Pensioner poverty in Northern Ireland

The recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Northern Ireland 2012 found that, while the overall level of poverty in Northern Ireland is on a par with the rest of the United Kingdom, there are some regional differences.

The poverty rate is:

• Lower in Northern Ireland than Great Britain for children (28% compared with 30%)
• Similar for working-age adults (20% compared with 21%)
• Higher for pensioners (21% compared with 16% after housing costs deducted & 28% compared with 20% before housing costs deducted)

The report offers the following reasons for the higher level of poverty among pensioners:

• 40% of single pensioners and 25 % of couples have no income other than the State Pension and Pension Credit compared to 20% and 5% in the United Kingdom as a whole.
• The proportion of employees aged 45-64 in Northern Ireland who are not contributing to a pension is 38% compared to 32% in Great Britain.

In this context of a higher level of poverty among pensioners, benefit uptake initiatives directed towards pensioners are especially important:

• Since 2005 around 112,000 invitations have been issued to older people offering a benefit assessment which considers eligibility for all social security benefits as well as a range of other allowances and services. 
• Over 247,000 mail shots have been issued to older people to raise awareness of State Pension Credit.
• To date, the Benefit Uptake Programme has generated additional annual benefits and arrears of approximately £37.6m of which almost £31m  relates to additional awards of State Pension Credit and other benefits specitific to over 60s.
• An Outreach to Older People Approach has been in place since 2009.  It aims to reach older people, who have potential additional entitlement, through promotional material advertising a Freephone benefits advice number.  This approach uses trusted community partners such as community groups, specific older people's groups, faith based organisations, GP surgeries and pharmacies and also the provision of informal talks in similar settings, generating a further 1,403 benefit entitlement checks.
• The 'Make the Call 'Campaign was launched in November 2011, to advertise a freephone number to encourage older people to find out if they were missing out on benefits.  So far, over 15,000 calls have been received and monitoring indicates that 40% of callers have potential entitlement.
• £375,000 has been allocated through the Innovation Fund for Increasing Benefit Uptake to 7 new projects being taken forward by the community and voluntary sector to test new and innovative ways of reaching people with potential unclaimed benefit entitlement.  Two of the projects being funded are specifically targeting older people.
• Service delivery improvements have also been made in recent years to mitigate the risk that customers find the claim process difficult.  When a customer calls to make a claim to State Pension they are asked if they would like to find out more about State Pension Credit and, if interested,  the customer is transferred to a dedicated State Pension Credit claim line at which stage an enhanced tele-claims system is in operation which results in around 90% of claims being taken by telephone, without the need for customers to complete paper application forms.
   

 

An insight into sectarianism

Fionnuala O'Connor wrote In Search of a State: Catholics in Northern Ireland, which was published in 1993.  In it she recorded this exchage with an academic from Londonderry (p 140):

Tony, the academic from Derry, says with typical Derry chauvinism that he first saw sectarianism in the IRA when he came to Belfast, and was horrified.  'I never experienced republicans in Derry having this hatred.  I remember talking to this quite senior guy in north Belfast, we were standing looking over the Shankill and we were talking about our dreams for Ireland.  And he said - there wasn't drink or anything involved, he was quite rational - he said: 'Tony what I'd really love is to be able to stand here and just see green fields.'  And I says: 'Come on', and he says: 'No, that's my dream for Ireland.  I would like to see those Orange bastards just wiped out.'

Many people will question the claim that there was no sectarianism in the IRA in Londonderry but 'Tony' is certainly right in saying that sectarianism was deeply embedded in the IRA in North Belfast.  His account of a conversation with a senior republican, presumably from Ardoyne, since they were 'looking over the Shankill', does provide an insight into that sectarian republican mindset.

This senior republican wanted to see the Shankill eradicated and turned back into green fields.  He wanted to see 'those Orange bastards just wiped out.'  That is what is known as ethnic cleansing and it illustrates the sort of challenge we face in North Belfast and in many other parts of Northern Ireland.

Padre Pio and the professor

Professor John Rooney is a physical scientist and lives in Belfast.  He is also a devout Roman Catholic and the author of a letter which appeared in the Irish News on 1 December 2011.

The letter was in response to an article about Padre Pio (1887-1968), a 'saint' in the Roman Catholic Church.  He was born on 25 May 1887 at Pietrelcina in Italy and his parents were peasant farmers.  His own name was Francesco Forgione but he was given the name Pio (Italian form of Pius) when he joined the Capuchin Order.  This name was chosen in honour of Pope St Pius V, the patron saint of Pietrelcina.  As a result he became popularly known as Padre Pio.

Padre Pio became famous because he had wounds on his hands, known as stigmata, which were claimed to be similar to the wounds in the ands, feet and side of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary.  These first appeared on 20 September 1918 and he was the first priest ever to be a stigmatist. 

G Cruchon SJ, a Jesuit priest, wrote of this: 'A long Calvary had begun and with it the answer to a prayer: the prayer of his profound desire to dientify with Christ crucified not only by participation in the priestly apostolate but in some mysterious way in that supreme immolation of Our Lord on Calvary.'  However Calvary was a perfect sacrifice and there can be no other Calvary.  It was a perfect sacrifice by our great high priest Jesus Christ and never to be repeated.

Padre Pio died on 23 September 1968, almost exactly 50 years after the 'stigmata' first appeared and he was canonised by Pope John Paul II on 16 June 2002.  During his lifetime tens of thousands of people came to see him conduct masses and today many Roman Catholics pray to him, in spite of the Biblical truth that there is only one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.  However many others believe that the wounds were self-induced or self-inflicted and some writers suggest that they were the result of a psychological disorder or demonic activity.

But back to Professor Rooney and in his letter to the Irish News he wrote:

The article on Padre Pio (November 19) is unfortunately very misleading, since Professor Luzzatto's book is a very biased account trying to deny the authenticity of the stigmata on the body of the Capuchin monk.
Padre Pio received the visible stigmata in 1918 and was thoroughly investigated in the next few years by medical experts and high-ranking clerical authorities acting on behalf of the Vatican.  The full report deafted in 1921 is kept in the Archive of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
However, it was only in 2006, when Pope Benedict XVI gave free access to the archives up until 1939 that there was an intense revival of interest into the life of Padre Pio.
The Jewish historian Sergio Luzzatto published his version of the facts in a book in 2007 when he argued that the wounds on the friar's body was (sic) deliberately caused by carbolic acid in order to fake the stigmata.
However Luzzatto's conclusions have been strongly rejected by many other scholars who have also examined the information in the archive.
This is very clear, thanks to Francisco Castelli in a recent book entitled Padre Pio Under Investigation - The Secret Vatican Files, Ignatius Press, 2011.
Castelli's book is the most thorough and balanced account of all the information about the saint in the Vatican archives, and it is quite clear that the stigmata were genuine.
The life of Padre Pio helps to strengthen the faith of many Catholics, so it is a pity that The Irish News with the slogan Pro fide et patria over its editorial should publish an article casting doubts on the authenticity of the many remarkable aspects of the life of the great saint.
Prof JOHN ROONEY
Belfast BT9

1. Professor Rooney notes that the motto of the Irish News is the Latin phrase Pro fide et patria, which means 'For faith and country' or 'For faith and fatherland' and of course the country is 'Ireland' and the faith is Roman Catholicism.  He also chides the newspaper for publishing an article which he describes as 'misleading' and 'casting doubts on the authenticity' of Padre Pio's sitgmata.   It is interesting that Professor Rooney expects the Irish News to adhere to Roman Catholic doctrine.

2. Professor Rooney endorses the traditional Roman Catholic position on the authenticity of the stigmata and dismisses the book by 'the Jewish historian Sergio Luzzatto' as 'very biased'.  Instead he advocates another book by Father Francisco Castelli, Padre Pio Under Investigation: The Secret Vatican Files.  The letter appeared in the newspaper but attracted absolutely no comment in the media.  Time and again the religious views of evangelical Protestants who are in public life, including academics, have been analysed and dissected at length but not a word was said about this letter by a former Queen's University professor in which he stated that he believed in the authenticity of the stigmata.  That too is interesting but not altogether surprising.

The IRA Man and the Nazis

Hugh Jordan had an interesting article in the Sunday World (3 June 2012) entitled 'The IRA Man and the Nazis'.

It was about Frank Ryan and was prompted by the recent showing of the film The Enigma of Frank Ryan at QFT in Belfast.

Jordan commented on the relationship between the IRA and the Nazis and wrote:

As a result of seized IRA documents given to this newspaper last year, we now know that in the event of a Nazi invasion of Northern Ireland, the IRA in Belfast was planning to hit the street in support of the German army.  It was even prepared to shoot members of the Fire Brigade engaged in saving property.

I have posted on several occasions about the relationship between the IRA and the Nazis and so it was interesting to have that additional piece of information.

However the main thrust of the article was about Frank Ryan (1902-1944), an Irish republican, an Irish language teacher with Conradh na Gaelige and a prominent left-wing member of the IRA.  In the 1930  s he supported the Republicans in Spain, at a time when the Roman Catholic Church and many others, including the Blueshirts, were supporting the Spanish Fascist leader General Franco.

Eventually Ryan went to Spain to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and he commanded his own Connolly Column.  However he was captured and charged with murder.  Ryan was later sentenced to death but this was commuted to thirty years in jail.

At that time he condemned the IRA bombing campaign in England.  However the departure of Ryan and some other left-wing republicans to Spain had left the IRA in the hands of right-wingers, such as Sean Russell, who believed that it was time to bomb the British out of Northern Ireland by means of a bombing campaign on the mainland  One of the key figures in that terrorist campaign was Dominic Adams, an uncle of Gerry Adams, and in January 1939 he helped manufacture  a bomb which exploded in the centre of Coventry, killing five entirely innocent people.

Meanwhile Ryan was released from prison in Spain and ended up as a guest of the Nazis in Berlin.  There he held meetings with Sean Russell, the man who masterminded the IRA bombing campaign in England and who was in Germany to secure Nazi support for the IRA.

Frank Ryan died in Germany on 10 June 1944 and was buried there but his body was brought back to Ireland in 1979 and buried at Glasnevin.

This was a very good article by Hugh Jordan but someone in the newspaper made a mistake by illustrating it with a picture with the caption 'Gerry Adams carries the coffin of IRA man Frank Ryan.'  In fact the picture showed Adams carrying the coffin of an entirely different Frank Ryan, an IRA man who was killed in November 1991, along with Patricia Black, when a bomb they were carrying exploded prematurely outside a theatre in St Albans.  It was a case of the right name but the wrong person.

The GAA and another IRA gunman

In the wake of the controversy about a GAA club handing children medals honouring an IRA terrorist, another GAA club seems keen to promote Irish republicanism amongst children.

According to an article in the Andersonstown News (2 June 2012), the O'Donovan Rossa GAC hosted an Under 10 hurling tournament at Rossa Park, Shaw's Road, in West Belfast on Monday 4 June.  The tournament was for 'the inaugural Joe McKelvey Cup' and involved sixteen clubs from all over Ireland.

The Andersonstown News then explained the significance of the name Joe McKelvey, who was in fact a chief of staff of the IRA.  According to the report:

The Premier Club is hosting the tournament to honour Joe McKelvey, a founding member of the club back in 1916.  McKelvey died on December 8, 1922 when he was executed during the Irish Civil War.  He is famously remembered for his role in the Irish Republican Army and he participated in the anti-Treaty repudiation of the authority of the Dail in March of the same year as he was execution (sic).  Prior to his death he was elected to the IRA Army Executive and in April 1922 he helped command the occupation of the Four Courts in defiance of the new Irish Free State, which sparked the Irish Civil War.  In June 1922 McKelvey became IRA Chief of State. 

McKelvey grew up in Belfast and joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers.  He was also a founder member of the O'Donovan Rossa club in 1916.  This was at a time when republicans established a number of GAA clubs as a recruiting ground and as a cover for other activities.  During the War of Independence he commanded the Belfast brigade of the IRA and during the Civil War he fought with the Anti-Treaty IRA in Dublin.  He was captured by the Free State forces when the Four Courts was taken in June 1922 and executed by a firing squad on 8 December 1922.

The GAA may talk of reaching out to unionists but they contradict that when clubs name trophies after IRA leaders such as Joe McKelvey.  Their actions speak louder than their words.

It is also interesting that this was a competition for young children, as was the competition in Galbally.  These GAA clubs seem determined to use their sport to endorse and reinforce militant Irish republicanism amongst another generation of impressionable children.

The GAA and the gunman

There has been some progress by the GAA in divorcing itself from militant republicanism but a recent incident has shown just how much still needs to be done.

Galbally Pearse's GAA Club in Tyrone organised a 'Gaelic football blitz' for children under 12 and then presented the children with a medal depicting an IRA terrorist.  Each of the medals carried the face of Martin McCaughey, a member of the Provisional IRA.

MCaughey and another IRA man, Dessie Grew, were shot dead by the SAS while they were carrying out a terrorist operation on 9 October 1990.

The two IRA men, who were armed with AK47 rifles, were wearing gloves and balaclavas as they approached an isolated farm building near Loughgall.  There was a stolen car which it was thought was to be used in a terrorist operation and the shed was believed to be an arms dump.  As the IRA reached the shed the SAS opened fire and the terrorists were killed.  Subsequently the families of the two men accepted that they were on an IRA operation.

McCaughey was not only an IRA terorrist at the time of his death, he was also a former Sinn Fein councillor, having served on the Dungannon and South Tyrone Council.

Recently an inquest jury ruled that the SAS had been justified in their actions and the creation of the medal by the Galbally club follows closely behind that decision.

There has been some progress with the GAA and recently the Ulster Council intervened when Sinn Fein advertised that they were going to hold an advice centre in a GAA Club in the Craigavon area.  The GAA club in question was the Wolfe Tone GAC, although Sinn Fein managed to spell it 'Wolf Tone'!  (That is particularly amusing when both the Education Minister and his sister are named on the leaflet.) When the leaflets advertising the advice centre were distributed the matter was raised with the Ulster Council of the GAA who accepted that the use of GAA premises for party political purposes was not permitted.

However the response of the Ulster Council of the GAA to the Galbally medals has been less than adequate.

It is true that McCaughey, who was twenty-three years old, was a member of the Pearse's GAC and had been selected by the Tyrone minor team, but the decision by the GAA club to present children with medals depicting an IRA terrorist is totally wrong.

It was reported by the BBC (4 June) that a parent of one of the children was angry about the medal and the woman, who did not wish to be named, passed on the information to the BBC, who were able to publish a photograph of the medal.  However a spokesman for Tyrone GAA said, 'If the mother has a comment, she should make it to Tyrone County offices, they would obviously look at it.'  A spokesman for the Ulster Council said, 'The Ulster Council has no comment to make until we receive official notification from the individual involved.'  Both responses throw the onus back on the parent and in this way seek to evade the issue.

The truth is that action by the GAA should not be dependent on a complaint from the mother, who may well be reluctant to be identified and such reluctance would be perfectly understandable.  The GAA can easily confirm that the medals were distributed and they have a duty to act because it is the right thing to do.

Ryan Feeney who is the head of public affairs for the GAA Ulster Council is now a member of the Policing Board and involved in a number of cross-community initiatives.  But at the same time the GAA sends out a very different message by its tardiness in relation to the McCaughey medals.  The action of the Tyrone club and the inaction of the GAA simply undermine any progress that has been made.

It is interesting that the club concerned is the Galbally club and many people will remember the name Galbally from earlier controversies.  It seems that while some elements of the GAA want to move forward there is a recalcitrant element, especially in Tyrone, which wants to cling to the past.

Tyrone seems to be a backward county in this regard and it is worth remembering that in Tyrone last year another nationalist organisation, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, elected a convicted IRA terrorist Gerry McGeough, as its president.  In February 2011 McGeough was convicted of attempting to murder Sammy Brush near Aughnacloy in 1981.  The victim, who was an off-duty member of the UDR, was a postman and was delivering mail when he was shot.  He is now a DUP councillor.  McGeough was actually elected president by the Tyrone AOH while he was in prison.

But back to Galbally and two things need to happen:

1. The Ulster Council of the GAA has a duty to act against the club and, at the very least condemn their action.

2. The matter has been reported in the media but how, for example, will the BBC pursue this matter.  Will it become the subject of a Stephen Nolan special?  Will the leaders of the GAA be summoned on to his programme?  Will the BBC demand answers from the GAA?  Will the BBC commission a Spotlight special?  Or will it be passed over lightly, in the same way that the BBC and other media passed over the election of McGeough as AOH president in Tyrone.

Girdwood (2)

With the restoration of devolution, Margaret Ritchie MLA became Minister for Social Development on 8 May 2007.

There followed a period of stagnation in relation to Girdwood and that stagnation continued for almost three years, with no action, no progress and no cross-community dialogue as proposed in the original masterplan.  During that period DUP representatives met with Margaret Ritchie and we pointed out that the development of Girdwood could only succeed if the adjacent communities, such as Lower Oldpark, were also regenerated - a point that was made in the original masterplan.  Sadly that did not happen.  Girdwood was left for those three years as a derelict site and the neglect of the neighbouring communities continued.

Then suddenly she returned to the issue in February 2010 and that was in the context of her bid to become leader of the SDLP.  The party was holding its annual conference in Newcastle and top of the agenda was the election of a new leader.  Margaret Ritchie was one of the candidates but the outcome was uncertain and on the opening day of the conference, Friday 5 February, she announced:

This brings me to Girdwood Barracks site in North Belfast. Here we have a former military site beside Crumlin Road Gaol, some 27 acres, within a mile of Belfast City Hall. This area of North Belfast is deeply divided and it is difficult to find an agreed way forward for the site. But this part of North Belfast has acute levels of housing stress and more social housing is desperately needed there. I said last year, and I assured Alban Magennis, that I would not allow the lack of consensus on the site to stop development of much needed housing. So today I can announce to you Conference, that I have instructed the Housing Executive to appoint a Housing Association to commence the work to build at least 200 new social homes on the Girdwood site, starting immediately. I will continue to seek consensus on the overall plan for the site but the housing will now proceed. I also hope that housing on Girdwood will allow us to proceed with the long overdue redevelopment of the adjacent ‘Long Streets’ area of North Belfast.

Most observers saw this as cynical electioneering in her bid to become party leader - three years of stagnation, three years of inaction, and then make an announcement at the party conference where you are bidding to become party leader!

Margaret Ritchie was duly elected as leader and we cannot know what part her Girdwood announcement played in her success but we do know that she could not deliver on her announcement. 

In passing it is worth noting that Ritchie described the Girdwood site as 27 acres - so much for her knowledge of the site - it is actually 14 acres.  But then what would that matter to someone who is so cavalier with figures.  Moreover, if she was going to build 200 houses on 27 acres, was she then going to settle for half that number on a site that was really half that size?

At Stormont the following Tuesday, 9 February 2010, Margaret Ritchie had Oral Questions and her party colleague and North Belfast MLA Alban Maginness asked for an update on the regeneration of the Girdwood Barracks site 'including the provision of social housing'.  She answered:

The proposals for the Girdwood site are being developed as part of a wider regeneration master plan, which includes the former Crumlin Road jail. Following public consultations on the proposals contained in the draft master plan, a revised option has been developed to try to address a number of community concerns, including the provision of housing. I understand that the provision of housing on the Girdwood site remains contentious, but I am acutely aware of the housing crisis that exists in north Belfast. In the absence of other suitable development sites in the area, the Girdwood site presents an opportunity to provide housing. Therefore, it is my intention to bring forward the development of much needed housing on the site. Accordingly, I have instructed the Housing Executive to appoint a housing association to begin working on the development of 200 social houses on the site.

A Sinn Fein member, Caral Ni Chuilin,  asked about the procurement process with housing associations and Margaret Ritchie replied:

I have instructed the Housing Executive to begin immediate discussions with a housing association about the provision of houses on that site. As soon as I have further details, I will come back to Mr Maginness, Ms Ní Chuilín and the other MLAs in North Belfast on that.

That answer that Margaret Ritchie gave is significant in that it does not actually answer the question that was asked and we still do not know:
1. when Margaret Ritchie 'instructed the Housing Executive to appoint a housing association'
2. what instructions she gave to the Housing Executive
3. when she gave those instructions to the Housing Executive
4. what procurement process the Housing Executive used to select Apex Housing Association
5. how she was able to instruct them to undertake work that was clearly going to be nugatory

Margaret Ritchie simply tore up the cross-party vision for Girdwood and abandoned the commitment to cross-party agreement.  She went on a solo run that was doomed to failure and deepened the division over the site.  Personal ambitition triumphed over good relations.