Irish Campaign for

Nuclear Disarmament


Feachtas um Dhí-armáil Eithneach


http://indigo.ie/~goodwill/icnd.html P.O. Box 6327, Dublin 6, Ireland e-mail: irishcnd@ireland.com Telephone: (087) 231 1944



SECRETARY'S REPORT, NOV. 2004-DEC. 2005


The Executive has met 10 times during the year, and individual members have taken an interest in particular areas. However, the small numbers of the Executive have meant that we have not covered as many aspects as we ought to. In particular, we have nobody keeping an eye on the Abolition 2000 international movement, illegality of nuclear weapons, nuclear-free zones, arms trade or development issues.

The Irish CND website was maintained to a certain extent, but again the pressure of work has meant that it is not as up-to-date as it ought to be. In the absence of an office, the website is the main source of information available to the public, and enquiries are often answered by a reference to the website.

As announced at the last AGM, Steve Gilroy had to step down as Treasurer on moving out of Dublin. Mary McCarrick subsequently agreed to act as Treasurer. Considerable effort had to be put into transferring bank accounts, for which the bank appeared to have lost some documentation. We must also thank Mary for hosting Executive meetings and work-parties for Peacework.

We produced an article on the implications of the EU Constitution, which was not accepted for publication as originally hoped, but was subsequently expanded into a submission to the National Forum on Europe.

John Goodwillie and Mary McCarrick attended various PANA meetings, and John Goodwillie attended the founding meeting of the Campaign against the EU Constitution. We affiliated to the latter campaign on the basis that it would be the main focus of work on the EU Constitution, but as you know the Irish referendum was postponed indefinitely after the defeat of the French and Dutch referendums. The Campaign continues to exist, distributing leaflets to public events. John Goodwillie has followed its work by email, but we have not committed ourselves to continue to support it indefinitely as its relevance has clearly lessened.

The International Peace Bureau normally awards the Seán MacBride Peace Prize each year, funded by Irish CND in lieu of affiliation fees. However, no award was made in 2005. One of the medals for the 2004 award, which had been returned for correction, spent part of the year in transit, and we are awaiting news of its safe delivery.

The Nuclear-Free Local Authorities organisation expanded into Ireland and Councillor Tony McDermott of South Dublin County Council has kept us well informed of its progress.

Messages of support were sent to a protest against a NATO conference in Sweden, to the Hiroshima commemoration in Vienna, and to the Hiroshima commemoration in Hiroshima itself, where our message was delivered in person by Pauric Cannon.

John Goodwillie attended a conference in Manchester on a nuclear-free and NATO-free Europe. Mary McCarrick attended a conference in Dublin on nuclear power organised by Grian and No2nukes.com.

The year was marked by the unsuccessful conference on the NPT treaty in New York in May. Attempts were made to interest the Lord Mayor of Dublin in the Mayors for Peace delegation to this conference, but without success. We sent a delegation to the Department of Foreign Affairs who gave an informative briefing to us and listened to our views.

We held our annual Hiroshima commemoration in August. We used our email list as an additional method of notification, and whether for this reason or others the attendance was around 50 or more, which was slightly up on recent years. The Dublin City Council Parks Department on our suggestion had moved the cherry tree which was faring badly at its former location in Merrion Square. A commemoration was organised in Cork on our behalf and we understand about 40 people attended it. As this was the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima we sent reminders to the media in advance, but the response was small.

Our email list was also used to send reminders for this AGM. However, it still covers only a small proportion of people on our mailing list.

Two issues of Peacework were produced, in addition to the issue distributed to members at the last AGM and afterwards by post. This process has used our computerised membership list, but it also requires a considerable labour input from the members of the Executive. Thanks to Fergal Brennan who has acted as editor and production manager.

Finally, our impact would undoubtedly be increased if we could persuade others to become involved in the work.


John Goodwillie
2/12/05

 

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