LAST week Mr Justice Humphreys, sitting in the High Court in Belfast, in his summary of judgement ordered the "disapplication of provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in Northern Ireland" and declared others to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The judge found that several elements of the Act cause a “significant” diminution of the rights enjoyed by asylum seekers residing in the North under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He said: “Each of the statutory provisions under consideration infringes the protection afforded to RSE (Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity) in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.”
As well as ruling that the sections of the Act that were the subject of the legal challenges should be disapplied in the North, he also declared aspects of the Act incompatible with the ECHR.
The Illegal Migrants Act permits the British government to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda. The British Prime Minster has dismissed the High Court ruling and he has promised to appeal it. Justice Humphreys said that the law also breaches the Windsor Framework. This is dismissed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Mr Sunak also said that this court decision will not change his government’s plan to deport people to Rwanda.
So that’s how much Mr Sunak or his government care for or respect people or institutions in this part of Ireland. Or any part of Ireland. He doesn’t give a tuppenny damn about us. Or about the human beings he is going to deport to Africa. The Belfast Court judgement led to calls for the border to be closed. These came from predictable sources from within unionism and from within Fianna Fáil. The reality is that partition created and sustains two political systems in Ireland. Good work has been done since the Good Friday Agreement to erase some of these and to harmonise others. That’s clearly part of the answer to this particular part of the illegal migrant question. It needs an all Ireland – a single island approach. That makes sense.
There can be no question of an Irish government taking any other approach. It has made a big enough mess of dealing with this issue without compounding the problems involved by creating controls on the border. These need to be in place at points of entry to Ireland on both parts of the island. Our new Taoiseach needs to make that clear to Mr Sunak.
Simon Harris knows that the Tories are oblivious to Irish concerns. Or he should know. He needs to act accordingly. In the Irish national interest. That includes in the interests of migrants and the rest of us.
Tips for aging
I intend to include occasional Tips For The Aging in this column. If I can remember to do so. This one comes from Doctor Tom.
If you get a mobile phone hang on to your land line. It will be very useful helping you to find where you left your mobile one.
The second Nakba
TWO small olive trees were planted in the grounds of the Rodaí McCorlaí Club in West Belfast last Saturday evening. One was in remembrance of the more than 15,000 children killed so far by Israel in its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. The second was to mark the Nakba – the Catastrophe – which saw the forcible expulsion of three quarters of a million Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces in 1948. 15,000 Palestinians were killed on that occasion and over 500 villages were ethnically cleansed.
In the intervening 76 years tens of thousands more Palestinians have been forced from their homes. For many, the current assault by Israel on Gaza is the second Nakba. Two million Palestinians have been forced from their homes more than once in the past seven months as they have fled the murder by Israel of almost 40,000 civilians across the entire Gaza strip.
RODDY'S REMEMBRANCE: Two olive trees were planted to commemorate the Nakba by Dr Omar Al Shaqaqi
In the past week 600,000 Palestinians have been fleeing Rafah. Imagine the population of Belfast have to flee on foot and carrying a minimum of their belongings on their backs.
Pat Sheehan reminded the Rodaí’s audience of much of this when he spoke. All of us were moved by the quietly spoken words of Dr. Omar Al Shaqaqi, who listed the dozens of his family members who have been killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza since October.
On May 15 – international Nakba day – in a wonderful display of solidarity, a sell-out crowd in Dalymount Park in Dublin watched a Bohemians women’s soccer team play the Palestine women’s team's first-ever game in Europe. Among those watching this historic game was Uachtarán na hÉireann Michael D. Higgins and Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald. The Palestinians won the friendly by 2-1.
The thousands in attendance waved Palestinian flags and messages of solidarity and wore the traditional Palestinian keffiyehs. Mary Black sang ‘No Frontiers’ and afterward the Bohemians captain spoke of the great solidarity between the Irish and the Palestinians. She said: "We're Irish, the solidarity is there. The people wanted the girls to get the win. And absolutely, we were clapping for them ourselves."
If you want to know more about the Nakba watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IFsj6Y3xfs
Remembering the Dublin-Monaghan bombs
LAST week the people of Dublin and of Monaghan marked 50 years since the UVF bombs in May 1974 which killed 34 people – twenty seven in Dublin and seven in Monaghan. I want to commend the courage and fortitude of the relatives who have campaigned for half a century for truth. Thanks also to Justice for the Forgotten, the Pat Finucane Centre and Relatives for Justice for their hard work on behalf of victims.
The media coverage of the commemorative events in Dublin and Monaghan focused especially on the refusal of the British state to co-operate with the investigations into the attacks and in particular the role its intelligence services played in colluding with unionist death squads in carrying out these and hundreds of other attacks during the decades of war.
SLAUGHTER: British state collusion with the UVF gang that carried out the Dublin-Monaghan atrocities is well documented 
It is now accepted that collusion was British policy. This was acknowledged twenty years ago by the Oireachtas Sub-Committee of the cross-party Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. After conducting an extensive examination of the Barron Commission reports the sub-committee reported: “...given that we are dealing with acts of international terrorism that were colluded in by the British security forces, the British government cannot legitimately refuse to co-operate with investigations and attempts to get to the truth.”
The reality of course is that the British government consistently refused to co-operate and Irish governments were less than enthusiastic in confronting and challenging them on this. The attitude of the Dublin political establishment was so bad that in 2011 the Fine Gael/Labour government withdrew funding from Justice for the Forgotten.
Last week a Sinn Féin motion in Leinster House was unanimously supported. It called on the British government to allow access to all of its documents relating to the bombings. This was the fourth such motion to be passed by the Oireachtas since 2008. It also called on the British government to prioritise and accept all requests for material and assistance from Operation Denton, an independent police review of the activities of the Glenanne Gang that is believed to have killed at least 128 people, including those in Dublin and Monaghan.
In recent comments, Iain Livingstone, who heads up Operation Denton, has accepted that there was collusion between the UVF gang and the British forces. However, he went further than previous investigators claiming that “Operation Denton has had access to secret and top secret material that no other previous investigation ever has. The information we have obtained gives us as thorough and as detailed a picture as would be possible to get.” He added that the investigation has "seen everything that exists up to and including top secret cabinet meetings of the British government."
For the many families impacted by the events of 50 years ago, the proof of that statement will be in the report due to be published early next year and whether it provides the truth the families are seeking.
