Three men who must be praying the £22m gang are not republicans

THE £22 million Belfast heist raises the very apt question of whether it was civilian criminality, or paramilitary criminality.

The difference may be moot to the unfortunate Northern Bank, but is crucial to affairs in Northern Ireland.

The difference could mean an exceptionally happy Christmas for Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams or DUP leader Ian Paisley.

At the moment it looks as if it may not be such a great Christmas for the perpetrators because they may have to dump half the haul as it comprises brand new, and therefore traceable, notes.

Another man who has more than a passing interest in who ripped off the Northern Bank is Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

He must be imploring Santa Claus that it will turn out to be either a civilian or some loyalist group because he recently announced that the IRA were born-again non-criminals.

One could almost imagine that he having so pronounced, the waves would part instantly to allow peace and stability flood Northern Ireland in a deluge of republican and loyalist goodwill.

Hitherto, the minister was berating the IRA for being involved in all manner of skullduggery of a criminal nature.

As recently as December 15 last he accused them of engaging in a sustained campaign of criminality since the Belfast Agreement: “I have said this not just about so-called policing of national and republican areas of Northern Ireland, but about criminality of the worst kind, theft and robbery.

“It has been orchestrated by senior members of the Provisional hierarchy on a sustained basis,” McDowell declared in his characteristic self-effacing way.

Last weekend, possibly in a better mood as he anticipated the getaway holiday home in Roosky would get the green light from the High Court, which it did, he gave the IRA his imprimatur.

Admittedly, this was issued in the context that he now believed the republicans had eschewed bank robberies and the like down South.

However, as the IRA is sans frontieres it does not indulge in semantics about borders, so on an island-wide basis it’s the same organisation. It even has branches in far-flung Colombia.

It has now emerged that the Australian owners of the Northern Bank will have to bear the cost of the robbery in Belfast. In a statement, the National Australia Bank confirmed it had no external insurance policy to offset the losses.

If that happened to one of our illustrious financial institutions down here, they would either demand, as a right, that the Government bail them out, or impose charges on customers with or without their permission or knowledge.

Had the prospective new owners, Danish group Danske Bank, already taken over the ill-fated bank, it would probably have been known henceforth as the Danke Bank.

What is definitely political, verging on the criminal and more loathsome than the bank robbery is the attempt by the Government to rip-off infirm pensioners.

Apart from the fact that they are trying to legislate retrospectively, the Government is attempting also to prevent elderly people in public nursing homes from seeking compensation for having been illegally charged for their care.

It is absolutely outrageous and akin to mugging pensioners.

Having been advised by Attorney General Rory Brady that taking up to 80% of medical card owners’ pensions and allowances to go towards the cost of their care was legally dodgy, the Government of ‘socialist’ Bertie Ahern is now trying to screw them in another way.

The FF/PD conglomeration accepts that it was illegal - so, because they have a majority, they passed a bill putting the stoppers on compensation except for the crumbs they were prepared to throw at the pensioners.

Thankfully, President Mary McAleese, having met with the Council of State, has decided to refer the bill to the Supreme Court to test the legality of the Government’s proposals. The Government, meanwhile, will have to keep paying the cost of the care for those pensioners, which will be €10 million a month.

To look at it another way, the €50m Martin Cullen wasted on e-voting would have paid that bill for five months.

ALMOST inevitably at this time of the year somebody wants that evocative piece from the New York Sun in 1897. Written by editor Francis Pharcellus Church, it sought to reassure eight-year old Virginia O’Hanlon that there is a Santa, after doubts were expressed by her friends.

We could all do with the reassurance.

“Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

“Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to have men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

“You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

“No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

I hope everybody has a happy and peaceful Christmas.