The exact cause of the accident is still being investigated. Should it be the case that this near tragedy was caused by deliberate negligence or bad workmanship none of us should be too surprised. In West Belfast we have grown accustomed to second class treatment from those who govern our lives: bad housing, few amenities and sub-standard services. Electoral wards within West Belfast have, for decades, been top of the deprivation league tables. Over 10% of the total unemployed for the six counties live in West Belfast. In respect to long term unemployed this figure jumps to over 30%. Out of this sorry mess has sprung an unscrupulous, callous and crooked entrepreneurial class. We now find ourselves exploited by ‘our own’. This is West Belfast’s dirty little secret. All the talk of the expanding economy and the community development that is being encouraged and brought to the area is grand and sounds wonderful. What is not so wonderful is how it is being done, and the permanent underclass that it is creating and exploiting. Republican ex-prisoners and former combatants make up a sizeable section of the long-term unemployed. They are, in fact, being paid less than illegal immigrants from Mexico are paid in the States, with the average un-reported wage hovering around £2 per hour on building sites.

People who have unimaginable resources of courage in standing up to the British cower in fear of losing what little income they have to bring home to their families. Ex-prisoners face double handicaps in looking for gainful employment: many who served long sentences have little or no job skills, and those who are skilled still face their prison record stopping most employers from hiring them legitimately. Exploitative employers take advantage of this, to them an unending pool of cheap labour, with ex-prisoners in the West Belfast area alone topping 20,000 people. They justify their shameful wages by reminding their workers that they are ‘doing the double’ and with that reminder implicitly threatening to turn them in.

Desperate to keep their job and the added income to keep their families afloat, many of our brave volunteers stay silent and keep their heads down. And who could blame them? What do our Republican politicians do about this situation? They win more contracts for the exploiters, and ensure that the cycle of economic abuse continues to go round and round. After all, at the end of the day, who is it that can do more for the up-and-coming politician? A penniless ex-prisoner, or a multi-million-pound contractor? When the itch needs to be scratched, the back gets turned. It is time something was done about this ruthless exploitation of our community.

Boycotts of businesses of known exploiters should be carried out. Politicians in the back-pockets of parasitic contractors should be named and shamed. Work stoppages on building sites abusing ex-prisoners should be encouraged and supported by our community. Every opportunity should be taken to expose this exploitation and to hold our Republican leaders accountable for stopping it cold and not backhandedly encouraging and profiting from it.

Ex-prisoners, who withstood the worst the British had to throw at them and came out on the other side deserve better than to be forgotten and cast aside as worthless. They and their families should know they are not alone in this. No one suffered through this war to be beaten in peacetime. If the Democratic Socialist Republic we fought for cannot be brought into reality on the building sites of West Belfast, it is no wonder so many now ask; ‘Was it all for nothing?’