Andy Boal – Slugger O'Toole

Chris Heaton-Harris is not the only one who could stop the public sector pay disputes

Andy Boal on January 18, 2024, 3:33 pm | Readers 3892

As a lifelong Trade Unionist, I’m on strike today. All because Chris Heaton-Harris refuses to deal with public sector pay in the absence of the Assembly and he is holding us hostage. No it isn’t. Let’s blame the right people. Chris Heaton-Harris could end the public sector pay disputes at the stroke of a pen. We know that. There is one other group of people who could also end the public sector pay disputes at the stroke of a pen. …

Equalising rail fares – balancing the books but at what cost?

Andy Boal on October 19, 2023, 7:50 pm | Readers 1890

Once upon a long ago – I think way back in the 1990s – I looked at the fares from Belfast Central to every station on the network. In those days, the Great Northern branch line from Knockmore to Antrim was still open, and I found a few surprises. Chiefly, that Bangor, 13 miles from Belfast Central, had the same fare as Whitehead (15 miles away) and Crumlin (a lot further). Granted, Crumlin had an unusual fare because the fare …

All Island Rail Review has been published – but will it hit the buffers?

Andy Boal on July 27, 2023, 9:22 am | Readers 3576

Regional and rural interventions rail map from All Island Rail Review

Yes, I’m cynical. You can’t entirely blame me. There is some great stuff in the All-Island Rail Review, published on Tuesday, including some blue sky thinking. The summary, with my annotations, is below. Short term and decarbonisation Electrify remainder of Belfast-Dublin line, Belfast-Bangor, Dublin-Cork/Galway/Limerick/Waterford (both companies were already working on plans to abolish diesel traction, but NIR I think also intends to electrify the Larne, Portrush and Derry/Londonderry (hereafter referred to as Derry) lines) Increase line speeed to 100mph (currently …

Early reversal of previous Minister’s policy as fares rise scheduled

Andy Boal on February 8, 2023, 12:55 pm | Readers 783

Enterprise crossing Craigmore Viaduct near Bessbrook

It shouldn’t actually surprise us in the slightest, and for once I can’t entirely blame the DUP’s collapse of the Assembly. On 25th October, John O’Dowd announced as Infrastructure Minister that Translink fares would “remain frozen for another year”, but today it was announced that they would rise by an average of 7% from 6 March. The Secretary of State made a statement to the House of Commons on 24 November 2022 saying he recognised “that steps will also need …

Why the neo-Thatcherites’ gamble is doomed…

Andy Boal on September 28, 2022, 7:00 am | Readers 5505

calculator, calculation, insurance

“Trickle down economics never existed in the first place, just in the minds of those who don’t like tax cuts” said a friend of a friend, citing a 2015 Spectator article by Thomas Sowell on the same subject. He proceeded to describe the “basic premise of conservative economics [as being] that the most effective way to help people out of poverty is to grow the market, [which] creates opportunity for people on the lowest rungs to earn wages”, which sounds …

How to ensure that the Assembly can do its business

Andy Boal on August 23, 2022, 7:00 am | Readers 4017

Note: this article is written on an entirely personal basis. What is to be done? The DUP has been single-handedly preventing the Assembly from sitting for 100 days, its defenders pointing out that Sinn Fein “prevented” it from sitting for three years, as though sauce for the goose were sauce for the gander, and ignoring the failure to offer (or at least publicise) negotiations that might persuade Sinn Fein to enter government before sections 8 and 9 of the Executive …

The latest polls are not good news for those of us who love the United Kingdom

Andy Boal on August 22, 2022, 7:00 am | Readers 6638

To be polite, I have been… annoyed by the shenanigans over the NI Protocol. Unfortunately, real life has taken up too much time to allow me to writing for Slugger in recent months. This Irish passport holder who was born British and Irish, will die British and Irish, and quite frankly has better things to worry about than whether Belfast is in the United Kingdom or an independent Ireland, has been extremely frustrated by the (to continue to be polite) …

The abuse of “controversial and cross-cutting”

Andy Boal on February 2, 2022, 9:06 pm | Readers 3613

port, pier, cargo containers

There is no doubt that the question of border checks at Northern Ireland’s ports is controversial. The question is whether Edwin Poots has the ability to ignore the law of the United Kingdom? Jamie Bryson argues that that section 20(4)(aa) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 overrides the obligations of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It isn’t in the Programme for Government, therefore it needs to be decided by the Executive. However, Sinn Fein state that that decision was made by …

They say variety is the spice of life, but has anybody told commercial radio executives?

Andy Boal on December 12, 2021, 9:20 pm | Readers 2267

There is a conventional wisdom in commercial radio that you should play what the listeners like, and lots of it. This sounds eminently sensible. The problem is that this conventional wisdom is taken to extremes, specifically that what listeners apparently like is the same songs over and over again. A spot of background. Every commercial radio station has a playlist. Songs that station management want to be played several times a day to promote, combined with a computer that would …

Why the Circle Line is a dead end siding – but Antrim-Lisburn-Belfast trains can’t be lost

Andy Boal on November 20, 2021, 2:16 pm | Readers 3813

The Circle Line sounds like a great idea. Go either direction according to your needs, with a total journey time of 90 minutes or so, you’re no more than 45 minutes from anywhere on it. However, picking up on my comment on Jay’s article, there are certain logistical barriers that mean it is a non-starter in its proposed form. The key assumption I will make in this piece is that the line from Antrim-Monkstown is doubled, including the total reconstruction …

Ireland commits to funding Enterprise replacement from 2027 – what about NI?

Andy Boal on October 5, 2021, 1:22 pm | Readers 2253

The Irish National Development Plan is a long document, and I have had little time to do more than skim it, but the key headline spotted by Jonny McCambridge and noted by Mick, one of the concrete proposals in the plan, is the replacement for the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise service by 2027. The branded Enterprise service was introduced by the Great Northern Railway in 1947, and at one time was extended to Cork. NIR relaunched its side of the service in …

Boris’s burrow? Boring in more ways than one.

Andy Boal on February 19, 2021, 8:01 pm | Readers 2993

I do not promise an absence of any further puns in this piece. So last Sunday the big news was: we can’t put a bridge over the top of the Beaufort’s Dyke, so sure we’ll just build a tunnel round it. It’ll only be 25 miles long. Except… The Channel Tunnel is 37.92km (23.57 miles) from the English coast under Shakespeare cliff to the French coast at Sangatte. It takes a further 9.14km (5.68 miles) to reach the tunnel mouth …

Surviving Covid has to be done together

Andy Boal on October 12, 2020, 8:54 am | Readers 2804

As cases of Covid rise, the Northern Ireland Executive meets today, reportedly to consider a circuit breaker to reduce community transmission, as concerns continue to be raised about the effect of lockdowns and shielding on mental health and jobs. We know that mental health is seriously affected by lockdown, businesses with fewer customers are likely to fail or at least require redundancies to survive, and the prioritisation of Covid has had a serious effect on elective Health Service treatments. Yet, …

Change here for Ballinderry, Glenavy, Crumlin and… Aldergrove?

Andy Boal on September 23, 2020, 1:09 pm | Readers 2030

Wesley Johnston very kindly gave me some old NIR, UTA, GNR and even NIRTB timetables owned by his father, and it got me thinking. I’ve long been an advocate of reopening Lisburn-Antrim for commuter services, but what would a train service look like? The 1977 NIR timetable is the benchmark, rather than the much slower timetable which applied by the mid-1990s. 10 minutes Antrim-Crumlin, 5 minutes Crumlin-Glenavy, 6 minutes Glenavy-Ballinderry, 9 minutes Ballinderry-Lisburn including a stop at Knockmore. Trains call …

In review: why the abortion debate landed where it landed

Andy Boal on June 8, 2020, 7:12 am | Readers 741

To begin with, the Northern Ireland Act 1998 specifically authorises Parliament to make laws for Northern Ireland (Section 5(6)) and, in return, the Northern Ireland Assembly to amend laws made by Parliament to the extent that they affect Northern Ireland, provided that the matter has been “transferred” (devolved – see section 6). In theory, there could be an unending game of ping pong as the Assembly asserts its will and Parliament asserts its sovereignty. Thus the Sewell convention, which is …

NI winners and losers?

Andy Boal on December 13, 2019, 11:46 am | Readers 3090

After a long night (I did not expect to be the last man standing on the results liveblog!), who have been the winners and losers in NI? Reflections on each party… The obvious losers are the DUP, losing South Belfast, North Belfast, and coming within 1900 votes of losing East Belfast. Their total votes has fallen by 16.7% and their vote share has fallen from 35.99% to 30.55%. Despite good returns from loyalist areas of South Belfast, they still received …

From high drama to late night reflections

Andy Boal on October 22, 2019, 1:52 am | Readers 1264

And so ends the day that was. As I write, sections 8, 9 and 10 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act 2019 have come into force. Could it have played out differently? I’ve given a lot of thought to this, and all of this comes with the rider that I am a layman whose powers are limited to google and everyday meanings. A lawyer I am not. Premise no.1, that Robin Newton should have taken the advice of the …

The will of the people!!

Andy Boal on October 21, 2019, 8:45 am | Readers 1085

Much is said about “respecting the will of the people” with regard to the 2016 referendum. So why not respect the result of the 2017 General Election, when the people of the UK refused to give the Tories a majority which would have allowed them to force through a deal of their choice? This is a fact that gets lost in the “will of the people” nonsense. The Tories and Labour have two very different views of Brexit. It should …

Change is coming, but could the DUP have done something about it sooner?

Andy Boal on October 18, 2019, 1:09 pm | Readers 2253

So on Monday night, thirteen weeks to the day since the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 passed the House of Lords, the clock runs out. Equal marriage will become law, abortion will be liberalised, and payments to victims must be provided for. On Tuesday, we will have no more Sarah Ewarts where this pro-lifer’s heart breaks for women forced to carry a baby with little or no prospect of life outside the womb rather than making an active …

Rees-Mogg might have a point. This time.

Andy Boal on July 26, 2019, 7:41 pm | Readers 3590

ITV has broken the news of the Leader of the House’s style guide. There is a lot of focus on what modern sensibilities see as the nonsense of addressing me as Mr. Andrew Boal, Esq., and the use of imperial measures (a massive piece of virtue signalling for little practical purpose) but there is a very interesting point: the list of banned words and phrases. Very Due to Ongoing Hopefully Unacceptable Equal Too many ‘I’s Yourself Lot Got Speculate ‘invest’ …