23/02/2012 Hearts and Minds

Hello and welcome to Hearts and Minds. Coming up on this week's

programme: Cleaning up its act, the UDA in

North Belfast claims its left wrongdoing behind and embraced

social responsibility. Why the Catholic grammars can now

ignore the Church on selection. And measuring myth against fact in

the search for truth about the The supergrass trial which ended

this week focused attention on North Belfast, which has been one

of the strongholds of loyalist paramilitaries. Now though the UDA

in that area says it has changed its spots, abandoned crime, and is

sitting at what it calls a table of accountability, with the police,

the churches and community organisations. John Howcroft a

former UDA prisoner is a spokesman for the group. Welcome to the

programme. You have launched a charm offensive with booklets

detailing changes to murals in north Belfast. Have you not jumped

the gun? The man in charge of the UDA in North Belfast says there are

people involved in crime in the organisation and if you talk to the

police, they will tell thaw the UDA is up to its neck in crime? There

is various issues. I wouldn't describe it as a charm offensive

because it goes deeper and more inherent. We have a launch of a

booklet today and I am talking as the community did of a reimaging

process from Tiger's Bay, You areer Ardoyne and -- upper Ardoyne and

Ballysillan. Now to be fair, there is a quote from Percy Windham Lewis,

if you want to know what is happening at any given moment in

time then art is a truer guide than politics and in that context, if

you look at what is happening, the massive change that is happening,

there has been physical change there with murials being removed

and they have been replaced with new community generated images.

The UDA is still involved in crime in the area? Well, it has been

pointed out if anybody is involved in crime in them areas, there is a

table of accountability. Everybody sits together at the table of

accountability where the police and Belfast City Council and if anybody

is involved in them things... John Bunting the self-styled

brigadier said there is still people involved in crime?

actually says there maybe people involved in crime.

The police will tell you that the UDA is involved in all sorts of

crime. It would be up to the police to deal with crime.

The police will tell the BBC, the police will tell anyone, that the

UDA is still involved in crime in North Belfast. All I can speak for

is North Belfast. There is a table of accountability and nothing about

extortion or anything came to the table. We are working with

businesses in that area at a community level. The Cityside

Complex has over 20 businesses. Over three years ago, they were

talking about forced closure. They are sitting at a table to address

the issues. These are businesses that the UDA

was extorting money from? That happened years ago.

Five years ago it was happening? Absolutely.

That's not ancient history? hasn't been occurring for the last

four years. By what right does the UDA sit at

this table of accountability? Nobody voted for you, you are self-

styled ash tors of the community. Who needs you? It is not a case of

the UDA sitting at table of accountability, but the UDA are

accountable at that table. Representatives of community groups,

representative churches, police and other agencies, all them sit at

that table. What right does the UDA have a seat

at that table? There has to be accountability. We are on a

trasitional jus -- transitional justice programme. We have a new

police service. We have DPPs, devolution of policing and criminal

justice, they have to reach down to communities. Communities are

creating a table of accountability to make them processes real.

Why doesn't the UDA just go away? Well, that's a question for that

organisation. You are close to the thinking of the UDA? Absolutely.

Why don't they pack up their tents and go away? Everything is a

process. There is a process on the the Good Friday Agreement, called

DDR, decommissioning, demobilisation, it has begun. Not

just the change, demobilise or demilitarise, we are demilitarising

mind sets. The best way to that is disband.

Who needs a brigadier in North Belfast? Who needs the organisation

of the UDA which was terrorising that community by its own

admission? To be fair, there has been nothing

happened in North Belfast in the last number of years and if you

have got evidence of anything happening there, I would like you

to present it to the police. IMC gave it a few years ago?

IMC actually came out, Noel. There was a community IMC set-up. It

included politicians from the Republican community, community

workers from there, loyalist politicians, unionist politicians

and members of churches, everybody across North Belfast and the

community MC told the MC what was happening on the ground and it

wasn't an accurate assessment. Let's accept your argument that

there is nothing going on at the moment. If that's the case why is

there the need for an organisation called the UDA? Well, that's a

matter for debate within loyalism. Why would we need one at all?

we are trying to bring things back. See one of the mottoes in loyalism

is law before balance. That is an important motto.

One which they ignored for 40 years? Regardless of that, it is an

important motto. It is about bringing things back to that. That

table accountability that you speak of is trying to bring things back

to that, to change them communities. That process will take a period of

time. That's part of a local programme that is changing them

communities and that organisation. So is the aim of the UDA to see

itself go out of existence? Obviously there needs to be some

end game, but how long is a piece of string, Noel? These processes

take time. You have to bring a lot of people along on a journey with

you. There is lots of sensitivities involved in the processes. There is

a lot of people living with a lot of traumas. A lot of people would

say they haven't seen the benefits of the peace process. We need...

immediate disappearance? We we need periods of massive change.

John Howcroft, thank you. If at any time during the abuse of

innocents the institutional Catholic Church hadn't thought

first about its own prestige, you could almost feel sorry for the

northern bishops. Even for Cardinal Brady, the wounded healer wrapped

in such denial. Now the pillars of his church are, so to speak,

blowing smoke in his eyes. Once again this week he tried to sway

grammar schools, sounding sharper than before about those for whom

selection is like holy writ. Now some take children with low grades

to keep their numbers up, becoming all-ability schools "by stealth",

said the cardinal, leaving secondary schools to "bear all the

negative consequences of educational change." He talked of

collective need, sharing of resources. The jewel of Belfast's

convent schools swiftly rubbished him. St Dominic's won't do what the

church says. When the prelates wielding the old crooked staffs

have been shrunk by scandal, the belt of a crozier holds no terror.

Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor Donal McKeown, alongside the

cardinal, was confident that schools wouldn't defy the church.

Though some, quote, "would be harder nuts to crack" than others.

There's been no rush to obey, but the hard nuts are lining out. Next

to say they'd stick with selection were St Louis, Kilkeel, my own old

school long ago and Lumen Christi, Light of Christ, Derry's beacon for

the affluent, with only seven per cent on its rolls entitled to free

school dinners. Here's the church being progressive. And this past

three years they're laughed at by principals and governors, the

sector beyond the clergy most closely identified down the ages

with conservatism, holding the line. When the 11-plus got its fail mark

from Education Minister, Martin McGuinness Catholic grammars didn't

start shouting. They left that to the mouthpieces of the big state

grammars, who scarcely tried to deny that the selective system is

bad to secondary schools. There's endless self-congratulation about

Northern Ireland's A-level results, little concern that we also have

the highest proportion in the UK of school leavers with no

qualifications. Study after study shows that boys from the poorest

Protestant districts get least from education, though the likes of the

Bogside and New Lodge do poorly too. But unionist politicians treat the

issue as though it's simply Sinn Fein attacking Protestant icons -

nothing to do with falling rolls, modernising, never mind fairness.

Gerry Fitt famously said as the SDLP took off that he was up to his

waistcoat in "expletive deleted" teachers. Sinn Fein made the public

running. The older party already opposed judging the ability of 11-

year-olds. Teachers know the damage that's done. The bishops'

conversion follows decades of prizing grammars, source of

upwardly mobile Catholics, who've come into their own and want more

still for their grandchildren. It's a bad time for their church, shadow

of its former self, to take them on. Especially not with appeals for

unselfishness and sharing. thoughts of Fionnuala O'Connor.

With Europe's eyes glued to the unravelling of the Greek euro ci

circumstances Ireland's financial woes may have slipped out of the

headlines, but things are finely balanced. Yesterday, was a case in

point with the Government's announcement of the sale of 3

billion euro of State assets coinciding with news of new jobs

On a wet morning in February, it is easy to focus on the neglect tich.

It is true in Dublin, there are signs this is not the best of times.

It seems, that's not the whole story. I have been hearing a tale

of two economies. This week, we have the news that

the US online payments firm, PayPal is to create 1,000 new jobs in

Dundalk. The result of this is an example of

confidence in our country and opportunity and hope being

expressed for so many young people. While Europe looked on enviously as

Ireland hosted the Vice President of China, the world's largest

economy for a three-day trade visit. The people living in the Republic

paint a different picture. I live in Donegal, five miles from the

Strabane border, and industry, no, there is no jobs for the young

people in Donegal. There is a lot of people closing down. There is no

industry coming. A lot of me friends are moving away,

you know. Everyone that's graduating in college and stuff.

There is not much for them to do here.

The younger people with mortgages and with the day-to-day cost of

living, they are finding it difficult and especially bringing

up a family. All the bars, restaurants, small

businesses, are suffering terribly. It is It is almost like there is

two economies. One of them is flying, strange as it may seem,

there is an export economy, a nulty -- multinational based economy.

That gives us things like the PayPal announcement and that

economy is this riving, the domestic economy, however, is still

pretty much in the dom the doldrums. Growth is flat lining and

contracting last year and that tends to be the economy that most

people are feeling. And that economy is also generating

its own figures. There is almost 1% more people unemployed than this

time time last yearment we have one of the fifth highest rates of

suicides across Europe. People between 18 and 24 which is an

indication of how much people are struggling and since 2008, to 2011,

almost 90,000 people, Irish people have emigrated.

It was true that of the people we spoke to, only one felt that life

in Ireland was improving. I am an architect and architects

have been badly hit. Even in the construction sector, there is the

beginnings of growth. It will be probably longer for construction

because it was so badly hit, but the export sector is pulling the

whole country along. The European leaders are focusing

on the positive in Ireland because they like to see it as an example

of austerity measures working. So has the bail out been a success?

That's the $6 million question. In some respects, it is. In other

respects, it is simply too early to tell. If there is to be a recovery

and that will take place over four or five years then this is what the

early stages of it look like. On the other hand an open export based

economy like like Ireland is susceptible to international, the

winds of international trade and that's why an emerging slowdown in

Europe is worrying news for Ireland. Europe needs one of its bail outs

to be a success. Ireland is currently the best hope for that.

Of course, this isn't just about the Republic. Economists on our

side of the border are watching It is highly significant for us in

Northern Ireland in the sense that the two main external engines, the

market pulling the economy along, are the great British market, and

then secondly the Irish Republic market. The Republic of Ireland is

the destination, in terms of exports, for around 8% of our

manufacturing output east year. Be used to be 10 %, so you can see

there is a decline, but it is still the best export market for the

manufacturing sector. Food construction, parts of tourism,

they are all very much linked into the Irish Republic economy.

return for underwriting a new bail- out fund, German chancellor Angela

Merkel wants all Eurozone states to promise to be more careful with

budgets and the future. 25 states, including Ireland, have signed up

to the German inspired physical pack. The UK has not. But in the

republic, that could mean another referendum. -- fiscal pact. There

is an obligation to have other referendums in Europe, but they are

never on that, it is something different usually. This time it

will be a referendum on war austerity or property taxes, septic

tank charges. If there is to be a referendum, and it is voted down,

that has huge implications not just for the future of the entire bail-

out treaty but for Ireland's place in the euro. That is an enormous

issue and will be very much alive for the next few months.

Whataboutery has long been a favourite pastime in this part of

the world. Myth has sustained prejudice and misunderstanding,

feeding conflict to the advantage of no-one. But occasionally it's

useful to measure myth against fact, and that's what the Brian Walker

claims he's done in his latest political history, sub-titled from

Partition to Peace. Professor Walker is here along with the

commentator Eammon McCann. Welcome to both of you. If you are a

Catholic, you cannot get a job in Derry Goran house. It is quite

wrong to say Catholics could not get jobs. The north-west had seen a

tremendous input of jobs during the 1950s. The second thing is about

housing. Rather than there being no housing for Catholics in Derry in

the 1960s there had been a vast programme. My third point is there

was a need for a civil rights movement. That might sound

contradictory, but let me explain. In the case of housing, the Cameron

Commission said there had been a vast programme of housing. And what

he means is that from 1945 until 1960, a large number of houses were

built, but what then happened was in the early 1960s this stops. The

Unionist Council stops it. Their population rise of 2000 between

1961 and none would... So there was discrimination? It is not a myth.

Let me explain. There has been a consider revision of housing. When

that stopped, that created the crowds is, not because they could

aggregate them. The growth was stopped and then that made the

crisis. Eamonn McCann, is that your view? By wouldn't argue about the

statistics, but they are not everything when it comes to

politics and social movements. It is true that in the aftermath of

the Second World War quite a large number of houses were built in

Derry. And there was one estate which was the obvious example which

took the overspill. But it was also the case, and statistics can be so

deceptive, that there were still a desperate need from Catholic

working-class people. Certainly when I was living, you had multiple

occupation, and part of the reason for this was even if you do build

houses, in Derry, and no doubt elsewhere, you had a rapid growth

of a population. 1965, up to 1967, 40 -- or 2% of the population was

under 15. -- 40 %. It was Britain in the mid- 19th century is what it

resembled, not the 20th century. Even though they had built a lot of

houses in one side there remained desperate housing conditions and

people coming on stream, as it were, and no sign of a solution in sight.

That was the context in which the statistics have to be understood.

would refer a month to the auto biography of the singer Dana, she

moved into a new house in the 1950s, and then there is a slum clearance,

and she moves into a new house in 1967. But I accept the point from a

month. There is a need for more housing, but I make the point there

is such turmoil is that people expected it, and they were right to

expect it, but there were vast number of new houses that stopped

and that is what created the crisis. It is not true to say that people

we used to getting houses. You can take any example you want, and

there was Rosemary Brown who lived across the street, and her family

moved twice, that is fine. But it is true there were people stuck

there for literally generations. I don't at any time recommend an

unhappy childhood, but my parents were on a housing waiting list for

22 years. When my older sister turned up, they had been waiting

for a child -- for a house until she was grown-up. The professor

quotes a statistic that of of the housing stock, about a third was

inhabited by Catholics, which is about the right proportion at the

time. I am talking about all over Northern Ireland. In Derry there

was a substantial division of housing in my opinion. Moving on to

the second myth, that is the idea that there was little industrial

development in Derry and the Unionist government staff the area

of jobs. That is completely untrue. I would argue that the Brogborough

government was more successful than the power-sharing government has

been. My evidence for this is that in the 1950s the government brings

in a outside firms, one firm that employs 2000 men and brings in

another firm, and I got reports of how successful they were, but the

problem is in 1966 D S R Paul out. And that creates a problem. You

have a crisis of new problems, created by the circumstances. That

leaves the Auld promise of Gerry Marnie. -- problem of

gerrymandering. I do not know who the professor is arguing against,

because the expansion of jobs, and the company is coming in, all of

those factories came to replace indigenous industry. So low it is

not the unions government staff in the north-west? In so far as that

was true, it is a minor part of the tree. Not only do I excepted, I was

writing about this in the 1970s and charted all of this. The problem

with jobs and the civil rights movement is mainly to do with

public sector employment, and specifically employment by the

local council. I think it is mentioned in your book, Professor,

that only one in 10 houses were occupied by Catholics. And in 1968

when the problems erupted, there was not one single Catholic working

in dairy town hall. That was a source of intense anger and

frustration -- dairy town hall. That does not mean there would

economic problems, of course there were, but that was discussed and

factored in at the time by people like myself. So the situation is

not as simple as people on all sides might make it be. It is never

black and white, it is all great. Gerrymandering, why is that a myth?

That is not a myth. Gerrymandering is something I've always been

opposed to, but as a historian I have to understand it. Why did

unions in Derry support this? The reasons are is because the North

and South dimension is important and people in Derry were conscious

of what was happening in the rest of Ireland. It was a very specific

case with the Protestants in Derry, they are next to Donegal, and what

they see their is 5,000 Protestants signing a petition to the British

government to have the border region or -- redrawn bacon rejoin

Ireland, it is so repressive. In 1961, there is the arch

gerrymandering man, Neil Blayney, he gerrymander as Donegal and 5,000

electors were moved in gerrymandering. Unionists see it

happening across the board and they are not likely to give in to

commands or desire for more democracy when they see this. I am

glad to say the situation has changed, but I want to point this

out. Let a man had his say first. They were both at it. -- let a

month. I don't think anybody ever denied this but the South of

Ireland was the confessional part of the state and one of the great

heroes for my father was Brown, the man he was driven from office in

the 50s by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. We were well aware of

that. There is nothing new as far as I'm concerned. Myths on the

Unionist side, the feeling that the mass was never interested in closer

co-operation with Northern Ireland, and that even O'Neill was not

interested. You dismiss that? dismiss that. There is a mistaken

Unionist view of the 1960s and an aggressive nationalism, and they

were faced with this. They have the wrong end of the stick. Lomas comes

to power in 1959, and one of the first things he does is to say that

from now on the government department will stop talking about

the six counties, it is Northern Ireland. He then strikes up a

better relationship with the North and in 1965, he comes north, and

Ian Paisley opposes that. But what he does not realise is the

nationalists were also shocked. So Eddie McAteer goes down to complain

to Dublin, and the mass tells him to catch himself on. As far as he's

concerned the Catholics are as bad as the Protestant. Intractable as

the world -- used the word. In 1966, the Unionists see the celebrations

as a threat, but the mass was -- Lomas was in control and direct the

way they will go and says the emphasis will not be on the past or

the six counties, it will be on the future. Again, it is nationalists

moving in this. There have been demonstrations in the North in 1967,

but in the south they have been ignored, and the final, crucial

thing is, Lomas, he joins the committee to look at the

constitution, and they recommend that article 3 should be thrown out

and a new clause Broughton, similar to the Good Friday agreement, so

that was on offer 30 years ago. Unionists misunderstand what was

happening. Eamonn McCann, when you read the books, you wonder how

things could have been with a slightly different coming-together

of events and personalities. Absolutely. Things didn't have to

work out as they did, or at all. There were other potentialities in

the situation. When I speak of somebody arguing against

nationalism, we were explosive -- explicit about this. This is not

something claimed in retrospect. The civil rights movement and the

mobilisation behind it had not been on a basis of class, not on the

basis of equalising the two communities, then there was

enormous potential. The coming of Lomas in all of the developments in

the South was about economics. He didn't wake up and say let's be

nice to the north, he woke up and said that the small state in the

south could not exist in isolation, so they had to be a reproach month

with Britain which had implications with the North. We could talk all

night, gentlemen. And that's where we must leave it this time round.

We'll do it again next week at the usual times. I hope you'll join me.

Goodbye. What and why? Invisible. This week it's all about money.

Ulster Bank are now the Glasgow Rangers of banking and they have

For -- the millions on a failed Supergrass trial. Even though they

couldn't prove against the defendants, the barristers made a

killing. And they spent 100 million on a golf course. Environmentalists

say it is a threat to the giant's Causeway, it is miles away. Even