Fr Peter McVerry, Dublin, Homelessness, Housing list, Housing shortage, Rents in Dublin

Fr Peter McVerry Dublin

Ireland’s homeless problem is at “crisis point”, according to Fr Peter McVerry, the director of an organisation that provides accommodation and care for homeless people.

Fr McVerry said he had not been surprised by two stories carried in The Irish Times in the past week about two sets of families: one of a mother with five children who has been living in a Dublin hotel room for the past three months; the other of a woman with three children who slept in her car for a week after a series of temporary housing arrangements broke down.

“I am meeting this every day,” he said. “I got a phone call from a lady a week ago saying she was sitting on a park bench with her three young children because she couldn’t get a place.

“Unfortunately these sort of stories are no revelation to me.”

He said the majority of people who become homeless today fall into one of three categories: People who can no longer afford to pay the rent; people whose relationships have broken down; those who were being made homeless because of the repossession of their home.

He said that he expected the situation to get worse in the coming months and years and that it would force even more people into the private rental market.

“There is a tsunami coming down the road and the Government have their heads in the sand,” he said.

Pointing to the Government’s commitment to provide a €500 million investment to provide fibre-powered broadband in more than 1,000 rural towns and villages, Fr McVerry said that, while it was not a case of pitting one against the other, that the same level of investment should be committed to dealing with the homeless problem.

“I just think the level of commitment to provide rural broadband should be equal to the level of commitment to providing accommodation to homeless people,” he said.

“The problem is already at crisis point . . . At the moment it’s a disaster. In three months’ time, it’s going to be a tragedy,” he added.

Fr Peter McVerry, Dublin, Homelessness, Housing list, Housing shortage, Rents in Dublin

Tommy Crossan Dead, Continuity IRA, Dissident Republicans, Real IRA

Tommy Crossan Shoot Dead

The former Belfast commander of the hardline anti-peace process paramilitary group, the Continuity IRA, has been shot dead in the city.

Tommy Crossan, 44, was killed near the Peter Pan light industrial complex on Springfield Road in Belfast at around 4.45pm on Friday.

Martin McGuinness said of the shooting: “The people behind this murder are criminals, drug dealers and informers and will further no cause through this cowardly act. Whoever carried out this act has nothing to offer the community and have no role to play in our future they should be shunned and handed over to the PSNI.”

The murdered man, who comes from the west of the city, served six years in Maghaberry top security prison a decade ago for a CIRA gun attack on a police station in Belfast.

Local nationalist SDLP councillor Colin Keenan, who lives near the scene of the shooting, condemned those behind the murder.

"I was on the scene shortly after this tragic event and I extend my heartfelt sympathy to the victim's family. We have long hoped that the shadow of death had been lifted from west Belfast. Today's event is a terrible, tragic reminder of the violent conflict of the past," Keenan said.

Details about the murder are still sketchy but it comes at a time of rising tensions among dissident republicans who are embroiled in a violent internal power struggle.

Declan Fat Deccy Smith shoot dead

Last week a former CIRA killer, Declan "Fat Deccy" Smith, was buried in his native Belfast after being assassinated outside a Dublin creche at the end of March.

Smith had been blamed for the double killing of two rival republican dissidents, Eddie Burns and Joseph Jones, who were murdered in 2007 in Belfast. Jones had been tortured and beaten to death with a spade over a dispute about the seizure of weapons and the control over the republican faction.

In a statement from the Continuity IRA's leadership on Friday, the terror group singled out a number of former members whom they accused of "criminal activity perpetrated in the name of the republican movement".

Referring to an attempted coup four years ago against the CIRA command, the organisation said: "The treachery of 2010 was a carefully planned attempt to arrest and destroy the republican movement as it exists today in the continuing defence of the Irish Republic proclaimed at the GPO Dublin in 1916. These people have failed and the criminal conspirators they have left in their wake shall dissipate."

And in a warning to its rivals, the paramilitary organisation added: "There will be other attempts to raise issues of contention ranging across diverse matters, for example principles, structures, authority, democracy, discipline and many others into the future. That said nobody is going to put the republican movement in their pocket and walk away to self-serve, for in doing so they will be turning away from the principles which sustain this movement and which are the ultimate guarantee of our success."

In 2000 Crossan was serving 10 years for conspiracy to murder RUC officers following a gun attack on a police station in west Belfast in 1998. He led a prison protest for political status in Maghaberry and at one stage spent 23 hours a day locked in his cell as punishment for refusing to do prison work.

In an interview Crossan was defiant about "armed struggle" continuing despite rising support for Sinn Féin and the peace process.

He said: "I am confident that the armed struggle will go on outside here and that, sadly, will mean more of my comrades being jailed and sent into this place. The bigger we get, the harder it will be for the authorities to treat us as criminals."

The CIRA was formed after splits in Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) in 1986. However, it was mainstream Sinn Féin's decision to sign up to non-violence principles during all-party talks in the run up to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that finally prompted Crossan to leave the Provisional IRA.

In a bitter attack on Sinn Féin, Crossan told the Observer: "Bobby Sands [the IRA hunger striker and MP] is one of my great heroes … I was 10 when he died, that's when I became interested in republicanism but everything he fought for has been sold out. Prisoners like him died for political status, and now it's being taken away from republicans at a time Sinn Féin are doing something they vowed they would never do – sit in a Stormont government."

There are at least two factions within the CIRA: the mainstream organisation loyal to its Dublin leadership, whose main base remains around North Armagh, and a rival faction started by disgruntled republicans from Limerick with a few members in Belfast which has been in violent dispute with the main group.

The CIRA is the most hardline of the armed groups opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process. It was responsible for the 2009 murder of Constable Stephen Carroll in Craigavon. He was the first officer of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to be killed by republican paramilitaries.

Members of the security forces have been on high alert for attacks by various extremist factions who have also killed two soldiers and a prison officer.

In recent weeks they have stepped up efforts to kill police officers, with several attacks on the force in west Belfast.

After the murder of prison officer David Black on the M1 motorway in November 2012, police mounted an unprecedented surveillance operation against various factions as well making significant arrests.

Tommy Crossan Dead, Continuity IRA, Dissident Republicans, Real IRA

Sean Fitzpatrick trial, Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Economy, Maple 10, Judge Martin Nolan

Sean Fitzpatrick trial, Anglo Irish Bank

The jury at the Anglo Irish Bank trial has returned not guilty verdicts on all charges against the bank’s former chairman Seán FitzPatrick.

Judge Martin Nolan told Mr FitzPatrick he was free to go after the jury of seven women and five men acquitted him on all counts of providing unlawful financial assistance to the so-called Maple 10 businessmen to buy Anglo shares in July 2008. The jury had been deliberating for more than 13 hours.

Mr Fitzpatrick (65) smiled as the verdicts were read out in the silent, crowded courtroom. Leaning forward in the dock, his hands visibly shaking, he listened intently as the foreman of the jury confirmed not guilty verdicts on all 10 charges he was facing. He then embraced his family and shook hands with his legal team.

The former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, Seán FitzPatrick, makes a statement outside court yesterday. 

In separate proceedings, Mr FitzPatrick is due to stand trial in October on charges of failing to make disclosures to the bank’s auditors about loans he received. He faces 12 counts of failing to disclose to auditors Ernst & Young the true value of loans worth at least €139 million given to him or people connected to him, by Irish Nationwide Building Society from 2002 to 2007 while he was an officer of the bank.

54 witnesses

Yesterday’s acquittals came after 11 weeks of evidence and testimony from 54 witnesses. The verdicts were arrived at by majority and were given after three full days of deliberations.

The jury has yet to decide on the allegations facing former Anglo directors William McAteer (63), Rathgar, Dublin, and Pat Whelan (51), Malahide, Co Dublin. They have also been charged with providing unlawful financial assistance to the Maple 10 and in addition, they face six counts of providing unlawful financial assistance to the wife and five children of businessman Seán Quinn.

Although Mr FitzPatrick had originally faced charges in relation to the Quinn loans, the judge had directed that he be found not guilty of these at an earlier stage in the case.

The trial centred on a deal to unwind Mr Quinn’s 28 per cent stake in Anglo, which he held through CFDs, contracts for difference – high-risk investment products that involve betting on the performance of a share. At the time, the bank believed Mr Quinn’s holding was destabilising its share price and feared a disorderly unwind of his stake.

A deal was devised which involved providing loans to the Maple 10, all bank customers, to buy just over 1 per cent each of the shares underlying the CFDs, with six members of the Quinn family buying another 15 per cent. The Maple 10 borrowed €45 million each while the Quinns were loaned €169 million.

Mr FitzPatrick did not give evidence during the trial and the case against him centred on a series of interviews he gave to gardaí in March 2010.

Over the course of five interviews, Mr FitzPatrick told gardaí that he was aware the bank would be lending money to the Maple 10 before the transaction went through. He told investigators he was in the south of France when Anglo chief executive David Drumm called him on July 9th, 2008, and said they had a solution to the Quinn problem. He said the chief executive told him they were going to get 10 customers and lend them money to buy the shares.

“Above board”

Mr FitzPatrick said Mr Drumm did not tell him the names of the Maple 10 or the lending terms. He did not have a problem with the deal and that he had been assured by Mr Drumm that it was “kosher” and “above board”.

Mr FitzPatrick said he assumed Mr Drumm informed the Financial Regulator about the deal, as the regulator had been kept up to date on all developments to that point.

omagh bomb, seamus daly, charged, psni, real ira

Seamus Daly charged Omagh Bomb 1998

A Co Monaghan man charged with the murders of the 29 men, women and children who died in the 1998 Omagh bombing is due in court this morning.

The victims of the Real IRA attack included a woman pregnant with twins. Hundreds more were injured.

Seamus Daly (43) was charged with the murders three days after he was arrested by detectives from the serious crime branch of the PSNI in Newry. He will appear at Dungannon Magistrate’s Court this morning. Below, Michael McKevitt, Real IRA leader.

In a statement the PSNI said: “He faces 29 murder charges relating to the blast on 15th August 1998, two charges in relation to the Omagh explosion and two charges in relation to an attempted explosion in Lisburn in April 1998 - a total of 33 charges.”

No-one has yet been convicted in a criminal court in any jurisdiction of the Omagh bombing which was the worst single paramilitary atrocity carried out during the Troubles.

Mr Daly was one of four men found liable in a civil case brought by 12 relatives of the dead. The others were Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy.They were ordered by the court to pay £1.6 million in damages (€1.8 million).

Mr Daly, who has always denied involvement in the murders, successfully appealed the court finding. But a subsequent case also found him liable for the attack which was carried out four months after the conclusion of the Belfast Agreement.

Former Northern Ireland Policing Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s investigation in 2001 of the RUC’s handling of the Omagh case revealed a litany of errors, including loss of documents and evidence.Many of the families continue, with the support of Baroness O’Loan, to press for a full, independent inquiry into the bombing.

omagh bomb, seamus daly, charged, psni, real ira

Peaches Geldof, dead, death, bob Geldof, paula yeats

Peaches Geldof, dead, death, bob Geldof, paula yeats

Peaches Geldof, the daughter of Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates has died at the age of 25, the BBC reported this evening. She was the mother of two young sons and worked as a DJ, model and television personality.

There were reports that police were called to her home in Wrotham, Kent, today where her body was discovered.

Ms Geldof was a prolific tweeter and the final message that she sent yesterday was a picture of her as a child with her mother.

Her mother, Paula Yates, died aged 41 from a heroin overdose in 2000.

Peaches Geldof had two young sons, 23-month-old Astala and 11-month-old Phaedra who was born on what would have been her mother Paula Yates’ 54th birthday.

She was 19 when she married US musician Max Drummey at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas in August 2008.

The couple announced that they had amicably decided to split in February 2009 before divorcing in 2011.

Ms Geldof married Thomas Cohen, lead singer of south east London band S.C.U.M, in September 2012 at the same church in Davington, Kent, where her parents married 26 years earlier. It was also where her mother’s funeral was held in 2000.

Kent Police said: “Police were called at 1.35pm on 7 April 2014 to an address near Wrotham following a report of concern for the welfare of a woman. A woman aged 25 was pronounced dead by South East Coast Ambulance Service. At this stage, the death is being treated as an unexplained sudden death. Officers are working to establish the circumstances around the death.”

In a statement this evening, Bob Geldof said: “Peaches has died. We are beyond pain. She was the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us. Writing ‘was’ destroys me afresh. What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable? We loved her and will cherish her forever. How sad that sentence is. Tom and her sons Astala and Phaedra will always belong in our family, fractured so often, but never broken. Bob, Jeanne, Fifi, Pixie and Tiger Geldof.”

Ms Geldof’s husband Tom Cohen said: “My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons Astala and Phaedra and I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her forever.”

Ms Geldof was a young girl when her mother died tragically from an overdose in 2000 after splitting with Bob Geldof and forming a relationship with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence. Hutchence died in 1997.