Yearly Archives: 2019

From top: the Newspaper panel on yesterday’s Marian Finucane Show yesterday, including Fergus Finlay (second left); from left: Princess Haya, Sheikha Latifa , Mary Robinson; CEO of Detained in Dubai Radha Stirling and RTE’s Marian Finucane

Yesterday on RTÉ Radio One’s Marian Finucane Show…

The newspaper panel was joined by CEO of Detained in Dubai Radha Stirling.

The panel was made up of Mary Whelan, Former Ambassador to Austria and Netherlands; Ken Murphy, Director General of the Law Society; Ciaran Hancock, Business Editor at The Irish Times; Fergus Finlay, former CEO of Barnados; and Amii McKeever, Editor of Irish Country Living.

Ms Stirling, via phone, discussed the reported recent fleeing of UAE’s Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, with her children, from her husband and prime minister of the UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

Princess Haya’s move follows the family of Princess Haya’s stepdaughter Sheikha Latifa releasing pictures on Christmas Eve of Sheikha Latifa with Ireland’s former president Mary Robinson – claiming the photographs were evidence that Sheikha Latifa was not being held against her will.

Up until that point, it was known that Sheikha Latifa was seized from a yacht off the coast of India the previous March and had not been seen from since.

Latfia’s sister Shamsa Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum was allegedly abducted from a street in Cambridge, England in 2000, by people associated with her father and brought back to Dubai.

During Sheikha Latifa’s bid to escape last year, she created a video in which she claimed Shamsa was a prisoner and had been tortured and mistreated.

Now that Princess Haya has fled, it has raised questions, for some, of Mrs Robinson’s move to visit Sheikha Latifa and pose for pictures with her before reporting that Sheikha Latifa was a “troubled” woman.

The discussion on Marian came ahead of Mrs Robinson’s scheduled appearance at an Irish Women Lawyers’ Association event on climate justice this Wednesday at Blackhall Place.

Ms Stirling explained that she had been on the phone to Latifa when she was seized from a US-flagged yacht off India. She said:

“She telephone me during the attack and said that she had heard gun shots outside, that she was frightened and asked me to please help. Then all communications with all people on board the yacht were terminated.

“And I didn’t hear from them until their later release.

“Unfortunately we haven’t heard from Latifa since then, except in the visit of Mary Robinson, attended in December at the request of Princess Haya.

“Obviously that was also widely publicised and she was criticised for having circumvented normal United Nations protocols because the UAE had not replied to UN requests to visit Latifa.

“And, instead, Princess Haya then asked Mary Robinson to come instead and she said that she was in the safe and loving care of her family.

“Now the world didn’t really believe that and now that we’re seeing Princess Haya coming out and saying that she was seeking asylum, that she’s fearful for her life and now she’s being taken to court by Sheikh Mohammed in the UK for the return of her children to Dubai.

“So she will obviously, during that court case, have to provide testimony as to the ill-treatment of Latifa if she’s to prevent the children from being sent back to Dubai.”

Following Ms Stirling’s comments, Ms Finucane played a clip of a previous interview Ms Finucane carried out with Princess Haya last January – in which she explained the reasoning behind her invitation to Mrs Robinson.

In the same interview, she said Latifa was a “vulnerable” woman and she was “receiving the love and protection of all of us”.

Ms Finucane put to Ms Stirling that Princess’s Haya had a “ring of sincerity”.

Ms Stirling responded:

“I would think so but given that she is in the position of being required, probably, to give that sort of testimony and now, with her subsequent actions and reports in the media saying that, following that interview, she investigated further into the case of Latifa and discovered things that she obviously didn’t like.

“She perhaps discovered the abuse, discovered that she was being imprisoned and you have to remember that Princess Haya apparently hadn’t seen Latifa since that attack, except for that single day [with Mrs Robinson] and didn’t see her after that one visitation.“

Ms Finucane told Ms Stirling that Mrs Robinson has a “very distinguished record as a lawyer and a human rights lawyer”. She then put it to Ms Stirling: “But you’re very cross with her about this?”

Ms Stirling said:

“Well given that it circumvented usual UN protocols where they would send a team of people who are trained to see whether Latifa was under duress during that meeting and Mary had a meeting with Latifa for several hours, or two or three hours perhaps, and then came out with a report saying she’s absolutely fine.

“And, clearly, from Latifa’s testimony, she’s never been fine in the custody of her family.”

Asked for his opinion on the matter, Fergus Finlay, who worked with Mrs Robinson during her presidential campaign, said, on the face of it, her intervention seems “odd” given she’s not a medical expert.

But he said anyone who has worked with her wouldn’t question her integrity “for a second”.

He said:

“I don’t understand this story. It seems incredibly complex and arcane.

“And, you know, all sorts of peculiar elements – divorce and acrimony and so on are tied up in it aswell. And obviously huge amounts of money at play.

“And it may be that Mary Robinson made an error of judgement in being dragged into the middle of it. I’d be amazed if anyone would question her good faith in the matter though.”

Mr Finlay later added:

“I’m really struggling to figure out how this story fits in and it may be my own stupidity, it feels very much like I’m being asked to comment on the third series of Dallas – never having watched the first two series. I mean it’s and incredibly complicated story of divorce and money and bitterness and so on…

“But I…is it more than that? Is it really more than that in this particular case?”

Later on during the discussion, Ms Stirling said:

“The issue is, in having done that [Mary Robinson visiting Latifa], Latifa’s case could have potentially been closed as far as the investigation is concerned. And the UAE, under such public scrutiny, with such disbelief over Mary Robinson’s report, should then cooperate with the further requests that the UN has made of them for visitations with Latifa.

“And they simply haven’t responded – not even to a request for proof of life.”

Ms Finucane asked Ms Stirling, given there are reports of Princess Haya seeking protection, not trusting the police, and fearing for her life, if there is the possibility that the story is “getting into the realms of the unbelievable”.

Ms Stirling disagreed.

She said:

“No I really don’t think we are. What we’re seeing is an increase in belligerent behaviour, coming from the Gulf Region. We’re seeing Saudi able to kill Khashoggi in an embassy in Turkey, we’re seeing an attack on an international yacht, we’re seeing, previously, his two children have been seized from outside the UAE jurisdiction.

“And I would say that Princess Haya is extremely, and also, obviously, his children…he has a history of unlawfully, extrajudicially returning his children back to the UAE. So I can understand why they would be on complete lockdown with extreme security.”

Ken Murphy, of the Law Society, referred to reports in yesterday’s papers, before saying”

“All I can say is, having known every little about this story until we began to…it is becoming more and more fascinating.”

Listen back in full here

Previously:  Oh Mary

All That You Can’t Leave Behind

In Denial

The location of the hostel in Eccles Street, Dublin 1. It was demolished when the Mater Hospital was built

The Irish Mirror yesterday revealed that Gardai believe they’ve uncovered a paedophile ring run by clerics while investigating a hostel for boys which operated in the 1960s and 1970s

The half-way house – which opened under the name “The Boys Club” in Eccles Street, Dublin 1 – is the subject of an investigation by the Sexual Crime Management Unit.

Via The Irish Mirror:

More than 700 vulnerable teenage boys passed through the hostel over the space of a decade and it’s feared most were preyed on by clerics….

…A man who was was born in a mother and baby home and was sent to the hostel from an industrial school where he was raped from a young age.

He said: “The abuse that took place in the hostel was an extension of the abuse I suffered in the industrial school but it was far more intense and pressurised.”

He added priests used the home as a “hunting ground” and “passed boys around like pieces of meat” bribing them with cigarettes and money to keep quiet.

The man claims he was also warned on several occasions to “keep his mouth shut” or he would “end up in the lunatic asylum in Dundrum”.

A typical ploy used by senior clerics was to send their car and chauffeur to the hostel to collect a particular boy who would then be driven to a nearby location and abused.

The victim, who is now 65, said: “A priest or seminarian tended to come with somebody who knew the hostel… they might depart with a boy.

“The seminarians would chat me up. If there was a disco going on I would dance with them and I would be groped. This happened even in the toilet.

“In hindsight there was a selection process. There were a lot of B&Bs in the area, it was close to Gardiner Street and nobody would dare stop a priest.

“There seemed to be a constant stream of priests and student priests coming in, this was normal to me.

“I get it now – it’s beginning to hit me. I denied it for years.”

The Mirror adds that several of the priests who are implicated “are still alive and are expected to be interviewed by gardai”.

Gardai probe claims of clerical sex abuse at Dublin hostel of horrors (Sylvia Pownell, The Irish Mirror)

Pic via The Irish Mirror

Hmm.

Luke Peter Silke

Rollingnews

From top: Ireland Under-19s during their 5-0 win over Romania in  the UEFA European Under-19 Championship Elite Round in March; Luke Brennan

How healthy is Irish underage soccer?

Answer: A little bit too healthy.

Before heading off to a respectable semi-final exit in the Toulon tournament, the Irish under-21 team beat the senior team 2-1. The funny thing about that, is that most of the talent on the under- 21 team comes from the under-19 team.

If they were able to keep their own players, the under-19 team would most likely beat the under-21 team.

For this reason, the Irish under-19 team head off to compete in the European finals in Armenia this month as victims of their own success.

Eight of their top players have been held back from competing by their UK clubs.

Nathan Collins (who was rumoured to be the subject of a £7M move to Man Utd. earlier this summer) has been held back with a guarantee of more first team football with Stoke City, in order to develop him as a player (or more likely to fatten him up with first team action to attract more offers).

Luca Connell has made his big move to Celtic, first team action is not guaranteed, but it is most likely that potential Champions league qualifier action will hold him back from the trip to Armenia.

Conor Coventry has been held back by West Ham, travelling with the first team to Switzerland to see if he is good enough to provide cover for Declan R**e – and he is.

Jason Knight, the box to box teenage sensation from Cabinteely is off to Florida with Championship side Derby for a pre-season tour with new manager and ex- Barcelona midfielder Phillip Cocu; an experience in itself.

Lee O’Connor is being held back at Manchester United, after his outstanding performance at the Toulon tournament, they may more greatly prize him as an asset.

Adam Idah has signed a professional deal with newly promoted premiership team Norwich, with the guarantee of first team training and the hope that appearances will follow.

Similar assurances were given Aaron Connolly at Brighton, who is the other multi-award winning goal-scorer which Ireland now have representing them in the Premiership.

Troy Parrott occupies his own stratosphere. Should he justify the hype, and there is nothing to suggest he can’t, he will be a once in a generation player that will repay the faith that Mauricio Pochettino intends showing him.

Indications are that he will be named in their summer squad for a trip to Singapore. A chance to prove that he is deserving of a first team place at 17 years of age.

Now that is a lot of quality to be missing out on, surely they can’t compete without eight of their starters?

Well, all but Luca Connell and Jason Knight were unavailable in the qualification process. It didn’t stop the U-19s beating Romania 5-0, Azerbaijan 3-1 and Russia 2-0.

They have quality and confidence in depth.

Adam O’Reilly looks every bit the flinty ambitious midfielder from Cork with an eye for goal that we’ve been missing these last few years.

Ryan Cassidy looks like the player that Robbie Keane wanted to be. Good enough for Liverpool, if he ever makes his dream move to there from Watford.

Where is all this quality coming from? Everywhere.

We may even have to re- assesses the Ross O Carroll Kelly stereotype; the under-19 right back Andy Lyons went to Blackrock College.

When I heard Greystones-born Simon Power interviewed after the under-21 game, he sounded like he just scored a try for Clongowes.

We also have the Reghbas, the Eboseles, the Afolabis, the Omobamideles. All welcome and a great addition. I’m great believer in the theory that the more you represent, the more you can be. The many faces of a new Ireland, with a new team to prove it.

A football team should represent changes in a society, all changes.

I hope it’s true, I hope the change is coming from all corners. I hope also that part of the change is that Irish people are beginning to realise that the best way to support the national team is to support their local team.

Attendances are up 15% at League of Ireland matches this year. No reason why that can’t happen every year.

It’s part of the reason why, when UCD’s highly rated teenage winger Neil Farrugia was offered a move to Man City, he choose to move to Shamrock Rovers instead.

Farrugia earned 600 points in his leaving certificate and is a gifted Biomedical Science student; he has options. The idea of turning out for a team that had an attendance of 6,414 in a recent derby game with Bohemians is also something which wasn’t always on offer in Ireland.

I think Irish football has a lot to gain from the rising affluence in Irish society. Along with increasing the genetic diversity, it means that there is a few quid to pay for a physio, have the video analysis gear, or think a bit more about diet.

When I was young, sports teams were managed by whoever’s dad had a car and could drive to matches. That wasn’t so long ago. Now we are an affluent nation, with cars, a few quid, well organised leagues and people with a few spare hours to volunteer and run them. These things make a difference.

I think every type of diversity is useful, even our sporting diversity. It may well be why Ireland punches above our weight in sport. Consider that Soccer competes with Gaelic football, Hurling, Rugby and the rest for it’s playing pool.

No other European country has such diverse sporting interest and there is a growing acceptance that a range of sports may be better for development than a relentless Tiger Woods style focus on one sport. Perhaps diversity is the reason for success, rather than a hindrance to it.

Go diversity, Go Ireland.

Luke Brennan is an Ireland born, Portugal-based writer, entrepreneur and sports fan.

Uefa Under-19 Championships

Previously: Green Shoots (Or: Why I Think We Might Win The 2030 World Cup)

Minister for Defence Paul Kehoe; two tweets from the minister on Saturday and the newsletter from the Flag Officer Commanding Naval Service’s newsletter

On Saturday, Fine Gael TD and Minister for Defence Paul Kehoe tweeted that two Irish Naval Service vessels are in the dock for “planned maintenance” and that their crews had been deployed elsewhere.

He tweeted that the Chief Of Staff Vice Admiral Mellett had “reconfirmed” this to him.

This is despite a newsletter from the Flag Officer Commanding Naval Service newsletter stating that the LE Eithne and LE Orla were being placed in an “operational reserve capacity” until such time that “sufficiently qualified and experienced personnel are available”.

Anyone?

Kehoe in ‘bunker of denial’ over navy manpower (RTÉ)

Newsletter pic: Cathal Berry