Eamonn McCann
Foyle · People Before Profit Alliance · Northern Ireland
“Every single Member so far has mentioned the financial constraints on the Housing Executive. Does the Member agree with me that there are ways out of this problem of a lack of resources to deal with cavity wall insulation, damp and mould, which affects houses in every constituency?”
“We cannot have it on the basis of a Government in Stormont, Westminster or anywhere else saying, 'We think this is a dangerous person and they should be put into prison'." <BR /> <BR />I am struck by the fact that none of those who have spoken in favour of this motion have even admitted that this might be a difficulty.”
“Thank you very much. When there is such a perception, and it is based on material reality, that is a real problem for law and order in any society. <BR /> <BR />Yesterday, we voted for the motion in relation to the attempted killing on the Crumlin Road.”
“Mr Frew has just referred to people campaigning with placards demanding the release of this one and that one. He characterised it as standing side by side with extremists. It is not standing side by side with extremists to call for the release of anybody — certainly not.”
“When asked what these activities were — "I am not telling you."; "Who gave you to believe that he was involved in these activities?"; "The security services"; "Did they give you the information?"; "Yes, they did"; "Will you tell us?"; "No, we will not tell you".”
“I refer, of course, to internment in 1971. Occasionally, here and outside, we refer to the major atrocities that have taken place. I include, just for the sake of the record and in case anybody suggests I would think otherwise, Enniskillen, Teebane and the dreadful, unjustified and unjustifiable atrocity in Birmingham in December 1974, wh…”
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“I do not think that it will work; it will not work for the same reasons that we all, or some of us, spelled out yesterday that, if it is to be successful, it depends on the truth being told. <BR /> <BR />If the British Government and others had any willingness to tell the truth, they would have told it already. People are talking about all the money that needs to be involved, but sure if they had told the truth from the outset, there would be no need for any money to be spent. The only reason why these things take time and why lawyers earn fantastical sums of money is that nobody is coming clean. <BR /> <BR />We have had inquests. Remember this: some of the cases that we are talking about have already had inquests.”
“If we all agree on those things, what is the problem? Where is the difficulty if we move forward? The difficulty is political. The Sinn Féin motion does not even acknowledge or mention the fact that its partner in government, the DUP, is mainly holding this thing up and is responsible for the deadlock. It is one thing to move on from the past and all that and for all of us to be nice to one another and cooperating on the Executive, but, when that means that there is no movement for people who desperately need the truth to be told outside, you have to question whether all this is worthwhile. <BR /> <BR />I agree with the Lord Chief Justice. We have already said that, which is terrific. Who could disagree, whether on humanitarian or philosophical grounds, with what the Lord Chief Justice said or with his proposals? Everybody agrees.”
“I do not know whether many people take the trouble to read the Hansard report of the daily proceedings; I used to do it, but then I am a sort of political nerd and would not usually admit it to anybody. It is even worse than watching 'Stormont Today'. <BR /> <BR />If they had read yesterday's proceedings and then sat down tomorrow morning to read today's proceedings, the first thing they would think is that it was all one debate, because it is all about the past. It overlaps and inter-penetrates in all these discussions about legacy and inquests and who is telling the truth — which nobody involved in these matters really is. <BR /> <BR />In one way, I agree with everything that is being said because everybody is saying that there should be no hierarchy of victims; everybody agrees with that.”
“There is no sign that they will be treated fairly either by the Government or by the leaders of paramilitary organisations. Victims are being treated despicably. The best thing that they can do is stay on the streets, stay fighting and put pressure on from below on Governments, paramilitary leaders and the rest. That is the only thing that will work.”
“I think that they are all good, every one of them. I am positive about every one of them. What I am saying is that they all depend on the truth being told by the perpetrators and by the political representatives of the perpetrators. There is no sign whatsoever of that happening. <BR /> <BR />I agree with the Member who said that perhaps we are all victims. I sometimes think that half this country is in bits as a result of the conflict and the other half does not care. That is the situation, and it goes down to maybe eight-, nine- and 10-year-olds. They are affected by it because their parents were affected by it, and you do not need to have lost a member of your immediate family to be traumatised by it. Loads of people are. Hundreds of thousands of people are. They are not being treated fairly.”
“<BR /> <BR />We have the Oral History Archive, the Historical Investigations Unit, the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval and the Implementation and Reconciliation Group — this alphabet soup of agencies and units. I do not know what these things mean, and I have got a bit of an interest in this.”
“She was a girl, a young woman who harboured no hatred towards anybody on this island and who had no involvement of any kind in the events that we are discussing here. She was blown to bits. What succour has her family got from the British Government? They have been lied to. I have spoken to them. Lied to by the cops — the West Midlands Police. Lied to by the courts and by judges. Lied to by the Home Office. Lied to by the press. The truth has been kept from them. I mentioned Maxine Hambleton, and I hope that her sister Julie will be in Derry in the last weekend in January to speak to the Bloody Sunday relatives about the fact that they have in common that they have been lied to and despicably treated by the Government. The British Government will not tell the truth about their role here.”
“If it is out of order to refer to Mr James Brokenshire as a "despicable individual", I will withdraw it, if that is your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker. You can stop me saying it, but, I will tell you this, you cannot stop me thinking it and you cannot stop hundreds of thousands of other people in this society thinking it. <BR /> <BR />I mentioned a moment ago, just before you spoke, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the British Government do not care about victims across there. I have had occasion in the recent past to speak to victims of the Birmingham bomb. People were out for a night in Birmingham city centre in November 1974 and were blown to bits. For example, Maxine Hambleton, 18 years old, went into a pub to deliver a message and was blown to smithereens.”
“As far as I am concerned, he is a despicable individual who could not care less about the people of the North of Ireland, including the victims of Northern Ireland. And why should he? Why should he? The British Government could not care less about their own people across the water who died in the conflict.”
“They have never told the truth about their involvement in murder throughout their period of empire and the rest of it. They are not going to do it now. <BR /> <BR />I heard a suggestion made a few minutes ago that the new Secretary of State, Mr Brokenshire, has a positive approach to this sort of thing. No he does not. I sat with the relatives of the Ballymurphy massacre, as did others, just across the way a couple of weeks back with Mr Brokenshire. Not a flicker of concern showed on his face throughout a meeting that lasted more than an hour. Not a word that he said gave any comfort to the people who were looking for the truth about why their loved ones were killed, shot down by members of the Parachute Regiment in August 1971. Mr Brokenshire is not a friend of the victims.”
“<BR /> <BR />That having been said, I want to move on to the broader question about a victim-centred approach to the past. You cannot have a victim-centred approach unless the victims get the truth. In my estimation looking forward, and I do not do much gambling these days, the odds of the victims of the conflict in the North getting the truth is as close to zero as makes no difference. Does anybody seriously believe that the British Government at this stage of events are going to tell the truth about the behaviour of their secret forces in colluding with murder over 40 years? Does anybody seriously think that they are going to tell the truth about that? They are not. This business of national security — it goes beyond that.”
“I want, first, to make a specific point, and I make it on behalf of the WAVE Trauma Centre and Alan McBride, who was, of course, bereaved in the Shankill bombing. I would like the Executive to answer — not here but somewhere — why there has been no provision for people who suffered injuries in the conflict to the extent that they have been unable to work and, therefore, unable to build up an occupational pension. Some of them, now in their late 50s and in their 60s, find that because of that, they have to rely on basic benefits. Why should that be? This is a relatively small matter with a relatively small amount of money. Why has it not been addressed, despite the fact that Alan McBride and many others have been pleading for years to have something done about it?”
“— and are therefore under a disadvantage compared with others. I speak from some experience in the matter.”
“If the Minister is not already embarrassed by the praise that has been heaped on her, I will say fair play to her for the decision that she has taken. <BR /> <BR />Still on the subject of access to courts and to justice, does she welcome the suggestion that the High Court ought occasionally to meet somewhere other than in Belfast? In Scotland, the High Court meets in three separate locations; in Wales, it is 15; and in England, it is 28. Here, it is Belfast, Belfast, Belfast. If the High Court were to meet occasionally in Derry, that would improve access to the courts for people in Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone and would also be greatly welcomed by lawyers and other court workers in Derry. As a final point, Derry people who have to travel to Belfast and back again for court arrive exhausted —”
“Given that background and given that the Department has, at the very least, because of the public money involved, an overall supervisory role, will she agree to meet a number of the fishermen who are aggrieved and discuss the matter with them further?”
“I thank the Minister for that. I know that the Minister is aware of the very strong feelings that exist among some fishermen around Lough Neagh, particularly on the part of those fishermen who, although they are members of the Lough Neagh Fishermen's Co-operative Society, find that they have not been able to and cannot get from the cooperative —”
“In light of the Minister's assurance that, in future, more attention will be paid to the perspectives and opinions of front-line staff than those of a manager sitting in an office with a spreadsheet — I paraphrase, of course — what steps will she take to ensure that we have no repetition of the grotesque situation that arose in the Western Trust area when £8 million earmarked for learning disability services was not spent on learning disability services? No explanation, of an adequate or clear nature, has been produced for this shortfall. We deserve to know this, and we do not know it. Will the Minister take steps at least to ensure that there is no repetition of this happening?”
“We should look back. When I hear that Annie Kelly's case has been resolved to the satisfaction of her family, I will take the motion seriously.”
“If a prisoner is in Maghaberry on the basis of the signature of a Secretary of State and not on the basis of having been brought to court on any charge — that is the situation in the case of Tony Taylor — then we have established clearly that there are differences in status. If Tony Taylor is not a political prisoner, what type of prisoner is he? He is certainly not a convicted prisoner. <BR /> <BR />Incidentally, if we begin to look at separation in our schools then maybe we can move on to the more difficult question of separation in Maghaberry. If children were allowed to learn multiplication tables in the same room then, perhaps, we would have some ground of principle on which to stand to say that prisoners should be kept in the same accommodation. It is not going to work. <BR /> <BR />Finally, my main point is this —”
“I do not say that with any sense of pleasure or anticipation of it happening; I am simply telling you that, in my view and judgement, based on my experience of campaigning on these matters and my knowledge of prisoners, some of them in Maghaberry at the moment, I have no doubt that you will be making a very serious mistake to push this. <BR /> <BR />A couple of moments ago, the point was made by Mr Douglas, I think, that it is simply not the case that all prisoners are regarded as having equal status in this jurisdiction, the Southern jurisdiction or across the water. We heard a few moments ago that all prisoners are the same. They are not the same.”
“It said explicitly that she was in danger of harming herself and even of suicide. That was said, and, as she did commit suicide, we are entitled to ask questions about the overall regime in Maghaberry and whether the present situation, regime or authorities would be capable — assuming that they are mindful — to manage the transition suggested in the motion in a proper and legitimate way. <BR /> <BR />I can tell you now, and Mr McCartney was, I think, coming close to saying the same thing, that if you impose integration on the prisoners at Maghaberry, you will not solve any problem. You will reap a whirlwind. You are going to have serious violence within the prison.”
“At that time, there were extensive inquiries and clear-cut, explicit and ringing declarations that all the problems that had been identified would be seen to. Indeed, I have had from the Minister of Justice, in an answer to a recent question, a suggestion that the defects in the Prison Service at that time had been remedied. <BR /> <BR />Annie Kelly's family, from Strabane, with whom I have been speaking in recent days, are still waiting for some explanation as to how a 19-year-old child, whose problems had been widely signalled, including by the prison staff, could have ended her life in that way. Indeed, a senior member of the prison staff at Maghaberry at that time wrote to Annie Kelly's solicitor. I saw the letter. It said that the prison staff knew that Annie Kelly should not have been in Maghaberry and that it was no place for her.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker; I was not expecting to be called, but it is a pleasure. <BR /> <BR />When we talk about the changes that have been made in Maghaberry prison and the problems that have arisen there, we ought to look back a wee bit further than the last couple of years. We have heard mentioned the cases of Sean Lynch and Patrick Kelly, after which, of course, we had all manner of assurances that lessons had been learnt and that things were going to change. <BR /> <BR />I put it to the Members who made those arguments or observations about Maghaberry that they should ask themselves whether all the problems, difficulties and inadequacies that were referred to in relation to those cases were clear to be seen in the case of Annie Kelly, aged 19, who hanged herself from the wire mesh covering of the window in her cell, back in 2002.”
“Does the Member not agree that not all prisoners in Maghaberry are exactly the same or have exactly the same status? Will he factor the case of Mr Tony Taylor into his argument about all prisoners being the same in Maghaberry? Some have had due process; some have not.”
“We are not being given the opportunity to do that, and I would like an explanation.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In terms of the Standing Orders of the House, can you explain why, again, neither Member from People Before Profit has been called in the debate? The same thing happened yesterday in relation to the debate on withdrawal from the European Union, on which we were very anxious to speak because we have a distinctive point of view, different from that of other parties, and we want to be able to express it. Can you tell me whether the ruling comes from the Speaker's Office? Has it been imposed on the Speaker's Office by a Committee of the House? Is it based on precedent? Is it based on protocol? Will you explain this to us? We have 13,000 first preference votes between us. We believe that that is a mandate to express our point of view in the House.”
“<BR /> <BR />I will illustrate one other truth, and it is this: the main divide in our society on this issue, as on so much else, is not between one community and another but between the rich and the poor. We are characterised by class differences not community differences. To that extent, we are not particularly representative here of the community as a whole. It is meaningless to talk about the subject without factoring in the income difference and class difference —”
“Therefore, if you are poor, there is an economic incentive. You are pushed towards buying food that fills your children's stomach and stops them from feeling hungry but that is at their expense, as it is very unhealthy food. That is one of the factors, and there are many others. <BR /> <BR />All the evidence suggests that I am right about that, and not because I understand these things better than anybody else. Look at the statistics and the surveys, and you will see that I am right in general terms about poverty being the main predictor of obesity in children. If I am right about that, and if we want to deal with the problem, we have to look at joblessness, low pay and cuts in benefits. All those things that plunge families deeper into poverty are directly relevant to the question.”
“Am I hitting it? Sorry about that. <BR /> <BR />Everything shows that. There are a couple of specific reasons for it. One authoritative survey shows that, when we are dealing with high-value, healthy foods, the price per calorie can be three times as high as that of junk food and foods that cost very little.”
“I take the Member's word for it that that is the experience in her constituency. I will point out two things to her. Statistics can be misleading at times when you consider them at constituency level or even at local government ward level. You can have constituencies where very wealthy people live — that is absolutely fine, and I have no objection — and very poor people live. Depending on the proportion of one and the other, you will find that the same area can be defined as doing better than average economically and doing less well depending on the way in which you look at it. Every survey that measures differences in income between families shows that —”
“Again, the simple fact is that it is the disposable income of the family that you are born into that is overwhelmingly more important than anything else.”
“Every survey shows it. A Fabian Society survey published just last year shows that, in our society, the poorer a family is, the more likely it is that the children will suffer from obesity and a great number of other things. That is true over a range of problems that we have in society: sickness at all ages, cardiac problems, respiratory problems or educational attainment. Take any of those matters, which are frequently debated simply on their own terms in the context of that particular issue, and look at it deeply — not all that deeply do you have to look — and you will discover that income is the most important thing. Do you want to predict the chances of people going to university and so forth?”
“But it seems to me that, when almost everybody can agree with almost everything that has been said, you have to wonder whether there are any sharp-edged points to be made in the debate at all. An awful lot of it seemed to me to be motherhood and sugar-free apple pie. That is absolutely fine except that it does not contribute much to deepening our understanding of these matters. <BR /> <BR />It seems to me that we have to look for the key variable at a statistical level that helps us to understand where childhood obesity comes from. What is it? Is it the colour of our eyes or hair? Is it the religious community that we come from? Is it the colour of our skin? No, it is none of those things. By far the most decisive aspect or factor is poverty. It is overwhelmingly more important than anything else that has been mentioned today.”
“I listened to the debate this morning and when it resumed this afternoon. I have to say that I found little in it to object to. I agreed with practically everything that was said by every Member who contributed to the debate. I would say that that has not been an unvarying experience of my time in the House. It was very welcome. <BR /> <BR />I approve when people say that it is a disgrace that we lag far behind Scotland, for example, when it comes to timetabled and actual time spent in schools on physical exercise and sport. That is a disgrace. I agree with everybody who said that, and something should be done about it and all the other things that have been said.”
“Today, we should have simultaneous demonstrations against the Russians and the Americans.”
“That disparity must end. <BR /> <BR />I will finish with this sentence, Mr Speaker. In People Before Profit, we believe that the Soviet Union was a state capitalist country, and we protested against the suppression in Czechoslovakia and so on and so forth —”
“I and People Before Profit call for the most vigorous protests outside Russian embassies and elsewhere against what is happening in Aleppo. We also call for a stepping-up of protests against the supply of arms to the sectarian, extremist state dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, which, incidentally, supplied 15 of the 19 September 11 bombers yet is still supplied with billions of pounds of lethal machinery to slaughter people in the Middle East.”
“It is because they got away with the slaughter of the Chechen people that they think they can get away with it in Aleppo and other parts of the world. It is not an accident that Chechnya, per head of population, has supplied more fighters to Islamic State than any other country in the world. That was a direct result of the Soviet Union's and then Russia's suppression of the Chechen people. <BR /> <BR />What we see now in the Middle East is the use of Western arms, supplied mainly by the United States but also by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia to inflict horrendous slaughter. Some 4,000 civilians have been killed in Yemen, a substantial majority of them killed with Western arms supplied by companies such as BAE, Raytheon and the rest of them without any protest.”
“That is simply the mirror image of those — some are represented in the House — who are quite happy to protest against Russia; they stand up and denounce the barbarism of Russian bombing, but the same people have never protested against the genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people by the Israelis using American- and British-supplied arms. <BR /> <BR />When we look at what is happening in the Middle East today in Syria, we see, of course, that the Russian forces are adopting the same tactics and attitudes as they adopted in relation to Chechnya some years ago.”
“There has been widespread comment on the supposed fact that there is a big disparity between the reaction of anti-war activists in the West, including in this country and across the water, to the Russian slaughter of people in Aleppo on the one hand and various atrocities perpetrated by the West, particularly by the United States, on the other. "Where are the protesters outside the Russian embassy?", it is asked. In the opinion of People Before Profit, that is a very good question. The suggestion made on the left is that there is no moral balance between the West and the Soviet Union.”
“The Member referred to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive being created in an open way as a result of the civil rights campaign in the late 1960s. Is it not ironic that, right now, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive is being dismantled in secret and its powers handed over to the Strategic Investment Board — a fact that we know only if we have contacts in the Housing Executive, deeply upset about it, giving us the information? Is that not ironic in the middle of a debate on transparency and accountability?”
“Is the Minister aware of large amounts of illegally dumped waste in the Derry area being carried by the truckload, in broad daylight, across the border and dumped — again illegally, apparently — in County Donegal, even as, so I understand from her statement, significant amounts of waste are being carried in the opposite direction? Is that not a bizarre situation that demands immediate attention?”
“It made no commercial sense at all for Stephen McCauley to play the music of local bands, yet some of them have gone on to great things. Even those that have not gone on to great things have provided an uplift and an area of imagination to thousands of people that they otherwise would not have had. <BR /> <BR />I am no starry-eyed, uncritical admirer of the BBC, not by any means, but I believe that it is a precious asset for our society that should be defended. It should not be left simply to BBC employees, like the journalists organised in the NUJ, to defend its independence. Assemblies like this should step forward and defend the BBC, and I urge us all to do so because it is under threat.”
“That is an absolutely disgraceful way to treat an institution like the BBC. <BR /> <BR />We in the North have a lot to thank the BBC for. I come from Derry, where Radio Foyle has phenomenal listenership figures for the size of its area. It is tremendously important for the cultural life of Derry, just as Radio Ulster is for the whole of the North. I have a particular interest in popular culture and popular music. Take the BBC in Derry with Stephen McCauley's 'Electric Mainline' programme and in Belfast with 'Across the Line' with Stuart Bailie and other people. There would not be the wonderful efflorescence of youthful talent in the area of popular culture had the BBC not given an audience to many of the young bands that were coming forward when it made no commercial sense for it do that.”
“That chair — a government appointee — will then appoint not four, as she said, but five other non-executive directors. That means that the Government of the day will be in a powerful position to influence how the BBC is run, which values it expresses and all the rest of it. That is regrettable, and we all should express our regret about it. <BR /> <BR />The Government have shown no willingness to respect the BBC's independence. Let me give you one example from the recent past. The Government decided that the BBC should fund free licences for the over-75s. What was the rationale for that? Why did they do that? They spelt it out. They were quite open about it: it was part of welfare reform. This is what was said at Westminster: "We will hit the BBC for millions as part of welfare reform".”
“What does that mean? It means that, when deciding what to broadcast, when to broadcast it and on which channel to broadcast it, the BBC must take into account the effect that that might have on ITV, Sky or other providers; in other words, it is saying that the BBC must step into the commercial market, otherwise it will not, according to the charter, meet its legal responsibilities. I regard that as a very ominous aspect of the charter. <BR /> <BR />There is much in the charter that I welcome, but I am drawing attention to the things that concern me and ought to concern the House. There is little in it that would safeguard the BBC's independence in funding or governance. Ms Gildernew has already mentioned the fact that the Government will appoint the new chair of a unitary board — a very powerful position.”
“In the rest of the charter, if you read through out and comb out the phrases, you will see what is intended: the direction of travel in which the Government in London and commercial interests — most ferociously the Murdoch empire — want to force the BBC to go. On scheduling, this is what the charter says:”
“I think it is fair to say that there are no two British institutions more widely admired around the world than the BBC and the National Health Service. They also have this in common: both institutions have for some time been and continue to be under relentless assault from people and interests who believe that the free market should be allowed to rip through every aspect of our lives. That aspect of what is happening to the BBC is represented in the charter, and I regret the fact that it has not been mentioned by any Member so far. <BR /> <BR />If you look at the charter document, you will see that it refers to the necessity of the BBC in the future to be aware of what it calls the wider media market. The key word there is "market".”
“What I am saying, however, is that there are huge dangers here that can only be addressed by education, in every sense, for people from a very young age about the dangers of alcohol. When we do that, without transgressing on the rulings you made, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, we should also include information and education about what other drugs will do and point out that, among the drugs that are freely available in our society, alcohol is the most dangerous, and some of the drugs that are illegal are much less dangerous. What sense can this make? Where is the rationality in this situation?”
“I think that it is an argument for looking at this thing seriously and for saying that what we need here is not to have restrictions on when you can drink, at any age. Rather, what we need is education. We need people to understand the dangers of it and not to take it casually. In our society, over and over again, if you walk around the streets, you will see billboards, television screens and the rest of it urging you to drink alcohol. After all, why do companies like Diageo, which makes Guinness, spend millions of pounds making very well-made, artistically very impressive adverts to put on television? They do so to invite people to drink and drink more. That happens all the time, and there is no real debate about it. <BR /> <BR />I am not suggesting, again, that we put restrictions on advertisements on television or anywhere else.”