Breakthrough in Northern bank job?

swiss

I pretty much agree with Sands assessment of the situation. However bitter experience has taught us that those who vote for Sinn Féin have a seemingly limitless capacity to ignore their blatant links to terrorism and criminality. I'm not sure why, perhaps it's a variant of Stockholm Syndrome. Their core support will remain undamaged. However, what will be interesting will be if those who voted for them last time who do not belong to their traditional core base will vote for them again this time around.

I really hope that the SDLP will take the initiative and use this to push their agenda amongst northern nationalists. As long as Sinn Féin retains a majority nationalist vote, they still have a democratic veil of legitimacy, which they consistently abuse with impunity.

AmenToThat

Sand wrote:

I think the most likely consequence of all this will be SF/IRA having to do a triple sumersault through burning hoops that Paisley and co will be juggling between them before a deal is close to being done again.

Unionists have always found it repellant that they would have to see serving and former terrorists running their government and having power over the PNSI, a force they trust far more than "community policing" - it runs a distant second in their estimation to solidly liberal democratic rule from London. The Irish government has vouched for them in the past saying that SF/IRA are honestly trying to move into constitutional democracy and need only be given a chance. They persuaded Trimble to give them that chance, and hes political history. Paisley was almost persuaded, but honestly, can anyone persuade him now to accept SF/IRA are truly pursuing a 100% democratic path with all that has transpired?

Talk about revisionist history!
Trimble only came on board after facing down massive opposition in his own party (while still marching hand in hand down the Garvaghy rd with Paisley may I add) while SF and the Irish government had already spent years trying to find a solution.
As for Paisley hes only come on board and decided the DUP are not totally against the whole logic of the good friday agreement in the last year and thats due to extreme pressure being applied by both the British and American governments.

If your gonna write a bedtime story at least have the decency to tell us whether your going to base it in fiction or fact!

AmenToThat

AmenToThat wrote:

Talk about revisionist history!
Trimble only came on board after facing down massive opposition in his own party (while still marching hand in hand down the Garvaghy rd with Paisley may I add) while SF and the Irish government had already spent years trying to find a solution.

Now now,you are criticising sands account with some poetic licence of your own history reading.
The hand in hand of Trimble down the Garvaghy Road was before he became leader iirc-he rode the coat tails of that episode to the top job.
His popularity within his party and the unionist family started to wane once he got involved in the process properly.

billy the squid

garda press conference at 1.30 outlining the sequence of events leading up to the money coming to light.

a man walked into a Garda station (think it said cork on the radio ) and handed over STG£175,000 and told them where he got it too.

looks like someone bit off more than they could chew.

pete

billy the squid wrote:

a man walked into a Garda station (think it said cork on the radio )

Cork is involved? Jesus.

kleefarr

pete wrote:

Cork is involved? Jesus.

Yeah. i heard Cork mentioned on the radio, regarding the robbery, as well.

cdebru

pete wrote:

Cork is involved? Jesus.

lol
i always tought that cork fella was dodgy

billy the squid

humour boards are that way

i think you know what i mean .just because I missed the exact name of the garda station when it was mentioned it on the radio does not change the facts of the matter..

Separately, it has been confirmed that a man walked into Anglesea Street Garda Station in Cork City last night and handed over £175,000 sterling which, he says, was given to him by a businessman at the centre of the garda investigation.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0218/cork.html

I guess there is nothing left for the IRA's apologists to do but belittle others. **** it the iIRA have been doing it for decades

cdebru

ah billy have a sense of humour it was funny

cdebru

the Irish Times had that story this morning apparently it was given to him to hide by a business associate who is at the centre of the money laundering allegation
when he heard the guy had been arrested he turned the money in presumably hoping he would hand it in before the knock came to the door looking for it

although they said it was 200,000 sterling

Villain

I think if the northern notes found were identified as those that were taken in the robbery we would have heard something by now. But the issue is if they are used northern notes there is no way of knowing if they were taken in teh robbery without a confession.

billy the squid

might want to remove that name for now raskolinkov

Villain

I think one of the papers published it today

billy the squid

i was just suggesting it because the radio stations are avoiding naming these people like the plague.

Villain

Yea I noticed that, it might be better to be safe raskolinkov and edit his name out.

cdebru

irish1 wrote:

I think if the northern notes found were identified as those that were taken in the robbery we would have heard something by now. But the issue is if they are used northern notes there is no way of knowing if they were taken in teh robbery without a confession.

i think it is unlikely that the notes would be the numbered new notes as most likely they would have been destroyed straight away so even if they are from the bank proving it will probably be impossible without a confession.

Raskolnikov

irish1 wrote:

Yea I noticed that, it might be better to be safe raskolinkov and edit his name out.

Why? It's on the front page of The Star.

Also, on British Times.

See Gav's Blog for breaking news.

Is it ok to mention names now?

billy the squid

both sites are in different duristictions to the one where the person you named will be charged.

think your allowed to name people once they have been charged. which has not happened yet.

flogen

Sand wrote:

I think the most likely consequence of all this will be SF/IRA having to do a triple sumersault through burning hoops that Paisley and co will be juggling between them before a deal is close to being done again.

Unionists have always found it repellant that they would have to see serving and former terrorists running their government and having power over the PNSI, a force they trust far more than "community policing" - it runs a distant second in their estimation to solidly liberal democratic rule from London. The Irish government has vouched for them in the past saying that SF/IRA are honestly trying to move into constitutional democracy and need only be given a chance. They persuaded Trimble to give them that chance, and hes political history. Paisley was almost persuaded, but honestly, can anyone persuade him now to accept SF/IRA are truly pursuing a 100% democratic path with all that has transpired?

Blair and Ahern have been made look like trusting fools, Trimble has been made look like a twit for even being caught in the same photograph as SF/IRA and Paisley has been shown to have preserved the concept of lawful government in Northern Ireland by resisting SF/IRA. I cant see his support base slipping because of that, whereas any Unionist leader preaching engagement with SF/IRA is going to have to be very, very persuasive and will need a lot of help from SF/IRA - real, meaningful commitments and actions to back them up. Engaging with the PNSI may be the start of that.

On the other hand, if the SDLP manage to regain the foreground as the party of lawful, respectable nationalism in Northern Ireland then the political situation could be eased greatly and Unionists might be persuaded that a man like Paisley might be needed to deal with SF/IRA ( fighting fire with fire and all that ) but perhaps a more moderate point of view on their side could bring about a closure to the peace proccess.

Hopefully the fallout from all this will be the reduction of the extremist parties stranglehold on the debate and the proccess, and the return of the moderates to the center state.

I agree pretty much with that assesment, however as Vincent Browne pointed out before, there are advantages to an agreement by Adams/Paisley.
Basically, if these two parties can agree on a deal, there are no extreme groups on either side that can kick up a fuss. If it's and SDLP/UUP or SDLP/DUP agreement then the IRA are going to moan, they'll want an agreement on their terms and no -one elses. This may be after a split in which Sinn Fein finally realise they need to break the link, but it's a fair point to make one way or the other. I'm sure the IRA will have very little support if these arrests come to something, and if an peaceful agreement is made that appeases the vast majority of the people in Ireland, but they will continue to act up where they can.

Now, on the other side of that, I have little doubt that even with full decomissioning and disbandment that members of the IRA will continue to partake in illegal activities, albeit under a different name.

flogen

ionapaul

I don't think the IRA's support will vanish should the arrests come to something - we are talking about a group and a constituency that does not balk at cold-blooded murder of innocents, men, women and children. The most we can hope for is that SF's growing 'fair-weather' supporters now will melt away, as their arguments 'sure who cares about up there anyhow, they got me pavement fixed, they did, and sure don't they hate the aul bin charges too!' are a tad more ludicrous than before. But as swiss noted, their core support will remain intact. Those voters could be shown a photo of Gerry himself clubbing a baby seal to death and still swear the sun rises and falls twixt his luxurious, rebellious beard...

daveirl

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daveirl

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m1ke

Once again for the umteenth time SF have been exposed as the liars and criminals that they are. I should emphasize that this is by no means a novel discovery. How many times do we have to show proof again and again that they are complete liars.... it becomes tedious. It's been a truely comical experience on these boards watching certain individuals give credence to statements from P Oniell.

For the most part we have a forgiving and positive electorate, who will in 24 months have collectively forgotten this, once again a sense of amnesia will set in.

If I was a political strategist for SF i'd advise them to to black out for the moment, let this business run its course and in the medium-long term future re-engage with the peace process and re-capture the electoral mandate by taking the all-important leadership role in the peace process.

If I was doing the same for the SDLP, i'd advise them to sieze the mantle of leader of the peace process from SF immediately.

However, this is a temporary set back for SF, because the promise of a peace process is all too attractive to the electorate, this will be forgiven and forgotten and SF's long term strategy can remain the same albeit being held up for a year or so.

mike65

Was astonished to hear on the lunchtime news that Adams is still suning his arse with his fraternal fiends in the Basque country you'd think he's caught the first Ryanair flight home. One of those arrested was described by the Commissioner as "dissident", and one or two patheticly deluded callers to Liveline grasped that term like a drowning man with some driftwood. "Its not our lot its naughty spliters" etc.

Also one of this countrys best known ex-trade union figures Phil Flynn is caught up in this farrago, he was once the SF vice president in the 80s and his company is Chesterton Finance linked to the robbery as two other directors Irene Johnstone and Ted Cunningham are being questioned. Flynn is a director of Daily Ireland newspaper and Bank Of Scotland (Ireland).

From the timesonline

Noel Conn, the Garda commissioner, told a press briefing that one suspect was a dissident Republican and the six others were believed to be members of the Provisional IRA.

Tom Hanlon, 38, an organizer for Sinn Fein, was arrested at his home in Passage West, County Cork.

Ted Cunningham and Irene Johnstone, a couple in their mid-50s who are co-directors of several small financial companes, were also being held.


"Police services from Northern Ireland are coming to Dublin today and we will be asking them to carry out an examination of the notes recovered.

"We will be discussing with them the amounts of money and the denominations recovered and hopefully something will come of that."

Police said they had not recovered any money from the home of Mr Hanlon, a decorator who ran for a seat in Irish parliament for Sinn Fein in 2002.

But they took 17 bags of money allegedly found hidden in the home of Mr Cunningham and Ms Johnstone in Farran, County Cork.

The couple are the founders of several financial companies, including Finance & Legal Clients Ltd and Chesterton Finance, which provide loans and other financial services and sponsor events such as horse races.

Mike.

Sleepy

Can't say it's a shock but I doubt anyone can say that really.

As far as I can see, the typical SF supporter either doesn't care about criminality, violence or thuggery or is too stupid to realise that they're involved in these activities so I don't think it'll massively affect their polling at the next elections. They may lose a few of the protest voters to Labour or the SWP here in the south but I can't see it happening in massively significant numbers.

As already pointed out, we're a nation of gullible idiots when it comes to our politicians. Half the country don't care what their elected representative gets up to once he/she takes care of some trivial issues in their locality. There's no other way to explain the likes of Lowry, Lawlor, Fahey etc.

In a sensible country, this would be the end of Sinn Fein, unfortunately, we don't live in one.

AmenToThat

m1ke wrote:

However, this is a temporary set back for SF, because the promise of a peace process is all too attractive to the electorate, this will be forgiven and forgotten and SF's long term strategy can remain the same albeit being held up for a year or so.

Seems to be the general feeling among SF people Iv spoken to today including one councillor. Keep the head down and let it play out, tried n trusted way fo dealing with things in Irish politics, just ask FF.

As for this 'demonizing of SF' I think it only adds to the appeal for some.
Well gauging by the comments from young people in my area just comming upto and around the legal age for voting they are starting to find the party more n more 'glamarous' for want over a better word!

Anyone who thinks this is the end of SF or Irish Republicanism I think will have be able to indulge in some short term pleasure out of all this but long term nothing will hold back the SF party.

cdebru

Sleepy wrote:

In a sensible country, this would be the end of Sinn Fein, unfortunately, we don't live in one.

or thankfully if you are a shinner

cdebru

AmenToThat wrote:

Seems to be the general feeling among SF people Iv spoken to today including one councillor. Keep the head down and let it play out, tried n trusted way fo dealing with things in Irish politics, just ask FF.

As for this 'demonizing of SF' I think it only adds to the appeal for some.
Well gauging by the comments from young people in my area just comming upto and around the legal age for voting they are starting to find the party more n more 'glamarous' for want over a better word!

Anyone who thinks this is the end of SF or Irish Republicanism I think will have be able to indulge in some short term pleasure out of all this but long term nothing will hold back the SF party.

i wouldn't get to carried away the murder of robert mccartnyt and if there was a repeat could well knock the stuffing out of SF

Raskolnikov

It'll be interesting to see the reaction of the Sinn Féin leadership to this if it turns out that Sinn Féin members were involved with the robbery.

FTA69

Many here are suggesting that Sinn Féin's support will evaoprate because of this, I doubt that the party's base will be eroded in any significant way to be honest. Do you think people in Finglas, Tallaght or Tralee who voted for Sinn Féin during the war years will balk in significant numbers over an as of yet unproven assumption?

The damage that will be done will affect Sinn Féin's ability to build more support among new areas such as Meath, Waterford and Wexford however and in the grand scheme of things that's just as bad. Nothing has been proven as of yet and it is far too early to jump to conclusions about this most serious matter. Nobody knows enough to comment on it yet really.