Tag Archives: public meeting

Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville, Co Donegal

This Sunday.

At the Methodist Hall on the Main Street of Moville, Co Donegal.

At 3pm.

Fáilte Inishowen will be hosting a public information meeting about the arrival of asylum seekers to Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville.

Tracey Cullen Sheehan, of Fáilte Inishowen, writes:

“Fáilte Inishowen is pleased to announce the first event in its campaign to ensure that all of the asylum seekers arriving in the coming weeks are warmly welcomed and strongly supported in settling in to this vibrant community by the sea.

“All are welcome to attend, and representatives from health, education and social agencies in the area will be in attendance to offer their perspectives and to take questions from the floor.

“Invited speakers who have come through the discredited system of Direct Provision will focus on how best local people might show solidarity and friendship to those who are arriving.

“Vukasin Nedeljkovic is an artist and researcher from Serbia whose excellent multidisciplinary project, Asylum Archive, documents his own experience of Direct Provision.

“Having sought asylum in Ireland in 2007, Vukasin was put into the Direct Provision system and, faced with the stress of life waiting to for his asylum application to be processed, began his excellent project ‘as a coping mechanism’.

“Vukasin’s recently-published Asylum Archive book tells a story of weight and importance that too few people have heard about — we will be petitioning Donegal County Library to include a copy in every branch.

“South African activist Lucky Khambule [him off the telly!] has called Ireland home for the last five years.

“He lived in Direct Provision for three years and this experience drove him to co-found MASI, the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland — in pursuit of justice, dignity, social equality and the right to work for people seeking asylum as they had been banned from doing so since Direct Provision was enacted.

“Caroline Radcliffe from Moville is experienced in the field of human rights and will speak of her time working with asylum seekers in the hostel that existed in the early 2000s in Moville.”

Fáilte Inishowen (Facebook)

The Covanta Waste Plant at Poolbeg, Dublin last Friday

Tomorrow evening.

At the Pebble Beach Pub on Conquer Hill Road in Clontarf, Dublin 3.

At 8pm.

The Dublin Bay North Branch of People Before Profit will be holding a public meeting about the Covanta incinerator in Poolbeg.

The branch writes:

A large global corporation will be responsible for air quality over Dublin Bay North. Yes, they have their agreed EPA checks but what ways might a corporation beholden to shareholders look to cut corners?

We have identified some and want to tell you! Join us [tomorrow] as we hear from the Poolbeg Incinerator group and People Before Profit Dublin NW Cllr Andrew Keegan who sits on the [Dublin] City Council Environment Policy Committee.

(Save Poolbeg)

We Need Independent Air Monitoring (Facebook)

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From top: Apollo House; Adam Boyle

Further to last Thursday’s occupation of Apollo House on Tara Street, Dublin 2 – a Nama property – in order to provide accommodation for rough sleepers…

Adam Boyle, above, writes:

Last Thursday we saw an example of civil disobedience in the form of the seizure of Apollo House in Dublin’s inner city. However, we saw something more. We saw concrete actions, built on top of the tireless work of homeless charities day-in day-out across the country, to provide help and accommodation to the city’s homeless.

Most importantly, we saw how easy it is to provide a short to medium-term solution to this problem.

We have seen an overwhelming support for this action, as well as cautious moves against it. Most striking of all is the claim from the Department of Housing that there are sufficient numbers of emergency beds for those sleeping rough.

This claim simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Perhaps ten years ago, before the housing crisis, it could be claimed that those sleeping rough were ‘choosing to do so.’ However, the growing numbers of people sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin, estimated between 100 and 300 every night, put lie to this idea.

The homelessness and housing crisis is multi-faceted and needs an appropriately detailed and well thought-out response. As such, the Housing Action Plan introduced by Minister Coveney should absolutely be welcomed – in the long-run there is one answer and one answer only to solve this issue; we need more social housing.

But what about the short term?

Home Sweet Home have themselves claimed they are seeking to save lives via their illegal occupation of Apollo House. This claim is far more based in reality than the claims of the Department of Housing with relation to emergency beds. This is a short-term action – and it is one that the Government could replicate easily, swiftly, safely, and cheaply.

As The Irish Times reported on Saturday, 9% of Dublin dwellings lie empty this Christmas. Arguments that these are not ‘fit for purpose’ or that outfitting them to house families in the short term is too expensive or impossible have been utterly turned on their head.

Mazars have rightfully and legally claimed that this occupation is illegal, and I would expect it was a tough but understandable morning’s work in their solicitors’ offices in issuing a request to vacate the building.

The law probably cannot permit Apollo House to remain occupied. However, there are a slew of alternative buildings open for the Government to redirect the energy and resources of this movement towards, to provide the kind of accommodation being sought. If they don’t create an alternative option which is equally as viable as that produced by Home Sweet Home they should be ashamed of both their ineptitude and callousness.

If nothing else, they should provide an alternative to save some face. A group of socially conscious poets, artists, activists, and community leaders last week seized a building in Dublin’s city centre in a stand against inequality, poverty, and what they see as an out-of-touch elite.

Does our government really want to be seen to stand by as these activists are turfed out of this occupied building? It’s been about 100 years since we have seen something strikingly similar happen.

Make a plan, fulfil that plan, house the homeless. If they cannot do what a bunch of artists and volunteers have managed to do then perhaps they should really question their purpose to the Irish people.

Adam is a  a final year student of Law with Social Justice 

Meanwhile…

The Apollo House Outreach Team writes:

Apollo House – a vacant NAMA building now being ran as a residental unit for and by the homeless – was taken over by Home Sweet Home Eire Irish Housing Network Thursday night. It has been in the hearts and minds of people since. More then 1,500 people have applied to volunteer.

[Tomorrow] night the Outreach Team will host a public meeting in the Teachers’ Club [36, Parnell Square West, Dublin 1] at 7.30pm, [entitled] ‘Apollo House how can you volunteer and support?’

Along with our continued replies to calls, emails and messages this is the place to be if you want to volunteer and support the campaign.

‘Apollo House how can you Volunteer and Support?’ meeting (Home Sweet Home)

Related: Dublin City Council to debate motion calling for injunction to be lifted from Apollo House sit-in (Breakingnews)

Pic: Sam Boal/Rollingnews

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The idea of this meeting is to inform people of the secretly negotiated TTIP agreement between the USA and Europe. It is open to all.

We hope to be able to help launch an automonous local Anti TTIP group that can work with unions, political groupings and others to defeat TTIP, by being separate from but co-operative with others. This model has worked with the water charges movement in the area and we hope it can be as strong on TTIP.

FIGHT!

Joan Collins and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan. Public meeting on TTIP (Facebook)

Previously: ‘The Details Of TTIP Need TO Be Discussed Openly, Honestly And Fairly’

Luke’s TTIP

 

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Anne-Marie McNally, of the Social Democrats, writes:

“This is a come-along event, no tickets required, all welcome on the evening. We’ll be talking about how we can and should do things differently – how do we make politics serve the people rather than the golden circle of the same faces and names that keep cropping up; and how do we develop and implement proper transparency with real accountability in a way that allows people to trust the system? I’ll open up, Catherine Murphy will speak, followed by Fintan O’Toole, then I’ll close.”

Previously: Someday My Prints Will Come

Policy Night

Molloy15 Molloy12

Molloy14 Molloy16 Molloy17 Molloy18Around 60 to 70 people attended last night’s public meeting in Castlecoote Parish Hall, Co. Roscommon, regarding the unsolved murder of Fr Niall Molloy at the home of Richard and Therese Flynn, Kilcoursey House, in Clara, Co. Offaly in 1985.

Gemma O’Doherty, who was recently sacked from the Irish Independent addressed the meeting. Her work on the murder case led to the Gardaí reopening the case in 2010. The DPP recently decided not to pursue it any further.

During the meeting, Fianna Fáil Senator Terry Leyden told the meeting the late Brian Lenihan Snr and his wife Anne were not at the home of Richard and Therese Flynn on the night Fr Niall Molloy was murdered.

It also heard Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan tell members of the Molloy family that he would speak to Justice Minister Alan Shatter about the case.

(From top: Gemma O’Doherty addresses the meeting; Eamon Touhey, Fine Gael Roscommon County Councillor Dominic Connolly and Brian Sheridan; Seán O’Brien, John Wilson, Gemma O’Doherty, Fr. Arthur O’Neill and Senator John Kelly; Fianna Fáil Senator Terry Leyden; Kate, Barry and Liz Molloy; and Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan with Kate, Barry and Liz Molloy.)

Previously: Fr Niall Molloy on Broadsheet

Pics: Andrew Fox

 

Molloy

 

“The file was stamped “top secret” but it’s content related to one of the most explosive criminal investigations and trials this century. The file was so important that garda authorities were willing to trade it for a convict’s release from high security prison.”

“Within the folder were two documents, letters from a Circuit Court judge to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. They gave the judge’s thinking on a death that has mystified Ireland for nine
years.”

“Fr. Niall Molloy died in a violent argument in the bedroom of Theresa and Richard Flynn in Co. Offaly in 1985. The following year, with official investigations apparently concluded, Richard Flynn stood in a circuit court dock charged with manslaughter and assault.”

“He was acquitted after Justice Frank Roe accepted expert evidence that the priest may have not have died from his injuries but from a heart attack. An inquest jury found the priest died from head injuries sustained in the fight, a difference of opinion that led to nine years of speculation, some of it aired publicly in the Dáil.”

“This week it is Judge Roe’s letters to the DPP that bring new questions to a mystifying case. The Sunday Independent has also learned that Fr. Molloy’s last will and testament, believed missing for nine years, is said to have been sent to his Diocesan headquarters, and may have made provisions for Mrs. Flynn.”

“Judge Roe’s letters are remarkable, both for their contents and for the method by which they were made public. The Garda file in which they were held was one of 145 stolen by the late Martin Cahill, Dublin’s infamous General, from Garda headquarters.”

“Cahill used the file about Fr. Molloy’s death to bargain with the authorities, effectively promising its return upon release from an English high-security prison of a close criminal associate. The man was transferred to an open prison and then finally back to Ireland.”

“The file was returned but not before the General had taken photocopies of its content for further use. He told associates he planned to make its contents public, but he had not decided on the nature and date of their release when he died. Cahill had, however made sure a colleague was kept fully aware of the file’s location, and of its content.”

“Last week the Sunday independent was shown the two letters. One is hand-written and, from other examples of his hand writing, the hand of Justice Frank Roe, can be identified.”

“The first hand-written letter dates from before charges were made against Richard Flynn, and is a communication from Mr Roe to Eamon Barnes, the Director of Public Prosecutions. The letter says Mr Roe knew Fr. Molloy and the Flynns.”

“The second letter was written after the trial and is an explanation – the word ‘explain” is actually used – of Judge Roe’s reason for the dismissal of the charges against Richard Flynn.”

“Mr. Roe last week refused to discuss the letters. “That case is dead and buried,” he said. “I have nothing to say.””

“He also refused to comment on why he sent the hand-written letter to the DPP, and would not elaborate on his associations with Fr Molloy and the Flynns.”

“They were lovely people all of them.” he said “God bless them all.”

An extract from a front-page article by Veronica Guerin, published by the Sunday Independent almost 19 years ago, on October 16, 1994.

Related: The death of Fr Niall Molloy – as a member of the Flynn family, I’m appealing for the truth to be made known (Gemma O’Doherty, Irish Independent)

Previously: A Sordid Cover-Up

Gemma O’Doherty on Broadsheet.ie

Justice For Fr Niall Molloy (Facebook)