Ireland’s neutrality risks becoming a victim

                   A US air force Hercules transporter at Shannon Airport. Picture: Alan Place/Press 22

The idea that Ireland is still a neutral state is false, says one expert, pointing to the US military landings in Shannon

WITH military patrols of football fans in France, soldiers guarding wire fences against refugees in southern Europe, and military bases beefing up in Eastern Europe, the response to recent crises increasingly involves armies.

But what does it mean for Ireland? Amid all our expressions of solidarity with the countries affected, will we be asked for a more practical response? If so, will our neutrality survive?

Roger Cole, chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, answers that one with another question: What neutrality?

“Ireland is not a neutral state, which is rather obvious if you have over 2.5m, US troops having landed in Shannon Airport since 2002,” he says.

Successive governments have insisted the landings are not part of military operations but rather, as Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan put it last week, “crew rest, aircraft refuelling, airport familiarisation, passenger transfer, and aircraft maintenance”.

Or so the US embassy informs him. Either way, Mr Cole believes facilitating the landings facilitates the US’s military adventures. Hence he questions the very notion that we remain a neutral state.

But it’s not just the airport activity that casts doubts, he says. It’s the fact that Irish troops are signed up to a British-led EU battle group that has been conducting exercises on British soil.

There have been recurring exchanges in the Dáil over the involvement of Irish troops in such battle groups, with ministers insisting the term itself is a military one referring only to the size of the force and not the nature of its mission.

“The participation in battle groups has no effect on our traditional policy of military neutrality,” Defence Minister Paul Kehoe said last month, insisting it was all about transport, logistics, and peacekeeping.

Mr Cole doesn’t accept that explanation, particularly given tightening ties between the EU and Nato, which has declared the EU a strategic military partner.

The lines are further blurred because 22 of Nato’s 28 member states are also in the EU and have jointly agreed to an increase in military spending.

“The inevitable consequences of which will be a massive cut in the amount of money they can spend on health and social welfare,” says Mr Cole.

He says that will cause further social and political unrest throughout Europe while boosting the US arms industry which profits from Nato-backed wars that produce millions of refugees that land on the doorstep of Europe. “Does any of this make sense?” he asks.

He finds other aspects of the West’s response to current crises more nonsensical — including the beefing up of Nato’s presence on Russia’s borders with more troops being deployed to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland. Russia, in reply, is increasing troops on its western borders.

The move was signalled a year ago when General Joe Dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the US military, told the Senate that Russia was the number one threat to the US. China, North Korea, and IS came next, in that order.

While Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a cause for concern, Mr Cole says there is no evidence of Russia planning military moves further afield into Europe. He claims Nato’s actions are diversionary and serve only the US arms industry.

“It’s very difficult for these arms companies to make really big money if their only enemy is IS,” he says.

“When Dunford put Russia to the top of the threat list, he’s saying to the people of Nice, to the people of Paris, to the people of Brussels, that the greatest threat to you is not IS but Russia.”

He quotes Richard A Clarke, the former White House security adviser who left the Bush administration and wrote that going to war with Iraq as a consequence of 9/11 was like going to war with Mexico after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

“This is happening all over again. In response to IS, Nato — including Ireland because Ireland facilitates Nato troops and is part of the EU, Nato’s strategic military partner — wants to go to war with Russia.

“I think Irish people would be wrong not to be seriously frightened by this. We need to be talking about restoring our neutrality.”

Gorbachev urges IOC to let Russian athletes compete at Rio

Further 45 athletes fail dope tests after Beijing and London Olympics samples retested

Former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev: concerned that Russian athletes who are not culpable would be punished as well as those who are guilty. Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

Mikhail Gorbachev has call on the International Olympic Committee to allow Russian athletes to compete at Rio 2016.

The former Soviet Union president has written to the IOC to plead the case of those who have not failed drugs tests and yet face possible bans from taking part in the Games.

The IAAF, world athletics’ governing body, banned the Russian track and field team last month and on Thursday that decision was rubber-stamped by the Court of Arbitration for Sport .

The Swiss-based body rejected an appeal against that ban by the Russian Olympic Committee and 68 individual athletes.

It followed a momentous week for world sport that started with the publication of a World Anti-Doping Agency- commissioned report into a state-directed doping conspiracy that went much further than athletics.

Gorbachev (85) wrote in the letter, posted on the Mikhail Gorbachev Foundation website: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am writing to ask you to take into account my position in ruling on admitting Russian athletes, as well as Paralympians, to participate in the Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro.

Evil

“I support the fight against the use of banned substances in sports. It is an evil that must be eradicated. The athletes whose use of doping has been proven must be banished from competition.

“I am deeply troubled by the fact that Russian citizens are among the officials and athletes who used doping and fraud for ‘victory at any price’. Serious conclusions should be drawn from this. It is necessary to conduct a thorough investigation, punish those responsible and take steps to prevent anything similar in the future. I am sure that this will be done.

“However, I am concerned and deeply saddened by the possibility that, in the event Russian athletes are banned from participating in the Olympics, persons not culpable would be punished as well as those who are guilty.

“I regard the principle of collective punishment as unacceptable. I am convinced that it is contrary to the culture of the Olympic movement, based on universal values, humanism and the principles of law.”

Forty-five athletes have failed dope tests after their samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Games were reanalysed, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said yesterday.

The results are from a second wave of retests and take the total number of athletes who tested positive for prohibited substances to 98, the IOC added in a statement.

Of the 45 failed tests announced on Friday, 30 were from Beijing, including 23 medallists, and 15 were from London. The IOC did not say if any of the London athletes had won medals.

Commitment

“The new reanalysis once again shows the commitment of the IOC in the fight against doping,” IOC President Thomas Bach said.

The IOC stores samples for a decade in order to retest using newer methods or to look for new drugs. The results are part of its retesting of samples from past games to keep cheats from competing in Rio in August.

The athletes are being informed, after which proceedings against them can begin. All athletes found to have infringed anti-doping rules will be banned from competing at the Rio Olympics.

The failed tests will raise further speculation about the extent of doping at the Games, just weeks before the Rio Olympics starts.

Doping scandals have plagued the build-up to the world’s biggest multisports event, with Russia potentially facing a complete Games ban following the publication of the McLaren report on Monday.

The £200million Dragon's Den reject

The £200million Dragon's Den reject: Yes, that's the hair-raising worth of the detangling brush inventor who was told to get knotted (and who will now be five times richer than judge who said: 'I'm out')

• Rejected Tangle Teezer idea now worth £200million in business deal

• BBC show's judges rejected him, describing the idea as ‘hair-brained’

• Inventor Shaun Pulfrey said of 2007 bid: 'I didn’t feel they heard me out’

They built their reputations and fortunes by combing through investment proposals to spot money-spinning opportunities.

But the Dragons’ Den moguls will be shocked to discover that a former hairdresser who invented a detangling brush is set to sell his business for £200 million – after they told him to get knotted when he first pitched the idea to them.

Entrepreneur Shaun Pulfrey braved the notoriously high-pressure environment of the Den in a bid to raise £80,000 in exchange for a 15 per cent share in his young company, called Tangle Teezer.

Shaun Pulfrey didn't manage to tame the Dragons with his detangling brush 'The Tangle Teezer' in the Den when he appeared on the show in 2007. But now he is worth a fortune

The Tangle Teezer  - originally rejected by Dragon's Den judges is now set to make a fortune for owner Shaun Pulfrey if a £200m business deal goes through

The then Dragons – Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis, Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan – listened patiently to his pitch on the BBC2 show.

But when it came to putting their hands in their very deep pockets, they responded unanimously: ‘I’m out!’

Mr Jones went so far as to tell Mr Pulfrey his brush scheme was ‘hair-brained’; Mr Caan called it ‘a waste of time’; and Ms Meaden dismissed his product saying it was like a ‘horse brush’.

Ironically, if the £200 million deal goes through as expected it will make Mr Pulfrey five times richer than Ms Meaden, who has an estimated wealth of £40 million.

It will also make Tangle Teezer one of the most ‘successful failures’ in the hit programme’s history.

Mr Pulfrey had been nagged by a friend into entering Dragons’ Den in 2007. Despite facing five fearsome Dragons he felt confident because he believed that he had a decent idea.

Importantly, he also had a serious business plan having raised £98,000 from his savings from working as a hair salon colourist and by remortgaging his London flat.

He stressed it was not just about the financial investment, it was also the prospect of the extensive fringe benefits of getting a high-profile Dragon on board.

But in the event his bid for backing from the Dragons proved to be unsuccessful.

He recalled: ‘Deborah Meaden gave me a really hard time saying it was like a horse brush, but before I could argue with her the next comments were coming from another direction.

‘I wasn’t disappointed about not getting the money because I can get that from a bank.

‘But I wanted a Dragon to take it to the consumer global market and I didn’t feel they heard me out.’

Mr Pulfrey left the Den empty-handed, but that did not stop him pursuing his dream.

In the nine years since his rejection, he has built a business which exports 13 brushes a minute to 60 countries around the world and has been endorsed by a host of celebrities, including X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger.

It was reported earlier this year that the business was set to sell for £100 million, but because Brexit has brought down the value of the pound and so boosted overseas sales, investors could now be prepared to pay twice that.

And as Mr Pulfrey is the sole shareholder in the British firm he will be the one enjoying the profit.

Several British private equity firms, including Exponent, Inflexion and Bridgepoint, have been participating in the sale process but it is unclear who is still in the running to buy Tangle Teezer.

Investment bankers from American firm Baird have been appointed to find a buyer.

City sources have told The Mail on Sunday that the company has received takeover offers of up to £200 million.

The Tangle Teezer auction process is now understood to be entering the final stages and a deal could be announced shortly.

Ben Harrington and Stephanie Condron

Kieran Behan: One definition of toughness

For Kieran Behan, the fact that he is able to look forward to his second Olympic Games is little short of miraculous. Born in London to a father from Dublin and a mother from Monaghan, the gymnast who has partnered with Team Ireland, is an athlete who will carry the nation's hopes in Rio. But Kieran's greatest challenge came when he was just 10 years old.

A benign tumour in his leg left the young Kieran confined to a wheelchair. However, he defied the odds and was able to return to training until, 15 months later, tragedy struck when he suffered a fall and a brain injury that affected his balance and co-ordination. The young gymnast was told he would never walk again, much less compete.

But Kieran Behan is a fighter, and an embodiment of – 'The Power Within'. Not only did he return to gymnastics, he went on to prove himself at the elite level. In 2012, Kieran qualified for the Olympics through a 4th place finish at the London test event, making him only the second Irish gymnast ever to qualify for the Games.

He's described his feat as "a miracle", and although his Games didn't go as well as he had hoped – he was unable to qualify for the individual all-around, or any of the event finals – London went down as an important learning experience and a source of immense personal pride. "I'm proud of proving myself as the athlete I am," he says. "From twice being told that I was never going to walk again to competing at the highest level, and seeing how happy my family and the people around me are."

However, it hasn't all been smooth sailing since. After London, Kieran was hit by another setback. His troublesome left knee flared up again and he was forced to undergo surgery on it for the fifth time in his life. With surgery came missed competitions, weight gain and a lot of soul-searching, and Kieran admits that that period of his life put him at his lowest ebb – but he didn't let it beat him.

"That was the closest I've ever come to quitting," he says. "I was struggling – being injured, financially, everything. But then I sat down and said to myself: 'You've been through a lot worse, you're made of strong stuff, let's go for it'."

Go for it, he did – and then some. Kieran went on to show immense resolve yet again on the road to Rio. In April, he qualified for his second Olympic Games with a highly creditable fourth-place finish at the Aquece Rio final gymnastics qualifier, and a score of 14.966 in the floor apparatus final.

It was vindication not only of Kieran's talent – which has never been in doubt – but also his relentlessly positive attitude and the drive and determination that has seen him overcome every obstacle that has been put in his way.

"If you've had adversity in life," he says, "you're going to be mentally stronger and have more resilience if you can flip a negative into a positive. That's something that I try to live by. When I hit a low point in my career, I pull from my experiences in the past and say, 'Right, let's look at the next goal that you can overcome'."

With everything he has been through, it's tempting to suggest that Kieran Behan already won. But that's not his mentality. The next goal is Rio 2016. It's time for another fight.  

Photos Minute: Taken with an IPHONE

Teen tennis star who was born with three fingers achieves her dream playing at Wimbledon

• 15-year-old Francesca Jones was born with three fingers on each hand

• She has endured a series of painful operations and has been teased

• But the Yorkshire teenager says it has helped her achieve her SW19 dream 

• Teen reached second round of her first junior Grand Slam tournament 

With fighting spirit and a powerful serve, 15-year-old Francesca Jones is like many other juniors at this year’s Wimbledon 

But the Yorkshire teenager has had to overcome painful operations, teasing and being born with three fingers on each hand to achieve her SW19 dream.

And, since the age of nine, she has been living by herself at a tennis academy in Barcelona, hundreds of miles away from her parents in Oxenhope in Bradford.

Since the age of nine, Francesca Jones, 15, who was born with just three fingers on each hand, has been living by herself at a tennis academy in Barcelona, hundreds of miles away from her parents in Bradford

Francesca was born with Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplasia, EEC syndrome, a rare condition which has left her with three fingers and one thumb on each hand.

It has also left her with a small right hand – her racket hand – and four toes on her left foot and just three on her right.

But that has not stopped the determined teenager from reaching the second round of her first junior Grand Slam tournament or being ranked number four in the world when she was under-14.

She missed out on a place in the third round after being beaten by 16-year-old American Kayla Day yesterday Tues, but still has a doubles match to look forward to.

+5

With fighting spirit and a powerful serve, 15-year-old Francesca Jones is like many other juniors at this year’s Wimbledon

She credits her success to her condition, saying it has made her more determined.

Francesca said: ‘I have had so many people criticise me and say things. That just motivates me more. I just think: “Watch me do it.” You have got to keep on using it to your advantage.

‘People say that I can’t grip the racket properly and I get called names. I don’ t take much notice of it, but again it is using it as a positive.

‘If people can see that I am where I am now and hopefully where I will be in the future with my condition then I am proving a point that I have always wanted to prove.’

She has had three operations on her wrists in the last year alone so her appearance at Wimbledon is nothing short of miraculous.

But the rising star refuses to let her challenging condition hold her back and has her sights firmly set on being one of the best tennis players out there.

She said: ‘If I have to do them (the operations) again, I’ll do them again. I’m 100 per cent into doing this and giving it everything to get to where I want to be in the world.’

But having fewer fingers does have a technical impact on her game.

She said: ‘There are small things, like my nail broke today, which happens quite often because I have to hold on to the racket very hard.

‘When I was younger I did have problems because I also have this problem in my feet, it doesn’t just affect my hands.

‘I have three toes on my right foot which is obviously my dominant foot, so balance had always been a weakness of mine.

‘As I matured, as I got older, I have just worked on that day in, day out. Everything’s mental and everything’s work, so if you keep at it then eventually it’s going to work out for you.’

Born in Bradford, Francesca had to have numerous operations when she was a girl and was in and out of hospital.

She turned to tennis because she was ‘a bit chubby’ and needed to exercise, discovering she was good at it.

Francesca said: ‘I got to the point where I thought with my condition, I could have a massive point that I could prove here to people, that willpower and determination is everything in life.

‘With mental strength, if you keep that and stick with that then you’re going to get somewhere, and that’s when I thought, “You know what, I’m going to go for it and try and get through this and see where I can get.”’

She is supported by her financial adviser parents Adele and Simon, who she sees once a month after moving to Barcelona to train at the same academy that nurtured a 15-year-old Andy Murray.

Francesca had the opportunity to play at Wimbledon last year, but the operations held her back.

This year, however, she has achieved a dream. But like anyone who wants to be the best, she is furious that she lost.

She said: ‘I come and I play to win, which is why losing today is very disappointing.

‘But I’ll use the positives that I have from the match today to my benefit when I go to the next couple of tournaments. I know that I have the level of a top five player so I’m just going to go for it.’ 

By Emine Sinaz

Fr Jerry Daly's raises urgent truths about the Church

Fr Jerry Daly at the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Western Road, Cork. Picture: Denis Scannell

HE can’t prove it, but Fr Jerry Daly thinks he was one of the first priests in the world to turn his altar around when word emerged from Vatican II that priests could now face the congregation. It was the 1960s and Fr Jerry was a missionary in Indonesia, catering to several villages in the Kai Islands.

“I never liked having my back to the people. It was bonkers. You can’t communicate with people when you’ve got your back to them.”

Back then, Fr Jerry — a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart — was at the cutting edge of change. Now 84 and living in the MSC retirement community in Cork, he’s still pushing for change. Only radical solutions will work, he believes, for a Church that’s “sleepwalking into the future”.

It’s why he has published his memoir, An Endangered Species, as a way of raising some urgent truths about the Church he has served for 60 years — a service that included ministering in “a very English parish” during and after Bloody Sunday, as well as witnessing the atrocities of apartheid while a missionary in South Africa.

Born on the Sheep’s Head peninsula, West Cork, Fr Jerry is unflinching about the Catholic Church’s decline in Ireland: Only 4,000 priests active, the vast majority aged over 50, many over 70.

“In 25 years, there will be fewer than 200 active priests for the whole country. Mass attendance is down to 40% nationally, to 2% in some Dublin parishes. A small older population is supporting the Church.”

On a recent Saturday, in a Cork parish where he says weekly Mass, there were 50 girls for First Communion.

“They were asked to come back for Sunday Mass. Only five or six came. That’s par for the course. First Communion has become a rite of passage.”

He lays much blame at the door of intransigent Church leaders, believing they’ve still got their backs to the people. He contrasts Archbishop of Tuam Dr Michael Neary’s honest appraisal of the crisis facing the Church (“on the very edge of Europe, we are hearing the last vestiges of Christendom in their death rattle”) with Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s assertion that “what we have to do is find worthy candidates who are able to live as celibate priests in the tradition [of] the Latin rite”.

For Fr Jerry, saying and doing nothing is no longer an option.

“We have to read the signs of the times, become realists and adjust the sails.”

This, he says, means listening to the most up-to-date human, scientific and technological developments and to the “instincts of the Church’s own members, to all people of good will”.

Clerical child sex abuse, he calls “the greatest scandal ever to happen in the Catholic Church”.

He cites both ignorance and cover up by the Church as huge contributing factors.

“[Church leaders] had no idea as to the nature of this perversity. Unfortunately, their first impulse was to save the good name of the institution.

”The Church, he believes, has done everything possible to ensure children are protected, but “we can never undo the past”.

He is scathing about the Church’s top-down authority structure, citing philosopher Bertrand Russell’s words about the failure of religion: “Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.”

In Confession — about matters like birth control — he says: “Conscience is personal and sacred. We talk about conscience being informed. Life itself informs conscience.”

He believes general absolution is “a practical solution for people who find going into a confessional box difficult”.

He sees “no scriptural or theological reason” why women can’t be priests and believes celibacy should be optional; in England, he worked with Anglican priests who defected to the Catholic Church and stayed married.

He thinks Pope Benedict’s translation of the Roman Missal is “gibberish and garbage”, citing, for example, the word “passion” that once meant “suffering”, but now means something completely different.

Pope Benedict

He believes the way forward for the Church is to ordain community elders, working alongside fulltime priests, not acting like clergy and not called clergy. These would have a leadership role – “people would look up to them as living the Christian life” – and they would gather the kind of small Christian communities so popular in Africa: “Ten or 20 people, living near each other, meeting weekly in one of their homes, reading scripture, singing hymns, praying for those needing prayers and helping neighbours in need of help. All these small communities would meet together on a Sunday whenever a priest was available for Eucharist.” He’s unsure though how to adapt it to our urban society.

Fr Jerry’s memoir — of an eventful life — is full of humanity. He recounts the pain of leaving for the missions in 1961, wondering would he ever see his mother again and how it “cut me to the heart” to see a small nephew’s tears.

There’s humour too. Singing isn’t his strong suit and he recalls his efforts met with stifled laughter by his music-loving Indonesian congregation. “One Sunday, when I turned to sing Dominus Vobiscum, there was an immediate response from a nearby cockerel: Cock-a-doodle-doo! There was pandemonium among the congregation.”

Fr Jerry is upbeat in his suggestions for Church renewal. At 80 plus, his belief in a God who loves him is stronger than ever.

“I see Him in the bits and pieces of life.”  

Helen O’Callaghan