Sinn Fein MP says it will ‘‘always stand on side of journalism’
Rebecca Black, Belfast Telegraph and Irish News, June 5th, 2025
DIFFERENT ATTITUDE TO WHEN GERRY KELLY TRIED TO SUE ME: MALACHI O'DOHERTY
A journalist and broadcaster who was unsuccessfully sued for libel by a senior Sinn Fein politician has said it is “wonderful news” after one of its MPs said the party “will always stand on the side of journalism”.
North Belfast MP John Finucane was speaking after his party's former president Gerry Adams won a defamation case against BBC Northern Ireland.
Mr Adams took the BBC to court over a 2016 episode of its Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, which he said defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of former party official Denis Donaldson, for which he denies any involvement.
On Friday, a jury at the High Court in Dublin found in his favour and awarded him €100,000 (£84,000) after determining that was the meaning of words included in the programme and article.
The BBC will also have to pay Mr Adams' legal costs. However, the broadcaster has been granted a stay on paying out the full costs and damages to allow it time to consider whether to lodge an appeal.
Speaking outside court on Friday, Adam Smyth, director of BBC NI, said implications of the libel victory against the broadcaster are “profound”, and could “hinder freedom of expression”.
Yesterday, Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O'Neill told reporters in Belfast that Mr Adams was “right to defend his good name”.
But, she said, in a “separate issue”, journalists are “entitled to do your job, to report fairly and honestly and actually scrutinise things, and to do so without any kind of intimidation or any fear”.
She also pointed out that Mr Finucane, in his role as a solicitor, had defended Belfast journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey.
Mr Finucane added: “We've been witness to journalists being murdered for doing their job in Gaza, we have seen the arrest of Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey for doing their job (to) a very high standard.
“So I think we'll always stand on the side of journalism to be able to do their job robustly, without anybody receiving fear or intimidation as a result of that.”
SF’s Change of attitude
In response, Malachi O'Doherty said he wanted to “thank” Sinn Fein for its “change in attitude” after defending North Belfast MLA and former IRA man Gerry Kelly, whose case against him was struck out as vexatious.
Mr Kelly had sought damages after Mr O'Doherty suggested Mr Kelly had shot a prison officer during the Maze Prison escape in 1983.
A similar case against journalist Ruth Dudley Edwards was thrown out.
“I thank Sinn Fein for this change in attitude from the party after Gerry Kelly, one of the party's most senior members, tried to destroy two journalists and hadn't a case,” Mr O'Doherty said.
He said if Sinn Fein now stood on the side of journalists it would be “wonderful” and a “welcome change” after having tried to draw them into expensive legal proceedings in the past.
Over 70 attacks
Earlier this week, Amnesty International published a report revealing there has been more than 70 attacks and death threats against journalists in Northern Ireland over the last six years.
It also concluded that the region is the most dangerous place in the UK to be a reporter.
Also speaking to media in Belfast yesterday, Stormont Justice Minister and Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she condemns intimidation, threats, violence and abuse directed at anyone.
“The idea that this kind of abuse, this kind of vitriol, is normalised in our society, I think, is unacceptable, and we do need a reset,” she said.
“It is not acceptable to threaten a journalist because you don't like what they published. It is not acceptable to threaten their family because you want to intimidate them from doing their job.
“A free press is part of the accountability mechanisms in a democratic society, and a fair and free press is absolutely essential to holding those in power, whether political power or otherwise, to account, and when you try to curtail that, when you try to restrict that in terms of threats and intimidation and violence, then you are essentially attacking democracy, not just individual journalists.”
Unionist behaviour over Casement Park is a political gift to Sinn Féin
Letters Page, Irish News, June 5th, 2025
LISTENING to a well-known radio show recently, I heard a unionist minister in Stormont prevaricate and evade questions from the host surrounding Casement Park. It was embarrassing but enlightening.
At a more general level, how can unionist politicians not realise that their refusal to go ahead with the new GAA ground is playing right into Sinn Féin’s hands? Sinn Féin can go out into the streets and tell the nationalist community: “Didn’t we know this all along. The unionists will never give us anything.”
This behaviour is a political gift to Sinn Féin. The short-sightedness of unionist leaders is mind-boggling. Their isolationism is tantamount to political suicide.
“ When is unionism going to show some strategic thinking? The demographic and societal makeup of Northern Ireland is changing rapidly
The nationalist population is growing while the unionist population is in decline. And when someone from overseas arrives in Northern Ireland and is driven out of a unionist area where they have tried to settle, this means that these children must go to Catholic schools, where they will naturally be imbued with the nationalist culture. They will be taught everything from a nationalist perspective, play Gaelic football and learn nationalist traditions. Unionism, and the unionist mentality, will be as foreign to them as it was to me, who was brought up in a nationalist village.
These foreigners are needed in Northern Ireland. They fill the shortage in many skills, especially in engineering and building. The nationalist community, probably as a result of suffering persecution from successive unionist governments, have assimilated these people, who are, whether some unionists like it or not, productive members of society.
Whereas the nationalist community once felt oppressed and discriminated against, unionist domination has now turned to unionism under siege. This mindset will lead their people nowhere. Driving foreigners, instead of Catholics, out of their homes, may seem a short-term victory, but is long term political suicide.
When is unionism going to show some strategic thinking? The demographic and societal makeup of NI is changing rapidly.
In a few years we will have young men with eastern European names playing for the various counties who are not allowed an Ulster stadium. They will be steeped in nationalist culture, identifying as Polish-Irish or whatever, going to the polls, with every right to vote and studiously avoiding putting their X beside a unionist candidate. When is unionism ever going to learn?
TURLOUGH QUINN Portglenone, Co Antrim
We need journalists in world where darkness threatens
TRUTH-TELLING REMAINS DEMOCRACY'S ESSENTIAL BULWARK AGAINST TYRANNY
Alf McCreary, Belfast Telegraph, June 5th, 2025
A new report from Amnesty International says that Northern Ireland is the most dangerous place for journalists in the UK.
It states that there have been more than 70 attacks on reporters here since 2019, the year when journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead during republican violence in Derry.
She was a shining light for hope and progress, and her untimely and cruel death was such a tragedy, which underlined the dangers mentioned by Amnesty International.
Their report reveals that these dangers also include physical assaults and murder threats, mostly from paramilitaries and organised crime gangs.
All of this will be familiar to journalists in Northern Ireland and much further afield.
During my earlier career as a reporter and senior features writer with the Belfast Telegraph when it was based in Royal Avenue, my colleagues and I had to leave the building all too often due to bomb scares which totally disrupted our work and caused concern to professionals like us simply doing our jobs.
At the height of the Troubles, this danger became horribly real when the Provisional IRA backed a vehicle into the print hall of our newspaper and a resultant explosion killed one of our employees and injured several others.
Fortunately, the vast majority of us managed to escape in time.
The next day, in an example of outstanding journalism, the editor Roy Lilley led our team in producing a makeshift paper with a strong message of defiance to all paramilitarism.
Roy was later given a prestigious international award for his defence of press freedom, and rightly so.
‘Tell me your truth and I will tell you mine’
The danger was not just physical, however. In the very early days of the Troubles when political and community tensions were high, my colleagues and I were often confronted by irate people from both sides of our community, who would claim that “you journalists never tell the truth”.
My reply was always the same: “Tell me your truth and I will tell you mine.”
That kind of criticism has not gone away. Last year, I published my latest book, Keeping the Faith, in which I strongly criticised the role of the Rev Ian Paisley in stirring up so much trouble and division in Northern Ireland.
Many of the reviews of the book were supportive, but not surprisingly I was strongly criticised by one of Paisley's earlier associates. He was entitled to his views, even though I disagreed with him fundamentally.
Strong opposition and threats to journalistic freedom extend far beyond our own shores.
In a reporting assignment in Vietnam and Cambodia on behalf of Christian Aid, I was sitting in my hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, then known as Saigon, when I heard that two Russian advisers had been murdered on their way to an area in Cambodia which I was scheduled to visit the next day.
Naturally, I was very worried, until I reminded myself forcefully that I had worked and survived in Belfast through some of the worst years of the Troubles, and that this was part of the job. In Canada, several years previously, I had faced physical attack from an irate Ulsterman whom I was interviewing about his new life in Ontario.
He had emigrated to Toronto but had not left his past behind, and he was objecting strongly to some of my Belfast Telegraph reports that he had read back home.
Tear gassed in Chile
Despite all the dangers, it is ironic that the only time I was tear-gassed was not in Northern Ireland, but in Chile, where I was reporting, again for Christian Aid. The army was dispersing a riot in the capital Santiago and soldiers were firing tear gas indiscriminately into the whole area. That was just after I had almost been mugged walking down one of the main streets of the centre of Santiago, with its beautiful backdrop of the Andes.
All of these experiences have made me constantly aware of the dangers facing so many journalists who risk their lives daily in war-torn places such as Ukraine and Gaza, where many reporters have died, as well as Africa and particularly Sudan, which has suffered endless violence. Some years ago, I reported from Juba in South Sudan, with hopes of peace for its beleaguered inhabitants, but sadly the situation seems to be worse there than ever.
The democracies in our world today are all threatened by restrictions on press freedom and free speech. One of the worst culprits is President Donald Trump who has coined the dangerous and misleading term “fake news” in order to reject any truth that he and his followers cannot stomach. If you listen to Trump's rambling speeches, he seems more and more like an elderly man who is losing his mental faculties, rather than a respected US President, but nobody seems to be able to stop him.
How did he ever become the “leader” of the free world?
By contrast, I have the utmost respect for brave reporters like Steve Rosenberg, the British journalist who has been the BBC's Moscow correspondent since 2003 and is now its Russian editor. He reports live from Moscow almost daily, and in doing so treads a very narrow line in his fair reporting and in protecting his sources in monstrous Putin's Russia, where censorship and oppression are a way of life.
Over 2,000 years ago, one of the most important questions in human history was that of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate who asked, “What is truth?” That question today is as important as ever, and the answer remains endlessly elusive.
We continue to need fearless, fair-minded and honest journalists doing their job in a world where the darkness continually threatens democracy and our cherished way of life. That is why I have always been proud to be a journalist and why I still have the utmost respect for my colleagues at home and abroad who are working tirelessly to bring the light of truth into the dark places for the benefit of us all.
Belfast melting pot: Primary school where 17 languages spoken wins international award
Mark Bain, Belfast Telegraph, June 5th, 2025
INTEGRATED SCHOOL IN NORTH OF CITY HELPING TO FOSTER INCLUSION IN DIVERSE CLASSROOMS
There are plenty of challenges beyond the normal ones faced by a school when 17 different languages can be spoken in the classroom.
Such is the diversity at Cliftonville Integrated Primary in north Belfast.
But the school has risen to the task of providing an education and integration in a changing social landscape and has now been rewarded with the British Council's International School Award 2024-2027 — the only recipient in Northern Ireland.
The UK-wide award scheme celebrates schools that bring the wider world into the classroom, creating a safe and welcoming environment for all pupils, fostering a culture of inclusion and celebrating diversity.
Bill Fletcher is principal of Cliftonville Integrated Primary, which has over 400 pupils and is already a designated school of sanctuary. He said that while the vast majority of the children are from the home nations, they do have kids from all over the world.
“There are challenges in the sense that if you have children coming in who have no English, that's difficult for the teachers. There's very little support from the Department of Education or the Education Authority. I think that's a strategy they need to look at,” he said.
Without that support, it's something the school provides for itself, with a member of staff as a dedicated international coordinator. Parents and pupils with English as an additional language (EAL) can also benefit from English classes with the school's dedicated EAL teacher.
Mr Fletcher added: “We need to do more across the board to help families when they come here, maybe through something like a six-month intensive programme in English to help them integrate into society.
Parents learn English from children
“It's far better for their children, though the children always tend to pick up English very quickly.
“We have six designated school ambassadors in the school, pupils who help to integrate new children regardless of where they're from. We have about 16% of children in the school who would be classed as coming from an EAL background. They may have been here for a number of years and may be fluent in English, but there are some who have arrived in the last year to 18 months who need some help with the language. It's quite a diverse group, but we're absolutely delighted at the recognition for the work we do. It's something we've been doing for quite some time.”
The British Council chose Cliftonville Integrated Primary as the location to launch its language trends report 2025. It showed Spanish as the most popular language studied in Northern Ireland schools, but also found a reluctance among pupils to carry language studies through to qualifications level.
North Belfast MP John Finucane recently collected the award on behalf of the school at Westminster and was delighted to present it on Wednesday morning.
“It's fantastic to see they've been honoured for the amazing work they do,” he said.
“It's not just a one-off, they live this and practice this on a daily basis. It's a school that embraces all cultures and diversities. They make children not just aware of that, but increase their curiosity, increase their learning and I think increase their kindness through the exposure to lots of different cultures.
“I'm a big fan of bilingualism, even multilingualism in schools. It's wonderful for the development of children, their learning and their capacity to embrace different subjects as they progress their academic life.
“It's not necessarily just about making them fluent in lots of different languages. It's about that exposure to different cultures, different parts of our world, and to embed that in our own curriculum is something that would be celebrated.”
Central to everything the school does, though, is the wellbeing and education of its pupils, and nine-year-old Victoria Chen is loving her role as one of its international ambassadors.
She said: “We show people around the school, welcome them here, and help them to make new friends. It's nice to be able to help new pupils understand more about school life.”
Many of the pupils learn Mandarin and French as part of their daily routine.
International Atmosphere
Charlotte Ogunleye is one of those who loves the international atmosphere.
“It's helping me learn about other cultures around me. I'm learning to speak Mandarin and I can see patterns in other languages. I hope that will help me learn more,” she said.
“It's our job to make sure anyone new to the school doesn't feel lonely and left out,” said fellow ambassador Wolfie Burns (9). “We want to make sure everyone feels welcome and able to join in and I'm proud to be able to do that.”
Author of the British Council language trends report, Dr Ian Collen, said he was delighted to see languages in action in schools.
“It is a linguist melting pot here and it's wonderful to see how it all comes together, providing the pupils with a real taste of cultural diversity which they can all share, enjoy and learn from together.
“What you see in Cliftonville Integrated Primary is something all schools should aspire to. It's not just about learning one language, school can be about learning lots of languages in a fun, informative way.”
Minister's approach to GPs 'pushing medics into the private sector'
Garrett Hargan, Belfast Telegraph, June 5th, 2025
An experienced doctor from Northern Ireland has written to the Heath Minister, saying that his department is driving GPs towards a private system.
It follows the recent decision by Mike Nesbitt to impose a financial settlement that had been overwhelmingly rejected in a ballot of British Medical Association (BMA) GPs. The union said its demands included urgent money to address the rise in costs as a result of increased national insurance contributions and a 1% uplift in core funding.
Mr Nesbitt offered a package of £9.5m additional funding to GPs and said he was “disappointed” BMA negotiators recommended that members should reject the offer. He added that the money he was offering had been hard to source and the time for “general open-ended discussions is over”.
At the weekend, chair of the BMA's NI council Alan Stout, said that 10 years ago he had never heard of private GPs, “now I don't only hear about it every single day, but I hear it discussed by many as a very realistic strategy”.
John Diamond, a GP at Garden Street Surgery Magherafelt and Bellaghy Medical Centre, publicly shared a letter addressed to the health minister, criticising his approach to general practice.
In his letter Dr Diamond said: “It was with increasing dismay and anger that I have watched your complete disrespect and disregard for general practice in your recent words and deeds.
Only part of NHS that works in budget
“I have been a full-time GP partner for over 25 years in my hometown and have devoted my work and life to the NHS.
“I have many family and friends who are patients in our practice and I have had to try to do my best to care for them in a failing system as I feel free at the point of need was a worthwhile thing to fight for. Your words have changed that.
“Your department has used our sense of loyalty to our patients against us. We are the only part of the system that works within budget with no deficit despite being the worst funded on these islands.
“I had thought that I would finish my career within the NHS but it is increasingly clear that general practice is only going one way and that is into some sort of private system and I can assure you my younger colleagues are actively planning this route.”
The Department of Health said total investment in GP services this year will be more than £414m, including pay uplifts from last year, recently announced investments in multidisciplinary teams, plus investment of £2.9m in GP Elective Care.
The minister has also stated his intention to see the pay recommendations from the recent DDRB report implemented for 2025/26 in full, which will see a further £11.5m invested in General Medical Services.
DoH said it remains committed to engaging with GPs on how general practice can play an integral role in the delivery of primary care.“The department and minister remain committed to the principle that GP services should remain free to all patients at the point of access and do not agree that the privatisation is the way forward for GPs.”
Adams’s victory does not herald a ‘chilling effect’ for journalism
Newton Emerson, Irish Times, June 5th, 2025
The defamation case between Gerry Adams and the BBC has many points of interest, legally and politically, but its implications for journalism have been vastly overstated.
The former Sinn Féin president won in Dublin’s High Court last week because the BBC broadcast a serious allegation against him in a programme that cited only one anonymous source, with no corroboration. Every news organisation would aspire to do better than this under almost all circumstances.
Part of the BBC’s defence is that it should still have been able to broadcast the claim, aired by its Northern Ireland investigation strand Spotlight in 2016, as a matter of public interest. There are often cases where it is impossible to name sources or publish corroborating evidence. To do so might place people in danger, expose them to prosecution or breach essential promises of confidentiality.
Irish defamation law allows for a public-interest defence, but this has yet to be used successfully. The BBC is not alone in fearing the law is not working as intended.
Even in a matter of public interest, however, a news organisation should still demonstrate a serious allegation is more than one person’s claim. The BBC said in court it had corroboration from five other confidential sources, but it had not mentioned this in the programme, to be fair to Adams. The court was unimpressed by this argument, and little wonder.
The BBC’s final defence was that there must be freedom to report on figures of historical importance and losing to Adams could create a chill factor over investigations into the Troubles. It asked the jury to make no award of damages, even if it found Spotlight’s claim to be untrue.
Yet the judge had been clear throughout that the case was not about the Troubles. The jury was instructed to decide if Adams had rehabilitated his reputation sufficiently as a “peacemaker” after the Belfast Agreement for a 2016 allegation about a 2006 murder to damage his reputation.
The jury found it had, although its €100,000 award was on the lower end of what might have been expected. Many Troubles victims will be dismayed to hear Adams described as a peacemaker, but his Troubles reputation remains where it belongs.
Speaking outside court after the verdict, Adams said taking the case was “about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation”. Seamus Dooley, secretary of the National Union of Journalists, condemned this comment as “chilling”, as well as “unfair and unreasonable”, given Spotlight’s 40-year record of “amazing investigative journalism”.
‘Direct interference’
An Amnesty report this week found Northern Ireland is the most dangerous place in the UK to be a journalist. Public figures have a responsibility not to make matters worse. However, Adams’s remark will not have made much difference to anyone: it was a familiar sort of jibe, to be enjoyed by a harmless republican audience. Only loyalists and dissident republicans pose a physical threat to the media.
Adams added he suspected the BBC had come under “direct political interference” to continue a case it could have settled years earlier with an apology.
It is only slightly facetious to suggest that Sinn Féin has already benefited enough from murky British dealings. What political motivation could there be to press on with a plainly weak case that was almost certain to work out in Adams’s favour?
The obvious explanation is by far the most likely: the BBC pressed on because it is an intractable bureaucracy with no respect for public money. Adams might be familiar with the concept of an organisation that struggles to back down.
There has been a recent, relevant demonstration of this culture within BBC Northern Ireland. In 2023, it reached a confidential settlement in an alleged bullying case with a Spotlight producer, Lena Ferguson. She received an award and costs with no admission of liability.
The BBC then issued a statement congratulating itself. “We didn’t want to be in a lengthy dispute with Lena and are happy that we can all now move forward,” it said.
Legal obstinacy
Yet the case had dragged out for four years, involving allegations dating back 20 years from Ferguson and others. The problem became serious enough to be raised in the House of Commons.
Many people in the media in Belfast feared Spotlight had become dysfunctional, with implications for the quality of its journalism. They were appalled by the BBC’s legal obstinacy towards Ferguson but hardly surprised.
The best insight into how the BBC handles a mistake comes not from the insinuations of Adams, but from Terry Wogan, a truly great Irishman, who after every crisis would quip: “Deputy heads must roll.”
We may be years away from even that stage of this particular fiasco.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE - Term of Comm Designate for Victims of Crime extended
Stormont – June 5th, 2025.
Naomi Long extends current term of Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime
Geraldine Hanna will remain as Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime in Northern Ireland for a further two years, the Justice Minister has announced.
Naomi Long has announced a two-year extension to the current term of Ms Hanna, who took up office on 13 June 2022.
She was originally appointed to the role following an open competition for a term of three years.
A decision has been made to extend her time in post for another two years until June 2027 when a statutory Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses of Crime will be appointed.
This will ensure continuity and enable Ms Hanna to carry on the positive work she has already undertaken during her time in post.
The second year of the extension will coincide with a public appointment competition being undertaken for a statutory Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses of Crime.
Minister Long said: “Three years ago, I established a new role of Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime for Northern Ireland.
“The objectives of the role were to give a voice to victims of crime, promote their rights under the Victim Charter, and raise their issues with Government and criminal justice organisations.
“I was also keen that the Commissioner would drive forward system improvements for victims of crime and contribute to a more cohesive, coordinated and victim centred criminal justice system.
“I am grateful to Geraldine for all that she has achieved during her time in office and I am pleased to extend her current term for a further two years.
“During this time, she will be able to continue to identify and highlight the issues affecting victims and effect real change for victims and witnesses within the criminal justice system.”
Notes to editors:
1. The Commissioner Designate’s term will be extended until 12 June 2027.
2. Information in relation to the work of the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime can be found at: https://www.cvocni.org.
