Canary Wharf- The Long View?

Long read: After the 1996 Canary Wharf bomb, ​no Conservative minister suggested that the political process in Northern Ireland could go on without Sinn Fein/IRA

​In this 4,000 word essay on the 1996 Canary Wharf bomb and its aftermath, DEAN GODSON asks if Irish republicans gained politically, even under a Conservative government, from the blast which ended the IRA ceasefire of 1994:

Belfast News Letter, February 16th, 2026

​Last Monday was the 30th anniversary of the IRA Docklands bombing – which dramatically ended the first IRA ceasefire of 1994. But far from placing the republican movement beyond the pale, this atrocity did the political wing of the provisionals very little harm indeed. There even is a serious case for suggesting that it actually helped them in the medium to long-term.

I say this with some feeling since at that time I was working as an editorial writer on The Daily Telegraph in the nearby Canary Wharf tower – and was levitated upwards by the force of the blast.

This was no mean feat, since I was in a sedentary position, on the far side of the building, and weighed well over 15 stone at the time; the device had been placed on a flatbed truck a third of a mile away across the narrow stretch of water at South Quay. The corporate piety emanating from building management after the explosion stipulated that we never refer to this act of terror as the ‘Canary Wharf bomb’ – as it was commonly called – in order to show that the actual esplanade remained a safe space from which to do business.

The newsagents John Jeffries and Inam Bashir who were killed in the IRA Canary Wharf bomb thirty years ago

My momentary discomfiture was, however, trivial compared to the magnitude of what might have happened – and what actually occurred.

Had we remained in our old (now empty) offices at Marsh Wall in South Quay – where the Telegraph titles had first moved after our departure from Fleet Street in 1987 – many of us would have perished. As it was, the two newsagents, Inam Bashir and John Jeffries, working outside our previous building were murdered and over 150 were injured, some seriously.

It was 7.02pm at the end of soporific, cold, Friday in February. The only journalists left on the Comment desk by that hour were Boris Johnson and myself; Charles Moore, then a newly-minted editor, was away at an Any Questions? panel in Norwich.

When he came back in on the Sunday morning to produce Monday’s edition, Moore discovered that the clock in his office had been blown off the wall: its face had been smashed and the hands had stopped at one minute past seven; Moore never had it repaired and to this day it remains in his East Sussex home as a memento of one of those rare moments when a national newspaper is physically at the heart of global events.

When the then prime minister John Major and his Irish counterpart John Bruton announced all party talks within three weeks of the Canary Wharf blast, as republicans and others had long demanded, it at least appeared to many that the provisionals had finally 'put manners on the Brits'

A warning had been conveyed by the IRA at five thirty via a known code word to RTE in Dublin. Gerry Adams even called the Clinton White House to inform them that he had heard “disturbing news” about the state of the IRA ceasefire; Anthony Lake, the US National Security Advisor of the time, told me some years later that the Sinn Fein president was “elliptical and sounded concerned. But we didn’t know what he meant. And I still don’t know whether he knew what was going to happen”.

Much of the Saturday’s putative Daily Telegraph now had to be ripped up – with potentially massive knock-on effects for the printing and distribution of the next day’s edition in the print-only, pre-internet era (when we still shifted about a million copies a day as the largest-selling broadsheet). And the Saturday paper was particularly important: it was the best-selling day of the week and thus was critical in maintaining the all-important commercial confidence of our advertisers.

Boris Johnson duly began writing the new leader, but it was hard going, not least because everything was still so cloudy; initially, even Ian Paisley seemed to be hedging his bets, wondering if the blast was the handiwork of a dissident IRA faction.

Eventually, at around eight thirty, nearly an hour and a half after the bomb had gone off, we started to evacuate to our back-up facility in the Telegraph’s City offices at Fore Street in the Square Mile.

Emerging into the cold, and heading eastward to our agreed assembly point to meet the Telegraph vans laid on for the purpose, the Isle of Dogs bore more than a family resemblance to the Docklands at the height of the Blitz: not just because of the blaze that had been raging across the water, with the fire engines and ambulances rushing to the scene, but also because so much of Canary Wharf was still a building site (the nearby HSBC building, for one, had not yet been constructed). The Docklands Light Railway had ceased to operate after the blast and the Jubilee Line did not come into being till the end of the decade.

In the maelstrom, I had failed to perform a key task before leaving the office: to commission the main Comment opinion piece essay. This was a particularly serious omission in the pre-email and pre-mobile phone era – for by the time I arrived in our emergency offices (an uncertain business with all the police roadblocks that had gone up), it might well be too late to invite an authoritative contribution for the Comment pages.

I was lucky enough to find a sympathetic manager of one of the few retail outlets that remained open – the local McDonald’s – and he let me commandeer their landline.

I had a range of names in my diary; going through it in alphabetical order, Professor Paul Bew of Queen’s University Belfast, who was already establishing himself as one of the leading analysts of the Troubles, came up first. I feared that Bew would likely be booked already, but against the odds, I got through on his home number. His truculent teenaged son, later diplomatic and foreign policy advisor to four successive prime ministers, answered the phone and briskly told me not to bother him any further. If I wanted his father, I should try my luck calling one of the studios at BBC Northern Ireland – where his father was already embarked on one of his Stakhanovite prodigies of quantum broadcasting.

Bew and McIntyre

Again, I chanced my arm and somehow got through; Bew was on for a 1,000 word article. Along with his PhD pupil, the recently released IRA prisoner Anthony McIntrye, Bew had correctly predicted the end of the ceasefire some months previously. Once I arrived at our emergency HQ, I spent the rest of the evening on emergency copy-taking duty, for Bew and other contributors.

The Daily Telegraph’s contingency plans worked almost perfectly on the night – thanks to unsung heroes like the IT manager, the late Stuart Whitelaw. It meant that we were able to produce 100,000 copies with a front page which was blank except for a typed explanation; later, a full edition was produced, but with no colour.

Lessons had clearly been learned from an earlier IRA attack on Docklands, in 1992, when a bomb was defused at Canary Wharf itself – an episode described dyspeptically in the memoir of the previous editor, Sir Max Hastings.

As a leading former war correspondent, Hastings believed that the Metropolitan Police did not give the newspaper sufficient chance to discharge its journalistic duties in a free society by defying the bombers and producing a paper – having instead ordered a full evacuation for security reasons and not allowing us to return to our posts for many hours. In neither case was there any suggestion that the Telegraph itself had been targeted by the provisionals.

In my recollection, the only aspect of our preparations that didn’t work on the night were the telephones: hardly anyone knew the dedicated numbers of the Telegraph’s back-up office in the City. So when staff or outside sources then sought to ring the regular lines at Canary Wharf (which was manned by the highly efficient and invariably helpful operators of the era), those external callers found that the entire switchboard had been evacuated, along with the rest of us. Inevitably, we then wondered: how had we missed this obvious pitfall? The best laid plans...

In the coming days of the renascent IRA campaign, I proved either very lucky or very unlucky. I was in Covent Garden when the Aldwych bomb went off on February 18; a bomb went off at Brompton Cemetery on 9 March 1996, just a few hundred feet from where I was living in Earl’s Court; and I was in Manchester on June 15, when the provisionals bombed the Arndale Centre. For a campaign that supposedly ended up petering out in the following year, all this was rather too much ‘action’ for my tastes.

Most of the IRA footsoldiers who did the actual legwork for the Docklands bomb were eventually traced down by supremely skilled inter-agency intelligence and detective work – whose leading public light was John Grieve, the unconventional, rumpled and well-read anti-hero who headed the old Anti-Terrorist Branch. However, the republican godfathers who schemed these atrocities got off rather more lightly – seemingly almost as a matter of conscious policy at the highest levels of the British state. To use American 1950s Cold War terminology, there was successful ‘containment’ of the physical force activities of the IRA; but no ‘roll-back; of gains already made by the political wing of republicanism.

Leaving the door open

Indeed, the door of the conference chamber was left well ajar for Sinn Fein. Why?​

It’s worth reconstructing the politics of the moment. The IRA had called its first ceasefire at the end of August 1994 – hoping to secure Sinn Fein’s swift entry into all-party talks after 25 years of violence, with minimal preconditions. Hence their refusal to agree to the British government’s initial demand for a “permanent” IRA ceasefire.

Republicans thus believed that a ceasefire simpliciter ought to be enough to secure them the full fruits of political legitimacy. Much of nationalist Ireland and Irish America (often with the backing of the Clinton White House) supported those terms of trade.

However, if there was to be a truly inclusive process, the British government – as the sovereign power in Northern Ireland – also had to consider the sensibilities of the unionist community. The Province’s majority feared that if the IRA’s arsenal remained under the counter as a kind of “supplementary mandate”, then the mere threat of a return to violence could leverage endless concessions to pan-nationalism.

The government, led by John Major, had therefore insisted that the bona fides of republicans be properly tested by an IRA handover of weapons, otherwise known as ‘prior decommissioning’; or, at minimum, a process of simultaneous decommissioning with the talks process.

After a quarter century of republican violence and the murders of Tory MPs (most recently Ian Gow), the Conservative Party in Parliament was proving to be no pushover.

Nationalist Ireland contended that Major had yielded too much to the unionists because he depended upon the Northern Ireland MPs to sustain his ever-more slender majority in the Commons.

Above all, nationalist Ireland, believed that such ‘preconditions’ on disarmament had belatedly been injected into the process by the Tories after the IRA had agreed to a ceasefire – in a kind of ‘bait and switch’ on the republican movement.

In fact, ministers and officials had insisted on some kind of an arms handover well before the first ceasefire – and Gerry Adams had publicly complained as much at the time. But such nationalist narratives were too infrequently rebutted, either at home or abroad: an early iteration of what would now be termed ‘state failure’.

These narratives of British perfidy were perhaps at their strongest in the restive ‘Bandit Country’ of south Armagh – whose acquiescence in (if not support for) the Adams-McGuinness project of ‘going political’ was deemed critical to the long-term balance of forces inside the main republican decision-making structures.

According to the then Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble, John Major told him after the 1996 Canary Wharf bomb that the decision to return to ‘war’ with that blast had been taken by an informal grouping of 20 senior republicans outside of regular IRA forums such as the Provisional Army Council or the Army Executive.

The actual operation was run by a very tight group based in the Republic, not involving Northern Irish assets.

That said, whatever republican entity actually decided to resume the terrorist campaign, high-level security figures of the time highlight the centrality of internal management of ‘the movement’ in the ending of the first ceasefire.

Consciousness of that centrality conditioned subsequent British counter-measures, under the Conservatives as well as Labour.

Dr Anthony McIntyre – to this day one of the best-known critics of the Adams-McGuinness strategy inside the republican movement – holds that the structures which actually delivered the 1996-97 IRA campaign such as ‘England Department’ were much more reliable than many of the Active Service Units operating inside Northern Ireland and the Republic.

‘Controlled explosion’

In that sense, McIntyre contends that the resumption of violence at Canary Wharf was more like a ‘controlled explosion’ – in the political sense as much as in the literal meaning of the words; and of course, for the first eight months of the resumed IRA campaign, until the murder of Warrant Officer James Bradwell at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn in October 1996, only the mainland was targeted, on the time-honoured IRA principle that one attack in London was worth ten in the Province.

Indeed, had there been a general resumption of violence inside Northern Ireland, things would have been much harder to control, both on the republican side and in terms of any loyalist retaliation.

There is even some evidence that the IRA was not at it full tilt on the mainland, either: according to Gary McGladdery’s book The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (Irish Academic Press, 2006), based upon interviews with significant but anonymous republican sources, senior IRA figures in later 1995 had actually mooted the possibility of assassinating Tory MPs in marginal seats with a majorities of under 1,000 votes.

In so doing, these republicans hoped that Labour, which was winning all the by-elections during this particular nadir of Conservative fortunes, would be able then to force an early general election through a House Commons vote of no confidence and thus bring Tony Blair to power.

However, McGladdery reports that the majority of the IRA leadership rejected this proposed course of action – and it never seems to have been revived as an option, even after the first ceasefire ended in 1996.

To those counter-terrorism officers on the ground at the time, however, there seemed nothing half-hearted or ‘performative’ about the IRA’s renewed campaign, to use the contemporary jargon.

As John Grieve recalls, the IRA units on the mainland which were successfully thwarted in Operations Airlines and Tinnitus were amongst the most proficient he had ever seen in his career

So had Operation Airlines not prevailed, the entire power supply for London and the South East would have gone down. Could the peace process have survived that?

As it was, there was no great reappraisal of the nature of the republican movement at the highest levels of government as a consequence of the Docklands bomb. Indeed, at no stage did any Conservative minister or permanent official ever suggest that the process could ultimately go ahead without the involvement of Sinn Fein/IRA. The worst that republicans could expect was a period in the ‘sin bin’ until they restored the ceasefire.

In consequence, as one leading journalist of the era, Mary Holland noted in her Irish Times column, “we heard almost nothing from the British side about the spirit of the bulldog breed”.

The Marquess of Salisbury – who as Viscount Cranborne was then serving as leader of the House and who also sat on the critical Northern Ireland Committee of the Cabinet – recalls of the government’s response to Docklands bomb: “It was treated almost as if it was the cri de coeur of a delinquent teenager rather than a full-scale assault on British democracy.”

Likewise, to John Steele, who had recently been appointed as Director of Security in the Northern Ireland Office, “the IRA were cracking the whip. They were demonstrating that bad things could happen. But the break in the ceasefire was a carefully calculated signal, not a wild lashing out”.

Even the most hawkish figures in the government such as the Security Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, Sir John Wheeler, only proposed enhanced intelligence gathering rather than reintroducing internment or allowing the use of lethal force by the SAS. The IRA prisoners released on licence during the first ceasefire were not recalled.

The decision to stick to the existing approach also owed much to the increasing influence of the Security Service in the affairs of Northern Ireland. Stephen Lander, the incoming director-general of the Security Service had been in New Zealand when the Docklands bomb went off – on a farewell tour with the outgoing head of the service, Dame Stella Rimington.

As the next director-general, Lander now wanted to head home (“I’ve got to live with the consequences”, he told her). Rimington starchly refused his request, leaving Lander to complete their overseas mission on his own.

Lander was a long-time specialist in Northern Ireland and a former head of T Branch. According to the authorised history of MI5 by Christopher Andrew, Lander – who had formally taken over the top job in April 1996 – endorsed Major’s approach, sharing the view with No 10 that “the government should continue with its current strategy”, which included providing reassurance to the provisional leadership about the nature of the talks process which is on offer”.

Such an intervention with the prime minister of the day constituted something new: as one former senior officer observes, when the Heath government (on MI5 advice) expelled 105 Soviet diplomats for engaging in espionage in 1971, it would have been unthinkable for the director-general of that time, Sir Martin Furnival-Jones, then to offer policy advice to No 10 to the effect that “notwithstanding these expulsions, the government should now continue to seek détente with Moscow”.

One official of the era states that the difference is that MI5 had far greater equities in Northern Ireland – and thus proportionately mattered much more to the conflict there than it ever did in the totality of national security responses in the cold war.

Indeed, South Quay probably finally put paid to early post cold war fears that the Service (in Dean Acheson’s formulation) “had lost an empire but failed to find a world role”.

Henceforth, it would get many of the resources it needed.

As such, Northern Ireland proved to be a kind of “pathway drug” for the service into a much more consequential role across the piste – not least in terms of the wider approach to Islamism after 9/11.

Today, a senior MI5 representative sits formally on the National Security Council, a body which did not even exist during the cold war. It is much larger than it was back then – 5,500 officers compared to 1900. But considering its policy weight and intellectual self-confidence (again, another big change from the cold war epoch), is it sufficiently scrutinised?

All this raises the key question: if the provisionals were as penetrated as some of the most serious writers such as John Bew, Martyn Frampton, Inigo Gurruchanga and William Matchett have all claimed, how was it that the security forces failed to intercept the actual Docklands bomb?

Even within its own obviously more limited terms, South Quary wasn’t as massive a debacle as Pearl Harbour. 9/11 or October 7, but it was big enough. And if there were severe blind spots in British state coverage of the provisionals (for example, the IRA team which bombed Manchester in June 1996 was neither identified nor caught under Operation Situated) how was it that MI5 nonetheless had such confidence in the bona fides of Adams and McGuinness?

And then strove mightily to ensure that when any split eventually came about within republicanism, it would be as small and managed as possible – leaving the political leadership in control of as many of the movement’s human and material assets as possible? And what did all this mean for the scale and pace of concessions to Sinn Fein?

What can be said of this final period of Conservative government – described by George Walden as “fag end Toryism” -- is that in cooperation with elements of the deep state, it laid the groundwork for the dilution and eventual elimination of the remaining British “preconditions” to entering all-party talk – which were finally swept away by Tony Blair, Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam and the No 10 chief of staff Jonathan Powell when Labour entered office.

Indeed, there is no sense in this period, at least, that the deep state was backchanneling to the provisionals in defiance of its political masters, as had occurred at other points during the Troubles.

So when Major and his Irish counterpart John Bruton finally set a date for the all-party talks at their summit in Downing Street on February 28 1996 (as republicans and others had long demanded) nearly three weeks after the Docklands bomb, it at least appeared to many that the provisionals had finally ‘put manners on the Brits’.

The full story is less simplistic than that, but this narrative has more than a grain of truth to it. By late 1996/early 1997, Major knew that the next general election was lost. Having come to that realisation, Salisbury recalls, “he wanted a peace agreement more than anything else”. But the provisionals realised that he was a loser, too: they wanted to deal with the coming force of New Labour and restored the ceasefire in July 1997 (two and a half months after the general election) without having to declare a permanent end to violence nor to hand in single weapon.

It was only well after the successful negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that an “international ideology of Northern Ireland” began to emerge – with Jonathan Powell as its best-known public exponent.

Today, its lessons are imbibed across the world in conflict zones, most notably in Gaza.

‘Don’t demand decommissioning upfront’

One key official in the current Gaza talks states that the two key takeaways from the winding down of the Troubles derive from this critical period: don’t demand the decommissioning of weapons up-front and if and when you do, make sure that it isn’t done publicly to ‘humiliate’ armed insurgents (“no Spielbergs”, as Martin McGuinness used to say).

So much for the questions of ‘grand strategy’ arising out the Docklands bomb. 30 years on, what is the enduring human cost?

At such times, I am often reminded of what the widow of slain RUC Inspector Harry Cobb said after his murder by the Provisionals in Lurgan in 1977: “After they die, they will be forgotten, just as the policemen and soldiers who died are forgotten after a while, except by those who loved them”.

The two murdered newsagents were innocent pawns, lost to the great game of ‘bringing peace to Ireland’.

The Docklands conspirators were caught and sentenced; they got out of prison early under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. In 2000, after serving just two years of his sentence, one of them was even granted a Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Such a document had to be signed personally by the sovereign – on the advice of ministers.

That minister was none other than the then-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson – with the full backing of Jonathan Powell and No 10. The Sinn Fein leadership had insisted on nothing less. Sustaining the Sinn Fein/IRA leadership, against the ‘hardliners’, thus became one of the highest goals of state policy.

Love it or loathe it, this model of “conflict resolution” is, for now at least, a core part of what Britain state thinks it can offer to the world.​

• Dean Godson is Director of Policy Exchange and a member of the House of Lords. He is the author of ‘Himself Alone: David Trimble and the ordeal of Unionism’ (HarperCollins, 2004). This essay was first published in two parts, in the News Letter print edition on Saturday and Monday

Announcement from Victims Campaigner, Raymond McCord:

Along with the support and assistance of John Harkin I have organised a new approach to dealing with the Troubles (that I raised recently with the Good Friday Agreement Committee in Dublin) with a unique cross community victims event in John's school, Oakgrove Integrated College in Derry today. Three cross community victims will tell cross community students from Northern Ireland plus international students from Seattle USA their own personal stories of the Troubles. The Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner who I met last week is unable to attend but has made it quite clear he fully supports the event and further ones. A representative of the GFA Committee Dublin along with others will also be part of the audience in this invitation only event. Myself along with other victims have met John and his students at past events and their involvement adds a positive contribution to dealing with the past and present. Completely non sectarian and non political cross community victims events where victims tell the real truth of the Troubles and the pain and heartache of seeking truth and justice. The students and the victims learn from each other. These students are the future voters and their questions and opinions matter so much. Hopefully this will be an event we can replicate at other schools, colleges and universities on both sides of the border. A new approach to dealing with the Troubles set up by victims with the involvement of students on the island of Ireland and sending a message that those who were born after the Troubles were supposed to be over have also a major part to play in dealing with the past and present. The victims are the real experts of the Troubles, not those who tell us whats best for us, but we can also learn and hear fresh opinions from the students. We arent doing this to rewrite history like others try to do, we are there to tell the students the truth and the heartache and pain that comes with it. The failures of our politicians and the Courts. Point scoring by politicians instead of unity seeking truth and justice for all. There will be no failures by victims telling the truth . What an opportunity for all, victims, students and the public. On a personal level I and other victims can not thank John Harkin as the headmaster and his school enough for their fantastic support over the years. We together will make this work without a Orange and Green agenda or narrative.

Update: Padraig the Victims Commissioner is unable to make it but asked me to say he fully supports it and more such events.

Anyone who is interested in attending similar events can contact Raymond by email: raymondmccord@btinternet.com

 Council approves UDR memorial benches for three cemeteries

ANDY BALFOUR, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

DERRY City and Strabane District Council has approved the erection Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) memorial benches at three cemeteries in the district.

Families are able to erect headstones and memorials within council-operated municipal cemeteries across the City and District, and council’s Cemetery section recently received an application from the UDR Memorial Association seeking permission to erect three memorial benches, to commemorate members lost during the Troubles, at Castlederg, Urney and Ardstraw Cemeteries.

Additionally, council received an application from the Royal British Legion to erect a plaque at Castlederg Cemetery, indicating that there are Commonwealth war graves located at the site. Members were asked to support the installation of memorial benches during February’s Environment and Regeneration Committee meeting.

Sinn Féin councillor Emma McGinley said she would not “stand in the way of anybody commemorating their dead”, but as a Republican she could not vote in favour of a UDR memorial and therefore abstained from the vote.

Independent councillor Gary Donnelly voted against the proposal and said it was “beyond belief” that council found “no difficulties” with the application.

Donnelly voted against the proposal and said it was “beyond belief” that council found “no difficulties” with the application.

“We don’t believe it appropriate to interfere with a grieving process

Notorious

SDLP councillor John Boyle,

“This is a notorious armed group that is responsible for many, many murders throughout the six counties,” he said.

“In the area that this is going in we’ve had the death of Michael McHugh, in January 1977, carried out by a loyalist gang that included UDR members.

“The UDR has been used as a source of hundreds of weapons passed to loyalist murder gangs. If people want to commemorate their dead they’re quite entitled to, but this council should not have a corporate position of putting up  memorials to a murder gang that worked handin-hand with lawless paramilitaries.”

SDLP councillor John Boyle also abstained from voting and concluded: “We appreciate the ability for people to be able to remember and commemorate the loss of their loved ones and we believe we should approach this magnanimity and compassion. Undoubtedly there will be contested versions of many things that have gone before. We do believe that all should be free to commemorate and grieve freely.

“We’re reluctant to fully endorse the idea of the UDR commemorations, but we do not want to interfere with that; we don’t believe it appropriate to interfere with a grieving process.”

The proposal was approved with UUP Alderman Derek Hussey and DUP alderman Keith Kerrigan voting in its favour, councillor Donnelly voting against, and SDLP and Sinn Féin representatives abstaining.

Human rights group ‘helped develop’ the new police policy on paramilitary displays

CONNLA YOUNG, CRIME AND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

A HUMAN rights group helped develop a new PSNI policy designed to clamp down on controversial public displays, including paramilitary flags and emblems.

The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) confirmed it “engaged” with police before a groundbreaking ‘service instruction’ on public displays was recently published.

Formed in 1981 and based in Belfast, CAJ has previously raised concerns about the conduct of state agencies, including the PSNI.

It emerged last week that new powers allowing the PSNI to remove contentious displays, including paramilitary flags and emblems, are also in the final stages of becoming law.

An amendment to the Terrorism Act 2000 was proposed by Jonathan Hall KC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, after he saw UDA and UVF flags flying outside the PSNI training college at Garnerville, east Belfast, in 2023.

Mr Hall later said he was “shocked” by what he saw.

Deputy Chief Constable Bobby Singleton previously suggested the PSNI will retain “discretion” in relation to their approach, however, he added that taking no action is no longer feasible.

“The emphatic thing in this policy position is, however, not making a decision, doing nothing or failing to act is not an option,” he said.

CAJ welcomes initiative

Daniel Holder, CAJ director, welcomed the new service instruction “as a significant step forward in a rule of law framework for dealing with public displays that constitute harmful criminal offences”.

Mr Holder added that some of the focus on the new service instruction over the last week “has misconstrued the key point and purpose of the new policy”.

“This is about the PSNI role in targeting and removing the most harmful material from public space, in particular material which is put up as part of racist and sectarian intimidation from housing,” he said.

“The PSNI has a duty to act on such materials as putting them up can constitute a serious criminal offence, including the crimes of ‘intimidation’, or of stirring up racist or sectarian hatred.”

The human rights advocate said there have been “incidents of loyalist paramilitary and other flags being put up in particular new build housing areas, alongside slogans like ‘no Taigs’ or ‘no foreigners’ or ‘locals only’.

“Given the links of such materials to elements of paramilitary groups, they constitute a real threat,” he said.

“More recently there have also been racist posters threatening landlords who rent to migrants or Muslims, creating a climate of fear and resultant intimidation from housing.

Mr Holder highlighted his organisation’s role in advance of the recent service instruction being issued.

“In 2024 in light of the proliferation of intimidatory racist posters on lampposts, CAJ threatened legal action against the PSNI and Department for Infrastructure for their then policy approaches that would not have led to any intervention despite the harms the posters were causing,” he said.

“To be fair, the PSNI took this very seriously and engaged with us on revising the approach and we welcome the new service instruction to officers.”

Loyalists being urged to ‘raise the flag’ after PSNI signals clampdown

CONNLA YOUNG, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

A CONTROVERSIAL social media page linked to the failed loyalist flag protests has launched a ‘raise the flag’ campaign after the PSNI said that “failing to act” over controversial displays is no longer an option for police.

The Official Protestant Coalition Facebook has urged loyalists to hoist their flags days after details of a new PSNI policy to deal with contentious displays emerged.

Posts on the Official Protestant Coalition Facebook page encourage loyalists to “Raise the flag: Don’t allow them to stop you” and include an image of a man holding a Union flag.

The image also carries the words “our flags, our streets, our country”.

Another post is headed ‘Operation Union Jack’ and encourages loyalists to “get the flags up asap”.

Over recent days the page posted pictures of Union flags it claims have been raised in Antrim.

In one image a ladder can be seen propped up against a lamppost while a Union flag hangs from a nearby post.

Another image includes a flag dedicated to the memory of former UVF and LVF member Billy Wright, who was shot dead by the INLA inside the H-Blocks in December 1997, although it is not certain when the flag was put up.

The flag includes a picture of Wright circled in poppies and flanked by two Union flags.

Two armed and masked men are also included along with the words “lest we forget”.

The Protestant Coalition was closely linked to the failed loyalist flag protests, which began in 2012.

The Official Protestant Coalition page has previously highlighted anti-immigration protests in Belfast, branded Pope Francis the “anti-Christ” and sneered at his death.

The flag call came after Deputy Chief Constable Bobby Singleton told members of the Policing Board that “failing to act” over controversial displays is no longer an option for the force, which has recently issued a ‘service instruction’ to officers setting out its new policy.

It also emerged last week that new powers allowing the PSNI to remove contentious displays, including paramilitary flags and emblems, are also in the final stages of becoming law.

The Crime and Policing Bill, which is making its way through the House of Lords, amends Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Claims of bullying and mistrust laid out in union Sport NI survey

AMY COCHRANE, Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2026

BODY SAYS IT PROVIDES A 'POSITIVE AND RESPECTFUL WORKING ENVIRONMENT' FOR ALL STAFF

Claims of a “toxic” workplace culture at Sport NI have been laid bare in a damning report.

An internal staff survey by the trade union Nipsa has reported a series of failings, including allegations of bullying, mistrust and poor communication.

There was also a “critical and blame-oriented” workplace environment, it said.

Sport NI is the leading public body for the development of sport in Northern Ireland, but has been hit by a series of crises in recent years.

It is under the leadership of an interim chief executive with its previous CEO, Antoinette McKeown, absent since June 2023.

The organisation said it was working to improve communication, leadership stability and governance, and recent surveys have shown an improvement in staff engagement compared with previous years.

The results of the survey of Nipsa members at Sport NI were issued last September, and have been seen by this newspaper.

Employees highlighted concern over a reliance on interim leadership roles as well as poor communication, lack of transparency in decision-making and barriers to progress.

The report claimed that many members feel the current leadership “lacked the necessary experience and understanding of sport and public sector operations”.

Staff also claimed there is a “lack of visibility” within the Sport NI board, with feedback indicating they seem “disconnected”. Concerns were raised about the Sport NI board's transparency, for example minutes of meetings not being published on the website or shared with staff.

Some staff complained about a lack of visibility and engagement from board members with staff. “Staff want more direct engagement and clarity on its role,” the survey said.

The Nipsa report stated that its members within Sport NI are calling for “permanent appointments with appropriate experience and sector knowledge. The unresolved CEO situation is seen as a major barrier to organisational progress”.

“Many feel (the) current leadership lacks the necessary experience and understanding of sport and public sector operations. Poor decision-making, delays and micromanagement are frequently cited. Staff feel disempowered and mistrusted due to excessive oversight and lack of delegation.”

The report claims the interim leadership creates “instability” in the workplace and that “staff feel excluded from decisions”.

“Staff want more two-way communication; lack of transparency leads to speculation and disengagement,” the survey findings added.

It said the “workplace culture (is) described as toxic by many; bullying, mistrust, and fear of retaliation are recurring themes. A “them vs. us” environment (was a common theme)”.

The survey findings referred to a culture seen as critical and blame-oriented; and values that were not consistently upheld by leadership.

“Performance management (is) often seen as a tick-box exercise,” it continued, referring to “limited feedback, unclear objectives, and inconsistent application across teams”.

Staff feel undervalued

Many staff also feel “undervalued” especially by the executive leadership team (ELT), and some reported “discrimination or favouritism”.

“Staff report poor communication from ELT and directors, including ignored emails and delayed responses,” the report stated.

“There is a strong desire for clearer decision-making processes, strategic direction, and regular updates. Lack of transparency in decisions and appointments has eroded trust.”

In terms of wellbeing, there were several reports of “stress, anxiety, and poor treatment; lack of support from HR and ELT”.

In the report's conclusions, Nipsa said they will “continue to analyse the survey responses in depth to identify specific areas for improvement, prioritise issues for negotiation with management and ensure your voices are heard at the highest levels of Sport NI”.

They continued: “This survey has already helped focus attention not only among Nipsa representatives, but also within the executive leadership team and the Sport NI board.”

Recommendations by Nipsa include urging Sport NI to appoint a “permanent CEO and fill ELT roles with experienced, qualified individuals. Avoid ad hoc or extended interim arrangements”.

They also urged that they “establish clear channels for regular updates from ELT and board” and “promote respect, inclusivity, and psychological safety” in addition to addressing “bullying and cultural issues proactively through HR and leadership”.

A Sport NI spokesperson said: “Sport NI regularly commissions independent professional staff engagement surveys across the organisation. The most recent all‑staff survey took place in July 2025.

“The results showed an improvement in staff engagement compared with previous years and were presented to staff by the interim CEO in August 2025. The executive leadership team, chair and the vice-chair have also addressed staff on a number of occasions to set out Sport NI strategy for the future.

“In recent months, we have been progressing actions from our all‑staff survey, including strengthening internal communication, increasing leadership stability, and improving organisational effectiveness and governance.

“Sport NI will continue to provide a positive and respectful working environment for all employees, where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”

Previously, Ms McKeown was suspended as CEO in March 2015, with subsequent disciplinary action and dismissal on the grounds of gross misconduct, followed by reinstatement after an independent appeal process.

Ms McKeown later agreed a settlement in a discrimination case with Sport NI. It was then reported in 2024 that Ms McKeown had been absent since June 2023 but was still technically an employee.

Asked whether Ms McKeown was still employed by Sport NI, a spokesperson said: “We're not able to comment on HR matters.”

GAA clubs in Belfast face ‘deficit’ of 45,000 playing hours per year

Figures show clubs in city need five times more of an allocation than the 10,752 hours they currently get

CONOR COYLE, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

GAA clubs in Belfast are facing a deficit of playing hours at council facilities of more than 45,000 hours, according to estimates from Belfast City Council.

The figures are almost twice the amount of shortages faced by soccer clubs in the city, and higher than the next three sports combined.

The statistics were provided to Belfast city councillors ahead of votes on whether to install two new GAA pitches at Boucher Road Playing Fields, replacing its current use as a concert venue.

The council approved plans to return the venue to sporting use on Friday.

At a special meeting, councillors agreed a measure to end concerts at the 40,000 capacity space after 2027 and use it for sports pitches.

It is now intended to use the space for two full-size GAA pitches and one intermediate soccer pitch.

The decision had been deferred earlier in the week, with some councillors objecting to moving forward without a replacement venue for concerts in mind.

A row was also sparked after plans were discussed at council to convert a community garden at Lower Botanic in south Belfast to a GAA pitch.

Figures showcasing the level of pitch shortages in Belfast were provided to councillors as part of a restricted report discussed at council last week after council officials had conducted an analysis of pitch shortages.

The figures, seen by The Irish News, show an estimated deficit of 45,158 hours for GAA clubs in the city. Soccer clubs face a deficit of 24,347 hours, while rugby and cricket clubs have 9,620 and 6,263 respectively.

The figures show GAA clubs in Belfast have a requirement for five times as many playing hours as the 10,752 they are currently allocated by the council.

Soccer clubs have a demand of around 92,000 hours per year currently and are provided with more than 68,000 of those.

Meanwhile, GAA clubs in the city have a requirement of almost 56,000 hours, and only receive 10,752 currently.

Stephen McCourt, a member of Greencastle Wolfe Tones in the north of the city, said an imbalance in the figures needs to be “urgently addressed” by an upcoming Belfast City Council pitches strategy.

“Report after report over the last 10 years has laid bare the scale of the pitch deficit facing Gaelic games across the city,” Mr McCourt told the Irish News.

“The previous pitches strategy failed to reduce this deficit in any meaningful way. Nowhere is that failure more stark than in North Belfast, which remains without a single dedicated GAA pitch despite being home to thousands of Gaels and some of the most active clubs in the county.

“That reality can’t be passed off as an oversight, it represents a structural imbalance in provision that must now be urgently addressed.

“The proposed developments at Botanic and Boucher are welcome and should be recognised as positive steps forward.

“However, these projects must be seen as part of a broader, citywide commitment rather than isolated successes.”

Séamas de Faoite, SDLP councillor for Lisnasharragh, says there is a “historic under-provision” of GAA pitches in the city.

Historic under provision

“There is a historic under-provision of GAA pitches in Belfast and we are trying to address that,” Cllr de Faoite said.

“Sport in general has exploded, particularly since Covid and there is a desperate need for more facilities in response to that.

“We have a pitches strategy due to come to the People and Communities committee in March and we look forward to seeing that being delivered.”

A spokesperson for Belfast City Council last night said: “The council recognises there is a growing demand for sports facilities in the city, with requests for bookings outstripping our current provision. This is most acute for GAA, soccer, rugby and cricket.

“Analysis carried out by council officers, based on booking enquiries from clubs in the Belfast area against the playing hours available on council-owned pitches only, shows the following shortfall per year: 45,158 hours – GAA 24,347 hours – soccer 9,620 hours – rugby 6,263 hours – cricket

“A new ten-year Pitches Strategy, outlining proposals to help meet demand from these four sports specifically, is due to come before elected members for consideration in March 2026.

“With a budget of £15 million already agreed, the strategy will look at how our existing facilities are managed and how best we could work with partners to increase provision across other pitch facilities in the city, alongside future capital investment options.

“Elected members have also agreed to progress with any Department for Culture, Media and Sport-IFA Grassroots Funding Programme applications for improvements at Suffolk, Hammer and Dundela.”

Racist attitudes rear ugly head again across Ireland

Irish News, Pro Fide et Patria, February 17th, 2026

“ It is clear that those who see only Edogbo’s skin colour and not his skill are in a tiny minority. However, the fact that anyone would openly display such bigoted views is a shocking reminder that the problem of racism is all too real in Irish life

RACIST attitudes are sadly never far from the surface in Ireland, and recent days have provided depressing examples on both sides of the border.

The Irish rugby team’s nail-biting victory over Italy on Saturday was marred by shocking racist abuse directed at Munster player Edwin Edogbo following his international debut.

To win a cap for your country is the greatest honour for any rugby player and Edogbo’s appearance for the final 10 minutes would have been a cause of enormous pride for his family and friends.

Astonishingly, however, the Irish Rugby Football Union was forced to turn off comments on a social media post congratulating the 23-year-old following racist abuse in some of the replies.

Edogbo, born and raised in Cobh, Co Cork to Nigerian parents, had progressed through the ranks of Munster rugby, overcoming several injuries, before getting his chance to wear the iconic green jersey.

It is clear that those who see only his skin colour and not his skill are in a tiny minority – the player received a huge cheer from the home crowd at the Aviva stadium.

However, the fact that anyone would openly display such bigoted views is a shocking reminder that the problem of racism is all too real in Irish life.

Further evidence of sickening intolerance was provided north of the border with the appearance of racist graffiti inside a building in Belfast.

The offensive message was sprayed on a wall inside the Bass Buildings on Alfred Street and police have confirmed it is being treated as a racially-motivated hate crime.

The graffiti has since been removed and security is being enhanced in an effort to reassure residents, some of whom have spoken of their fear of what could happen next.

A spokeswoman for the Belfast Asian Women’s Academy also told how people are afraid to be heard speaking their native language.

As local MP Claire Hanna has said, no-one should be frightened to be in their own home.

What must happen now is that those expressing disgusting racist sentiments, either online or in criminal damage to property, must be swiftly identified and brought to justice so that all of society can see that such attitudes are completely unacceptable.

There has been a sharp rise in race incidents and crimes recorded by the PSNI over the last five years, including serious rioting targeting ethnic minority homes and businesses in Belfast, Ballymena and other areas in the summer of both 2024 and 2025.

This has been accompanied by a rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric in Ireland and around the world.

It is incumbent on politicians and all those with influence to be aware of the impact of their words and stand in solidarity with all victims of racism and all other forms of hate crimes.

It’s ok Turning Point, we have enough intolerance

MÁIRÍA CAHILL, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

President Donald Trump with Erika Kirk at the conclusion of a memorial for her murdered husband, conservative activist Charlie Kirk

REPORTS last week that Turning Point USA, a rightwing movement headed up by Erika Kirk (wife of murdered American right-winger Charlie Kirk), was planning a visit to the north surely raised a few eyebrows.

Just what we need, years after getting our swings unchained on a Sunday. Another wave of Christian fundamentalists.

Yes, younger readers, that really happened. Contrary to popular belief, Ballymena was not the swinging capital of the world, thanks to the DUP. Never on a Sunday, anyway.

And now, we were told that Erika Kirk was “being encouraged to come to Northern Ireland” while touring Europe.

Ian Paisley Jnr was also reported to have been approached and in favour of setting up a NI Turning Point branch.

Turning Point USA (not to be confused with the excellent mental health organisation) is not an exclusively religious organisation, but is typical of Christian conservative organisations, where faith isn’t far away.

Its branch TP Faith aims to “eliminate wokeism from the pulpit”.

One wonders if Jesus would have been considered “woke” in his day, when he (John 8: 1-11) stopped a crowd from stoning a woman accused of adultery, or when he ate with prostitutes, or related the parable of The Good Samaritan.

There appears to be not much of ‘blessed are the poor’ from Turning Point – a slick, well-funded outfit which delivers tailored fire and brimstone via polite people in wellcut suits.

It claims to mobilise “anti-woke warriors”. If empathy and kindness exist, that message is drowned out amid political anti-Biden messages and anti-abortion rhetoric.

The latter isn’t unusual across religious outfits, all of whom oppose women’s right to choose, but what makes the message slightly hypocritical is its sister organisations’ fervour for opposing gun control.

Among its well-produced resources for impressionable young people are various activist kits, including stickers and posters with slogans such as “Gun rights are women’s rights”, “Make hunting traditional again”, “Stay awake, not woke”, and “Strengthen America’s borders”.

“ We’ve been there, done that and followed preachers and those with political influence. Look where that got us

To purchase one, you have to tick a checkbox agreeing to take pictures of yourself with the materials and upload them to social media using the hashtag #BigGovSucks.

Turning Point USA regularly allows its platform to be used by those who are anti-gay marriage, anti-sex outside of marriage, anti-trans, anti-feminist, and anti-liberal. It also favours the traditional family unit.

I sometimes harbour the wish that, instead of having to work, I could become a ‘tradwife’ and be kept in style, in exchange for doing nothing but washing someone’s dirty socks and cooking a roast dinner.

Then I remember that Charlie Kirk also once famously said “submit to your husband”. Imagine the response from most Northern Irish women to that particular phrase.

Kirk’s murder in Utah while speaking at a rally last September was disgusting, and resonated with all reasonable people because he was the father of young children. Noone should be killed for their political beliefs.

And so, there is no ‘but’ here. His murder, though, does not dilute his dangerous messages to vulnerable and impressionable teenagers, and criticising this does not excuse his killing.

Overheated

What it does allow is a clearer examination of just how overheated American politics has become on all sides.

Turning Point USA is deeply entwined with the MAGA movement and with Donald Trump – a kind of magnetic force field for angry young people, particularly young men, to gather around.

Its reach among young women is growing, too, in part due to Erika Kirk’s new role since her husband’s death.

Do we really need that sort of thing adding to our woes, here? We’ve been there, done that and followed preachers and those with political influence. Look where that got us.

The north is increasingly a socially liberal place to be. That’s not to say we should ban religion, which can bring comfort to those who practise it and a moral framework for living. Many local faith organisations are increasingly societally inclusive.

Where it becomes problematic is when a section of society uses it as an ethereal scolding to the rest of us, who are deemed unworthy or unsaved if we don’t conform. We are then in cult territory.

I do not wish my child or any other here to become a fertile recruit for those who have unlimited amounts of money, and an unlimited supply of intolerance for anyone who believes in live and let live.

So, it’s probably just as well that Turning Point USA, as it told Irish Central last week, has “no plans” to visit the north, after all. Hallelujah, if so.

SDLP overtakes Alliance as most popular local party on Instagram and TikTok

KURTIS REID, Belfast Telegraph, February 17, 2026

The SDLP has overtaken Alliance to become Northern Ireland's most followed political party on Instagram after a sustained surge in engagement driven by viral video content from senior figures.

It now has around 11,500 followers on the platform, more than double its rival's 4,900. When TikTok figures are included, the SDLP's combined following stands at more than 14,200 compared to 10,400 for Alliance.

In July 2024 the SDLP had a combined Instagram and TikTok following of around 5,700, while Alliance was ahead on 8,500.

Since then the SDLP has recorded a net gain of 8,500 followers (149% increase), while Alliance has added 1,900 (plus 22%).

As a result the SDLP has moved decisively ahead, now leading Alliance by approximately 3,800 followers across the platforms.

Much of that growth has been driven by Instagram Reels (short video content), with MLAs Matthew O'Toole and Cara Hunter emerging as two of the most effective political communicators on social media.

Ms Hunter now has 16,400 followers on Instagram, Mr O'Toole almost 10,000, and party leader Claire Hanna 7,700.

It gives the SDLP senior figures audiences that significantly outstrip their counterparts in other parties.

One of Mr O'Toole's most recent reels about Donald Trump attracted close to half a million 'likes'. Another last November recorded 80,000 views, helping to drive a spike in follower growth.

After that viral clip, the SDLP gained around 3,000 new followers in a matter of days.

The party believes one of its recent videos is now the third most successful post by a political party on the island, behind two clips from the Social Democrats in the Republic.

Other SDLP content has also performed strongly. A video of Ms Hanna speaking at Prime Minister's Questions has generated 1.3 million views and 109,000 'likes', while a reel focusing on the Lough Neagh environmental crisis has been viewed 488,000 times and has received 14,300 'likes'.

A separate clip of Ms Hunter discussing online abuse websites has also resonated, recording 460,000 views, underlining how issue-led content combined with short-form video is proving effective at reaching audiences well beyond the party's traditional base.

Alliance social media growth slower

By contrast, Alliance's social media growth has been slower and more uneven.

Deputy leader Eoin Tennyson has 6,868 followers on Instagram, while party leader Naomi Long has 3,800.

Lagan Valley MP Sorcha Eastwood has 3,503 followers, and Kate Nicholl MLA has close to 5,000.

A recent Alliance video posted by Mrs Long to mark the start of the new year at Stormont — despite tagging senior party figures — attracted fewer than 100 'likes', although it did reach almost 6,000 views.

A more personal video shared by Mrs Long last year, discussing her experience of endometriosis, recorded around 14,000 views.

Sinn Fein remains the largest political account on Instagram, with around 121,000 followers, although that figure includes audiences in the Republic.

The DUP has approximately 3,600 followers, the Green Party 3,500, and the Ulster Unionist Party 1,500.

The latest figures underline how rapidly social media dynamics can shift in local politics, particularly as parties increasingly rely on short-form video and individual personalities to reach younger, more disengaged voters.

While social media followings do not directly translate into electoral support, Ms Hanna said the SDLP's online growth reflected a broader effort to reconnect with voters.

“In a rapidly changing media landscape, political parties need to meet people where they are,” she said.

“Alongside our work on the ground and engagement through traditional media, social media has become an increasingly important way to communicate directly with the public.

“The increase we have seen in views, 'likes', shares and interactions shows that we are connecting with people and that the SDLP has momentum, both online and in communities...

“At a time when many people feel disconnected from Stormont or the work of the Executive, we are reaching them and sharing messages that resonate.

“Social media is one important part of the work we are doing to rebuild and renew our party. It sits within a wider strategy to connect with people, explain what we stand for and build support in the years ahead.”

No need for State apology over Troubles-era extradition policy says McEntee

UUP leader Burrows called on Irish government to say conduct was ‘unjustified’

CILLIAN SHERLOCK, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

The Irish Government does not need to apologise for its extradition policy on terror suspects during the Troubles, the Republic’s foreign affairs minister has said.

Ulster Unionist Party leader Jon Burrows said the Government of Ireland should state that its conduct during the Troubles was “unjustified and unjustifiable”, in reference to words used by then Prime Minister David Cameron during his 2010 public apology for the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry.

On Bloody Sunday, 13 people were shot dead when members of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside area of Derry on January 30, 1972, regarded as one of the darkest days of the Troubles.

Another man shot by paratroopers died four months later.

Many consider him the 14th victim of Bloody Sunday but his death was formally attributed to an inoperable brain tumour.

Mr Burrows, a former chief inspector in the PSNI, told the Irish Times that the Irish State’s approach to extradition during the Troubles “stands out as an equivalent of Bloody Sunday” over “a long period of time”.

Expanding on his view yesterday, Mr Burrows said: “Many terrorists after they committed acts including murder, fled to the Irish Republic, and there was a failure of the Irish State to extradite them back to the United Kingdom, back to Northern Ireland to face justice.

“ If the Irish Government’s position is simply that ‘no apology is required’, what signal does this send to victims whose attackers were de facto legally shielded by the failure of the state?

“There was virtually a blanket refusal to extradite them.

“And not only did that deny justice for victims, but actually help preserve the capability of those terrorist groups, principally the Provisional IRA.”

Apology ‘will go long way to reconciliation’

Mr Burrows said this caused “a real, lasting hurt and harm in Northern Ireland”, arguing that an acknowledgement and apology “will go a long way to building reconciliation”.

Asked to explain how he could equivalate between the actions of the Irish State and the killing of unarmed civilians in Derry, he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland: “The comparison is not necessarily with the act, the comparison is with the act of reconciliation following it.”

Pressed on whether he was minimising the acts of Bloody Sunday, Mr Burrows said: “I don’t think I am, what I’m doing is saying that they were hurt on both sides and (there) was wrongdoing on both sides.”

The UUP leader said the Irish State “collectively failed its duty towards its citizens” and should have made sure people were extradited for terrorism in Northern Ireland.

Mr Burrows said any legal and constitutional issue around extraditing to Northern Ireland at the time should not prohibit the making of an apology.

He drew a comparison to slavery and said: “Because something had a legal basis, doesn’t mean it was right, doesn’t mean it was a signed legal basis and it’s clearly, plainly wrong.”

He added: “It was vile criminality committed by both loyalists and republicans.

“That is where there should have been a government intervention to say: ‘Sorry, this isn’t working, this isn’t correct, this isn’t politics – it is crime, and we need to change’.

“And eventually change did come but it came too late for many people and it has left a legacy of distrust.

“And it would be an act of courage and reconciliation for the Irish Government to step forward and say ‘on reflection, we could have done better, we could have moved earlier, and we could have brought justice’.”

Asked about the request for a State apology, Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee told the same programme: “There’s a lot of conversations to be had, I do wish him well and I look forward to meeting with him but I don’t agree with those comments.

“And I think we need to work collectively and to support each other on really positive progress being made on legacy issues at the moment.”

On that progress, Ms McEntee pointed to the establishment of a garda liaison unit on legacy matters as well as legislation around engaging with the legacy commission and the Omagh Bombing Inquiry.

Mr Burrows said he was “disappointed” with Ms McEntee’s comments.

In a statement to the Press Association, he said she “seems to have missed the essence of my comments”.

“In the weeks ahead, I will be meeting our Irish counterparts to discuss a range of issues, one of which is legacy.”

He added: “If the Irish Government’s position is simply that ‘no apology is required’, what signal does this send to victims whose attackers were de facto legally shielded by the failure of the state?

“Building peace and reconciliation requires leadership; too often the focus is entirely on holding the UK accountable for legacy issues and an absence of accountability on the part of the Republic of Ireland.”

Legal battle over Irish language signs at Grand Central delayed until May

ALAN ERWIN, Irish News and Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2026

Judge confirms separate challenge by Conradh na Gaeilge regarding Stormont standstill on a language initiative to be heard first

A LEGAL battle over installing Irish language signs at Belfast’s Grand Central Station has been put back until May.

Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson is seeking a judicial review of Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins’ decision to approve the £150,000 project.

But a High Court judge confirmed yesterday that a separate challenge against the Stormont administration’s ongoing failure to implement an Irish language strategy will be dealt with first.

Despite a potential overlap in the two cases, Mr Justice McAlinden listed them for separate hearings. Proceedings were issued after Ms Kimmins announced in March last year plans for the Irish language to feature on signs and ticket vending machines at the new public transport hub.

Mr Bryson claims the decision was so controversial and cut across other Stormont departments that it should have been brought to the Executive Committee for discussion and agreement.

Breach of Ministerial Code

By failing to take that step Ms Kimmins breached the Ministerial Code, the high-profile activist contends.

Meanwhile, campaign group Conradh na Gaeilge is involved in another ongoing legal action over pledges to progress an initiative for the Irish Jamie Bryson language.

Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson is seeking a judicial review of the decision by Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins, above, to approve a £150,000 project to install Irish language signage at Belfast’s Grand Central Station

“I look forward to a full determination of the legality of the Minister’s divisive decision. Obviously, in the meantime all (Irish) signage remains stayed

The High Court has twice ruled previously, in 2017 and again in 2022, that the power-sharing government is in breach of an obligation to adopt a blueprint. Amid an ongoing alleged violation of a duty enshrined in legislation, the language campaigners have brought a further challenge against both the power-sharing Executive and DUP Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.

Both Mr Bryson and Conradh na Gaeilge have already been granted intervenor status in each other’s challenges. Amid a possible link between the legal issues to be determined, it was previously suggested that they may be dealt with together.

In court yesterday, however, lawyers were in agreement about keeping the cases apart. Counsel for Conradh na Gaeilge, Karen Quinlivan KC, urged the judge to avoid any further hold-up in dealing with its application for judicial review.

“Our case against the Minister (Lyons) is that he is obstructing the development of an Irish language strategy, and a delay in this case is a significant prejudice to the applicant,” the barrister said.

Following submissions, Mr Justice McAlinden set aside three days after the Easter recess to deal with the Irish language strategy case first. He also listed the challenge to erecting signs at Grand Central for a twoday hearing in late May.

Speaking outside court, Mr Bryson said: “I look forward to a full determination of the legality of the Minister’s divisive decision. Obviously, in the meantime all (Irish) signage remains stayed.”

 'The right call': O'Neill backs her party's boycott of White House on St Patrick's Day

MARK BAIN, Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2026

SF LEADER MCDONALD CONFIRMS THERE WILL BE NO REPRESENTATION IN US DUE TO ONGOING GAZA CRISIS

Northern Ireland's First Minister has backed her party leader's decision to boycott St Patrick's Day events at the White House, saying the move is “absolutely the right call”.

Michelle O'Neill spoke out after Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald confirmed politicians from the party will not attend functions with President Trump and other White House officials.

The party is continuing its boycott of events at the White House, which began last year over the Trump administration's support of Israel during its war in Gaza.

“For me this is about humanity, this is about doing the right thing, this is about using my voice and my platform to stand up for those people that are facing this genocide day after day,” Ms O'Neill said.

“So for me, the situation in Gaza remains so serious that this is not the time in which to engage in the St Patrick's Day celebration.

“I don't do this to satisfy Donald Trump. I do this because it's the right thing to do.

“I'm not going to the White House because I think it's about standing on the right side of history and it's about calling out a genocide, and it's about calling out those international communities that have actually failed to take action and stop Israel acting with impunity.

“So for me this is a principled standing, it's absolutely the right call for me to make politically.”

Sinn Fein representatives had previously carried out a series of engagements in Washington, DC during the same week but party president Ms McDonald said it was important that Sinn Fein uses its voice to “demand that international law is upheld”.

“The situation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank remains dire, and the reality is that for all of the talk of a ceasefire, Israeli attacks on Gaza have not ended” she said, announcing the party decision.

“The genocide continues. Civilians are still being killed. Homes are still being struck. Families who have already lost everything continue to live under fire. Peace in Palestine must mean the end of occupation, the end of apartheid-like systems of control and the full realisation of a sovereign Palestinian state.”

“The Good Friday Agreement has shown the world that it is possible to move out of conflict into a permanent peace,” she continued.

The decision means Ms O'Neill will not be travelling to Washington, DC alongside Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, who has already confirmed she will be making the trip to America.

Speaking in the Assembly, Ms Little-Pengelly stressed the importance of engaging with the US.

“The US is the largest economy in the world. As our second-largest export market and our third largest source of imports it is a critical market for our economic development,” she told MLAs.

“Our relationship with the US is a long-standing one reflected in our ties to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, strengthened through the peace process and continuing today with major investments such as the Bank of America's commitment of up to 1,000 jobs,” she said.

Catering for big business

“The (Northern Ireland) Bureau will be hosting its annual St Patrick's Day breakfast in partnership with Invest NI, Tourism Ireland, Queen's University, Belfast and Ulster University to showcase the Executive's priorities.

“It is incredibly important for us to engage.

“There are so many different events, so much access, not just in terms of key policymakers, to the president himself, but also to a range of businesses and other key influencers.

“It is probably the most unique of opportunities that I think any jurisdiction gets to have that level of access.

“At the moment there are a range of key decisions that are being made by the President of the United States that can have, and will have a direct impact on us in Northern Ireland, on our businesses in Northern Ireland, on the people of Northern Ireland, and as leaders throughout the globe are taking the opportunity to try and talk and engage with President Trump, and try to urge him way from things that may be detrimental,” she added.

“I think it is incredibly important, more important than ever, that we do engage, regardless of our personal views as to the politics of the holder of the office of President of the United States.”

Meanwhile UUP leader Jon Burrows put to Ms O'Neill that her decision on humanitarian grounds is “at odds” with her party colleague and Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald visiting China last year.

Ms O'Neill responded: “We've spoken quite often in this house in relation to our engagement with both Chinese officials here, or indeed, whenever the Economy Minister recently visited China, we make it very clear about their human rights abuses, we always underline that in all of our visits.

“Both myself and deputy First Minister are on record in all of our meetings with Chinese officials that we're concerned about their human rights abuses, and they're very clear of our record in relation to that.”

Articles celebrating links with Mitchell taken down by Queen's

ADRIAN RUTHERFORD, Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2026

FORMER US SENATOR DENIES WRONGDOING BUT UNIVERSITY IS STILL CUTTING ITS TIES

Queen's University has quietly removed some articles from its website celebrating its links with George Mitchell.

The pages have been taken down as the university seeks to further distance itself from the former US senator over his links with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Mitchell, a former Queen's chancellor, chaired the negotiations which led to the 1998 peace deal.

Earlier this month a £35,000 bust of Mr Mitchell was removed from the university grounds, while his name has been scrubbed from Queen's Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.

Now it has emerged that articles referencing Mr Mitchell in recent years have been unpublished.

One source provided examples of several pages to have been removed. When we checked yesterday, the weblinks were broken, returning a 'page not found' response.

One unpublished release, from last April, was titled 'Senator George Mitchell urges youth to sustain peace'.

It reports on Mr Mitchell addressing the 'Passing The Torch' event at Queen's, where he spoke to over 600 young people and political leaders.

Deleted quotes

It had included quotes from Queen's vice-chancellor, Professor Sir Ian Greer, who said: “Queen's is privileged to have a longstanding and deeply valued relationship with Senator Mitchell, a statesman who has left an indelible mark on this region.”

It went on to refer to two organisations, adding: “It was a delight to partner with them for this visit so that the young minds of today could hear first-hand from Senator Mitchell of the power of engaging in the democratic process, not as passive observers, but as active participants shaping the future.”

Another, from September 2024, was headlined 'George Mitchell attends unveiling of new plans for centre in his name at Queen's'.

It reported on an event marking the dedication of the peace, security and justice institute in Mr Mitchell's name.

The report included another quote from Mr Greer, as well as comments from First Minister Michelle O'Neill, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and Secretary of State Hilary Benn.

Ms O'Neill was quoted as saying: “This building and the research institute that bears his name pay tribute to the commitment and dedication of Senator George Mitchell to bringing peace here and I want to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of Senator Mitchell throughout the peace process.”

Ms Little-Pengelly said: “It was an honour to be part of this special event to celebrate this institute and the legacy of Senator George Mitchell.”

Another, from September 2024, is titled 'Mitchell Institute co-hosts major conference with Harvard University'.”

One from May 2024 reports that a Queen's Mitchell Institute professor has been admitted into the Royal Irish Academy.

We asked Queen's to confirm how many pages have been removed, when and why they were removed and who took the decision to remove them. It did not respond to any of our questions.

A spokesperson said: “As part of the renaming of The Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, a review of content is ongoing.”

Mr Mitchell has consistently denied any wrongdoing. A spokesperson previously said the former senator “profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women”.

Queen's dropped its links with Mr Mitchell after the latest Epstein files suggested a continued relationship with Epstein following the late financier's first conviction in 2008.

First Minister brands pause in puberty blocker trial 'disgraceful'

CLAUDIA SAVAGE, Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2026

NESBITT'S DECISION 'SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANDLED IN MUCH MORE SENSITIVE WAY'

First Minister Michelle O'Neill has branded the health minister's decision to pause a puberty blocker trial in Northern Ireland as “disgraceful” and “unfortunate”.

She also said Mike Nesbitt's approach served as evidence that he viewed the issue as “a culture war battle within unionism”.

Campaigners have launched legal action against the Government to stop a King's College London trial recommended by the Cass Review.

The review into children's gender care led to a ban on puberty blockers due to “a very weak evidence base” for the benefits of the drugs for young people with gender dysphoria, but concluded a trial was the only way forward as some clinicians, children and families believe strongly in their effectiveness.

In a statement, Mr Nesbitt said that due to the ongoing judicial review he had decided “to suspend Northern Ireland's agreement to participate in the UK-wide trial until the legal process has concluded”.

In a social media post announcing the move on Saturday, the Ulster Unionist Party wrote: “While others try to revise their history the facts speak for themselves.”

The post added that NI's first specialist children's gender service was opened in August 2014 — when the DUP's Edwin Poots was health minister.

Speaking to reporters at Stormont, Ms O'Neill said the health minister had taken an “unfortunate route”.

She said: “This should have been handled in such a much more sensitive way. I really regret and I distance myself completely from the approach that he has taken.

Culture war

“This is about a political battle, an electoral battle, a culture war battle within unionism.

“It's not actually about the interest of the trans community out there that just need compassion and support and fairness.

“Mike made this commitment last year. He's now reneged on that commitment.”

Ms O'Neill said the discussion “should have” taken place around the Executive table.

Speaking in the assembly chamber yesterday, Mr Nesbitt said: “Gender identity is too sensitive and too important an issue for me to wish to see those young people and the parents of those young people and the many others on both sides of the debate have the issue dragged through the courts or subjected to the lowest form of debate.

“As such, our participation is now paused and will remain paused.

“Should the trial ultimately be given the green light to proceed, I shall take the views of Executive colleagues before any potential lifting of that pause.”

The deputy First Minister said “it's absolutely right” for Northern Ireland's participation in the trial to be paused, urging Mr Nesbitt to “go a step further and indicate very, very clearly that we will not be participating in that”.

Puberty blockers are not prescribed on the NHS to children after an earlier ban was made permanent in December 2024 with the agreement of devolved governments across the UK.

Launching the trial last year, researchers said the youngest patients involved will typically be 10 to 11 for girls and 11 to 12 for boys, with a maximum age of consent at 15 years 11 months.

A King's College London spokesperson has previously said: “We strongly refute the claim that this carefully-designed study is scientifically unsound or that it bypassed the ethics process and we can confirm that the study has completed all the necessary ethics and approvals processes.

Cost to host World Cup.. £112m Benefit to the economy.. £63m

JOHN MANLEY, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, February 17th, 2026

THE Stormont Executive agreed an £112m overspend to co-host the Women’s World Cup despite knowing it would generate just half that amount in economic benefits.

Ministers were unable to establish whether the 2035 tournament represented value for money but nevertheless committed to underwrite the future cost.

It has now emerged the Department for the Economy, which will be expected to fund co-hosting of the Women’s World Cup in nine years’ time, estimates the economic benefit for Northern Ireland will be “substantially less” than it plans to spend.

The Irish News reported yesterday that comptroller and auditor general Dorinnia Carville has so far been unable to secure minutes of the Executive meeting at which it was agreed to overspend in order to fund the tournament.

The spending watchdog asked for the record of the ministers’ October 16 meeting more than eight weeks ago but, according to the chair of the Assembly’s public accounts committee (PAC) Daniel McCrossan, the request has been “stonewalled”.

DfE told The Irish News it “does not yet have access to the minutes of the relevant meeting” and the minutes would be passed to the comptroller and auditor general “as soon as they are available for sharing”.

Mrs Carville is seeking the minutes because the Women’s World Cup funding approval was by ministerial direction, which is required when a department’s chief accounting officer is unable to sign off on a spending decision because it does not comply with civil service rules.

Correspondence between Mrs Carville and the PAC, seen by The Irish News, shows a condition of hosting the tournament was that the FA and British government “required each potential host nation to commit to the full budget and government guarantees”.

It meant the funds needed to be pledged to cover part of the bid costs and a share of the hosting costs.

Fifa has yet to confirm if the joint UK bid is successful but it is currently the sole valid bidder.

The correspondence also reveals DfE estimates the economic benefits generated by the tournament will be “a maximum” of £63m – around half of what it will cost the cash-strapped regional administration.

Mr McCrosaan said he fully supported the plan to host the Women’s World Cup, saying it would “generate a lasting legacy, particularly for women’s football and cannot be measured solely in financial terms”.

“However, the revelation that the audit office anticipates the tournament will raise just over half of its £112 million cost to the public purse raises serious questions about the decision to approve the funding through a ministerial direction, without full scrutiny,” he said.

“The public are entitled to know what was different in this case. We should absolutely be ambitious about attracting major events, but decisions involving this scale of public investment must be transparent.”

DfE has been approached for comment.

Council rates: How much bills are increasing by in your area

ANDREW MADDEN, Belfast Telegraph, February 17th, 2026

ARDS AND NORTH DOWN SEES THE LARGEST JUMP, WITH FERMANAGH AND OMAGH THE LOWEST

All of Northern Ireland's 11 councils have agreed to increase their rates for households for 2026/27.

The biggest rise — 4.5% — comes in Ards and North Down.

Council rates are calculated based on the value of a property. The district rate pays for services such as bin collections and street cleansing.

A separate regional rate is set by Stormont which, along with the block grant from the Treasury, goes towards services like hospitals and roads.

The district rate and regional rate is combined to make up the overall rates bill sent to households. Last week, the Executive agreed to increase the regional rate by 5%, the same uplift as last year.

The Department of Finance said this would add 63p per week to the average household bill and generate £47m in additional funding in 2026/27.

“With many households still feeling the pressure of rising living costs, and businesses facing increased costs, the Executive has aimed to strike a balance between raising the revenue required to support essential public services and protecting workers, families and businesses from unnecessary financial strain,” Finance Minister John O'Dowd said.

All 11 councils agreed to increase their rates, though by varying amounts.

Ards and North Down Borough Council set the biggest rates rise at 4.5%, which will add £27 to the average annual household bill.

Councillors previously agreed to a higher increase of 4.74%, but this was revised down after the confirmation that a Stormont's Reval 2026 property valuation exercise would not go ahead.

“Following the Minister of Finance's announcement on January 29 that Reval 2026 will not proceed, updated financial factors were applied,” an Ards and North Down council spokeswoman said.

“As a result, the previously agreed rate increase of 4.74% has been revised down to 4.5%.”

Following weeks of back-and-forth, Belfast councillors agreed a 4.48% increase to the district rate. At the bottom of the scale, this will mean an average annual increase of £16.64 for an apartment and, at the higher end, the £57.72 for a four-bed detached house.

Derry City and Strabane District Council also agreed a 4.48% increase, putting an extra £27.56 on the average annual bill.

In Lisburn and Castlereagh, the district rate has been increased by 4.25%, putting £23.40 on the average annual bill, while Mid Ulster agreed a rise of 3.40%, adding £17.68 to the average bill.

Causeway Coast and Glens hiked its rate by 3.35%, putting £20.80 on the average annual bill, and Antrim and Newtownabbey increased its rate by 2.99%, adding £14.67 to the average bill.

The average annual bill in Mid and East Antrim will rise by around £46 following a 2.95% rates rise, while Newry, Mourne and Down has increased its rate by 2.8%, which will see the average yearly bill rise by £18.12.

In Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon, the rate is going up by 2.79%, adding £16 to the average bill.

At the bottom of the table is Fermanagh and Omagh, where councillors agreed to increase the district rate by just 1.96%, putting £10 on the average bill.