Put up or shut up

ionapaul

He is a hell of a talker, Gerry. I would HATE to have to debate him.

I'd love to see him, John Steward and Hitler go toe-2-toe over some trivial matter in structured debate - 'Should golf and country clubs be allowed to resist membership and previledges based on gender?'

stevenmu

The biggest problem I see with all this is that in 2 states where people are supposed to be deemed innocent untill proven guilty, not only are the respective governments, but also both police forces coming out and declaring a group guilty of a crime without furnishing any evidence whatsoever. People (the governments and police forces included) are arguing that they can't release evidence in case of prejudicing a trial but they've already done that by unequivocally declaring PIRA/SF guilty. They refuse to prosecute them and give them the benifit of a fair trial, to which everyone should be entitled, and yet are punishing them in a very real and tangible way all the same.

This is especially worrying as SF are a legitimate political party. If a government is allowed to strike down a party like this then what happens next ? Will we see Fine Gael being accused of collaberating with the Al Qaeda and the Labour party being declared a bunch of paedophiles ?

The "innocent untill proven guilty" legal system is there for very important reasons. Not only is it to prevent innocent people being locked up, but equally important it's to ensure that guilt is placed upon the real culprits. This whole situation is sending out a message that it's open season for crime in the North. Criminals the world over over must be looking at NI right now with bulging eyes, anyone can walk into a bank, rob it, and then sit back and watch PIRA get blamed for it.

Personally I would have never voted SF, but right now they look a hell of a lot better than a Justice Minister who doesn't know the meaning of the word justice, a Taoiseach who thinks his job is to rule the country and tell it what to believe rather than to serve the country, and a Tánaiste who's so worried about losing her coalition place to another party that she puts more time and effort into attacking them then doing her job !

:mad: :mad: :mad:

Villain

oscarBravo wrote:

That's not strictly the case. All that is needed for it to be true is that it be, um, true. For example: "I have dark hair." I haven't provided any proof for that statement. Does that mean it's not true?

Yes but you can PROOVE that by supplying a hair!!, until you supply that proof it can be questioned.

BTW The libel laws are such that you could lose a libel case but the accusation could still not be true, you don't have to prove what you wrote was true to win libel a case.

ionapaul

So to break it down, you're saying you're MORE likely to vote for SF since the Bank Robbery, rather than less likely?!!!!

Wow. Can someone suggest a viable alternative to democracy, PLEASE!

BuffyBot

Just because someone doesn't take a libel case, doesn't mean it's true

But it doesn't make them look entirely innocent either. If they've got nothing to hide...

Villain

Also did anyone watch the Prime Time special on the Northern Bank robbery??

I know it was only a recsonstruction but it didn't appear that hard to carry out, you just needed one person on the inside or former employee e.g. security guard or cleaner etc, yes cleaner, every area has to be cleaned!!, and then people to obduct the two employees and another few to drive the truck.

The hardest part of this robbery is the aftermath, i.e. laundering the money.

Any well organised criminal gang could have done this.

Paddyo

jman0 wrote:

What it means, is that Gerry's peers already don't believe the Taoiseach.

Your logic defies belief. What it means is that the court would have to be convinced that his peers did not already believe that he ws a member of the IRA for example.

Its not complicated - doesnt need to be twisted - plain and simple English.

toiletduck

irish1 wrote:

Any well organised criminal gang could have done this.

e.g. Sinn Fein/IRA

jman0

Paddyo wrote:

Your logic defies belief. What it means is that the court would have to be convinced that his peers did not already believe that he ws a member of the IRA for example.

Its not complicated - doesnt need to be twisted - plain and simple English.

O contraire, the allegation was that SF knew about and sanctioned the bank robbery, not if Gerry is or was a member of the IRA.
My comment stand.

Villain

toiletduck wrote:

e.g. Sinn Fein/IRA

SF are not an organised criminal gang, and if thats the only thing you have to contribute to the thread, may I suggest you don't bother posting.

Mods this kind of crap is becomming fat too common on this forum.

irish1

irish1 wrote:

Mods this kind of crap is becomming fat too common on this forum.

Yes maybe you should sue

But realistically-its a fair comment by toilet duck given that most of the Dáil believe it.
All you can do is to say you disagree and try to debunk it and by the looks of things you have your work cut out for you on that score as the guys wont sue.

Whatever about slandering a political party, people were named in a sunday newspaper and not even a hint of a legal challenge...

Paddyo

jman0 wrote:

O contraire, the allegation was that SF knew about and sanctioned the bank robbery, not if Gerry is or was a member of the IRA.
My comment stand.

You have lost me once again. I fail to see a justification in the above quote to make your comments stand up.

I seem to remember allegations that he ws a member of the army council - maybe not by the Taoiseach - but I never mentioned the Taoiseach.

'Member of the ira' was an example. You can equally apply my comments to the allegetions that SF knew of and sanctioned the bank robbery! Take your pick!

jman0

Earthman wrote:

Whatever about slandering a political party, people were named in a sunday newspaper and not even a hint of a legal challenge...

You know what, who cares if it is true? They obviously aren't going to arrest SF (gee could it be they don't actually have a case against them )
They aren't going to make SF an illegal organization, there's been zero talk of that.
They only result i can see, is that "they" (your obviously among them) seek to either attempt to curtail SF's electoral successes (which may or maynot work, it's definately not going to work in the north) or it's your goal to align yourselves with the UUP and DUP and help them with their obstructionist agenda and maybe give them a few ideas for new preconditions to sharing power with the majority of nationalists. Great stuff lads. Nice going. Partaking in the attempt to disenfranchise irish people, wow worthy goals there.

Paddyo

jman0 wrote:

Partaking in the attempt to disenfranchise irish people, wow worthy goals there.

Ok then. Lets all support Sinn Fein - because if we dont vote for them we are disinfranchising the Irish people. If we dont agree with what they say well I suppose we are also disinfranchising the Irish people.

Why shouldn't Bertie and other politicians criticise Sinn Fein. They are as legimate a target as any other political party.

jman0

jman0 wrote:

"they" (your obviously among them)

Actually no as I said to you before I'm not concerned with asking awkward questions,I'm more concerned with the replies.
Theres nothing obvious at all about my affiliations.

seek to either attempt to curtail SF's electoral successes

I dealt with that before.
It's More than 2 years from an election here-hardly a textbook timing of an attack designed for that purpose alone.

or it's your goal to align yourselves with the UUP and DUP and help them with their obstructionist agenda and maybe give them a few ideas for new preconditions to sharing power with the majority of nationalists. Great stuff lads. Nice going. Partaking in the attempt to disenfranchise irish people, wow worthy goals there.

People can and do vote for who they like.The northern mindset as regards voting preferences is way way removed from the southern one in that they are in the coal face of a warped sectarian society.


Down here of course people vote on policies and of course Crime prevention would be one of them.You should know the difference in mindset as you profess to be very knowledgeable on the North.
Faced for example with a choice between someone like boxcar willie McCrea on the ballot paper and an SF candidate with a bigger core vote than an SDLP one then the voters flock to the one that will beat the Boxcar.
The opposite was the case with say Seamus Mallon, he had the stronger core vote so he got the extra votes.
No doubt the SF party will mop up a lot of those when he retires.
But then its an unusual sectarian society up there-always was- unlike down here.

stevenmu

ionapaul wrote:

So to break it down, you're saying you're MORE likely to vote for SF since the Bank Robbery, rather than less likely?!!!!

I'll take it that was aimed at me, and yes at the end that is what I meant. At the moment they look to me like the least bad of a very bad bunch. I'm disgusted that a government which I voted for, and is supposed to work for me should simply declare someone guilty of a crime, not provide me any evidence at all and expect me to just sit there and believe it. The other parties are all being their usuall oppertunistic selves and jumping on the bandwagon in the hope of getting a few of the voters that SF will inevitably lose over this.

Look at it this way, if any evidence turns up that shows it wasn't PIRA/SF who carried out/sanctioned/were aware of the robbery then will the various parties be as vocal in there apologies to SF or will the evidence simply be covered up ? Keep in mind that the IRA did try to own up to the Gilford bombings and prove the Conlons, Maguires were innocent but nobody listened. To me this huge miscarriage of justice, against a whole political party not just a few individuals, is a far greater threat to democracy than the PIRA have ever been.

stevenmu

stevenmu wrote:

I'm disgusted that a government which I voted for, and is supposed to work for me should simply declare someone guilty of a crime, not provide me any evidence at all and expect me to just sit there and believe it.

Well you have 3 things to consider there:

(1) Ahern is privy to the investigation via the minister for justice.The investigation is on-going and like all investigations, releasing the casefile to you or anyone in the public domain would be madness-it would prejudice any criminal case.Thats an obvious observation.
(2) Ahern must have been confident enough based on what he has seen, to take this line.It is too risky and could all blow up in his face if it is wrong.
(3) Aherns convictions on the matter have made him mad enough to go public with his frustrations at the Republican leadership-He's on the record as saying he thinks they knew about the robbery plans while at the same time negotiating a peace deal with him.

Now question is, he being the Taoiseach and negotiating on behalf of the people of the Republic, should he have concluded a deal and yet ignore what his Garda chiefs were telling him was going on??
See his position? Theres no way he could have in his conscience allowed everything to go on as if nothing bad had happened and proceed to do a deal giving quasi acceptance to the criminal behaviour that he's convinced the people he was negotiating with were aware of.

Villain

Earthman wrote:

Yes maybe you should sue

But realistically-its a fair comment by toilet duck given that most of the Dáil believe it.
All you can do is to say you disagree and try to debunk it and by the looks of things you have your work cut out for you on that score as the guys wont sue.

Whatever about slandering a political party, people were named in a sunday newspaper and not even a hint of a legal challenge...

How can you say that most of the Dail believe that SF are a well organised criminal gang?? I Believe the motion they passed called for an end to all criminality within republicanism.

They did not all vote on a motion declaring SF a criminal gang, if I posted that FF are corrupt I would be asked for proof.

Just because the "Dogs on the street" are saying something doesn't mean it's true, Toiletduck came on this thread and made one post stating that SF were a criminal gang, I refute that claim and ask him to prove it or withdraw the remark.

I'm all for discussion and I have never shyed from a discussion here, I don't just jump into a thread and make statements without offering them as an opinion or providing proof. I don't think I'm asking for too much.

stevenmu

Earthman wrote:

Well you have 3 things to consider there:

(1) Ahern is privy to the investigation via the minister for justice.The investigation is on-going and like all investigations, releasing the casefile to you or anyone in the public domain would be madness-it would prejudice any criminal case.Thats an obvious observation.

Obviously he shouldn't release the case file, it would indeed prejudice any criminal case. What he has done though is worse. He has drawn or taken conclusions from the case file and made them public. He (and others) has already influenced any possible criminal trial, even if the defendants turn out to not be members of PIRA/SF. At least in a criminal trial the jury gets to hear the evidence against the defendants and the defendants have a right to respond to that evidence. Mary Harney said it best when she declared that "nobody on the island believed SF were unaware this was going on" (paraphrased). Any potential jury is already going to have their opinions going into a trial without even having the real reasons for those opinions.

Earthman wrote:

Now question is, he being the Taoiseach and negotiating on behalf of the people of the Republic, should he have concluded a deal and yet ignore what his Garda chiefs were telling him was going on??
See his position? Theres no way he could have in his conscience allowed everything to go on as if nothing bad had happened and proceed to do a deal giving quasi acceptance to the criminal behaviour that he's convinced the people he was negotiating with were aware of.

The negotiations were over at the time of the robbery and he is on the record since as saying that SF should still be included in any negotiations. Let's face it, there's no point having a peace process without involving the people behind the violence in the first place .

And regardless of whether or not he allowed it to influence his negotiation policy, neither himself, nor the Justice Minister, nor the Tánaiste, nor the Garda Commissioner should have publicly declared PIRA/SF guilty of a crime without some form of public trial.

stevenmu

stevenmu wrote:

What he has done though is worse. He has drawn or taken conclusions from the case file and made them public.

Well we haven't seen the file so therefore we cant say whether they were his own conclusions or that of the Gardaí.
We can say that he has put it on record though that the information in front of him points to the fact that the IRA were involved and that the republican leadership must have been aware of this.

He (and others) has already influenced any possible criminal trial, even if the defendants turn out to not be members of PIRA/SF. At least in a criminal trial the jury gets to hear the evidence against the defendants and the defendants have a right to respond to that evidence.

but no names have been mentioned in relation to who carried out the robbery-so whoever goes on trial, their trial would not be prejudiced.

Any potential jury is already going to have their opinions going into a trial without even having the real reasons for those opinions.

every jury would have an opinion on the IRA-thats immaterial it would have no effect on the judgement in a case where people are being tried.
The judgement would have to be based on the evidence against them....
and the evedence would have to stand up.

The negotiations were over at the time of the robbery

I think the problem from Aherns point of view is that this was being planned during the negotiations and that the Republican leadership knew of it in his view given the information he is privy to.
He regards it as a serious breach of faith.

Let's face it, there's no point having a peace process without involving the people behind the violence in the first place

Yes and the Taoiseach is on record that Republican involvement in criminality will have to be addressed as part of any deal.
The hugeness of this episode has made it impossible for him to fudge the issue.
*if* the IRA were involved in this, they would have had to have had the biggest ostridge neck ever to have been planning it while negotiating through SF their standing down.

And regardless of whether or not he allowed it to influence his negotiation policy, neither himself, nor the Justice Minister, nor the Tánaiste, nor the Garda Commissioner should have publicly declared PIRA/SF guilty of a crime without some form of public trial.

Well I have to take issue with you there.
Should they have actively encouraged an agreement when they are of the opinion based on the facts before them (to which they have privileged access) when they saw what they believed a huge breach of faith by republicans?
The public has the right to know why, the government have said what they have said and it has been explained by them.
They didnt take the decision lightly or otherwise they would have a lot of egg on their faces.
Should they have sat there tight lipped yet in the background tell SF that theres going to be no more agreement without an end to Republican criminality and leave the public in the dark as to what is go-ing on?

Doubtless they will tell you that doing so would have been to again fudge the issue of criminality and thats not something they want to do given they think its getting more Rife not less Rife.

oscarBravo

stevenmu wrote:

The "innocent untill proven guilty" legal system is there for very important reasons. Not only is it to prevent innocent people being locked up, but equally important it's to ensure that guilt is placed upon the real culprits. This whole situation is sending out a message that it's open season for crime in the North. Criminals the world over over must be looking at NI right now with bulging eyes, anyone can walk into a bank, rob it, and then sit back and watch PIRA get blamed for it.

This entire argument is predicated on the assumption that the IRA were not involved in the robbery. At the very least, that's as unsafe an assumption as that they were involved, and on balance of probability I'd say a great deal less safe.

Cork

oscarBravo wrote:

This entire argument is predicated on the assumption that the IRA were not involved in the robbery.

But I think that continued IRA criminality was also a factor.

“Thankfully the laws of this country don’t allow me to arrest anybody so I’m not going out to arrest Gerry Adams,” he said.

“He should rest assured about that.

“The one thing we don’t do in our kind of politics is go around picking up people off the streets, that’s other political people do that, but we don’t.

“Politicians don’t collect evidence, that’s why I was intrigued by what he said yesterday, but quite frankly, I don’t know what he was talking about.”

Bertie should clarify if any threats were made to him about the release of those who murdered Gerry McCabe.

This was been quiet rightly put of the table.

irish1

irish1 wrote:

How can you say that most of the Dail believe that SF are a well organised criminal gang?? I Believe the motion they passed called for an end to all criminality within republicanism.

uhm you are using too much poetic licence there in your paraphrasing of what I said and what the Dáil motion said amongst other things:

- notes with deep concern the recent comments by the Sinn Fein leadership regarding its interpretation of what constitutes criminality;
- views the recent statements issued by the Provisional IRA as a retrograde step and as an implicit threat to the Irish people;

- believes that a final, inclusive settlement must require that all paramilitary activity and criminality be permanently brought to an end; and

- calls on the republican movement to clearly demonstrate its commitment to full decommissioning and to ending all its criminal and paramilitary activity."

T'wud be interesting if you could find me an FF/FG/Labour member of the Dáil who when speaking of SF and the IRA suggested they werent the same.
I'm open to correction though can you find me one FF T.D that disagrees with Ahern or an FG td that disagree's with his analysis on this or a labour one?
When you've done that you might be going somewhere.

cdebru

true wrote:

In Ed Moloneys book on the IRA it stated Adams and Mitch. were on the army council.
Did they sue? No.

Who was brought over for secret peace talks to London in the seventies? Adams. Who was leader of the boys ( IRA) in Long Kesh in the early seventies .... guess who.

Why does Adams not sue Bertie or Blair or IMC now? He knows he is guilty. It was almost laughable to see his performance this evening.

the reason adams does not sue is because among his peers being on the army council of the IRA would not be detrimental to his character
therefore saying he is on the IRA army council in this particular case is not libel or slander nor would saying he had prior knowledge of a bank robbery

that does not mean that the statements are true nor does it mean they are untrue they are just not libel or slander

cdebru

Earthman wrote:

uhm you are using too much poetic licence there in your paraphrasing of what I said and what the Dáil motion said amongst other things:

T'wud be interesting if you could find me an FF/FG/Labour member of the Dáil who when speaking of SF and the IRA suggested they werent the same.
I'm open to correction though can you find me one FF T.D that disagrees with Ahern or an FG td that disagree's with his analysis on this or a labour one?
When you've done that you might be going somewhere.

I dont think ahern has ever said that sinn fein and the IRA are the same

he has said two sides of the one coin but he has never said that they are the same organisation

micheal mcdowell said i believe that 96% of sinn fein members are not members of the IRA

Stabshauptmann

irish1 wrote:

I wouldn't laugh at it because whether we like it or not they did acheive certain things

Thats what Im getting at and I hope you have enough sense of reasoning to either realize the conflict between your two stances;
one the one hand you say the idea of violence being used to achieve anything is laughable and on the other that it has in fact achieved "certain things" for the republican movement.
You cant have it both ways, and judging from your demeaner and consistant opinions it is obvious that you do believe that violence is a powerful tool.
That preventing a return to violence is a priority for all those in the peace process and thus, you must understand that Betie is willing to make compromises, ie to sacrifice belifs/opinions/face in order to appease the threateners.

So I put it to you, you were being dishonest when you said you find it laughable that a threat of violence would influence right minded people.

Stabshauptmann

oscarBravo wrote:

This entire argument is predicated on the assumption that the IRA were not involved in the robbery. At the very least, that's as unsafe an assumption as that they were involved, and on balance of probability I'd say a great deal less safe.

Innocent untill proven guilty except where we know who did it, we just cant prove it?
As I said to true re: inconsistancy, can I apply the same standards to Jean McConville, can I simply say she was an informer without any evidence simply because I know she was? Of course not. Neither can you say, oh well we know the IRA did it.

sceptre

Necromancer wrote:

As I said to true re: inconsistancy, can I apply the same standards to Jean McConville, can I simply say she was an informer without any evidence simply because I know she was? Of course not.

Well, I'd rather you didn't (and I'm obviously typing this as an ordinary user rather than a moderator) but then again, I haven't posted anything along the lines of "the dogs in the street know damn well who robbed the Northern Bank" either.

Having said that, there's obviously a crucial difference (and not because the prevailing rule of internationally recognised law would recognise one as a crime and the other as not (this isn't the discursive part btw)) in that the accusation of one would be as an individual and the other as an organisation (and obviously in our criminal system a loosely bound organisation won't be in the dock for any crime). Also pre-knowledge of a crime isn't the same thing as being part of a conspiracy to commit that crime but you all knew that already.

Villain

Earthman wrote:

T'wud be interesting if you could find me an FF/FG/Labour member of the Dáil who when speaking of SF and the IRA suggested they werent the same.
I'm open to correction though can you find me one FF T.D that disagrees with Ahern or an FG td that disagree's with his analysis on this or a labour one?
When you've done that you might be going somewhere.

Well how about we start with Bertie himself he did not say they are the same he said

I have stated on a number of occasions that the assessment of the Irish Government is that Sinn Féin and the IRA are opposite sides of the one coin.

(taken from http://www.gov.ie/debates-98/24feb98/sect1.htm)

Villain

Necromancer wrote:

Thats what Im getting at and I hope you have enough sense of reasoning to either realize the conflict between your two stances;
one the one hand you say the idea of violence being used to achieve anything is laughable and on the other that it has in fact achieved "certain things" for the republican movement.
You cant have it both ways, and judging from your demeaner and consistant opinions it is obvious that you do believe that violence is a powerful tool.
That preventing a return to violence is a priority for all those in the peace process and thus, you must understand that Betie is willing to make compromises, ie to sacrifice belifs/opinions/face in order to appease the threateners.

So I put it to you, you were being dishonest when you said you find it laughable that a threat of violence would influence right minded people.

I didn't say that

the idea of violence being used to achieve anything is laughable

What I ACTUALLY said was

i was laughing at the logic of people, that justice should be ignored because of fear!