Léargas

We are on the eve of a momentous year. This time a hundred years ago republican men and women were planning the overthrow of the British Empire in Ireland. REVOLUTION 1916: Molly O Reilly and the Rising For those of you who have never heard her name Molly O’Reilly was a young teenage girl who marched with the Citizen Army to the GPO on Easter Monday April 24 th 1916. Molly was born around 1900 in Gardner Street in Dublin. At the age of 11 she joined Clann na nGaedheal the republican girl scouts movement. Two years later she was so appalled by the living conditions in the Dublin tenements that she volunteered to support the workers and their families during the Lock-out. At the age of 13 Molly helped organise a soup kitchen in Liberty Hall. And it was there one week before the Easter Rising she raised the Irish flag (the gold harp on green) for James Connolly. Molly was hugely influenced by Connolly and was an active member of the Citizen Army. In July ...

I sat through the RTE Prime Time programme last Monday night amazed at how far greed will drive individuals to engage in corrupt practices. The southern state has a long history of political corruption. Some Councillors, TDs, government Ministers and Taoisigh have exploited their political positions for self-gain. Planning processes have been particularly favoured by them. Politicians received kick-backs for the ‘right’ decisions in planning processes that advantaged some developers. Land that was bought cheap suddenly skyrocketed in value when it was zoned for housing and business use. The ‘brown envelope’ culture was endemic in political life in the south for decades. It has been a key feature of a long-running and toxic political culture that also gave us the abuses of power that we have seen in the banks, in the health service, in charities and in church and State-run institutions. It is part and parcel of a culture of golden circles and insiders which has so tarnished...

  Last Friday Sinn Féin unveiled a policy document to address the housing crisis that has been created by successive Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour governments. The policy will deliver 100,000 new social and affordable homes, and security and certainty for tenants, and also support homeowners and buyers. Increasing homelessness, soaring rents, never-ending housing waiting lists, and poor quality houses and apartments, are the legacy of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, and the Labour party. Housing across the 26 counties is in crisis as successive governments have handed responsibility for housing to landlords, developers and bankers. Profit has been put before the needs of citizens and we are all paying the price. Days before the launch of the Sinn Féin plan F ine Gael and Labour voted down a Sinn Féin Bill in the Dáil - " Rent Certainty and Prevention of Homelessness Bill". The proposals contained in the Bill were all called for by those in the front line dealin...

During the recent negotiations to secure the future of the political institutions the British government successfully thwarted efforts to put in place the legacy elements of last December’s Stormont House Agreement. This was deeply disappointing for victims and their families. The British government’s refusal to honour last year’s agreement on full disclosure and to employ the pretext of ‘national security’ to deny victims access to state information, follows a familiar pattern. For four decades successive British government’s and their security, intelligence and policing agencies have worked to cover-up the systematic use of collusion, shoot-to-kill actions, and torture. The determination and commitment of families and of a small number of dedicated victim’s support organisations and human rights lawyers have frustrated their efforts. The Bloody Sunday families; the family of Pat Finucane and the Pat Finucane Centre; Relatives for Justice; Justice for the Forgotten; the Ballym...