independent role has on occasions required him to take actions against the Executive…”

Pete Baker on October 16, 2013, 2:14 pm

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In the Belfast Telegraph Liam Clarke picked up on this exchange during questions to the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers in the Assembly on Monday. The topic was the review, by Dame Elish Angiolini, Lord Advocate of Scotland until 2011, of the Office of the NI Attorney General, the report on which was delivered to OFMDFM in October 2012. Here’s the relevant section from Hansard. Mr Attwood: Given the current Attorney General’s inclination to join in Supreme Court cases, European …

EU drops Maze funding

Turgon on October 4, 2013, 1:43 pm

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The BBC are reporting that the European Union’s Special European Programmes Body has dropped its offer of £18 million to the Maze peace centre / shrine after consulting with OFMDFM. The announcement is not yet on SEUPB’s website but according to the BBC: “The SEUPB has been in discussions with the lead partner in relation to the viability of the Peace Building and Conflict Resolution Centre. “It has been agreed that the project is no longer viable at this time …

Shock horror! Independent publishes its own Irish language news supplement

Concubhar on September 26, 2013, 12:37 pm

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If you told me ten or five years ago that the only Irish language newspaper of any description would be provided by the Irish Independent, I would have ended up spending the rest of the day in intensive care. Independent News and Media have long been regarded as one of the arch enemies of the Irish language, and not without cause. Derision of the Irish language has been a default position, it seems, of nearly all the columnists – …

‘To the winds our sails: Irish writers translate Galician poetry’: Book Review

John L. Murphy on September 25, 2013, 1:17 am

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This 2010 anthology collects five poems each from ten Galician women. Irish poets translate four per poet from an English-language crib, with the remaining one rendered into Irish itself. The results reveal some of the revived enthusiasm and energy emanating from this northwestern corner of Iberia, with its alleged ancient ties to the Celtic lands, as the legendary homeland of the Irish themselves. How such expression cross over linguistic expanses, co-editor Mary O’Donnell observes, raise questions. ‘It remains one of …

Partitionism is alive and well in All Ireland

Concubhar on September 19, 2013, 9:00 am

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Irony is lost on some people. Like the person I spoke with in India representing a well known mobile phone company, which is available on both sides of the border, as I tried to finalise a mobile phone contract in Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland. I explained to her that I had moved back to Belfast in the past month to take up a new job. Where had I been previously? Cork, I responded. What’s your post code there? There …

SDLP yet to choose its candidate, but the clock is ticking…

Mick Fealty on September 16, 2013, 2:47 pm

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Tom Kelly asks, after the bloodless coup of south Belfast (which he attributes to speed and accommodation), the glaring gap in the SDLP’s defences is the European Parliament elections next year. Less than a year to go, and both Sinn Fein and the DUP have been getting their candidates settled in to their relatively new positions. Diane Dodds has been meeting small groups of farmers all over Northern Ireland and providing workshops for people on how to access support. For …

“Two European countries, Ireland and Norway, have already banned all eel fisheries.” – redux

Pete Baker on September 11, 2013, 6:46 pm

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Despite a brief flurry of activity by Sinn Féin in February this year, around the Northern Ireland Executive Minister with responsibility for regulating Eel Fisheries, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín’s sudden “refusal to support European proposals for a unilateral suspension of eel-fishing”, the Minister’s promised Assembly statement on the issue never materialised. That’s possibly because, at that stage, the proposal was only in a draft report [amendment 8] to the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries by rapporteur, Isabella Lövin, a Swedish MEP. As it was that …

More decline in North-South relations?

David McCann on September 2, 2013, 7:05 pm

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Today’s article by Simon Doyle in The Irish News highlights again the continuing decline in everyday interaction between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. A new taskforce set up the the Department of Employment and Learning has revealed that less than 1 per cent of students at universities south of the border are from Northern Ireland. This trend has continued a decline that has been going on since 2004 despite the fact that it is cheaper to study in the …

#SeanadRef: No one is defending the present Seanad’s toothless old assenting insiderly grin…

Mick Fealty on August 30, 2013, 8:19 am

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So the Seanad Abolition debate got underway earlier in the week on RTE’s Drivetime programme with a lively if nervous and unfocused sort of debate. There are several things to say about the odd circumstances of this latest turn in the Republic’s seemingly unending cycle of referendums. One is that the Enda Kenny’s great idea came before he used his Taoiseach’s nominations to appoint some tough and independent minded Senators who have had the effect of boosting both the quality …

The collapsing broad middle and the rise of the disruptive troll as undocumented feature

Mick Fealty on August 9, 2013, 10:10 am

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“For you, in my respect, are all the world; Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me?” – ACT II SCENE I, Midsummer Night’s Dream So, trolling? First, it’s not about a single typography called bloggers, yet it is about blogging (however you care to define that, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc). As the old timer techies used to say, “it’s not a bug; it’s an undocumented feature!” A couple …

Ask not what the NI Executive can do for regional and minority languages…

Mick Fealty on August 7, 2013, 2:45 pm

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Aha, it’s that time of year again. You know, when the Culture Minister is asked to compile a report for the UK’s submission to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, s/he does, and then nothing comes back… It happened to Gregory Campbell’s report three years ago (which sank without trace with the deputy First Minister), and last year it happened to Minister Carál Ní Chuilín. Inside Ireland reports.. The UK government’s submission to the Council of Europe was …

Harry Fitzsimons extradited from Senegal to Italy

Pete Baker on August 3, 2013, 4:51 pm

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The Belfast Telegraph has an update on the whereabouts of Harry Fitzsimons – a former member of the Provisional IRA who was jailed for bombing the Woodburn House Hotel in Belfast in 1971, he was released in 1981. Fitzsimons was one of a number of people for whom arrest warrants were issued in Italy in March this year in connection with an alleged money laundering property scheme run by the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia. As Mick noted at the time some interesting …

Seanad Referendum: It’s about the economy, stupid!

Mick Fealty on July 31, 2013, 1:34 pm

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Here Patricia MacBride responds to an emerging debate over the future of Seanad Eireann that was in full flow at the MacGill Summer School last night. Now that the Seanad Referendum Bill has been signed by the Minister, it’s all about balance in the debate from here on in, right? Well no – not really. The government parties are in favour of abolishing the Seanad and have recently been joined by Sinn Féin on the ‘Yes’ side, leaving Fianna Fáil …

Louth County Council Suspend Narrow Water Bridge Project

Pete Baker on July 9, 2013, 4:05 pm

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Looks like the Northern Ireland Finance Minister’s caution was justified. As the BBC report Plans to build a cross-border-bridge between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic have been put on hold. Louth County Council said tenders had been significantly above the figure expected for the Narrow Water bridge project, leading it to halt it. RTÉ has the figures involved. The council today said the tenders for the 195m cable-stay bridge across the river Newry at Narrow Water ranged from €26m to €40m, …

Conned

John Ó Néill on July 6, 2013, 9:09 am

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Unnerving. This is a must read in today’s Irish Times. It was originally printed last week in the German newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’. Entitled, ‘Conned’: a German view of Ireland, it gives an insight into the ‘conning’ of Ireland – over several decades – by its political masters with some added comment and footnotes by Derek Scally. Drawing a line through failures to negotiate an equitable fisheries deal with the EEC in 1973, through Ray Burke and Bertie Aherns giveaway of …

Let’s praise David Cameron for creating a brilliant showcase

Brian Walker on June 19, 2013, 5:30 pm

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First of all there was the simple pleasure at Lough Erne looking wonderful, an English friend saying “didn’t Enniskillen look beautiful” and even the rain staying off, mostly. I admit I was chuffed to see Jon Snow presenting lakeside “fresh in from Iran.. on a beautiful Fermanagh evening.” And never mind Obama. Unfashionable as it is to praise any British Prime Minister for anything they do on this island, let’s hear it for David Cameron whose bold and imaginative decision …

#G8, transparency, tax and “the soft bigotry of low expectations…”

Mick Fealty on June 18, 2013, 4:41 pm

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On tax, and transparency, here’s the final communique from Lough Erne. Ten “shoulds”, all of them ‘good things’, based on self reporting. Ah, “the soft bigotry of low expectations” says Joseph Cotteril. No imminent world government then? As The Economist noted last week: …offshore centres such as the Cayman Islands and Jersey, corporate service providers have had to collect ownership information since they first came under international pressure a decade ago, though they are sometimes slow or unwilling to turn it over …