{"id":3738,"date":"2012-08-18T15:12:06","date_gmt":"2012-08-18T15:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=3738"},"modified":"2021-03-07T11:42:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T11:42:47","slug":"reports-from-ireland-north-and-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/18\/reports-from-ireland-north-and-south\/","title":{"rendered":"Reports From Ireland – North And South"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below can be found two very interesting articles from Socialist Democracy (Ireland) forcussing on particular issues in Ireland. The first \u00a0highlights the continued \u00a0the sectarian nature of the post-Good Friday state in the North, and the second, the continued lowering of working class consciousness in the South, under the debilitating social partnership of state, big business and the trade union leaders.<\/p>\n\n

GIRDWOOD PLAN – SECTARIANISM TRUMPS SOCIAL NEED<\/h2>\n

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\nThe announcement of a plan for the development of the former Girdwood army barracks site in north Belfast was presented by local parties as a major breakthrough in the efforts to regenerate an area blighted by sectarian divisions and social deprivation.\u00a0 However, when we examine that plan in greater detail, and look beyond the headline statements and carefully choreographed photo opportunities, we find that it actually reinforces the division and deprivation that it purports to be tackling.<\/p>\n

A statement from the Dept. for Social Development, which accompanied the unveiling of the Girdwood plan, claimed that it would deliver \u201cshared development opportunities\u201d to support social, sports, economic and residential development.\u00a0 However, the reference to housing was extremely vague.\u00a0 The DUP minister, Nelson McCausland, refused to say how many houses would be built.\u00a0\u00a0 A map of the proposed development shows only a small proportion of the site being given over to residential use – accommodating as few as one hundred houses.\u00a0 The residential space is also divided into two separate zones – one near the Antrim Road which appears likely to attract nationalist residents, another on Clifton Park Avenue, just outside the Girdwood perimeter, which seems more oriented towards unionists.\u00a0 Located between these two residential zones is the so-called \u201ccommunity hub\u201d which will encompass sports facilities and commercial premises.\u00a0 This is supposed to be a shared facility but given the segregated nature of the housing on the site is more likely to become a barrier or no man\u2019s land.<\/p>\n

The plan for Girdwood does nothing to address social deprivation in north Belfast, particularly its chronic housing problem.\u00a0 There are currently 2,400 people on the social housing waiting list for that district.\u00a0 And while the residential development of the Girdwood site would not have solved this problem, its capacity to accommodate up to 400 houses would have made a\u00a0 significant impact.<\/p>\n

The flaws in the Girdwood plan are not just a case of poor design.\u00a0\u00a0 It is the outcome of a process in which social needs are trumped by the imperatives of sectarianism.\u00a0 In the case of Girdwood this has been running for some time.\u00a0\u00a0 The site was transferred to the Dept. for\u00a0Social Development six years ago and over that period there have been various plans for its development.\u00a0 Last year, the then Social Development Minister Alex Attwood of the SDLP unveiled plans for the building of 200 homes.\u00a0 This was bitterly opposed by the DUP who denounced it as \u201cdeeply destabilising\u201d.\u00a0 When the DUP’s Nelson McCausland came in and took over the department he stopped it from going ahead.\u00a0 Though it wasn\u2019t stated explicitly the obvious concern of the DUP was that any new housing on the site would be occupied by nationalists.\u00a0 And if housing were allocated on the basis of need this would certainly be the case.\u00a0 Current waiting lists for north Belfast show that 74% of social housing tenants are from a Catholic background while 26% are Protestant.\u00a0\u00a0 There are also significantly more Catholics than Protestants in the area who have been assessed as in urgent need of housing. The Housing Executive has estimated that 95% of new build housing in north Belfast is\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 required by Catholics.\u00a0 This is not to say that there are no housing needs in Protestant areas, but those needs are not as acute and relate more to maintenance of existing properties rather than to new build.<\/p>\n

In the new plan for Girdwood\u00a0 the principal of allocating housing on the basis of objective need, which has come to be known as the \u201cpoints system\u201d, has been set aside in order to reserve housing for one particular community even where no such need or demand exists.\u00a0 In order to conform to this communal imperative the Housing Executive has been sending out leaflets specifically targeted at Protestants.\u00a0\u00a0 This is a long way from the original remit of the Executive whose establishment in the early 1970\u2019s was seen as an advance for civil rights.<\/p>\n

The irony is that such overtly sectarian polices are being promoted under the banner of \u201ca shared future\u201d.\u00a0 While this may sound progressive it has nothing to do with integration or equality.\u00a0 Indeed, it has more in common with the concept of \u201cgroup rights\u201d in apartheid South Africa or that of \u201cseparate but equal\u201d in the southern states of the US during the period of the Jim Crow Laws.\u00a0\u00a0 It is also worth noting that the Girdwood plan is backed and partly funded by the EU.\u00a0 This, coming so soon after the announcement of\u00a0 \u20ac1 million in EU funding for the Orange Order,\u00a0 should dispel any illusion that Europe is going to liberalise the north of Ireland.<\/p>\n

The Girdwood plan and the direction of the Dept. of Social Development under the DUP, points to the return of a period when housing policy was used by unionists to maintain control over \u201ctheir\u201d areas.\u00a0 The difference is that now it has the endorsement of nationalist\u00a0 parties.\u00a0 Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly defended his party’s role in agreeing the plan to redevelop arguing that: \u201cWe now have a masterplan which is workable\u201d. However, it is only \u201cworkable\u201d because Sinn Fein have capitulated to the DUP\u2019s demands, gaining in return funds to increase their own patronage in the nationalist areas of housing in north Belfast.\u00a0 Also one should not forget the dogs that don\u2019t bark \u2013 the majority of civic society and many of the trade unions remain obstinately silent in the face of this rampant sectarianism. In this the Girdwood plan is reflective of the wider political settlement in the north in which sectarianism has triumphed over democratic rights.<\/p>\n

Update<\/h3>\n

Since the unveiling of the Girdwood plan more information has made public which shows the degree to which the policy of the Housing Executive is being made to fit a DUP agenda.\u00a0 In relation to the Girdwood site the investigative website The Detail has obtained documentation showing that McCausland held \u201cdiscussions\u201d with the Housing Executive to ensure that four loyalist areas in north Belfast were included in a new build scheme despite having no sign of\u00a0 significant homelessness. As well as this intervention in policy there has also been what could be seen as intimidation. In February the Dept. of Social Development, in response to questions form a DUP MLA, published information on the community background of Housing Executive staff working in north Belfast. Less than a week later a car belonging to an employee was destroyed after it was set on fire by masked youths as it was parked outside the agency\u2019s district office in Newtownabbey.\u00a0 It has now been revealed that McCausland rejected advice from his own officials against publishing this information.\u00a0 In many ways these methods are an updated version of the old Paisleyite rabble rousing tactics used by unionists to whip up sectarian sentiment then dissociate themselves from any loyalist violence that\u00a0 ensued.\u00a0 The fact that the DUP are still engaged in such tactics shows the degree to which it remains a hard-core sectarian party.\u00a0 With the establishment of the new regime at Stormont it has the opportunity to put its sectarianism into practice.<\/p>\n

Socialist Democracy (Ireland) July\/Aug bulletin Girdwood Plan \u2013 sectarianism trumps social need<\/a><\/p>\n

also see Northern Ireland – Education Case Study Illustrates Sectarian Reality<\/em> at:- Northern Ireland \u2013 Education Case Study Illustrates Sectarian Reality<\/a><\/p>\n\n

COUNTY CAVAN: IRELAND IN MICROCOSM<\/h2>\n

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\nThe recent activities of the Quinn[1]<\/sup><\/a>In 2008 Sean Quinn, head of the County Cavan based Quinn Group (builders, hotel owners and manufacturer of glass and plastics), was declared bankrupt. In 2008 he had been cited as the richest man in Ireland.\u00a0 Originally from a small farmer background in County Fermanagh in the North, and prominent in the Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA), Quinn enjoyed a meteoric rise under Ireland\u2019s neo-liberal Celtic Tiger economy. His business practices would not have borne much close scrutiny but who cared in Irish political circles – \u00a0at least until the Crash, which brought Ireland\u2019s capitalist speculative banking and building boom to a dramatic climax.<\/span><\/span>