The Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA)welcome the latest development in the Aidan Hulme campaign whereby the Prison Governor in Portlaoise Gaol has agreed with the prisoners and Aidan that the OC and Adjutant will be allowed access to accompany Aidan when he is visited by a doctor or when visited by the Governor.

Today (15/10/0 such a visit took place and it is confirmed that gangrene is not present in Aidan’s foot rather the symptoms are a result of a severe infection for which Aidan is now being treated.

Staff from the hospital will now visit Aidan to clean the infected areas of his foot and renew dressings to prevent further spread of infection.

An assurance is also given that Aidan will have a consultant assessment before the end of the month and an agreed care plan is being implemented and developed. This will allow for a proper consultant led care management package.

This positive and jointly agreed approach to Aidan’s welfare will ensure early intervention in the event of deterioration and will allow for continuous monitoring of his condition.

The negative effects of the medication will also be closely monitored and with Aidan’s agreement can be reduced depending on his individual needs at any given time.

The IRPWA on behalf of the POW’s would like at this time to thank most sincerely the many people who moved to support Aidan in his time of need and to those who sent greetings.

We would like to extend this thanks to other republican organisations who pledged their support and advice to ensure that Aidan received immediate professional intervention.

Aidan is indeed most grateful for all the support he has received and extends his heartfelt appreciation to everyone involved.

Marion Price

Derry Address
September 16th
Derry City

Friends and comrades, republicans and socialists, Irishmen and Irishwomen. Once again we gather at this historic place demanding justice for our people. Once again we gather to face the injustice of British Parliamentary activity in Ireland. And once again we must protest against Irish collaboration with that injustice. I extend solidarity greetings to the Derry Four and to all imprisoned Irish republicans.

The word internment has a deep resonance in this country. It is so because we have suffered it and are suffering it now. But as before when such practices begin to arouse political passions amongst our people the British move swiftly to placate them with neutral language. And just as the nuclear poison of Windscale was replaced with that of Sellafield, and the crimes of Long Kesh were replaced with those of the H-Blocks so too have the effects of internment been sanitised by the use of remand. But for all that the political intent remains the same; the subjugation of Irish republican resistance.

As republicans we are too long in the field to be fooled by such sophistry. We know the Good Friday Agreement as Partition. We know the Assembly as Stormont and we know the PSNI as the RUC. The Derry Four are by no means a unique phenomenon, but they are a contemporary one. And just as in the past when we mobilized against previous injustices we must do so again. But to seek the release of the Derry Four is the same as seeking British withdrawal from Ireland. We must make it one and the same. We do not seek British justice in our country. We seek its removal as an injustice against our sovereignty. As I prepared for today I read that MEP's in Brussells signed a petition in support of the people of Palestine who are interned in a system called Administrative Detention. The MEP representing this area can rightly support the people of Palestine but not a word about her own constituents who are interned on remand in Ireland. We are not reformers like pro establishment nationalists, but republican separatists like our fenian forebears before us.

All our protests have one resolution, the restoration of our national sovereignty and the return of democracy to our people. What we have to say is not popular, but it is right, which is why internment is used against us. We are right because they victimise us. We are right because they call for informers to be activated against us. And we are right because above all we are Irish republicans and as such are part of the most noble and aged struggle in the history of such struggles.

The devolution of British Policing and so called Justice to Stormont does not represent forward movement for republicans. It represents a humiliation for those who tried to tell us that the road to the republic lay through Stormont. Everyday we witness a new humiliation that both governments and unionism demand that former comrades must undergo. Not content to have them house trained they must now admit to them that they were wrong. Just recently as they chose to honour the Hunger Strikers in this City as a means to bolster their failing status they first had to paint over the republican messages which adorned the walls of their route. Such actions only prove that the writing is indeed on the wall for these people.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement are passionate proponents for Republican Unity. We look to events like today and point to its success as we see republicans protesting together in common cause. We look at other events that require our attention and plan for them on a unified basis. We place ourselves in the shoes of the Derry Four and ask what type of protest would give them most heart; a fragmented campaign or a unified voice? The ground work for unity has been laid. The debates are being had and now is the time for political action. But the Republican Movement can only be unified if that Movement is united and open with itself and our supporter