“looks unsatisfactory, there’s gaps, there’s inconsistencies..”
Given the reports of leaked NI Executive briefing papers on the Maze stadium assessment noted previously, and the allegations by former Sports Minister Edwin Poots, it’s worth noting the comments of the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance, Leo O’Reilly, in front of the Assembly’s Finance Committe. From the BBC report
Mr O’Reilly told assembly members “We can say to departments, as we have said, the information and the way it’s been presented looks unsatisfactory, there’s gaps, there’s inconsistencies, there seems to be lots of information which could be presented in a better way, its not available on jobs… I mean completely unsatisfactory.” He added: “It’s totally irritating and unsatisfactory that we’ve been given a set of figures on jobs to analyse.“We have raised concerns because of the apparent lack of involvement of Invest (Northern Ireland) or DETI in analysing those jobs and yet you hear the media talking about 10,000 jobs that we have not seen. “No-one’s given us the information and yet understandably, because it’s in the media, people will want to question us about them.”
A related point to note is the BBC reporting of these leaks. On Monday, the BBC headlines stated that “10,000 jobs were at risk” if the Maze stadium was scrapped. This totally fictional figure was reported as fact. Why?
This is not the first time the BBC has presented biased reports about the Maze. Why does the BBC apparently have an agenda in respect of the Maze stadium proposal?
the curse of the brian drain !