Bernard Moffatt's blog

It is truly shocking and sounds like a crisis you would expect to hear reported from a third world country however it is Mann (Isle of Man) 2018 where the Foodbank say children are not being fed at home - not because of neglect but because hard pressed families cannot afford it:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/hungry-pupils-slipping-t...

One of the high points for me at the 2015 Celtic League AGM in Dublin was a personal trip that my good friend Tom Hanley arranged for me around the various sites of importance to the 1916 Easter Rising.

The centenary of the rising was the following year so the various places such as museums and Kilmainham jail where the leaders of the Rising were executed were under siege already from the tourism traffic but somehow Tom always managed to get us to the head of the queue.

With much talk in Mann lately about realising a tourism dividend from Cruise ship traffic one small town in Co Donegal Ireland is already realising the potential. This weekend the large Cruise ship Queen Victoria docked at the town and as this report from Highland Radio indicates the town is realising real benefits from such passing tourism trade (link):

http://www.highlandradio.com/2018/05/21/tourists-in-their-thousands-desc...

One of the more unusual aspect of my two decades plus working as a Union official for the old Transport and General Workers Union was dealing with support to foreign seafarers who found themselves in difficulty in the Isle of Man and had for example to be repatriated because of a domestic crisis in their home country.

I also met regularly with the Isle of Man Shipping Register officials and pressed them to ensure good standards for foreign crewed Manx registered vessels (I wonder does the Manx TUC still do that - I doubt it!).

“Of course the Manx government are right and we need to get our electronic communications up to speed even if in my case its just so the links between the Celtic countries are further cemented.”

On May 17th members of the infamous Spanish Civil Guard undertook action in the Southern Basque Country to seize the property and possessions of former Basque prisoners.

The operation is sanctioned by the Spanish Courts with much hyperbole about continuing a crackdown on persons linked to the now disbanded ETA armed liberation movement.

However of the fifty persons targeted only 10 had any links to ETA and the others had been convicted of offences such as street protest.

It is shocking that two years into a new Manx government and a Tynwald that has seen a ‘churn’ of over 50% in membership poverty and deprivation in Mann are getting worse.

This is best illustrated by the fact that the Isle of Man Foodbank with increased demand for the food aid it supplies is moving to new larger premises.

A spokesman for the body speaks about the increasing demand and the factor of what he terms ‘poverty within employment’ where folk who are gainfully employed can still not manage to meet basic needs for food because pay levels are so low:

The Manx media report on a visit by a number of French warships to Mann it's one of a regular series of such military jollies in the Port of Douglas and the vessels Officers were entertained by local civic dignitaries and the Islands English Lt Governor.:

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=40624&headline=French%20Navy%20...