“We need you to get this right.”

- Barack Obama, Belfast Waterfront Hall, Monday 17 June 2013

Thought this deserved a special illustrated note. Perhaps we can carry this alongside us.

As The Economist noted last week:

…offshore centres such as the Cayman Islands and Jersey, corporate service providers have had to collect ownership information since they first came under international pressure a decade ago, though they are sometimes slow or unwilling to turn it over to investigators. In America, by contrast, the information generally is not even collected. Indeed, states like Delaware and Nevada are among the easiest jurisdictions in the world in which to form a company without revealing who ultimately owns it.

This frustrates and embarrasses America’s crime-fighters, but the states’ lawmakers have blocked reform. Britain, with its bearer shares and easily abused limited-liability partnerships, is little better. Complaints from police about anonymous shells helped persuade Mr Cameron to make transparency a G8 theme.

So before they come for Ireland, it seems that the UK and the US have some homework of their own to catch up on:

Chancellor George Osborne unveiled plans for a UK register of companies and their owners. The White House also announced a similar plan for the US.

Last week the UK also unveiled a deal with its crown dependencies and overseas territories – including the Channel Islands, Gibraltar and Anguilla – to start sharing more information on which foreign companies bank their profits there.

About a fifth of offshore tax havens, which are used by multinationals to shelter cash from the tax authorities, are British dependencies.

“Of course Britain’s got to put its own house in order,” said Mr Osborne, adding that the government would launch a consultation on whether the register should be published or just be available to the HMRC.

Speaking during the summit, Mr Osborne said more progress had been made on reforming the global tax system in the past 24 hours than the “past 24 years”

As noted at the outset, the G8 is about trying to set agendas, not sealing deals. This may be a statement of collective intent to begin rolling up the carpet on tax loop holes rather than avoidance per se.

But don’t hold your breath…

The regular mis-pronunciations were testament to the downgrading of Northern Ireland both in the President’s own strategic hierarchy and the amount of resources set aside for it at State.

As Barak headed west to Fermanagh, Michelle wasted no time heading south for dinner in Dublin, a run out to Wicklow with the girls this morning to be followed by lunch in Dalkey with Bono…

The speech itself was long, like preacher asked to deliver 5 O’Clock Mass in some parish he’d barely heard of before, he sounded tired half way through.

As Mark Devenport notes, it was general enough to keep everyone happy, not least the new Lord Mayor, who’s US commercial interests will not be harmed by the fact that he was one of the few not to suffer the mangling of his own Irish name…

Though Mark also notes, the insertion of a passage on integrated education was perhaps a result of a misbriefing somewhere along with the way, we don’t have any plans for scaling up integrated education, just building them all nice and close, but with the institutional walls still firmly intact…

it’s worth thinking back to the last visit by a US dignitary – Hillary Clinton’s farewell tour.

Mrs Clinton arrived in the teeth of the union flag dispute and it took some fancy diplomatic footwork to ensure her Stormont Castle presser didn’t descend into recriminations between the first and deputy first ministers.

Having a repeat performance with the president in town would not have been an option, so although the G8 agenda has very little to do with Northern Ireland, to that extent this summit has influenced the course of Stormont politics.

Contrast the celebration of ‘coming out in the world’ of Bill Clinton’s 1995 speech at Mackies, or the forensic focus of George Bush’s envoys, Mitchell Reiss and Richard Hass with the simpler fare of the only public park in Europe that’s divided by a wall…

Yet there are a few lines worth picking out:

no one was naïve enough to believe that peace would be anything but a long journey. Yeats once wrote “Peace comes dropping slow.” But that doesn’t mean our efforts to forge a real and lasting peace should come dropping slow. This work is as urgent now as it has ever been, because there’s more to lose now than there has ever been.

And then Colum McCann’s lines from the NYT in March (H/T Patricia):

“Peace is indeed harder than war,” the Irish author Colum McCann recently wrote. “And its constant fragility is part of its beauty. A bullet need happen only once, but for peace to work we need to be reminded of its existence again and again and again.”

Though Michael Longley once put it more comprehensively:

It’s how we interact with one another, civilization. On the one hand, I’m interested in how we avoid tearing one another to pieces. Peace is not that, peace is the absence of that, peace is the absence of war: the opposite of war is custom, customs, and civilization.

Civilization is custom and manners and ceremony, the things that Yeats says in “A Prayer for My Daughter.” We have a vocabulary of how to deal with one another and how to behave, a vocabulary of behavior, as well as things to say to one another . . . and out of that come laws and agreed ways of doing things .

Some of the simpler things are worth remembering…

…the British government does have some leverage on the Irish Government there, because they have a £7.5 billion loan, that is a lot of leverage. They should be saying to the government in the Republic, you cannot steal tax revenue from us in this way and that is in fact what has been happening.[emphasis added]

[Maybe that's the reason Sammy's bid to get Corpo Tax ramped down from Westminster is working so well? - Ed]

Yesterday, Senator Daragh O’Brien of Fianna Fail responded…

….perhaps the most concerning element of Minister Wilson’s intervention is the apparent contradiction between his comments and his previously expressed support for the campaign to reduce Northern Ireland’s corporation tax rate to bring it in line with the Republic.

Well, quite. Though Sammy is not known for nailing any flag to the political flagpole that cannot be quietly taken down afterwards [like Sammy's signature on EDM 850? - Ed]. And he always has his weather eye open for any useful base pleasing passing bandwagon.

As Oliver Hill notes in the Telegraph, the immediate trigger for this particular bandwagon was Google’s recent grilling in Westminster:

Google’s tax arrangements have been at the centre of a public row over corporate tax after it emerged that the company had generated $18bn of revenue in Britain from 2006 to 2011 but only paid $16m in taxes to British authorities.

Though in yesterday’s FT, Eric Schmidt noted that it was the UK which pioneered some of the tax engineering that brought some substantive successes:

The UK led the way in Europe in the 1980s, with generous manufacturing incentives for carmakers. Nissan, for example, was given land at heavily subsidised rates to build its assembly plant in Sunderland. Thirty years on, this Japanese company is a mainstay of the UK’s manufacturing base, as well as a beacon of “British” productivity and innovation.

He went on…

It is why many European countries have created tax incentives specifically to encourage investment in research and development and intellectual “capital” – the ideas and innovation that are critical to many companies’ success in today’s information economy. In the UK, both the Labour party and the Conservatives have supported the idea of a so-called “patent box”, a tax incentive that was finally introduced in April and which halves corporation tax on profits from patented inventions to just 10 per cent. That is lower than Ireland’s headline rate of 12.5 per cent, and way less than Google’s overall global corporate tax rate of 19 per cent in 2012.

Still reading Sammy? The tax haven (a large number of the genuine articles of which are in British Overseas Territories) accusation against the south doesn’t stand up as anything more than a political play in Congress. It is nonetheless worrying for Ireland that has such deep links into US corporate business. As Arthur Beesley notes this morning:

…something which could yet cause problems for Ireland, given persistent political attacks in the US against the tax strategies deployed in Ireland by Apple Computer and other big multinationals.

Although Taoiseach Enda Kenny insists Ireland has nothing to fear, the reputational damage from the Apple revelations is quietly acknowledged in Dublin. As world leaders seek to boost their battered finances by collecting more tax from increasingly profitable big business, small tax payments from certain major multinationals expose Ireland to assault.

A paper published by the OECD (A step change in Tax Transparency) this morning and commissioned by the G8, poses perhaps a more direct threat to the Irish economic situation by proposing to tackle base erosion and profit shifting.

Angel Gurría, OECD secretary general:

“We will also need to close the tax avoidance loopholes used by multinational corporations, create a level playing field and help governments – - in developed and developing countries alike – to raise the revenues they need to provide their citizens with the services they deserve.”

The point made by John Gulliver on Morning Ireland this morning is a clear one. According to him the UK and France are looking for a cut corporate on profits and sales away from from the country is which they are headquartered…

[Ireland] should definitely steer clear of going down the sales route. I mean it is quite clear that what Europe has for sales tax is VAT. That’s an end user tax on people who buy the eventual product. The key is to look at who’s got the employees, who’s got the capital, who’s got the real base?

Some countries are better at certain industries than others. For example the UK has a very strong financial services base, a very strong car industry. So leave the car industry there, leave it in the UK [and let Ireland] play to our strengths.

Odd that no northern Irish nationalist voice was raised in defence of the Republic’s tax regime, although Gerry Adams did manage to extract his own clownish revenge on the DUP Finance Minister whilst they were waiting for the arrival of the President of the United States…

Those of a sensitive disposition are duly warned, again, that James Joyce enjoys the language in all its fecund nuttiness. Enjoy!

On this island Obama has almost nothing at stake in Ireland north or south.   His inevitable  dropby in Belfast on the way to G8 in Fermanagh  was a first – and surely only- visit, in contrast with Clintons’ (plural) abiding fascination with us and our golfing facilities. George Bush came twice, to give peace and politics a nudge  one visit being  a Hillsborough  summit on Iraq. These visits  seemed more about doing a favour to Tony Blair although bizarrely,  he did come out of retirement in 2010  to warn David Cameron not to harm the political balance by trying to do a deal with the Ulster Unionists just before the election that brought the coalition to power.

Did President Obama inspire? Whatever was said in the tv newsbabble it was obvious that from time to time in his wandering discourse, he lost his audience. The teenagers seemed more puzzled than amused by the “O’Bama” schtick.

Northern Ireland was set firmly in an all-island context without a single nod to the UK, his hosts at Lough Erne. The local notes found for him were not always quite in tune, like “Dam” Mary Peters and Seamus” Hayney” (you couldn’t imagine Clinton fluffing that one). Though full marks for navigating “Máirtín Ó Muilleoir” (Martin Miller), Sinn Fein’s new Lord Mayor of Belfast.  Irish amour propre though will have taken a hit at two references to “this liddle island”. But one passage in particular struck home as it resonated with his own experience.

This was not another case of Obama’s rhetoric outrunning reality, the phenomenon that has  become a hallmark of his presidency.  He made a real attempt to address the  grind that is the daily lot of Northern Ireland community relations.  Striking a personal  chord with him  as a former community organiser in Chicago was his references to  Alexandra Park “the only park in Europe to have  wall running through it” and his name check of “Sylvia Gordon.. the director of an organization called “Groundwork Northern Ireland” _(although she was unaccountably absent). This  added force to his appeal to begin tackling a sunning sore.

After she came home,( from a fact finding visit to the US), Sylvia rolled up her sleeves here in Belfast – and decided to do something about Alexandra Park. Some of you may know this park. For years, it was thought to be the only park in Europe still divided by a wall. Sylvia and her colleagues knew how hard it would be to do anything about a peace wall, but they reached out to the police and the Department of Justice anyway. They brought together people from across the community anyway. Together, they all decided build a gate to open that wall. And now, people can walk freely through the park and enjoy the sun – when it comes out – just like people do every day in other parts of the world.

As long as more walls still stand, we will need more Sylvias. We will need more of you – young people who imagine the world as it should be, and bring a community together to make it happen – who make even the small impossibilities a shining example of what’s possible. That, more than anything, will shape what Northern Ireland looks like 15 years from now and beyond.

This approach  is a hallmark of Obama the ultra-cautious politician.  Nothing like Ronald Reagan’s Tear down your wall Mr Gorbachev” but opening a gate in a wall may make impossibilities possible.

His handlers may not have realised that his frank appeal in favour of integrated education is not a statement of the obvious. What brought me up short was:  “(Peace ) is about a sense of empathy, it’s about breaking down the divisions we create for ourselves in our own minds that don’t exist in any objective reality“

Oh yeah? Will supporters of a “Catholic ethos” or opponents of Irish as a language of instruction agree?  Can we dismiss the rival nationalisms just like that – not objective reality?

A shared future cannot exist in a political vacuum and it is hardly  the role of US Presidents to fill it. That is the job for locals when the presidents and prime ministers depart. Our local politicians should finally give a rest to their inflated claims for what they should stop calling a ” peace process.” and stick to “politics.” Yes, we can still command an hour or two of international attention in our own right. But Obama’s appearance at the Waterfront , heart warming courtesy though it was, can only be seen as a second order event. The holding of the G8 summit in Fermanagh is a less personal  but more significant gesture of support for where Northern Ireland has reached today.

We're about to go LIVE!! UTV with full #Obama coverage at 9.25am. And don't forget the live online blog http://t.co/2o7j6pC8P9

— Marc Mallett (@MarcMallett_UTV) June 17, 2013

And US people, this is Belfast HUMOUR…

Obama in East Belfast. Someone take him to The Oval and lock him in until he agrees to get the club money. Make it happen people

— Neil Wilson (@Neil_GFC) June 17, 2013

Delays now up to fifteen minutes…

Brian Little's great pic of the moment Finance Minister Sammy Wilson joined Gerry Adams in a pre-Obama Mexican wave pic.twitter.com/bqfmn1p5EN

— Sam McBride (@SJAMcBride) June 17, 2013

“Oh Feck, I’ve been Adamsed…” The Finance Minister succumbs to the wiley moves of President of Sinn Fein…

@GerryAdamsSF is that first time you've put your hands up to anything Gerry?

— Katie-o (@kateyo) June 17, 2013

Well, it’s a fair point…

@mickfealty 'Peace is indeed harder than war, and its constant fragility is part of its beauty.' http://t.co/TLypTXVS2l

— Patricia MacBride (@patriciamacb) June 17, 2013

The best part of the speech was written by someone else…

Yay Matt Baggott has fan!! The #POTUS no less… Makes a change from being a convenient whipping post for the politicians who put him there.

— Mick Fealty (@mickfealty) June 17, 2013

"Over time laws changed, hearts and minds changed… Politicians often follow rather than lead… " on the slow draining of discrimination

— Mick Fealty (@mickfealty) June 17, 2013

Quotess Yeats (pron correct) "Peace comes dropping slow.." But that is no excuse for politics to come dropping slow…

— Mick Fealty (@mickfealty) June 17, 2013

Brief (very) thoughts from on Fox Five, San Diego earlier this afternoon…

Later…

In Enniskillen, PM Cameron and POTUS did painting with kids. POTUS said: “I think I just went outside the lines.”

— Roger Simon (@politicoroger) June 17, 2013

Political coup for Cameron – major diplomatic effort to secure this photo showing UK back at heart of Europe. pic.twitter.com/GTWbCgONG9

— Simon Nixon (@Simon_Nixon) June 17, 2013

And Fermanagh (cool publicity shot)…

The G8 in numbers, so far – 8,000 police officers, 4 protests, 2 arrests.

— Mark Simpson (@BBCMarkSimpson) June 17, 2013

Before they left, the young people attending the G8 Youth Summit presented their ideas to the British Secretary of State, US Consul General, as well as representatives of the NI Assembly, Irish government, the EU and other civic and church leaders.

While the G8 leaders will focus their summit on “Trade, Tax and Transparency”, the youth summit “looked beyond the current economic crisis and acknowledged our world of inequality, starvation, unnecessary death and injustice.”

Through challenging but respectful discussion we agreed on the four most important, critical issues: Equality, Poverty, Health, and Peace.

They expanded upon their four top issues (which are also contained in the video above):

EQUALITY. We want a world where everyone is equal regardless of race, gender, sexual orienttion, religion, ethnicity, age, and ability or disability. Too often the world’s media focuses on difference, creating tension. We want greater commitment from our governments, our media and our societies to seek out and promote common ground in our differences. People should be able to be themselves without fear of prejudice or persecution.

POVERTY. We want to see much greater commitment from our governments to the even distribution of wealth, both locally and globally. All people have a basic human right to adequate food, clean water, shelter and clothing. Education is critical, enabling children to grow and flourish as individuals contributing to their community and their economy. We believe in fair trade to create a world in which justice and sustainable development are at the heart of trade structures and practices, so that everyone through their work can maintain a decent and dignified livelihood and develop their full potential.

HEALTH. We believe in universal health care that is free and accessible to all people around the world. It should not be dependent upon where we live or how much money we have. We want to see greater commitment from our governments to ensure that health care is not seen as a money-making industry, but as a basic human right. It is crucial that mental health should have the same importance as physical health. We want to see greater efforts around the world to provide mental health services and reduce associated stigma.

PEACE. We want all governments to show much greater commitment to negotiation and dialogue as a way of resolving conflict. We want military intervention to be the very last resort and not the first response. We want a world that is free from the threat of nuclear and chemical warfare, meaning all governments will decommission these capabilities. We want greater efforts to resolve long-standing conflicts and liberate child soldiers. We are concerned at the de-humanising of warfare through the use of drones, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians. We want governments to demonstrate greater value for human life, creating a safer world for generations to come.

The communiqué from the young delegates finished:

Now it is up to you. We want you, the leaders of the G8, to listen to us. We want you to see that we care about the world you run, and we want you to do everything in your power to create the world we envision. After all, we are the future, and the future is in your hands.

The G8 youth summit was organised by The Fermanagh Trust in partnership with Co-operation Ireland and Future Search Network.

I wonder how this will compare with the statements that are issued at the close of the G8 adult summit?

15 Halfpenny – he missed a kick in 2011 and a tackle in 2009….I’ve decided to let him marry my niece.

14, hmmm  difficult – I think Kearney…or maybe Shane…

13, Davies – player of the tour so far,

12, O’Driscoll – if he’s fit

11, North – ditto

10, Sexton – looking grown up…well at least compared to Farrell

9. Phillips – superb so far

8. Heaslip

7. Warburton

6, Croft (we have to have a token English bloke)

5 O’Connell

4 Wyn Jones

3 Jones

2 Hibbard

1. Vunipola

What do you think?

Why is the EU flag flying anyhow since it is not a nation? And why are unelected José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy the ninth and tenth members?

G8 in Gleneagles, Scotland, UK in 2005

On the world stage the G8 leaders must find solutions to the growing instability in the Middle East and the threat to the region posed by the escalating conflict in Syria.

I believe that the failure by the EU Foreign Ministers to reach agreement on continuing the arms embargo to Syria when they met is a major set-back to efforts to negotiate a ceasefire. I would urge the other G8 leaders to impress on the British government the folly of its efforts to allow the arming of opposition forces in Syria. I believe that this would only exacerbate and prolong the conflict. [added emphasis]

…

Adding more weapons to this volatile situation could destabilise the entire region. The best way to stop the conflict is through peace talks and a peace process. The USA and Russia have recently shown an interest in creating a forum for the Government and rebels to try start peace talks.

This is a welcome initiative and needs to be given more time. Exporting weapons to Syria will only continue to fuel this civil war and claim more lives. I hope that the USA and Russia will further explore this initiative with the other participants at the upcoming G8 Summit in Fermanagh.

Of course, it was US President Barack Obama who, in 2011, unilaterally decided to authorize US forces to use missile strikes “kinetic military action” against Libya without the approval of Congress.

And it was US President Barack Obama who, as reported in the New York Times on the 13 June, the day before Martin McGuinness’ 14 June dated speech,

The Obama administration, concluding that the troops of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria have used chemical weapons against rebel forces in his country’s civil war, has decided to begin supplying the rebels for the first time with small arms and ammunition, according to American officials.

The officials held out the possibility that the assistance, coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency, could include antitank weapons, but they said that for now supplying the antiaircraft weapons that rebel commanders have said they sorely need is not under consideration.

Assad, it had been decided, has crossed US President Obama’s “red line“.  The White House statement notes that

Following on the credible evidence that the regime has used chemical weapons against the Syrian people, the President has augmented the provision of non-lethal assistance to the civilian opposition, and also authorized the expansion of our assistance to the Supreme Military Council (SMC), and we will be consulting with Congress on these matters in the coming weeks.

This effort is aimed at strengthening the effectiveness of the SMC, and helping to coordinate the provision of assistance by the United States and other partners and allies.

Put simply, the Assad regime should know that its actions have led us to increase the scope and scale of assistance that we provide to the opposition, including direct support to the SMC. These efforts will increase going forward.

The United States and the international community have a number of other legal, financial, diplomatic, and military responses available.

We are prepared for all contingencies, and we will make decisions on our own timeline.

And the New York Times editorial on 14 June points at other pressures on Obama to act

Chemical weapons are not the only factor driving the administration’s decision. Although Mr. Obama and others predicted long ago that Mr. Assad would fall to the rebels, the Syrian leader is still in power, and his forces — aided by Iran and Hezbollah militants — have scored significant strategic advances in recent weeks. Rebel leaders allied with the West have pleaded for assistance beyond the medicine and food already provided by Washington; other promised aid, like night vision goggles and body armor, apparently has not arrived.

Mr. Obama has also come under increasing attack from a small number of American politicians, including former President Bill Clinton, who this week said Mr. Obama risks looking “lame” for not doing more to help the rebels. It was a cheap shot leveled at an event hosted by Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a leading advocate of aggressive action in Syria. It is irresponsible for critics like Mr. McCain and Mr. Clinton to fault Mr. Obama without explaining how the United States can change the course of that brutal civil war without being dragged too far into it.

Meanwhile, the UK has “taken ‘no decision’ to arm the Syrian rebels after the US declared it would provide them with military support.”  Syria is on the agenda in Fermanagh.  Among other items of business...

It’s good to know our own local Dear Leaders are keeping so well-informed on the bigger, international picture.  And not simply still desperate for any excuse to have a go at the Brits…  [Obama has a Nobel Peace Prize, you know... -Ed]  Indeed.  But, then, who hasn’t?

But, if the NI deputy First Minister is still concerned, then perhaps he’ll get the chance to tell the current US President, directly, about the “folly” of his actions.  Just like he promised to do with a former US President.  And how did that go, again?

Thankfully our indigenous administrators have zero responsibility for, and zero influence on, anyone‘s foreign policy.

Effective action at the G8 summit could see Africa reap a ‘development dividend’ that boosts poverty reduction and sets the region on a course for more self-reliant growth, according to the Director of the UK’s leading development think tank.

The ODI has described Lough Erne as a ‘high stakes’ summit for the world’s poor. ODI Director Kevin Watkins said that more stringent rules on tax evasion could prevent the loss of 3 per cent of GDP – more than many governments spend on education or health. Overall, tax evasion and illicit transfers costs Africa three times more than the region receives in aid.

Mr Watkins added: “This is an opportunity for the G8 to make a difference without spending a penny on increased aid. Cutting tax evasion and illicit transfers would mobilize the finance needed to invest in the infrastructure and essential services needed to break the cycle of poverty. It would also be good for the G8. This is the ultimate win-win scenario.”

He also spoke out against continued tax avoidance and capital flight from developing economies saying: ‘These resources should be financing schools and health clinics in Africa, not sitting in shell company accounts on the British Virgin Islands.’

The ODI has identified five issues to watch out for the in the G8 communique which are:

•             Public registries: There will be some encouraging language on the need for national registries on beneficial company ownership in every tax jurisdiction. This is critical because so much illicit activity and tax evasion occurs through shell companies and trusts in offshore centres. But real scrutiny demands that the registries are accessible not just to tax authorities, but to civil society, journalists and the wider public.

•             Companies and trusts: This one is a detail that matters. All of the G8 countries have signalled a broad agreement to require reporting on beneficial ownership by companies, but trusts are not always included. That apparently technical detail matters. Much of the US$1.4bn siphoned out of the Democratic Republic of Congo between 2010 and 2012 operated through corporate structures involving trusts.

•             Action plans: The G8 countries need to go beyond adopting impressive principles to implementing action plans – and the summit communique should include a timetable for countries to set their own houses in order. Negotiators from the United States wax lyrical about the need for strengthened regulation in off-shore centres, but they are less vocal on one of the world’s most secretive locations for shell company registration – Delaware. Britain’s leadership should extend to the announcement of a plan of action for decisive action at home.

•             Links to the development agenda: Improved data, information flows and greater openness are a necessary condition for development – but they will unlock reams of new information. Tax authorities in the poorest countries lack the financial, technical and human capabilities to process information, let alone investigate the transfer pricing and illicit transfer activities of major companies. That is why the G8 action plan needs to extend to support for national and regional capacity building, and a demand that agencies like the World Bank and the IMF get serious about tackling tax evasion.

•             Cooperation with the G20: If the world’s richest countries cannot deliver meaningful action on tax and transparency, it is not clear that the G8 has a purpose. By that token, this is a global problem that needs global action, which is why the communique must signal the beginnings of a common agenda with the G20.

Caption competition

I’ve kicked it off: “[Mr. Robinson, Mr. McGuinness], tear down this wall!”

• An additional £100 million in capital borrowing powers for the Executive over 2014-15 and 2015-16 to support specific shared housing and education projects.
• A further £42 (€50) million in UK funding for the PEACE IV programme and a £154 (€181) million top-up for EU Structural Funds for Northern Ireland for 2014-2020, bringing the total funding for economic and shared future projects through PEACE IV and EU Structural Funds to £550 million.
• Continuing Northern Ireland’s Assisted Areas Status coverage, which has helped the Executive to create over 3,000 jobs in NI in the last three months alone.
• Plans for a major G8 Investment Conference in Northern Ireland in October, to be attended by the Prime Minister.
• Measures to boost lending to businesses, including extending the £117 million Start-up Loans Scheme to Northern Ireland and piloting a new version of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme with a bank in NI.
• Unlocking access for Northern Ireland to the Government’s £40 billion Infrastructure Guarantee Scheme.
• A joint £20 million investment plan for Research & Development projects in Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on aerospace.
• A joint programme of work to examine the potential to gift up to 350 surplus MoD houses and bases for use in shared future projects.
• Agreement on a mechanism for taking forward the devolution of Corporation Tax before the 2015 General Election, if the Government decides to devolve these powers.
• A commitment to examine the potential for devolving additional fiscal powers, with recommendations to be put to Executive and Government Ministers by autumn 2014.
• A new way forward on Enterprise Zones, which would allow NI businesses in designated areas to benefit from enhanced capital allowances.
• A commitment to take forward a visa waiver pilot to encourage visitors to the Republic of Ireland to visit Northern Ireland.
• A new process led by the Executive to ensure the planning system in Northern Ireland supports economic growth.
• A substantial programme of work to examine how the financial potential of Belfast Port can be unlocked.
• An Executive-led review of business red tape, including recommendations to reduce the regulatory burdens facing businesses, to report by December 2013.

Handy of the First Minister to get his interview in with The View before the details came out, but what do YOU think?

She was interviewed by Kerri Dunn for yesterday’s On the Record politics show on Lisburn’s 98FM.

Over the twenty minute interview she answered questions about why she joined the party, her thoughts about standing as a candidate, perceptions of the party, and her attitude towards Alliance.

On party supporters and the female-heavy launch:

There were a lot of women (at the launch) but probably in terms of population it was probably 50/50 and what’s interesting is most people think they come into a room like that they expect to see a lot of men so in terms of the absolute demographics of Northern Ireland it was probably representative.

Asked whether the party was trying to get women involved in politics:

That is not a specific goal. I think the party itself in terms of what we are aiming for will naturally appeal to women because we are an inclusive party, we are not a party about the past, we are a party looking towards the future … we have a lot of modern views in there and because we are so inclusive it will appeal to a lot of women.

On Basil and John, and people’s passion for politics:

The two guys have been very brave, they have broken away from the Ulster Unionist Party because they don’t believe in segregated politics, they have stood up for what they believe in, and I thought with their view on Northern Ireland, it was amazing that they were similar views I have of Northern Ireland and how we should take the country forward and how we should build a future that isn’t looking to the past and no other politician that I’ve heard speaking, from any party, has spoken that way before.

The first day I went to meet Basil properly, I went up to Stormont, and here I am a 40 year old in Northern Ireland and I’ve never driven up the drive of Stormont before. I’m hugely passionate about Northern Ireland, hugely passionate about politics, but there wasn’t one party or one party leader that inspired me enough to get involved.

I think in Northern Ireland generally there are a lot of people who are absolutely passionate about politics not our politicians

Talking about the fact she hasn’t voted since the Belfast Agreement:

I think if you look at the voting statistics, I think something like over 75% of people in Northern Ireland voted for the Belfast Agreement and since then I think we are down to averages of 52% of people coming out to vote, because people are just disengaged with our politicians and disengaged with that whole argument of just all about green and orange and identity politics all the time

I think a lot of people don’t realise yet, that these guys (Basil and John) are about way more – in terms of NI21 – it’s way more than what the old Ulster Unionist Party were about. This is about building a brand new future for Northern Ireland and I think anyone that knows me will have the opportunity to understand what the party is about, would be in favour of it.

On the need for the media to neatly label the new party:

After the launch, there was great excitement, there was great applause, people are excited about it, people want to join, but already we see that some of the media are trying to squeeze us into that box, because this is new … I think, right now, they (the media) are trying to squeeze us into that, this is what you are in terms of identity, you are a unionist party, first and foremost, and then you are these things. They cant understand that you can have a party that actually is pro being part of the United Kingdom but we don’t need to be labelled in terms of unionist/nationalist whatever, because that is unhealthy.

When asked if she describes herself as pro-Union:

I’m pro for staying part of the United Kingdom, absolutely. Now my reasons for doing that are mostly economical. I don’t think that in saying that you are happy to stay within a United Kingdom that that makes you less Irish by the way, or less Northern Irish, depending on how you describe yourself.

I think economically, if we look at the things we take for granted, for example the block grant, if we look at the sterling, from a business perspective we are much better off right now within the United Kingdom.

When asked why she didn’t feel comfortable joining or voting Alliance:

I’m really disappointed in Alliance, if I’m honest. They came out in 1973, the year I was born was when I think Alliance was born and in 40 years I think I have done more than they have. I would have initially thought Alliance was going to do a lot more, but unfortunately, they are in a situation they are between the DUP and Sinn Fein, a bit like the SDLP and UUP, I believe anyway, they are stuck in the middle there between a game of ping-pong and they don’t seem to be having the impact that one might assume they would’ve had.

Sure-footed right up to the point Tina suggested that in 40 years she had done more than Alliance – which will wind up the party that NI21 needs to work closely with while maintaining a healthy public distance.

So, the latest Ipsos/MRBI poll is out in the Irish Times. At this mid point in the term of the thirty first Dail, there’s not a lot of change to highlight. Fianna Fail at just two points ahead of Fine Gael is within the margin of error, but means steady as she goes.

The party will want to widen that gap before next year’s local elections, not least because Sinn Fein’s bump back up to 21% suggest they are also doing well out of Labour’s distress. As the MD of Ipsos MRBI Damian Loscher notes:

Fine Gael may have a little further to fall if pressure stays on the Government and the economy fails to recover in the short term. The Fine Gael vote dipped as low as 20 per cent on a number of occasions between 2003 and 2008, so the floor may be a few points away still.

The significance of local elections cannot be overstressed. Fine Gael’s widespread victory in part was built upon FF’s collapse in 2009. The buoyancy of sentiment in favour of both major opposition parties augurs well for a good local election campaign, which in turn would set them fair for a 2015/16 general election.

If there is a silver glimmer within the clouds for the government it is that positive sentiment has risen (if only by 3%). Negative sentiment remains at a startling 73% dissatisfied with the government’s performance.

But in truth, they were getting pretty awful ratings from the start. In a country still choking on private debt and fearful of what the banks will do with their homes should the government let them off the lease, there is little spare good will for any politician.

A quick glance at the actual poll figures (ie, with the undecided sown back in) confirms this impression:

Fine Gael, 16 per cent (no change);
Labour, 6 per cent (no change);
Fianna Fáil, 18 per cent (up one point);
Sinn Féin, 14 per cent (up two points);
Green Party, 1 per cent (no change);
Independents/others, 12 per cent (down two points);
Undecided voters, 33 per cent (down one point).

Sinn Fein’s pitch is directly at that dissatisfaction and this ‘rally’ in sentiment might suggest that it is starting to stick.  Labour’s low level civil war, and Brendan Howlin’s onerous ministerial task of announcing  every cut and efficiency drive inside the government makes SF’s job just a little bit easier in that regard.

By contrast, Fianna Fail must draw a robust governmental line and hope that it eventually takes them back into office. They may have Phil Hogan, James Reilly and Alan Shatter to score off, but their task is a more difficult one to pull of than SF’s, especially with such a small parliamentary team.

Yep, and if you want a short (if a little repetitive) pen picture of what and the who of the G8, this short video from the US Embassy in London is as good a grab as any.

You can see from the ariel photographs here just why the Lough Erne Golf Resort was such a no brainer to the organisers. To steal from Shakespeare’s John o’ Gaunt “it is a precious stone set in the silver sea/Which serves it in the office of a wall,/ Or as a moat defensive to a house,/ Against the envy of less happier lands…”

Ironic, since what made Fermanagh difficult territory for the British security forces makes it nicely defensible since the heads of some of the most powerful countries in the world will be coming to do business there on Monday and Tuesday.

Actually, the truth is that in terms of strategic global importance, the G8 has been eclipsed in recent years by the G20, which is a much more representative of how world economic power has been evolving over the last generation.

If it has a utility, particularly under an activist UK chairmanship, it is that most of its members (with the exception of Russia) are much more committed to multilateral actions than a G20 that comprises countries as far apart in interests as India, China and Brasil, plus the G8.

Of the three major topics at play in Fermanagh, trade is a regular given, but is the one issue on which there is rarely any significant movement. Transparency there is unlikely to be much progress. But the emergence of tax compliance as a key issue of concern for at least for the G7 subgroup is significant.

David Cameron laid his cards on the table in the WSJ last month:

We must fight the scourge of tax evasion by promoting a new global standard for automatic information exchange between tax authorities. And we must tackle aggressive tax avoidance by encouraging better global reporting to tax authorities in both the developed and developing world; and by letting tax collectors and law enforcement find out who really owns and controls each company.

Given Ireland continues to get the rough end of the US Congress’s tongue, you can bet your bottom Irish sandwiched dollar that’s why Cameron is making sure Enda Kenny is getting a seat pretty close to the top the table on that one.

As it happens, Russian is the current chair of the G20 and is due to take over for the next G8 summit in 2014. So few of the issues that get talked about in Fermanagh are likely to get much serious and broader play until Turkey hosts the G20 in 2015.

In the meantime, Peter and Martin will be hoping to leave some brochures on the lobby tables (no special friends from China I’m afraid) and may be get an invitation or two for next year, or better still the year after (having cleared the diary of any pesky Assembly elections)…

The political context doesn’t obviously favour reform. The DUP and Sinn Fein have reached their peak. Inside the communal groups they have seen off any serious challenge from the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP under present conditions.  In 2016, a two party coalition facing a fragmented handful of others is perfectly possible. Reform in any guise can only affect their dominance.  It may seem a strange moment to ask the question:  but how can the DUP and Sinn Fein ever terminate their arranged marriage?

The answer lies in considering the wider public interest.  Are the people going to want to be defined as unionist, nationalist and other for ever?  How under present patterns of political behaviour  can we ever change the government?  Granted that power sharing was a huge advance, this government will nevertheless be as difficult to replace as the old single party Unionist rule. That can’t be good for anyone in the medium term. It is not the character of a grown-up democracy, more a stitch-up between elites. All-inclusive government was the founding expedient of the new era from 1998. Now, we need to move on.

I argue that the case for reform which would replace the designations of Unionist, Nationalist and Other with a weighted majority and a negotiated coalition can only grow with time.

A new balance between stability and risk needs to struck without threatening the institutions.

While “unionist “and “nationalist” remain valid empirical classifications, they are increasingly losing favour as the defining characteristics of society.

The logic of negotiating a coalition rather than taking up seats automatically according to D’Hondt would indeed breach the principle of a fully inclusive government of all qualifying parties but a 65% weighted majority would protect the essential cross community principle.

At a stroke the abolition of designations would mean that Executive formation would be subject to genuine bargaining on seats and policy. In the Assembly it would at last give fair weight to the non-aligned Alliance party and minorities and offer a chance of more flexible voting, issue by issue.

The other logic of a negotiated coalition is the ability of parties to opt out of it and become “ parties not in government “ – in other words, an opposition. The fact of opposition creates a natural drive for its members to cooperate if they hope to have influence, arguably more than they have today. This offers a big opportunity as well as imposing an onus on the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP and assorted fragments to find a new sense of purpose. Separately or together? The most effective form of opposition would take the form of a shadow opposition grouping that would win the right of reply in the Assembly to a DUP-Sinn Fein government and could eventually present itself as an alternative government around an Alliance party core. That so far is not even a gleam in these parties’ eye so far as I can tell. In the interests of survival do they not need to raise their sights?

An opposition strategy would powerfully concentrate minds in the lesser parties to decide at last what they stand for, including creating a cross community appeal to voters for the very first time across the divide. Without such an appeal we will never break out of the sectarian straitjacket. The big bugbear of course is the almost complete failure to attract a cross community vote to date. It is high time someone tried ; there is some evidence in the polls that  the public would welcome it.  Fragmentation like NI 21 is a dead end which will disappear at the next election .The other alternative of course is  to boost the Alliance party - surely a viable aim after East Belfast 2010?

While these scenarios may seem a pipe dream at present, stranger things have happened – like the formation of an inclusive powering government in the first place. If you can form a power sharing government you can surely discover the appeal of a power sharing opposition if you stop looking over your shoulder.

But this is about more than a strategy for the minor parties.  There is of course a big problem of buy-in.  Why should the DUP and Sinn Fein surrender even a mite of their power?  While each of them has made a success of sharing power between themselves if less so with the others, they still represent opposing default political positions which one day may be put to the test. While public opinion may be softening on the national issue, I still hold to the increasingly unfashionable view that the choice of Union or Unity could still provoke an existential crisis in a generation’s time. At any rate everything should be done to soften the edges of choice in the meantime. That’s another reason voters should be offered real alternatives to the fundamentalist positions of national allegiance.  Under pressure of greater political choice the main parties might also moderate their positions.

So what’s in it for them?  Northern Ireland faces an unpredictable but not necessarily a gloomy future. We have seen Peter Robinson flirting with reform ideas due I assume to demographic pressure.  Sinn Fein are a different proposition but seem less confident than before in the inevitability of a united Ireland. Trends in public opinion and demography are impelling unionists and nationalists gradually to make bigger demarches towards each other.   But increasingly – and this is perhaps the new factor – they need a margin beyond their core in order to secure nirvana.   If politics became more flexible it is not implausible to imagine a future conciliatory leader of a unionist minority persuading enough nationalists that a referendum on Irish unity would be destabilising and unnecessary. Similarly a nationalist majority leader might persuade enough unionists that a united pluralist Ireland was preferable to clinging on to a Union that would be happy to see them leave. A third hypothesis is a cross community Northern Ireland First party holding the balance of power.

There is much more to say about getting politics on the move in the post-Agreement era.  Although the rhetoric has changed a great deal since 1998, little else may happen in the short term. The politics of consolidation may still prevail over the politics of risk. However it’s wrong and actually self deception to dismiss future thinking as fanciful. At least the Assembly is inspecting the auguries under prodding from Westminster. There should be no let-up.  Serious politicians are all too aware than nothing is forever and that stasis threatens their long term positions. If they think in their hearts that the Unity question will fuel them forever it is up to others to prove them wrong.

 - Henrik Ibsen (1881)

So the past is a foreign place after all. Nowhere more-so than in Northern Ireland. The decision to ‘plant’ the G8 in Northern Ireland is testimony to the degree which things have calmed down in the twenty years since the ceasefires.

Still, we remain a battleground of sorts. There’s a steady stream of pressers emanating from SF and pro SF lobby groups about the SDLP’s participation in making Jim Allister’s #SpadBill law. The SDLP, for its part, seem to be pretending it’s not happening.

The trouble is, everyone says they want to talk about what they might do about the past. Yet no one wants to do anything about it. The document proposing forthcoming talks (subtitled learning from rather than dealing with the past?) does not offer new ground for possible future agreement.

This never ending game of “We’ll-show-ours-if-you’ll-show-yours (but only in front of an international body)” came to a clattering halt last week with Ann Travers’ intervention on Northern Ireland’s very own restaurant at the end of the universe.

She demonstrated that in having no agreed comprehensive and consistent approach to the past, insiderly understandings are fragile and highly vulnerable to disruption.

Last Saturday, Alasdair McDonnell argued that the past must be dealt with “in a comprehensive and honest way”. He further commended the Eames/Bradley proposals as “the most significant approach that we have seen towards dealing with the past”.

Hard to argue against that. But can a comprehensive approach ever deal with the other of McDonnell’s criteria, ie honesty? Or can any honest approach ever expect to be comprehensive?

The Belfast Agreement, was an agreement to start over again with institutions that whilst far from perfect at least had broad agreement across the island north and south. And as McDonnell also points out it  allowed for the early release of prisoners and supported the reintegration of prisoners into society.

In certain key aspects though, most ex prisoners who fall outside the political aegis of Sinn Fein enjoy far fewer privileges than those who do. Try getting a US visa for instance if you are Republican ex prisoner, but  no longer ‘in’ with the party? Or try keeping your job as check out operator at Asda, as a loyalist ex prisoner? That is an unlegislated hierarchy.

The recent citation of party membership in the case of John Downey and his description by Gerry Kelly as “a long-time supporter of the peace process” implies party membership carries with it an unnegotiated immunity from future prosecutions.

A hierarchy of victims also exists insofar as (as Alex Maskey pointed out on Nolan last year) every one of us has a different relation to each one of those who died and the circumstances in which they lived and died. The legislation which asserts there be no hierarchy merely governs the extent which support be extended to all those who have survived their own tragedies.

But the SpAdBill makes it clear that  unconditional support to all victims cannot be transposed into wiping out all forms of culpability for perpetrators.

It certainly ought not hold in the case of state forces.  The pursuit of truth by numerous relatives campaigns will, I suspect, continue whether there is an attempt at brokering a comprehensive deal or not, precisely because those families involved do not trust the state (or their own political leaders) to ante up the truth without a hell of a long term fight.

And, to be frank, it is hard to blame them.

The SpAdBill controversy demonstrates that the burden of the past does not fall upon the shoulders of all players in equal measure. The state (and their loyalist proxies) are certainly in the frame (though as the bill’s critics rightly point out, it does little or nothing in that regard).

Yet so too are the anti state forces who killed by far the largest proportions of both civilians and Catholics.

In lieu of a comprehensive agreement, the final arbitration of how soon and how we move on must somehow rest with the relatives of the victims. And that surely depends on how soon our political leaders are able to enlarge the shadow of the future?

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”

- Marcus Tullius Cicero