Green Cards for Northern Irish
In a landmark decision, the U.S. Senate passed a bill on August 1, which said that citizens from the six counties of Northern Ireland will be eligible to apply for the 48,000 visas set aside for people from the Republic of Ireland in the new Morrison visa program.
The bill is a huge break for those from the North, many of whom had felt slighted by the Morrison program, and the political implications from the passing of the bill could be even more monumental.
Observers are noting that the bill represents an acknowledgement by the U.S. Senate of Northern Ireland’s link with the Republic. In fact, if the bill is passed into law, it would basically be saying that the U.S. government recognizes Northern Ireland as a separate entity from the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Morrison visa program, which was passed into law last November, was aimed at increasing the numbers of green cards given to countries who had been shut out of the U.S. immigration scene since 1965; these were western European countries, and in particular, Ireland.
It was a major victory for Irish immigrants, who had received a low point of about 900 green cards a year in the 1970’s. But for Northerners, many of whom had worked hard in the huge lobbying effort undertaken in the 1980’s by the likes of the Irish Immigration Reform Movement (IIRM), the victory was hollow. While there were 48,000 visas set aside specifically for the Republic of Ireland, Northerners had to compete for the main body of 72,000 visas with applicants from 32 other countries.
The bill is now under review from the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, and there is a vote expected on the House floor in September.
It is very much favored to pass, with important support coming from Senator Edward Kennedy, (D-MA) and Congressmen Brian Donnelly (D-MA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY).
Irish President to Visit
Irish President Mary Robinson will visit the United States in October. The presidential itinerary will include a visit to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rhode Island and Boston, where she will attend a luncheon in her honor at the Kennedy Library to be presided over by Senator Edward Kennedy.
Robinson spent a year at Harvard University during the ’60s, and in an interview with Irish America, gave full praise to the “can-do American spirit,” which she says instilled in her the confidence to go forth and seek a political career on her return to Ireland.
Irish Film Board
The Irish Government Film Board was disbanded in 1987. That move left the Republic as the only country in Europe without a state film agency.
This may be hard to believe, especially considering the unprecedented amount of interest from film makers towards Ireland. My Left Foot won two Oscars, and films such as The Field, Hidden Agenda, and most recently, The Commitments, have brought international attention to the Irish film industry.
However, these “Irish” films had much of their support from British investors and production companies. Well, facing increasing criticism from the arts and film community in Ireland, Prime Minister Haughey has decided to reinstate state funding. The government has commissioned film producers to draw up plans to make Temple Bar, the web of cobbled streets in Dublin’s city center, into a sort of a “film village.” The aim is to transform the area into an international film in-
dustry center, with studios, cinemas and production houses. Haughey has appointed himself as sole shareholder of the project, Temple Bar Properties. Work has already started on a £1 million national film center at a site in Temple Bar which was once earmarked for a bus shelter; the center will cater to an estimated 200,000 people a year.
The Nuking of the Irish Sea
To people living on the eastern seaboard of Ireland, the British nuclear reactor plant at Sellafield, in Cumbria, is already thought of as nothing more than a toxic dump. Now, along with the reactor, the British government will be tunnelling 1,500 feet beneath the sand to build a real toxic dump.
The dump, which will be the first of its kind in the world, was originally to be built in caverns tunnelled beneath the Irish Sea itself. The dump will now at least be built inland, but that hasn’t stopped the opposition to the move from people in Wales and across the sea in Ireland.
In the words of the chairwoman for the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Deidre Cantwell, the Sellafield facility has a “notoriously bad” record when it comes to nuclear accidents.
In 1957 an accident at the plant spewed into the air 200 times the amount of toxic radiation that closed down— and has kept closed – Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island plant. That accident is second only to Chernobyl in the history books of nuclear disasters.
Also, critics point to the 2,000,000 gallons of radioactive water pumped into the Irish Sea every day by the plant as the reason why that body of water is now the most radioactive one on earth.
As ‘Irish America’ columnist Eoin McKiernan pointed out three years ago in an article on Sellafield, many fish ‘n chip shops in the region have signs saying that their fish were caught in Icelandic, not Irish, waters.
An EC health conference heard a report estimating that Ireland could suffer 40,000 deaths from cancer and the destruction of half its agricultural capability as the result of a major accident at Sellafield. To some of the people who live in Ireland and in Wales, the risk isn’t worth taking, and the arrival of the nuclear dump is even more threatening.
For the British government, the plant is far too important, especially for its military, which has first call on its production facilities for the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons. Also, the cost in human terms would be about 12,000 lost jobs if the £2.7 billion (sterling) plant were to shut down.
However there is growing opposition in Wales and all along the British coastline.
Groups such as CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) have been protesting along with the Irish groups, and the government is starting to feel the pressure. In Ireland, there is growing pressure on the Irish government to protest the new Sellafield plans more vehemently to London.
A public inquiry still has to be held before the British Government gives its final approval, but the groups protesting the move admit that it will be nearly impossible to force the authorities to change their mind. Work is scheduled to start on the new dump in 1995.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September 1991 issue of Irish America. ♦
Leave a Reply