We look at the stories that were making the headline this week in 1983

Councillor's first City Hall attendance

MR Alex Maskey, Sinn Féin councillor for Area D of West Belfast, attended his first meeting at Belfast City Hall on Monday July 4th.

Mr Maskey is the first Sinn Féin councillor in Belfast to take his seat and participate in council activities, since the creation of the 'Northern Ireland' state.

The council meeting was opened by the chairman, Mr Alfie Ferguson, who made no reference to Mr Maskey. Nor was Mr Maskey given the usual official welcome afforded to newly-elected councillors.

During the debate on the Ulster Orchestra, Mr Maskey, after signalling to the chairman that he wished to speak, stood up and introduced himself in Gaeilge. Immediately DUP and OUP councillors began stamping their feet and booing.

The Sinn Féin councillor’s microphone was then cut off by the Lord Mayor who shouted at Mr Maskey to “sit down if he had nothing relevant to say.”

He also told Mr Maskey that no one could understand the language he spoke – a less than kind, and inaccurate, reference to the Irish language.

What Mr Maskey had intended to say was: “A chairde, tá áthas orm go bhfuil mé anseo anocht mar ionadaí ón phobal as Ceanter D. Geallaim mo sheacht ndícheall a dhéanamh ar a son.”

Living in a dilapidated family home

A YOUNG West Belfast couple with four children, including a disabled daughter and a sick infant, are being forced to live in a dilapidated house despite requests by a senior RVH medical expert and the Social Services that they be moved.

Michael and Bernadette Marley have witnessed the destruction of their Cupar Street home over the last five years, mainly as the result of rampant damp. Hanging wallpaper, a leaking roof, fungus on the walls and rat infestation had combined to make the house virtually uninhabitable. But when the staircase collapsed in August 1982 it made matters even worse.

Young Helena Marley, an invalid who has an underdeveloped leg and walks with the aid of a caliper, now finds it impossible to go up the stairs. Her condition and the fact that her one-year-old sister has twice received emergency hospital treatment due to a heart complaint, led a senior doctor at the RVH to demand the family be rehoused. The Marleys now live in one downstairs room, having abandoned the stench-filled kitchen to the damp.

"We have refused to pay the Clonard Housing Association the £3 weekly rent since March, in protest at the conditions we have to live in," said Michael Marley. "No one seems prepared to help us," he continued, "even though the Social Services have supported us. When we went to the Housing Executive Offices we were told it would be eight weeks before a meeting and six months after that before we would hear any more."

Mrs. Bernadette Marley, who last month broke a tooth after stumbling down the broken staircase, feels the housing authorities are not interested in their plight.

"Some time ago houses in this street were completely refurbished, but no one came near us. No one seems to care about what we have to put up with. Our only hope now is that we can publicise our plight," she added.

A spokesperson for the Clonard Housing Association was unavailable for comment. Speaking yesterday, a spokesperson for the Executive said the Marley family would probably be rehoused by the end of the month.

"The Housing Executive is proposing to put a closing order on the house. This proposal has to go to a board meeting on July 20th. Once passed, the family will get A3 priority status, meaning they will be rehoused as soon as possible."

Editorial

THE story this week that Mrs Anne Maguire has been granted Category 'B' status in Durham Jail in England has to be welcomed as the first small step in rectifying one of the most tragic cases of the present Troubles.

The entire Maguire family and two friends were convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions in London in 1974. They were convicted solely on the evidence of a forensic test that has since been proved to be completely unreliable and which eventually led to the dismissal of the person who invented it. Nevertheless, one of the Maguire's friends, Guiseppe Conlon, had to die in prison while Mr and Mrs Maguire and another friend, Mr O'Neill, still languish there despite repeated calls for their release. Most people now agree that these innocent people were all victims of English hysteria following the IRA bombing campaign in England. And would not even have been charged, let alone sentenced under ordinary circumstances. The granting of Category 'B' status to Mrs Maguire may indicate that the magnitude of this injustice and the publicity being given to it is beginning to take effect on the British establishment.

More work is needed, and some people have been working hard on it, not only to gain the release of these innocent people, but to get them some recompense for their long years of unjust incarceration.