LOYALIST leader Mark Haddock has been cleared of the murder of paramilitary rival Tommy English 12 years ago.

Ulster Defence Association (UDA) chief English, 40, was gunned down in his house in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim in front of his wife and three young children on Halloween night in 2000 during a bloody feud between the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the UDA.

Sitting for 21 weeks, the trial at Belfast Crown Court was one of the longest in Northern Ireland’s legal history and is set to be one of the most expensive.

The prosecution case against 13 men in the five month trial at Belfast Crown Court was based on the testimony of two brothers and self-confessed UVF members who turned state’s evidence in return for significantly reduced jail terms.

Window cleaners Robert and Ian Stewart alleged that nine of the defendants were involved in the murder.

Four others stood accused of lesser offences including assisting offenders, perverting the course of justice, and meting out paramilitary beatings.

A 14th man walked free from court last month after judge Mr Justice John Gillen, who sat without a jury, ruled that he had no case to answer.

Mr Justice Gillen delivered a withering assessment of the evidence provided by the two brothers, saying Robert and Ian Stewart’s testimony was “infected with lies”.

The judge said he was not convinced that men he described as “ruthless criminals and unflinching terrorists” had turned over a new leaf and decided to tell the truth.

“These were the same men wearing new suits,” he said.

The so-called “supergrass” trial has been controversial, with supporters of the accused likening the case to high profile trials in the 1980s, which saw both loyalist and republican paramilitaries jailed on the evidence of former colleagues who turned state’s evidence.

There was a major security presence with armed police in court and the public gallery was packed.

There was applause from the public gallery and muted cheers at the verdicts.

The judge permitted the defendants, apart from Neil Pollock and Haddock, who remain in prison, to walk from the dock.

After embracing and shaking hands, they emerged from the court room to be greeted by loud cheers from family and supporters waiting outside.

Mr Pollock, 36, was convicted of possessing items intended for terrorism.

In delivering judgement, Justice Gillen insisted the verdicts were not a reflection on the practice of relying on the evidence of criminals who have turned state’s witness, but were based on the unreliability of the Stewart brothers.

FORTY new jobs are being created in Co Londonderry with the announcement yesterday of a £1 million expansion by Magherafelt firm Fire Glass Direct.

Specialising in architectural glass design products for domestic and commercial applications, the business is a market leader in fire and safety glass, mirrors, double glazed units, office partitions and movable walls.

It has also established a healthcare division, Mediglaze, producing products for use in critical care and isolation units and for which it currently holds nine worldwide patents.

This part of the business, first established in 2007, now represents around 40 per cent of revenues but the latest investment, which includes a five-fold increase in floorspace at the plant, marks a significant effort to develop the business and its export potential.

Fire Glass Direct was established in 2004 and the new jobs created by the investment will bring the company’s total staff count to 77.

“This investment marks a major expansion for us, almost doubling our workforce, and is a reflection of our confidence in the potential of our new products to significantly increase our turnover and market reach,” said company director Seamus O’Connor.

“Invest NI’s support is allowing us to put the jobs in place quickly and therefore take advantage of market opportunities.”

Up to 34 of the posts have been in place since before Christmas as the company completed a series of units now being installed at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, as manager Feargal McMullan explained.

“Eight isolation units are being installed at the moment. We have tested them extensively but now we have to see how they perform in field trials as it were.

“The units have been designed to be shipped anywhere in the world for assembly and we would very much be looking to the international market once the tests are completed.”

Des Gartland, Manager of Invest NI’s north-west Regional Office, said: “This investment marks the next step in the company’s strategic plan to substantially increase sales and consolidate its position in the market.

“Its new products, which were developed with Invest NI’s support, have opened up more avenues of opportunity for it and demonstrate that even in difficult economic conditions, companies can succeed by constantly innovating and seeking out new markets outside Northern Ireland.

“These new skilled jobs are very welcome in Mid Ulster where the construction sector in particular has been badly hit by the economic downturn.”

Invest Northern Ireland has offered Fire Glass Direct £160,000 of support through its Jobs Fund, which has a budget of £19 million to support the creation of 4,000 jobs by March 2014.

The Jobs Fund is part of Invest NI’s Boosting Business initiative and has been developed in response to the economic downturn in order to help businesses accelerate new job creation and boost employment.

This month one hundred years ago Winston Churchill addressed an audience of nationalists in Celtic Park, Belfast, and told them of his support for Home Rule. Local historian GORDON LUCY reflects on the infamous visit

ELECTED as a Conservative MP in 1900, Winston Churchill crossed the floor of the House of Commons in 1904 and became a Liberal MP.

By 1912 Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty in Asquith’s Liberal Government, which in April would introduce the third Home Rule bill. Churchill parted company with the Conservatives on the issue of Tariff Reform but he was never other than a lukewarm convert to Home Rule. He had after all in 1904 described an Irish Parliament as ‘dangerous and impractical’.

Nevertheless, in January 1912 Churchill, with some encouragement from the Master of Elibank, the Liberal Chief Whip, accepted an invitation from the politically insignificant Ulster Liberal Association to share a platform with John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and Joe Devlin, the Nationalist MP for West Belfast, and to speak in support of Home Rule in the Ulster Hall in Belfast.

The Ulster Liberal Association’s choice of venue and Churchill’s acceptance of their invitation were both tactless and provocative. Twenty-six years earlier, at the time of the first Home Rule crisis, Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had paid a celebrated visit to Belfast and delivered a speech in the same venue urging his unionist audience to wait and watch, organise and prepare so that the catastrophe of Home Rule might not come upon them ‘as a thief in the night’. However, contrary to popular belief, Lord Randolph did not utter the famous words ‘‘Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right’’ on that occasion.

A letter to Redmond on January 13 possibly casts some light on Churchill’s motivation in accepting the invitation. Churchill explained that it would be useful to set at rest any genuine apprehensions felt by Ulster Protestants. But, perhaps more significantly, he continued: ‘‘it will be a great gain even to give the appearance that a fair and reasonable discussion of the subject [Home Rule] has begun in Ulster’’.

Augustine Birrell, the chief secretary for Ireland, was furious with Churchill’s intervention, not least because Irish affairs formed no part of Churchill’s departmental responsibilities. More importantly, Birrell feared Churchill’s intervention would prove to be the catalyst for serious rioting in Belfast.

Another Cabinet colleague, Lord Morley, who as John Morley had been chief secretary for Ireland at the time of the first and second Home Rule bills, regarded Churchill’s action as reckless and believed he was destroying any prospect of introducing the Home Rule bill in a calm atmosphere.

An angry Unionist reaction was predictable. The Ulster Unionist Council regarded the meeting as a ‘deliberate challenge’ and resolved to prevent it taking place. As the meeting was scheduled for the evening of February 8, Ulster Liberals booked the Ulster Hall for that evening.

Unionists proposed to hire the hall for February 7 and planned to pack it with a solid mass of men who would resist all efforts to eject them the following day.

The liberal press accused unionists of seeking to suppress free speech. The unionist response was that Churchill was free to make his case anywhere in Belfast except the symbolically significant Ulster Hall.

Churchill and the Ulster Liberals, with some prompting from Birrell, decided to hold their meeting on the afternoon of February 8 in a marquee erected in the grounds of Celtic Park, a strongly nationalist part of the city. Nevertheless, the authorities in Dublin feared violence and were sufficiently alarmed to send five infantry battalions, two companies of cavalry and a significant force of police to Belfast.

Churchill’s arrival in both Larne and Belfast were marked by hostile but peaceful demonstrations. Admittedly, after Churchill had lunch in a hotel in central Belfast, a group of shipyard workers surrounded his car with a view to overturning it but, when they discovered that Mrs Churchill was in the car accompanying her husband, the cry went up, ‘mind the wumman’.

The shipyard workers then chivalrously refrained from carrying out their intention. Observers noted that Churchill never flinched. But then Churchill was never deficient in physical courage.

Speaking in a leaky tent, during a downpour, Churchill addressed an almost exclusively nationalist audience, leavened only by a few liberals. Yet his speech was, in many respects, pitched at unionists and represented a futile attempt to persuade them to embrace Home Rule.

The fact that they had a Cabinet minister in their midst endorsing Home Rule must have been a greater source of satisfaction to nationalists than the precise contents of Churchill’s speech.

The meeting provided rich pickings for pickpockets. Otherwise it passed off without serious incident. Churchill’s day trip to Belfast was brought to a close by his being hastily dispatched to the railway station by a circuitous route to avoid angry unionist crowds in the centre of Belfast.

A special train conveyed him to Larne. Many unionists felt that Churchill left Ulster rather like the thief in the night that his father had warned them of a generation earlier.

The great irony surrounding Churchill’s visit to Belfast was that two days previously he and Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented the Cabinet with a formal proposal for the exclusion of Ulster on a basis of county option from the operation of the Home Rule bill but at this stage their case fell on deaf ears.

Despite his public utterances, Churchill privately recognised the strength of Ulster unionist hostility to Home Rule. In his book, The World Crisis, he was to claim that he had always advocated some form of Ulster exclusion ‘‘from the earliest discussions on the Home Rule Bill in 1909’’.

Throughout the third Home Rule crisis there was a fascinating dichotomy, a dichotomy that admittedly comparatively few would have been aware of, between the privately conciliatory and the publicly combative Churchill.

For example, in the House of Commons in November 1912 Churchill gratuitously taunted Unionist MPs by waving his handkerchief at them, provoking Ronald McNeill into hurling a small bound copy of Standing Orders at Churchill’s head. McNeill did not miss.

In March 1914 Churchill delivered a bellicose anti-unionist speech in Bradford which he followed up by sending the 3rd Battle Squadron to Lamlash on the Isle of Arran with the purpose of ‘overawing’ unionist Ulster.

His orders to the squadron included supporting the Army, if necessary, ‘with guns and searchlights’. Did he seriously contemplate using the Royal Navy to bombard Larne or Bangor into submitting to Home Rule? Yet this is the same Churchill who accepted the Ulster Unionist case for exclusion and through conversations with Bonar Law and other Conservative leaders sought a way out of the crisis along those lines.

The reason for the dichotomy between the privately conciliatory and the publicly combative Churchill is at least partly attributable to Churchill’s acceptance of the doctrine of collective responsibility, the lynchpin of cabinet government in the United Kingdom.

TWO new products are expected to help pioneering Andor Technology to another successful year, the annual general meeting in Belfast was told yesterday.

The publicly listed company, a global leader in the development and manufacture of high performance scientific digital cameras for academic, industrial and government applications, held its AGM at its premises at Springvale Business Park in the west of the city, where Non-Executive Chairman, Colin Walsh, said business so far was good.

“On behalf of the Board I am pleased to report that, in the first four months of the financial year, trading has been in line with the Board’s expectations,” he said citing strong revenues from Asia Pacific and Europe.

Some initial problems meant a slower start for business in the US, but Mr Walsh said the forecast sales for the new equipment were encouraging.

“In January we released two major new products. Firstly, we launched the next generation iXon camera – the iXon Ultra.

“The iXon is the market-leading high-performance EMCCD camera and this latest version operates over 60 per cent faster than the current iXon 3. This is another market first from Andor and we expect to see strong demand for this product during the second half of the financial year.

“Secondly, we launched a new version of our sCMOS-based Neo camera. This aligns with our strategy of continued investment in sCMOS as the replacement technology for mid-priced scientific imaging cameras. This new camera includes feature enhancements and image quality improvements that have been well received by the market.”

Founded more than 20 years ago as a spin out from Queen’s University, Andor has enjoyed impressive growth even through the recession, and late last year announced plans to create 166 new jobs with an expansion to its facilities in Belfast.

Looking to the rest of the year Mr Walsh said the firm’s technology acceleration centre was also performing in line with expectations.

“This team was created to serve as an incremental engineering resource, challenged to deliver in a significantly reduced time to market,” he said. “Innovation and new product delivery is key to Andor’s continued growth. The team’s progress remains on schedule and we expect to launch product in the second half of this financial year.”

THE Ballymena-built heir to the iconic Routemaster bus begins service on the streets of London next week, manufacturer Wrightbus said yesterday.

The new double-decker, already hailed as a modern masterpiece by London Mayor Boris Johnson, is expected to bring back some character to the capital, while also being efficient and more environmentally friendly than predecessors.

One of the buses produced at the Wrightbus plant in Co Antrim is currently being used for driver training by the operator Transport for London and a second bus will begin carrying passengers from Monday.

Presenting a modern take on the Routemaster, the new bus also marks the return of the rear platform allowing passengers to jump off and jump on along the route.

The news emerged as the company confirmed receipt of an order for a further five single-decker buses from one of the leading UK operators Stagecoach as part of an ongoing supply contract for the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway system, opened in 2010.

The service already uses 10 Wrightbus vehicles and more sales are anticipated as the service grows. The route features a guided steering system that allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel.

ONE thing about bankers, you have to give them credit for having a brass neck.

However, you might have thought they would have wound their brazen necks in until all that hoopla about their greedy ways had died down. But no, up popped a spokesperson for the British Bankers’ Association in Northern Ireland recently suggesting that a “bad bank” be set up to take the bad loans off the hands of the local money lenders.

Now, on the face of it, this seems all fine and dandy. Take the bad debt away from the banks and all of a sudden kindly managers would miraculously emerge to approve loans and overdrafts to the sort of small businesses that are currently going to the wall due to the lack of short term working capital, despite being perfectly viable going concerns in every other respect.

Believe that and you will believe anything.

The government has been shoving billions of pounds worth of cash into the British banking system via the controversial quantitative easing scheme, basically printing electronic money, but instead of using it to lend to businesses, the banks have taken the cash to go gambling on the stock market (hence the mini-bubble in share prices}. That and paying themselves bonuses and pay rises.

So it’s trebles all round in the City and P45s in triplicate in the real world.

This is why we should be very wary of the banks lobbying for a Northern Ireland version of NAMA, the state-controlled organisation that bought up all the bad debts and failed property ventures, from the Irish banking sector, and that it would deliver any benefit.

The Northern Ireland banking sector never failed in the same manner as the Republic’s, and there is no strong evidence that they are really suffering from a shortage of money to lend to local businesses, if they were minded to. Some local banks, such as the Ulster Bank, have already received bailouts via the taxpayer’s cash injected into its parent company the RBS.

Given their past behaviour there is the big risk that using public money to buy out the bad debt remaining on the local banks’ books would simply be a case of throwing good money after bad; and that the bankers would simply wave goodbye to a problem as it was passed to the taxpayer and set about the usual business of looking after themselves.

It is noticeable that the Bankers’ spokesperson, whilst keen on pushing the idea of the taxpayer taking on extra burden and risk, had little to offer as to how small businesses might find credit easier to obtain.

In the Republic there is little sign that the NAMA experiment has encouraged banks to support local industry. And across the UK, despite the promises to the contrary made in order to get their hands on bailout money and quantitative easing cash, the banks are still not lending to business.

Last week we saw the numbers, and they are not pretty. In 2011 net lending fell by £10.7 billion and lending to business has fallen in every single quarter of the past three years.

This may be partly due to the reduced level of economic activity, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the banks are just not interested in lending to business at the moment, no matter how much cash they are sitting on.

Setting aside the unavoidable scepticism over the bankers’ motives, it may be the case that banks are simply not lending to business in Northern Ireland because the province is deemed a bad business risk.

The bankers’ thinking can be seen in an economic report recently issued by The Ulster Bank that stated: “Whilst the UK recorded its highest rate of growth in employment in eleven months, Northern Ireland’s private sector firms posted their sharpest rate of job losses since June last year, with all sectors reporting lower staffing levels in January.” The same report also found that there has been no growth in private sector business here for over four years.

This against a backcloth of massive state dependency at a time when the UK government is under pressure to act faster to reduce the national deficit.

Add to that the Assembly’s failure to get to grips with the economy or even produce anything that would be recognised internationally as a coherent economic policy, and it is easy to see why a bank surveying the globe to identify the best places to lend its money might decide that Northern Ireland is a high risk region.

It is probable that Northern Ireland business en masse is suffering a hidden credit rating downgrade.

It has now transpired that there have been some discussions on the matter of a Northern Ireland bad bank with Finance Minister Sammy Wilson, who said: “We need to find some way of divorcing those property loans which many businesses foolishly got involved in during the boom, from core businesses.”

Heaven forbid anyone should be asked to clear up the consequences of their own foolishness themselves! Yes, that is right, we have a finance minister who appears still not to have grabbed the concept of moral hazard! And once again the default political response problem is a headline-grabbing bodge by throwing taxpayers’ money at it.

THE views of a Catholic priest who said that his parishioners may be better off in the UK than the Republic are reflected by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland, one of the church’s leading commentators has said.

Michael Kelly, deputy editor of island-wide newspaper The Irish Catholic, said that Fr Eugene O’Neill’s comments were “very brave” and important to a debate which he said had been going on quietly for some time.

In an interview with the News Letter on Monday, Glengormley cleric Fr O’Neill said that any priest of his age, 45, or below found the debate about a united Ireland “literally irrelevant” and that the United Kingdom was now arguably a less repressive place for Catholics to practice their faith than the Republic.

He described the Republic as now “a cold house for Catholicism” and said that many ordinary Catholics were “reassessing” the old stereotype that nationalism and Catholicisim had to go together.

Fr O’Neill’s comments follow last year’s Northern Ireland Life and Times survey which found that support for a united Ireland is at an all-time low, with only a third of Catholics saying that they wanted to see Irish unity in the long term.

Commenting on Fr O’Neill’s remarks, Mr Kelly said: “He’s very brave in what he’s saying from the point of view that a lot of people actually don’t want to face the reality.

“A lot of northern Catholics who obviously feel drawn towards the idea of a united Ireland, at least at an emotional level, will I think find what he has to say uncomfortable reading.

“But at the same time I think that if they actually confront themselves with the reality of the situation then I think they will see that he’s coming to a very logical conclusion.”

He said that senior Catholic figures were finding that just as doors close for them in the Republic, doors were opening for them in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland.

“If you talk to very senior people in the [Catholic] hierarchy in Ireland they will be under no illusion whatsoever that the current government in the Republic is very hostile towards the Catholic church in particular, at a time when they would say the doors that have never been opened to them in the past have been opened to them at Stormont.

“So I think he’s certainly reflecting a view which would be widely held among the hierarchy... northern Catholics can now say — and I think the hierarchy would say this — they can feel part of Northern Ireland and they can feel part of building a shared future.

“I would like us to move to a very healthy situation where Catholics could disagree about the national question and you could have a lot of Catholic unionists and a lot of Catholic nationalists and it wouldn’t simply be this headcount idea.”

Mr Kelly said that it was unfortunate that in the constitutional debate about Northern Ireland both sides broke neatly along religious lines.

“I think it’s a long time since any northern Catholic will have been able to argue with any conviction that the Northern Ireland state doesn’t treat them fairly.

“I think that has been a key turning point because if you look before the peace process, the strong motif always from nationalist politicians and some church leaders would have been that the northern state cannot be trusted to recognise the parity of esteem of northern Catholics and therefore that makes a united Ireland an imperative for practical as well as emotive reasons.

“That’s no longer the case. The British Government at Westminster level have shown that they are very warmly disposed towards the Catholic church — the warm reception Pope Benedict got in 2010 from the Government was remarkable.”

He added: “I think many northern Catholics will be taking a reality check and saying: Where best is my faith valued?

“So I think that what Fr O’Neill is saying is a very important contribution to the debate and a very important moment of setting aside emotional attachment and things like that and looking realistically at where things stand.”

]]> 1.3546022 Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:41:24 +0000 http://www.newsletter.co.uk/totally_unacceptable_for_taxpayer_to_fund_ira_memorial_robinson_1_3545994

IT would be “totally unacceptable” for public funds to go to renovate an IRA memorial, First Minister Peter Robinson has said.

Entering the growing debate about an attempt to get taxpayers to fund repairs to the republican statue in Crossmaglen, the First Minister said that he had asked officials to “investigate and report urgently”.

Mr Robinson’s comments came amid a backlash yesterday from unionists and IRA victims after Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill said that she had no problem with a funding application for the memorial going ahead.

The application for funds — believed to be up to £30,000 — has now gone to a local group comprising representatives of Newry and Mourne, Armagh and Craigavon councils for a final decision.

Yesterday one of those who sits on that committee, Newry and Armagh DUP Assemblyman William Irwin told the News Letter that he understood that officials in Ms O’Neill’s department had been considering the application for months.

“I have today made inquiries and know that this matter has been the subject of discussion by DARD officials for a number of months in terms of its eligibility,” he said.

“I would hope that the minister has not personally intervened to get it to this stage and we need clarification from her on this issue.”

He added: “I note that the minister included in her statement the words ‘rigorous assessment’ referring to the Local Area Group’s [the council group which will decide on funding] part in assessing applications and I can assure the public that this application will certainly receive rigorous assessment, should it even reach that stage in the process.”

Mr Irwin said that he had also tabled an urgent written question in the Assembly asking the Environment Minister, Alex Attwood, whether the controversial 1970s monument had ever received planning permission.

He added: “This application should not receive funding as it is divisive and the monument itself is insulting and hurtful to the many innocent victims of republican terrorism.”

Meanwhile, DUP MEP Diane Dodds said that she would be pressing the EU Agriculture Commissioner on how “a memorial to those who murdered scores of innocent people in the south Armagh area can be considered as promoting cross-community development”, given that the application to Ms O’Neill’s department is for EU funds.

Mrs Dodds added that none of the three local councils — Craigavon, Newry and Mourne or Armagh — should be associating themselves “with a proposal that would be so damaging to community relations and the shared future which the majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to see”.

THE green light for a £100 million golf resort on the fringes of the Giant’s Causeway will not endanger the famous landmark’s world heritage designation, the Environment Minister has pledged.

Granting the long-sought planning permission for the 18-hole championship links course and five-star hotel complex on the spectacular sand dunes near Bushmills, Alex Attwood insisted extensive restrictions on the development would ensure the status of the popular nearby visitor attraction would not be adversely impacted.

Mr Attwood approved the application for the Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort and Spa in the face of fierce opposition from the National Trust, which owns the Giant’s Causeway – a Unesco World Heritage site.

Announcing the outcome of the 10-year bid for planning permission, Mr Attwood said he had carefully weighed the environmental implications against the potential economic and tourist benefits of the luxury development.

The complex, comprising the course, a 120-bedroom hotel, 75 villas and conference facilities, will employ around 360 people.

“I will not, and would not, do anything that compromises all the designations that exist in respect of these lands,” said Mr Attwood.

“I think that’s why the planning conditions have been so exhaustive and extensive.”

The resort, which is set to open in 2014, is just over a mile from the 38,000 hexagonal volcanic basalt columns that make up the Giant’s Causeway.

Mr Attwood, who faced tough questions from environmentalists at an event in Bushmills to announce the planning outcome, said his decision had been a demanding one and he had not taken it lightly.

He said he was prepared to fly to France to meet Unesco officials or host them in Northern Ireland if they wanted to raise any concerns about the move.

“I have acted with a high vigilance and challenging approach.

“I have carefully considered both sides of the argument but given the boost to tourism and the economy that the proposal will bring, I have decided to grant planning permission.

“To ensure that the environment is fully respected, my decision will be accompanied by stringent conditions which will mitigate the impacts of the development on the ecology of the site and the local landscape.”

Friends of the Earth was one of the groups which voiced opposition during yesterday’s announcement in Bushmills Inn hotel.

The organisation’s Northern Ireland director, James Orr, said “the landscape around the Giant’s Causeway should be protected. Instead, a form of landscape trauma is being permitted at Northern Ireland’s only World Heritage Site. It’s like building a drive-through burger bar at the Taj Mahal”.

“The precedent set today is that our planning system still cannot protect our most special places.”

But Mr Attwood said planning policies allowed for development in such areas in “exceptional circumstances” – insisting that the resort proposal met that criteria.

The investment is headed by a New York-based Northern Ireland management expert and scientist Dr Alistair Hanna, 67, originally from Holywood, Co Down.

The first planning application was submitted in 2001 and then renewed six years later.

Dr Hanna told the Press Association: “This is a unique project which will be world class in every aspect. The dunes are phenomenal. Every course architect who inspected the landscape has raved about the place. They’ve said: ‘The piece of earth is just made for golf’. It’s amazing. There just isn’t anywhere else like it in the world.

“With Royal Portrush, Portstewart and Castlerock (golf clubs) in the same area, I want this part of the world to become a golf resort on a par with Pinehurst and Pebble Beach (in the US).

“I know this is a difficult time economically, but times will get better. We are not building for today. We are building for tomorrow. Golf in 2020 will be in a different place from where it is today and I want this place to be among the top 10 golf destinations in the world.”

He added: “Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell have done their bit. Now it’s my time. We’re in the golfing map and this is going to make it even better.”

Dr Hanna’s consortium has held talks with the Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons and Capella Hotels about their potential involvement in the hotel development.

Complex designer Richard Hunter, from nearby Ballymoney, insisted that the development was “environmentally sensitive”.

“We have designed the buildings in such a way that they create the lowest possible visible impact,” he added, revealing there is no part of it more than three storeys.

North Antrim MP Ian Paisley Jnr urged local people to get behind the development.

“It will become one of the most iconic golf courses in the world, generate employment and write a new chapter in the history of this ancient coastline.”

Stormont Tourism Minister Arlene Foster also welcomed the move, noting that golf tourism generates upwards of £14 million each year for the local economy.

Scotsman David McLay Kidd designed the 18-hole course. He has previously worked on courses at St Andrews, Oregon and San Francisco.

Former Policing Board chairman Sir Desmond Rea has been working on the project as an adviser since the initial application was lodged.

FORMER police officers have no right to comment on the PSNI, their former colleagues have said.

The Northern Ireland Police Federation — which represents the vast majority of PSNI officers — said that those who had left the force “forfeited” the right to speak about policing.

In an editorial in its official magazine, the federation — which is chaired by former RUC officer Terry Spence — singled out former RUC officers who have raised questions surrounding how the PSNI has re-hired RUC officers paid off under the Patten scheme as civilian police workers. Though it did not use their names, the article appears to refer to retired Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan and retired Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Baxter, who spoke out about the issue last month.

Both men have decades of top-level policing experience and Mr Baxter said that the re-hiring of officers showed that the Patten scheme had been a failure and he questioned whether the millions paid to a recruitment agency had been well spent.

However, in the magazine editorial, the Police Federation said: “Of course some senior ex-officers have thought it necessary to intervene with unhelpful criticisms of the rehiring practice.

“They could have chose to stay on to help overcome a threat that still exists and if unchecked will only get worse. When they left they also forfeited the right to comment with any legitimacy and therefore should know better.”

The editorial also appeared to savage Sinn Fein, though it did not name the party, by accusing some politicians of being “hysterically anti-RUC”.

In an apparent reference to republican political representatives, it said: “The reality is that certain politicians are hysterically anti-RUC, to the extent that they would evidently prefer unqualified people to be recruited, even if that meant the effective functioning of the PSNI would be seriously hampered.

“And they cannot argue that their concern is for the public purse, since there has been no similar outcry over the decades old practice in the education sector of early retiring teachers being rehired by the same schools, or to the newly introduced generous pension terms to encourage experienced teachers to retire.”

It added: “No matter how unpalatable this may seem in some quarters, it will take time for PSNI officers to build the same necessary expertise and skills of their civilian mentors but hopefully the requirement to fall back on ex-officers will only be temporary.”

The Police Federation said that the PSNI had been “fortunate” that it was able to fall back on retired RUC officers to counter the dissident republican terrorist threat.

When told of the editorial last night, Mr McQuillan told the News Letter: “I have consistently made it clear that if these jobs were advertised the retired officers would and should be the first to get them.

“Therefore I am surprised to find that the Police Federation doesn’t recognise that former members have been employed in casual and insecure positions when they could have been occupying safe jobs with a long-term future. But that is a matter for them.”

Mr Baxter said he did not wish to comment on the editorial.

ALMOST three-quarters of the properties on offer failed to make their bargain basement price reserves at an auction in Belfast last night.

Despite guide prices as low as £39,500 for a well presented three-bedroom modern property in the city — or £50,000 for a half-acre site with full planning permission in Markethill — only five of the 22 lots up for grabs were confirmed sales.

The auction list at the height of the property boom in 2007 would have been expected to fetch in the region of £5 million.

Five others lots were sold conditionally (pending the seller’s consent) after the final bids fell short of the pre-auction reserve.

Organised by City Property Services, the auction at the Malone Lodge Hotel attracted around 40 potential buyers.

A former public house and living accommodation at Station Road in Kells — with a guide price of £60,000 — failed to attract a single bid.

Also failing to interest the buyers was a building site on the Lismenary Road in Ballyclare with full planning permission for four detached houses. Before last night’s auction there were high hopes of the 0.64 acre site realising as much as £250,000. The guide price was listed as £199,000 but there were no bidders.

Of the properties without reserve, a stunning thatched cottage in Donegal sold for 90,000 euro and a three-bedroom end terrace in Lisburn for £60,000. Both were around £30,000 below the guide price.

The latest University of Ulster house price survey shows the average price of a home in Northern Ireland has fallen to £137,219 — down from £250,586 in the third quarter of 2007.

CPS managing director Art O’Hagan said the slump presented opportunities for those at the bottom of the property ladder.

“It’s interesting times in the property market for both vendors and buyers. Hindsight is wonderful, but in some ways we have to realise that first time buyers are able to acquire a family home at a monthly cost, costing less than renting a property.”

Mr O’Hagan said the auction process attracted two main types of sellers.

“It’s either repossessions or people with set circumstances who want their sale brought to a head. They feel this is a very open forum and the ordinary member of the public is now buying at auction.”

l Some of those bidding on properties last night had arranged surveys in advance and agreed a maximum purchase price with a mortgage lender.

Once a bid is accepted, contracts are signed on the night and a deposit is paid. CPS stipulate a minimum deposit of £2,500 or five per cent of purchase price.

Unlike the often protracted private house sale process, an auction transaction is usually completed within 28 days.

A FRIEND of Belfast-born comedian Frank Carson said last night that his thoughts and prayers were with the showbusiness star as he battles a serious illness in hospital.

The man with the “It’s the way I tell ‘em” catch-line, who in recent years has become a high profile supporter of the UK Independence Party, now lives in Blackpool and had an operation for stomach cancer last summer.

Belfast man Dr Fred McGlade, a UKIP official, lives near Frank and told the News Letter last night that his “thoughts and prayers are with Frank and his family at this difficult time”.

He added: “Frank always gives his time willingly to UKIP and while he often gives me a bit of personal stick, it is always in good humour, and always hilarious.”

He confirmed that his friend was once a member of the Parachute Regiment.

“He is such a variety of characters and is as tough as old boots. Never once has Frank refused to support UKIP when I have requested his help, however committed or busy he has been. I spoke to Jimmy Cricket just after Christmas and Jimmy recalled how Frank would often bring UKIP up during conversations. That’s our Frank.”

A PENSIONER who was killed on his way to buy a News Letter had been walking the same route every morning “for years”.

Hugh Aitcheson died on December 3, 2009, at a Maxol garage on the Galgorm Road in Ahoghill as he tried to cross the road.

The 70-year-old father-of-one had walked his usual quarter-of-a-mile route from his Gloonan Hill home when he was knocked down by a van on the final few metres of his journey.

The accident happened around 7.30am.

At an inquest in Ballymena courthouse yesterday, Coroner Suzanne Anderson found that Mr Aitcheson died of “multiple injuries sustained in the collision”.

A PSNI sergeant, based in Ballymena, told the inquest that when he arrived at the scene an ambulance was already there.

He said an elderly male was lying on the ground, and a blue Peugeot van which had been involved in the collision had extensive damage to its windscreen.

The officer said the “accident happened when it was still dark” and Mr Aitcheson had been wearing dark clothes.

The victim’s son-in-law, Derrick Dempsey, who came to the inquest on behalf of his mother-in-law Annie May Aitcheson, said he was asked to identify Mr Aitcheson at the scene where he died.

Mr Dempsey said the driver of the van attended Mr Aitcheson’s funeral.

“I spoke to him and said the family were happy with him being there,” he said.

The officer said the driver of the van, Declan Fyfe from Martinstown, said “he saw a guy running across the road – and that’s when he hit him”.

Mr Fyfe was driving towards Ahoghill to his work.

The officer said: “He told me the pedestrian was in the middle of the road when he first saw him. He said when he first saw him he was five or 10 metres in front of his bonnet. He said he immediately hit his brakes, went into a skid, hit the pedestrian, skidded more and stopped. He said he believed the pedestrian was running towards the pavement on the garage side.”

The officer added that the PPS made a decision not to prosecute.

In a statement read to the court, Annie May Aitcheson, 61, said her husband had a “normal routine” of wakening at 6.30am, getting dressed and walking a quarter-of-a-mile from their home to the shop to buy a newspaper.

“He made that walk every day,” she said. “Then, after that, we went for a 30-minute walk. I wore a reflective vest but Hugh didn’t wear one.”

She said on the morning her husband died she was “expecting Hugh to appear at any time with the News Letter paper”.

Scientific officer George Johnston said the van involved in the collision had “no defects”.

Mr Johnston said that, given the length of time it took the van to skid to a halt, Mr Fyfe was driving at 40-41 mph.

AN inquest into the death of a Co Londonderry teenager has heard conflicting evidence surrounding the circumstances of the fatal crash which claimed his life.

Karl McAuley, 17, from Strawmore Road, Draperstown, died after his Seat Leon car left the Tobermore Road outside Draperstown on December 1, 2007.

The popular teenager – a talented member of the St Colms Ballinascreen hurling team – was one of six people killed on Northern Ireland’s roads on that weekend alone.

His distraught father Danny broke down in court yesterday as he recalled rushing to the scene of the crash just a few miles from the family home.

“I knew he was dead,” he said.

Mr McAuley said speeding would have been “totally out of character” for his son, and also stressed that Karl had been “very familiar” with that stretch of road.

The father said he believed that something had caused his son to swerve the car, causing the crash.

“I felt something had spooked Karl. I believe that my son dealt with a situation and he paid with his life.”

The victim’s mother Rosaleen – who was the last person to speak to Karl – told the court she had offered to cook him a fry but he declined saying he was travelling to Ballymena to go shopping.

“Karl was just himself, he was happy, he loved the weekend, and he was full of wit,” she said.

Much of the evidence presented by witnesses to the inquest at Magherafelt courthouse focused on a Land Rover and trailer and a lorry, which are believed to have been parked on the lane on which Karl McAuley had been travelling.

Hugh McGeown, from Magherafelt, who had been travelling behind the teenager, witnessed the crash.

He said the teenager had not been driving fast and that he had been forced to pull out around a white lorry and a Land Rover parked on his lane of the road.

Mr McGeown said he also remembered a figure in a “trench coat” step out from behind the lorry, in front of the teenager’s car, moments before the vehicle swerved and crashed.

He said he saw the car mount a ditch before striking two trees and flipping over a hedge.

Mr McGeown also revealed that he had suffered nightmares about the crash and was unable to speak to anyone – including his wife – about what he had witnessed for several weeks.

Michael Quinn, a farmer who had been working with Hubert Murray – the owner of the parked Land Rover – told the court that he had been helping Mr Murray round up sheep.

Under questioning from coroner Brian Sherrard and the McAuley family’s barrister Eugene Grant QC, Mr Quinn said he “had never seen any other vehicle” parked on the road at the time of the accident.

Mr Quinn said the lorry arrived at the scene after the accident had happened, driven by Mr Murray’s son Seamus.

A local GP – Dr Michael Logan – who was tasked to the scene, pronounced the victim dead at the scene. Results of a post-mortem revealed that the teenager had suffered serious head injuries, which would have resulted in an instant death.

The inquest was adjourned and is expected to resume tomorrow.

A book charting the history of the Downshire Hospital from its days as an asylum to the present time will be central to a week-long series of celebrations next month. LAURA MURPHY reports

THE red brick, almost regal looking building that is the Downshire Hospital has been a prominent feature of Downpatrick since it opened its doors more than a hundred years ago.

But later this year, the remaining of its 40-odd patients will be transferred to community-based care, and the site will take on a new, multi-functional role within the public sector, as home to Down District Council, the South Eastern Health Trust, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and a new PSNI Command Centre.

And to mark the occasion, a week-long series of commemorative events are taking place at the Ardglass Road landmark next month.

“The site’s in transition from a traditional psychiatric hospital to a public sector campus,” says South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust service improvement manager and former Downshire nurse Pat McGreevy.

He worked at the hospital in the mid 1970s before becoming a community psychiatric nurse.

“It was a friendly very progressive place to work,” he recalls, “and if not at the leading edge then not very far away from it in terms of some of the innovations in mental health care.”

Pat says that the week of celebratory events will kick off on Sunday, March 11 at 3pm with an ecumenical service in the Great Hall, attended by local church leaders and school choirs.

“One of the points someone on the committee made, and which I thought was really good, was that ecumenical services were happening in the Downshire and hospitals like it long before they were commonplace in the wider community,” he adds.

“On the Monday (March 12) we have our photographic exhibition, and we believe we will have something like around 150 photographs. Some will show the site in transition, in both colour and black and white, and some will show what the inside of the hospital was like in the 60s - they really capture the atmosphere of it. The exhibition will run the whole week.”

On Tuesday, March 13, the tradition of afternoon dances which took place in the Downshire for many years will be recreated, and will bring together current and former residents of the hospital.

That night, there will be a special evening for people who have used the services of the Addictions Unit, Ward 15, marking the fact for many years users had traditionally got together on this night. Mark Gilman, of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, will be guest speaker.

A major conference, chaired by Senator Maurice Hayes, and marking the transitions and progress in mental health care will be held on Wednesday, March 14, with speakers professor Peter Nolan, John Compton and professor Hugh McKenna.

And on the Thursday night, a Charity Traditional Folk Music Concert will take place in the Great Hall.

The week will close on Friday March 16 with a special reception for current and former staff, and Sean Kelly’s book on the history of the Downshire, A Grand Old Lady, will be formally launched.

Anyone who would like more information about the events should contact Pat on (028)44 613311 Ext 3482 or email pat.mcgreevy@setrust.hscni.net

“THERE is something about the Downshire, and almost everybody who came to work in it would say that. There is something about it that gets a hold of you,” says Sean Kelly.

He and I are sitting in the Downshire Hospital’s Great Hall, chatting about his book on the history of this fascinating and beautiful building, of which moments before he had given me a tour.

The Co Down former nurse (“I was born and reared locally in the Teconnaught area”) is looking forward to the official launch of his book, entitled A Grand Old Lady, in just a few weeks’ time, on March 16.

And having been linked in some way to the hospital since he came to train there as a student nurse after leaving school, right up until he retired from the profession 10 years ago, there could be no one better qualified to take on the task of compiling the history of this institution, which was opened on October 8, 1869, and at one stage catered for around 1,200 patients.

“There is some history of mental health nursing in my family - my aunt had been a ward sister (at the Downshire) and she talked a lot about it,” says Sean.

“I started my training here in 1965 and have really been associated with the Downshire ever since. I worked as a nurse on the wards here until the 1970s.”

He then began teaching student nurses on the wards - “so I didn’t lose contact with the patients at all” - and eventually his career took him to Purdysburn (in Belfast) and the School of Nursing at Queen’s University, until he became a nursing advocate after his retirement.

It was at this time he actually decided he “would like to do a history of the place”, but found the task to be more difficult than he had anticipated.

“When I set about doing it, I just met a brick wall as regards to research. I couldn’t get my hands on reports. I couldn’t find anything, nobody knew where anything was. I gave up in frustration.

“Then just about a year ago, Dessie Bannon ( recently retired director of Adult Services for the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust) approached me and asked if I could do the history of the Downshire, because by the summer of this year, there would probably be no patients left here.

“So between Dessie and his staff and a lot of other people we eventually assembled all the records that we could get, right back to the first annual report in 1870.”

It was Sean who came up with the title ‘A Grand Old Lady’ for both his book and the hospital itself. He says he feels it conveys exactly how the impressive, traditional looking building appears to visitors coming up the drive when they see it for the first time.

A purpose-built asylum, the Downshire catered for around 330 patients and was full to capacity within a year, Sean recounts.

The first patients - 30 of them, transferred from the asylum in Belfast - were taken to Downpatrick by train and paraded up through the town in front of a band to the Downshire, where a “big reception” was held for them.

“There were always more patients than there were beds, right up until the 70s and 80s,” says Sean.

“When it opened, there were around 30 staff. There would have been a medical superintendent and head nurse on the female side, and head attendant on the male side.”

He reveals that it wasn’t until “well into the 1900s” that such medical staff started to get trained specifically in the area of mental health.

Generally, their role encompassed so much more than healthcare and medicine, and Sean says that staff were involved in taking patients on trips to the theatre, cinema, swimming baths and other places. Such outings were commonplace in the hospital, and as Sean says, that made it ahead of its time in terms of staff’s beliefs about allowing patients to integrate with the community.

“Even in early reports there are mentions of patients being taken outside the hospital down the town to be entertained. There’s even mention of some of the patients being allowed out on their own. That would have been totally unheard of in most institutions of that time. So they were blessed really, with the calibre of medical superintendent that they got. And that seemed to rub off on the caring staff, so they always had a more liberal viewpoint.”

He reveals that there was also a “big emphasis on occupation for people with mental illness” at the Downshire, and one of the outlets for that was the farm, where patients helped to grow and produce all the meat, milk and vegetables used by the hospital.

It is now closed, but was situated on the site of the new Downe Hospital in Downpatrick.

“They had their own workshops where they made their own clothes and shoes - the place was really self sufficient,” Sean continues.

“Obviously they wouldn’t have been able to occupy everybody, as some people wouldn’t have been physically able (to do certain tasks), so they eventually started to bring in occupational therapy departments where lighter work could be done indoors.”

In the early 1950s. Northern Ireland’s first qualified occupational therapist, Tom Page, came to the hospital, and Sean says “everything just took off from there”, adding that “Tom’s ideas fitted in with what the medical and caring staff had been doing - the importance of keeping people occupied and active.”

The gradual shift towards care in the community inevitably led to a reduction in the number of those who resided ‘in house’, and this was particularly prominent from the mid 70s onwards.

“The hospital had a terrific relationship with the Down County Welfare Authority and they started setting up hostels. Patients were moving from the hospital into hostels and from hostels in to attended living,” says Sean.

“And around the same time the powers-that-be here were instrumental in setting up the Industrial Authority Organisation, which provided ‘normal’ work outside the hospital for patients - that was another big step for integrating people back into the community.

“As the years went on there was less need for this type of building.”

Sean’s book, A Grand Old Lady, will be available to purchase from March 11. For information on how to get a copy, you can contact him directly on 02844 615519.

THE Executive must lift its game if it is serious about its commitment to developing business, jobs and the economy as a whole, employers’ organisation the CBI said yesterday.

Launching its response to consultation on the draft Programme for Government, Economic Strategy and Investment Strategy, it called for more ambition with the programme and pledged its support to make change happen.

Key to helping the economy grow is finding ways to release funding for firms eager to expand, said CBI Northern Ireland president Ian Coulter, adding that the province was also trailing the rest of the UK in crucial areas such as employment legislation, procurement processes and the planning system. “The CBI welcomes the Executive’s strong commitment to the economy and job creation, set out in these documents,” said Mr Coulter.

“However, the Executive must raise its level of ambition on the delivery of several key strategic commitments within the next 12 months, to match the vision set out.

“The economy in Northern Ireland is facing acute challenges which require urgent and focused attention to protect and grow the private sector, improve public services, and help build confidence within the business community.”

The organisation is calling for the inclusion of several strategic commitments in the final Programme for Government, including a coherent strategy to tackle continuing business funding challenges, more incentives and capital to help finance fast-growth companies and increased capital investment in infrastructure.

“It’s not an easy subject; from bank funding to price finance guarantee schemes to R&D tax credits to venture capital funding and mezzanine funding; how do companies get the access to capital to grow and we do think that within the first five priorities of the programme for government should be developing a counter strategy to mitigate the problem,” he said.

“To me, this is the most difficult question facing any government in Europe at the moment. So what we are doing as part of this report is to come up with 10 or 12 things that could make a difference.

“Can we solve it? No, the only thing that’s going to do that is time, while banks recapitalise and recover but we’ve got to mitigate.

“It’s not a case of government being blind to it I don’t think that would be fair but they need help from business.

“If we have a role to play as a business organisation then it’s here coming up with solutions and if we don’t do it then we are failing in our role.”

The CBI is also calling for an urgent review of employment regulations and efforts to reduce youth unemployment and improve the basic standards of education.

“The draft Investment Strategy includes welcome commitments to exploring other financial models and to delivering a more “joined up” approach and better value for money,” said Mr Coulter.

“Now firmer timescales and more detail is needed to create confidence within the construction sector and allow it to plan for the next three years, which it currently cannot do,” he added.

‘Be a Saint – Volunteer!’ That’s the call from Business in the Community and Volunteer Now who are encouraging public and private sector organisations to release their staff to volunteer on Be a Saint Action Day which takes place on 16 March.

‘Be a Saint Day’ makes it easy for employers to get involved with a local community project. The tasks are all practical and include; painting, renovating or making over a green area – ideal for people of all fitness levels. The challenges benefit a variety of voluntary and community groups from cross-community playgroups to animal charities.

Wendy Osborne OBE, chief executive, Volunteer said: “Volunteers make a tremendous contribution to communities across Northern Ireland; many local organisations wouldn’t be able to deliver services deeply valued by many people without their time and dedication. This day of volunteering action is a great way for volunteers to make a difference in the community and have some fun at the same time.”

Encouraging businesses to sign-up, Sam Davidson, HR director, SPAR, the sponsor of Business in the Community’s volunteering programme Cares, added: “It is important for employers to support their staff to volunteer. It enables employees to engage with local communities and actively support the work they do. Last year’s successful ‘Be a Saint’ resulted in 400 caring volunteers giving 3,000 hours to local organisations, making a real difference in the lives of hundreds of local people.”

The closing date is Friday 2 March to register interest. If your organisation would like to sign up a team of saints, contact Roisin Smith on (028) 9046 0606 or e-mail roisin.smith@bitcni.org.uk.

Alternatively, if you are a voluntary and community organisation and would like to put forward a group volunteering opportunity, contact Lindsay Armstrong on 028 9023 2020 or email lindsay.armstrong@volunteernow.co.uk

NO Roman Catholic priests under the age of 45 are interested in removing the border and many Catholics are re-thinking their nationalism, a Catholic priest has said.

Fr Eugene O’Neill said that many Catholics were questioning whether as Catholics they necessarily had to be nationalist and look to Dublin when the United Kingdom was more respectful of Christian churches.

Fr O’Neill was speaking to the News Letter following a broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster’s Thought For The Day earlier yesterday morning.

In comments backing up polls which suggest that many Catholics would now vote to retain the border, Fr O’Neill said that as an Irish passport-holder he saw the Queen and senior British government figures as defenders of faith in the UK.

And, in a blistering attack on the Dublin government which shows how far the church and the state have moved apart in the Republic, Fr O’Neill claimed that there were similarities between how the Irish government is making life difficult for churches and how repressive communist regimes have persecuted Christians.

The Republic is now “a cold house for Catholicism”, he told the News Letter, singling out the atheistic Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore for particular rebuke.

By contrast, he said that the UK Government had demonstrated a respect and appreciation for the role of Christian churches which Catholics could support.

Fr O’Neill — who is a priest in the parish of St Mary’s on the Hill, a parish of 15,000 on the outskirts of north Belfast — said: “I’m 45 — for my generation of priests and everyone below us, the national question is irrelevant; literally irrelevant. No-one is interested in discussing that — people are interested in discussing Europe, what’s going to happen to Greece, whether the Euro will last... no-one is interested in the national question.

“There’s a desire to say that we have to unpick this fusion between one sort of politics and faith because history has shown us that that has always been a mistake.”

Asked what had prompted his broadcast yesterday morning, he said: “It’s been engendered by the present events with the coalition in the south, starting last year particularly with the attack by the Taoiseach in the Dail and the particularly focused nature of the attack on the handling of the whole abuse issue.

“Whilst there is certainly a huge amount that the church at a local level did wrong and it behaved egregiously — there is no doubt about that — it is certainly also the case that the Irish state horrendously failed to acknowledge its part in that.

“That is not in any way to minimise the role of misbehaviour and crime in the church but everyone has to put their hands up if they’re guilty and I felt therefore that it was a very dishonest statement and pretty cheap politics.”

Fr O’Neill, who was partly brought up in Dublin, said that he was further shocked by the Republic’s recent closure of its embassy to the Vatican — something the Irish Government claimed was to save money but has led to fierce criticism.

And he accused the Dublin Government of a “fairly brutal attempt” to remove control over Catholic schools in the Republic from the Catholic church as part of a wider assault by the southern state on Christianity having a role in society.

“There’s a continual critique and a lack of recognition of any positive role for faiths, any positive role for the churches, not recognising the vast effort that they make in social services and the good that they do.

“Something strange is going on while, at the same time, in the United Kingdom the tide is going the other way.”

Fr O’Neill praised Baroness Warsi’s speech last week in the Vatican as a “really, really powerful” articulation of the role which faith can play in society.

“When you read that, when you read what Cameron said, when you see how the Pope was welcomed to Britain — it was amazing — when you see that and how the British diplomatic service engage on the ground with churches, it’s telling a different story.

“So I was asking myself more fundamental questions like: Why in a state whose head of state is in fact the leader of a church, the Church of England, it seems to be a more open space for faith, debate and cooperation.

“Whereas in a republic it seems to be a very cold house for Catholicism and in fact Christianity, where there is a really powerful hostility, exclusion, aggression.

“I also found it interesting in the last few days to see the touching of the hem of the Chinese vice-premier by Michael D Higgins who I remember as a schoolboy was out protesting against Ronald Reagan.

“We know China’s human rights record — still the biggest executor in the world, oppression of massive numbers of Christians, Falun Gong or anyone opposed to them — don’t we have values beyond the economy?”

Asked whether the proposed changes to the Royal succession laws which would allow the heir to the throne to marry a Catholic were significant, Fr O’Neill said that they had little impact on those other than the Royal family and “do not affect my respect for the role of the Sovereign”.

And the Glengormley cleric said that he believed his thoughts were shared by many ordinary Catholics.

“I did a Thought For The Day a few weeks ago on the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s accession and what we can take from her. On the back of that I got overwhelmingly positive comments from parishioners.

“This morning, I got back from the studio just after nine and again parishioners who I was meeting at Mass were saying ‘I agreed with what you said this morning’.

“I used to be in south Belfast in Malone and middle class professional people have moved on from this issue — I think there is a greater sense of openness and just as people are being more critical of the church, I think people are reassessing what sort of polity they feel comfortable in.”

]]> 1.3542327 Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:47:20 +0000 http://www.newsletter.co.uk/clarke_backs_100m_causeway_golf_course_1_3542320

BRITISH Open champion Darren Clarke has applauded plans for a £100m golf resort near his Portrush home.

The new Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort and Spa will include a championship links, a five-star 120-bedroom hotel and 75 villas. Although he has no direct link to the project, the golfing star last night gave it a warm welcome.

“It will be fantastic,” he told the News Letter.

“The plans have been there for a very long time and the course will be sensational. It will be wonderful for the area to have a five-star resort there.

“It will be absolutely brilliant. It will generate employment and generally it will be fantastic for the area. And the piece of land is stunning. It is just down the road from where I live. I’m not involved at all but it will be stunning. It’s brilliant news.”

More than 10 years after the first planning application was lodged, the developers have overcome National Trust resistance to begin work on the site close to the famous Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim.

Construction could start later this year in a bid to have the course and accommodation ready by the summer of 2014.

Northern Ireland Environment Minister Alex Attwood is expected to make an announcement today.

The investment is headed by a New York-based Northern Ireland management expert and scientist Dr Alistair Hanna, 67, originally from Holywood, Co Down - the home town of US Open golf champion Rory McIlroy.

Darren Clarke lives a few miles from the proposed course, close to neighbouring Royal Portrush Golf Club where the Irish Open will take place this summer.

Graeme McDowell, a friend of both players and winner of the US Open in 2010, also comes from Portrush.

The first planning application was submitted in 2001 and then renewed six years later.

There was considerable opposition by the National Trust, owners of nearby Giant’s Causeway, a Unesco world heritage site where a new visitors’ centre is due to open this summer after another lengthy planning process.

Opponents claimed the development, which is one and a half miles away, would have a detrimental impact on the environment and could put at risk the Causeway’s heritage status.

It is understood the minister consulted closely with all the agencies involved, especially the trust.

The all-clear will be a triumph for Dr Hanna, who has been bringing American golfing friends to the North Coast since 1989 when violence and political unrest was at its height.

Developing a world class resort has been an ambition since then.

After graduating in nuclear physics from Queen’s University, Belfast in 1972, he completed an MBA at Harvard Business School before joining the consultancy company, McKinsey & Co. He retired in 1999.

With the world-rated Royal Portrush nearby as well as championship links courses in neighbouring Portstewart and Castlerock, Dr Hanna believes the area is crying out for luxury hotel accommodation and can be transformed into an even greater global golf destination.

It already attracts golfers from Europe and the US.

Tourism chiefs gearing up for the opening of the £90 million Titanic Belfast complex ahead of the 100th anniversary of the sinking, will be relieved the minister is set to sign off the development.

Scotsman David McLay Kidd designed the 18-hole course. He has previously worked on courses at St Andrews, Oregon and San Francisco.

Former Northern Ireland Policing Board chairman Sir Desmond Rea has been working on the project as an advisor since the initial application was lodged.

It has taken over 10 years for a final decision and the delay is likely to raise questions about the planning process.

It is known that Mr Attwood, who visited the site, is unhappy with the slow pace.

POLICE were last night investigating a further two carjacking incidents – one in west Belfast and another in Co Tyrone.

In the first incident a 27-year-old man told police that his gold coloured Peugeot 206 car had been hijacked by two

unknown men in the Norglen Parade area of Belfast shortly after 5pm yesterday. There was a struggle and the driver was injured.

Shortly afterwards police were told a gold coloured Peugeot 206 was on fire in the Rossnareen Avenue area.

West Belfast Sinn Fein MP Paul Maskey said that the “thugs” responsible had reached “a new low” when they struck the driver in the face with a hammer.

“My thoughts are with the victim and his family at this time and I wish him a speedy recovery,” he said.

“There needs to be unity across the board to deal with this and the community in west Belfast and across the city demand that they are protected from these thugs.

“The PSNI need to do their job and the judicial system also need to step up to the mark. As a community we must stand united in support of each other and provide whatever information we have so that these thugs can be taken off the streets before they do any more harm.”

The other incident was in the Main Street area of Carrickmore on Sunday.

At around 9.30pm a man was sitting in his car when an unknown man opened the driver’s door and told him to get out of the car, forcing him from the vehicle.

The driver received bruising to his arm and neck.

The unknown man then drove off in the direction of Omagh and the vehicle had not been recovered last night.

It is understood police do not believe this hijacking is linked to recent hijackings in the Belfast area.

Ulster Unionist MLA for West Tyrone and Policing Board member, Ross Hussey, said there have been over 60 arrests in connection with car crime in the last month.

“The recent spate of carjacking is most concerning with a number of incidents happening across Belfast during the last month. This undoubtedly promotes fear throughout the community and I would call on the justice minister to outline what

steps he is taking to reassure communities.

“The PSNI have my full support as they work to tackle this dreadful crime and they must be afforded all the resources they need.

“I note with interest the comments of Sinn Fein MLA Jennifer McCann in calling for the law to be strengthened and addressing legal loopholes in order to be able to hold people for longer when investigations are ongoing. I certainly support her in this call, however there is a certain irony given the terrorist and criminal activity engaged in by Sinn

Fein’s fellow travellers in the IRA in the past and the legal loopholes they were more than happy to exploit.”

Police have asked for anyone who may have witnessed either incident or who has any information to contact them on 0845 600 8000 or anonymously call the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

PUBLIC funds could go to renovate an IRA memorial, Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill has confirmed.

The Sinn Fein minister last night said that she has approved funding the controversial Crossmaglen statue which sits in an area where the IRA carried out some of its most barbaric and sectarian murders.

It is believed that the monument, which was erected in the 1970s, may be in line for up to £30,000 of taxpayers’ money.

Last night Ms O’Neill was accused of a “monstrous” decision by TUV leader Jim Allister, whose questioning elicited the information.

The funding application is to come from the agriculture department’s ‘Rural Development funds’.

When asked about the situation yesterday, Ms O’Neill said in a statement issued through her department that she had approved the monument as “eligible” for funding but said the final decision would be taken by a group which distributes money on behalf of her department.

“My officials have advised that the project appears to be eligible within the terms of Measure 3.6 subject to rigorous assessment,” she said.

She said that the project was being assessed by the Southern Organisation for Action in Rural Areas (SOAR), a group which involves Craigavon, Armagh and Newry and Mourne councils, and that it would take a final decision on the funding.

The Sinn Fein minister said that the application had come from the “Crossmaglen Memorial and Heritage Committee” as a request for funding from monies set aside for “the conservation and upgrading of the rural heritage”.

“The proposed project from the Crossmaglen Memorial and Heritage Committee is for the preservation, updating and completion of a monument located in the square in Crossmaglen.

“This involves the addition of several plaques to the existing monument. The wording of the plaques relates to the background and siting of the monument, and information about the sculpture.”

Ms O’Neill said that there had been no previous applications to the Department of Agriculture to fund the monument.

Mr Allister said that if the funding is approved it “would not only be an outrageous misuse of public money, an abuse of the Rural Development funding, but utterly divisive and incompatible with the department’s equality obligations”.

He added: “This monument celebrates sectarian murder by glorifying IRA members who made the savage killing of security forces and local citizens, such as those at Kingsmills, Darkley, Whitecross and Tullyvallen, their evil stock and trade.

“Michelle O’Neill must come clean on whether she and her department are presently considering such an application and, if so, let her urgently declare that it will not be approved. Any other decision would be monstrous.

“Measure 3.6 of the RDP exists for the “conservation and upgrading of the rural heritage”, not for the glorification of terrorism.”

FORMER First Minister David Trimble’s official Stormont portrait has been unveiled at Parliament Buildings.

The artwork, commissioned by the Assembly for all former first and deputy first ministers, was hung at Stormont a decade after Lord Trimble last exercised the powers of first minister.

Lord Trimble, now a Conservative peer, was first minister when the Assembly was suspended in 2002 but lost his position as Ulster Unionist leader before Stormont was restored five years later.

Former Ulster Unionist Assembly member David McNarry – who while still a member of the UUP sits as an independent MLA – worked as an adviser to Lord Trimble and was at the unveiling last night.

“It was a very informal event and the room was filled,” he said. “David said a few words of thanks to the assembly commission, to the artist David Nolan and also to everyone who turned up.”

Last night’s event took place in a Stormont function room, with a light buffet. However the portrait will hang on the Long Gallery corridor alongside those of former Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon and former First Minister Ian Paisley.

“It was probably the first time David has been back at Stormont since he was first minister,” Mr McNarry added. “It was a very low key affair, with David attending in an open necked shirt.”

Also attending with Lord Trimble were his wife Daphne and two of his children, Victoria and Nicholas.

Assembly members who attended included Jonathan Bell of the DUP, UUP leader Tom Elliott and several members of the Alliance Party.

There was also a strong representation at the function from the Upper Bann Ulster Unionist Party constituency association.

A PUBLIC inquiry – set up eight years ago – into the deaths of five children at hospitals in Northern Ireland suffered a further delay yesterday.

The mother of one of the children – 15-year-old Conor Mitchell– broke down in tears as evidence was given of her son’s worsening condition in the hours before his death.

The inquiry, which opened for public hearings at Banbridge courthouse, is focusing on hyponatraemia, a condition related to the fluid management of patients.

The inquiry is examining the deaths of three children, Adam Strain, aged four, Raychel Ferguson, nine, Claire Roberts, nine, and it is also investigating the events following the deaths of Lucy Crawford, aged 17 months, and specific issues around the treatment of 15-year-old Conor Mitchell.

The court heard that one of the doctors involved with the care of Lucy Crawford was found guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Dr Jarlath O’Donohue worked at the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen where Lucy was treated before being transferred to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

John O’Hara QC, who is chairing the inquiry, said a report from Professor Fenella Kirkham, a paediatric neurologist, into the death of Adam Strain raised doubts over whether the child died from hyponatraemia.

He explained that as the report was only submitted to the inquiry last week, more time would be needed before witnesses could give evidence or face questions.

“I cannot contemplate a long delay, for the families any delay stretching into the future is beyond contemplation,” said Mr O’Hara.

Responding to this latest setback, Raychel Ferguson’s mother Marie told the News Letter: “I don’t think any of us need any more delays but we will have to accept it. We are still determined to get to the bottom of what happened to Raychel so that no other family will have to go through what we did.”

Her husband Ray added: “It has been a long battle to get to this stage – eight years. Listening to this [opening statements in court] has brought back a lot of painful memories but we are glad that things are finally moving.”

Mr Ferguson said he was still afraid that another child could still be at risk from hyponatraemia.

“I am afraid even to go near a hospital, I don’t have any confidence in the health service. We have seen nothing to prove that this will not happen to another child, but hopefully this public inquiry will change all that, I don’t know,” he added

The inquiry will sit again on Thursday, March 1, for a progress report.

Established in 2004 by the then minister for health Angela Smith, the public inquiry was suspended in 2005 to allow the PSNI to investigate. In 2008, the police closed their investigations and the PPS directed that no prosecutions be brought.

Hyponatraemia, which can be fatal, is the medical term for a low level of sodium in the blood stream causing the brain cells to swell with too much water.

A WOMAN died after the car her husband was driving skidded on a diesel spillage in Tyrone, an inquest has heard.

At yesterday’s hearing in Belfast, a specialist accident investigator explained how a Scania lorry leaked diesel on to the main Ballygawley to Omagh road causing dangerous driving conditions.

Mary Wasson — the front seat passenger in a Renault Espace being driven by her husband Dr Ciaran Wasson — was thrown out of the vehicle’s tailgate window when it skidded across the road and into the path of an oncoming BMW X5 close to the Ballygawley Roundabout.

Mrs Wasson, 50, suffered severe multiple injuries in the collision and died at the scene. Dr Wasson, who lived with his wife on Belfast’s Upper Lisburn Road, was also thrown from the Renault and suffered serious injuries.

The incident took place on Sunday, October 4, 2009 around 4.40pm when Dr Wasson attempted to slow down on the downhill section of the A5 as he approached the roundabout.

A witness described how she noticed the Renault Espace “lose traction in the back wheels” and “looked like it was doing a U-turn on the road”.

Rosemary Stevenson also told coroner Brian Sherrard that none of the vehicles involved were driving dangerously or at excessive speed.

Mrs Stevenson, a Marie Curie nurse, remained at the scene with her husband assisting casualties until the arrival of an ambulance.

Accident investigator Stephen Quinn, now retired, gave evidence that a front engine people carrier-type vehicle with front seat occupants only would have a disproportionate front end weight making it susceptible to a loss of traction in such circumstances.

A police sergeant gave evidence that the PSNI had received four separate reports of a lorry leaking fuel in the area prior to the collision, and that the source of the spillage was a Scania lorry owned by Loane Transport of Kesh.

The driver of the lorry, Steven Rothwell, had pulled in at an industrial site a few miles beyond the scene having been flagged down by a passing motorist and informed of the leak.

Mr Rothwell said he shut off the second fuel tank to stop the flow of diesel to the leak before phoning the firm’s office to say he was driving on towards Larne.

“I rang the office then motored on to the ferry, but they rang back to say the police had been on and there had been an incident.”

Mr Rothwell also told the coroner that both of the lorry’s fuel tanks had been filled to capacity for the onward journey to Great Britain and it had no history of any defects in the fuel system.

When examined by the forensic accident investigator, it was discovered that the lorry had a rupture in a pipe linking its two fuel tanks.

Mr Quinn said he believed the damage appeared to have been caused by someone trying to remove a metal insert from the plastic pipe with “something like a screwdriver” or a similar tool. Mr Quinn said: “Maybe someone wasn’t able to remove it so tried to prise it.”

However, Mr Rothwell told the coroner he had no idea what caused the pipe to break, explaining that the vehicle was just over a year old and still under the care of the manufacturer for servicing.

When asked by the coroner if someone could have interfered with the vehicle, Mr Rothwell said: “No. The only thing we can think of is that something came up off the road and caused it.”

Loane Transport director Blakely Loane supported the driver’s theory as the most likely explanation for the damage to the pipe.

“I can only speculate, but it’s at the rear of the tank, immediately in front of an axle,” Mr Loane said.

“Possibly the tyre has lifted an item off the road and it’s come round and struck it.”

The coroner said the sudden and brutal nature of the incident was a “reminder of how fragile life can be”.

Mr Sherrard said there was very little good to come out of such an horrific incident but added: “Everybody will be reassured that when something like this happens there are still people good enough to stop and help — particularly the Stevensons in this instance.”

After the inquest, a representative of the Wasson family paid tribute to the Stevensons and others who assisted at the scene of the accident.