Guantanamo Bay may help al-Qaeda, says O'Loan

The former police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Nuala O'Loan, has warned that the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay could be encouraging people to join al-Qaeda.

Mrs O'Loan, who finished her seven-year term in Northern Ireland on Monday, drew comparisons between Guantanamo Bay and the internment of terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.

"It's widely thought in Northern Ireland that it was a significant recruiting agent for the IRA. It's a chilling thought that the Guantanamo Bay processes could act as a recruitment agent for al-Qaeda," she said.

Mrs O'Loan said the powers conferred by counter-terrorism legislation should be used "very carefully, with constant regard to the human rights of all who are policed".

Speaking at the tenth Céifin Conference in Ennis yesterday, she stressed the need for accountability and said it improved, rather than impeded, police effectiveness in the North. She also appealed for the public's help in passing on information about people known as "the disappeared", who were abducted and killed during The Troubles, but whose bodies were never found.

"People do not disappear in a vacuum. They do not get murdered in a vacuum. And Ireland is a small country and there is always someone who has heard of something. We have to find the bodies of the disappeared," she said.

Mrs O'Loan said this State should consider introducing voluntary custody officers, who have the right to walk into a police station at any time, ask to see people being detained and ensure that their rights are being respected. "I think it's one Ireland could think about," she said. There was "huge confidence" in the Garda, but "there clearly are issues which need to be addressed," she added.

Earlier, the conference heard that many primary schools were introducing knitting in junior classes "to compensate for the things that families are not doing with their children". Prof Tom Collins, head of education development at NUI Maynooth, said a failure was happening in the education world, "but it's primarily a failure that's happening within the family".

He said teachers were telling him that children no longer knew how to use their hands because they spent so much time on electronic gadgets.

Teenagers were spending an average 18 hours a week watching television, generally alone, and if they were not doing this, they were often on the Bebo website, he said.

"I have this image that Irish teenagers, when they get off their electronic gadgetry, are adjourning to their bedrooms to look at TV alone," he said.

The "overwhelming significance" of the Leaving Cert meant teachers were always rushing children towards the next stage, instead of "meeting them where they are", he said.

Sean Love, director of Amnesty International's Irish section, said violation of the right to education or healthcare was as unacceptable as a violation such as torture.