Two days after the DUP’s Jonathan Bell’s rapid apology for the Northern Ireland Junior Minsters’ two-handed assault on golf clubs.

…speaking at the Community Relations Week conference, Mr Bell said: “Many communities may not paint their kerb stones or put out flags, but scratch the surface and you find the prejudice and the hate whispered behind closed doors or joked about in golf clubs or over dinner parties.”

However, speaking later on BBC NI ‘s Stormont Today, he said it was “a clumsy use of language”.

“Sorry is what I essentially want to say,” he said.

And one day after the intervention by the NI First and deputy First Ministers

…the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness described comments by two Stormont junior ministers about hidden sectarianism to be found in golf clubs as “an unfortunate choice of words”.

First Minister Peter Robinson said he’d been in dozens of golf clubs and never heard any bitter or sectarian comments in them.

The local branch of the Golfing Union of Ireland welcomed an apology from the DUP minister Jonathan Bell for the comments made at a community relations conference.

Earlier Sinn Fein had declined to echo the DUP’s direct retraction, instead stressing that sectarianism exists throughout society here.

As Mark Devenport notes on his BBC blog

The speed with which the junior minister performed his U-turn reflected the embarrassment of the DUP over remarks which picked out golf just weeks ahead of the prestigious Irish Open.

Sinn Fein’s Martina Anderson hasn’t followed suit as yet – a party spokesperson told the BBC’s Nolan show that “people shouldn’t lose sight” of what the junior ministers were saying.

But we now have that “second apology in golf comments” from Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson.  Except it’s not really an apology to anyone… [There's that attitude again! - Ed].

At a time when politics and economics in Europe is busting open day by day, it’s probably as well to remember Europe didn’t always look the way it does today…

And, it seems the former junior Minister is refusing to apologise for those £10,000 worth of free Assembly envelopes… North Antrim MLA Daithi McKay says he has questions to answer… and it seems he’s getting the same answer his own party gave after the Inkgate controversy… which is roughly, “I didn’t do anything wrong, now mind your own business…”

As figures on the live register of unemployed in the Republic continue to even out at 14.5% (albeit at historically high levels,) the NI Labour market report released this morning shows a slight drop in unemployment rates 6.7%, down 0.5 percentage points over both the quarter and year…

Hardly an indication of a recovery in the Republic and, just possibly, a calm before the cuts really start to bite in Northern Ireland?

Interesting that with just over a month to go before Sammy Wilson puts all departmental budgets under scrutiny to see what he can claw back for DFP, the Education Minister managed to locate £72 million of ‘savings’ over the next three years.

According to the Minister’s party political presser, this figure was as a result of “an internal review that has led to further reductions in bureaucracy and savings from other educational services.”

That impression was enhanced by his colleague Daithi McKay who added that “over £72 million in extra investment is available for various education services”.

According to the Minster, this means at least £28 million extra for this year. This is in addition to an extra £30 million the Minister petitioned for and got as recently as January this year (part of a tranche of 120 million over the next three years) to fill what the department apparently claimed was a budgetary shortfall.

When interviewed tonight on Evening Extra by Seamus McKee, the Minister admitted that this latest tranche of cash had been found not from ‘reductions in bureaucracy’ (bar a demand from CCEA to lose £3 million) but from projects that had either already completed or had been found could do with less than the department had budgeted for.

It’s known in the trade as over-budgeting and/or underspending. The ‘extra’ was given in January when the Minister ‘needed’ it. But the internal review appears to show that he was actually on course to underspend by £72 Million albeit over three years. Thus the hasty last minute ‘reallocation’.

Although the Minister joked lightly with McKee that it hadn’t been found down the back of the departments sofas, that is exactly what looks like has happened. So he does now have extra resources, because of the extra £120 million he appealed for in January. It seems like he had had this £72 million all along.

Not sure the Minister for DFP will be quite so generous in the next few rounds…

Adds: In today’s Irish News, Simon Doyle notes that cuts for the next three years amount to £170 million to be taken directly away from schools…

As the euro crisis rumbles on, confirmation, if any were needed, that Greece is, indeed, heading back to the polls.  You can follow further developments on the Guardian’s live-blog. 

Meanwhile, having cajoled the vast majority of their private sector creditors into taking part in a bond swap deal in March, the Greek government [who? - Ed] outgoing prime minister technocrat-in-chief, Lucas Papademos, has opted to pay up, on a May 15 due bond, to those who held out at the time.  From the Irish Times hosted Reuters report

In an about-face, Greece opted to pay holders of €430 million of a May 15th bond, despite having told those who took its bond swap offer in March that they would otherwise get nothing, government officials said.

The decision averts litigation by the bondholders, and will infuriate the 96.9  per cent of creditors, mainly European banks, who agreed to take the deal.

“Greece’s strategy has been to openly say that it won’t pay holdouts, possibly in the hope at least some of them would go away,” said Steven Friel at legal firm Brown Rudnick, who advises creditors holding other Greek bonds that were not exchanged under the swap.

“This decision sets a commercial, if not a legal, precedent that they are willing to meet their obligations to pay bondholders in full for the other international law bonds that will mature in coming years,” he said.

A source close to private creditors involved in the swap, who declined to be identified, called it “scandalous” and wished Greece “good luck for the next restructuring”.

Indeed.

Adds  From the Guardian live blog

James Campbell, partner at international law firm Pillsbury, argues that Greece was in a terribly difficult position. Had it not paid the €435m, it would have defaulted. But by paying up today, it faces the risk of legal action from bond-holders who did take a haircut (losing 70% of the value of their bonds).

“That Greece has paid may not be the end of the affair. We can see significant protests from those bondholders who agreed to previous debt restructuring on the basis that Greece said that there was no money available to do anything else. Lawsuits may follow if previous “co-operative” bondholders view this as a misrepresentation.

“Furthermore, Greece’s decision to pay will be seen as a victory for the hold-out bondholders which will embolden them. In March the press widely reported that funds were buying up bonds issued by Hellenic Railways and guaranteed by the state. Like the bonds repaid today, those bonds are governed by English law and the proposed restructuring of them was not successful. These bonds are up next for repayment and we will be monitoring developments with interest. Greece may only have deferred the pain for another day.”

Just what Greece needs right now, a legal battle with international investors….

Whilst Greece heads back to the polls (possibly to return a ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’ leftist government, Liam Halligan in last Sunday’s Telegraph has a timely reminder that some Irish politicians might care to mull over… It concerns the false dichomy between austerity and growth…

In reality “growth versus austerity” is a false and dangerous dichotomy, a misleading policy choice that has been formulated and fed to electorates in Britain and elsewhere by opportunistic politicians and their pet intellectuals.

“Economic growth” isn’t a decision a government can opt for. It is, instead, an outcome – an outcome we want and need, and which can be achieved in a variety of ways, none of which is guaranteed.

And in case you are still wondering, he goes on to say this…

There are, on the other hand, many ways to guarantee that growth won’t happen. One way is for a country to borrow and spend far beyond credible limits so that, in the end, bond markets refuse to roll over their sovereign debts. Growth won’t happen in the midst of a creditors’ strike, when sovereign bond markets are in meltdown and interest rates spiralling out of control.

Similarly, growth won’t happen when there is capital flight and soaring inflation, the result of a plunging currency, after a nation has printed so much money that global investors, sick and tired of asset debasement, ultimately cut that country loose. Growth won’t happen, either, when there is civil unrest, the result of governments being unable to pay basic bills because credit markets have collapsed.

While there are few certainties in economics, the above no-growth scenarios, however harsh, are backed by decades, centuries even, of historic evidence, to say nothing of basic common sense.

So roughtly, no austerity, no growth? Seamus Kirk in the Dundalk Democrat has a slightly different tack on the same matter:

“Ireland runs out of funding from Europe by the end of 2013. After that we will need more money to fund our hospitals, gardaí, infrastructure, transport & social welfare. The only way we can guarantee additional funding from Europe through the ESM is by voting Yes. In fact, it is less likely that we will even need funding from Europe if we vote Yes. The markets are much more likely to have confidence in Ireland’s economic future and to lend to us at cheaper rates, if they know that we have the backing of Europe and the ESM should we need it.”

Looks like the one big prize in Northern Ireland for Sinn Fein is going to Martina Anderson who will succeed Bairbre de Brun as sitting MEP. Others mentioned in dispatches include Catriona Ruane, whom some commentators felt would have been out of her depth in Brussels and Strasbourg.

A competent and safe pair of hands ["except when it comes to non existent sectarianism, apparently, in Golf Clubs" - Ed], Ms Anderson leaves a gap in her native Derry for a new pair of hands to take over… But, as she also notes: “while the MEP represents all of the people of the Six Cos., I will continue to promote Derry.”

Right, I have no personal interest in pushing this line (‘if you’ll forgive the pun’). In other words I don’t do illegal drugs. That may be a result of the happy accident of never having really smoked and on the few occasions I’ve been offered canibis (a long long long time ago), it made only me splutter…

A second deterrent was the connection it implies to a vast underworld that survives and gets by in an unregulated and brutal criminal world. Yesterday’s news from Mexico was a pretty shocking insight as to just how brutal…

Closer to home we’ve had the usual to and fro on the morality of a summary justice that seems to be popular in some Northern Irish communities, not least in Derry… Inhabitants of those communities afflicted by the outworkings of an illegal drugs trade live in state of misery.

So what if cannibis were to be made legal? Sounds farfetched perhaps. But in the case of cannibis, it would not take much change from the Health Minister to deliver it…

If Policing seems to be failing (for a basket of reasons, most of which are political and therefore beyond the police’s capacity can do something about it) perhaps there are other areas of policy that might be used to open up another front on what will whilst it remains criminal be a difficult issue to tackle?

Sam Smyth on a theme that could make things tough the closer Sinn Fein gets to actual power: ie, the degree to which they have managed to avoid it in Northern Ireland:

In the Northern Ireland Executive, Sinn Fein ministers have implemented swingeing spending cuts — while objecting to budget cuts from the opposition benches in the Republic.

Sinn Fein has avoided the responsibilities of economic ministries in the Northern Ireland Executive, opting instead for the less controversial departments of education, agriculture and culture and the arts.

But while it continually calls for more funds for jobs in the Republic, the administration in Belfast underspent their budget in Invest NI — the North’s equivalent of the IDA — by almost €50m.

The point about their leaving the tough decisions to the DUP is one well made. As for the specific policy areas he starts with Education, where the northern Minister has only just begun with a cuts programme which has been long overdue:

In the Republic, Sean Crowe, Sinn Fein’s spokesman on education, warned about the closure of rural schools in February of this year.

Mr Crowe accused the Government of “targeting mainstream and particularly small rural schools to spread unjust cuts . . .”

But in the North, Sinn Fein’s Education Minister John O’Dowd said a “sustainable schools policy could lead to the closure of 70 schools”.

In November of last year, Mr O’Dowd said: “I have therefore decided to close the (two rural) schools in (Co Armagh) as I am confident that the children’s needs can be best met at alternative schools in the area.”

He follows through by highlighting a ‘plural’ view on the Household Charge, the levying of charges for water, and £600m (€747m) of welfare cuts… On this last, there is some credible defence in the sense that the block grant on welfare is set by Whitehall not Stormont.

But it is the mere breaches in principle that could prove more problematic to manage over the long term with a southern electorate which is much more highly turned to the specifics of public affairs that the good burghers of Northern Ireland, who’ve yet substantially to feel the cold wind of global shortage.

In the wake of last week’s controversial proceedings at Synod, Archbishop Harper explains how and why things are done in the Anglican Church of Ireland:

I think it is important, therefore, to understand the extent to which the Church of Ireland recognises and embraces the status and role of the laity in the life of the church.

That is why, in the House of Representatives, two-thirds of the membership is allocated to the lay people of the church. It is also why we can never be wholly insulated from societal and attitudinal change.

This does not mean, however, that we fall into the trap of endorsing the ancient Latin tag, Vox populi, vox dei – “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.

The church is not a democracy in that sense. Alcuin, writing to Charlemagne more than 14 centuries ago (in AD 798) declared: “Those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”

That last could apply to a lot of things in these days of Twitter and ever faster speedy and fragmented conversations… As Bryan Appleyard noted at the RSA back in 2007:

Hyper democracy doesn’t work because you need somebody to decide what’s going on, somebody to have a degree of wisdom and insight prior to the wave of information, wave of reaction, wave of public response, to decide how to assess it.

Harper continues with another usefully conservative (small ‘c’) view:

GK Chesterton put it well when he said: “Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.” Chesterton did not, however, imply that contemporary perspectives might never be entertained; indeed he said: “Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion.”

Thus, contemporary opinion deserves respect but requires to be weighed against established tradition as a test of its relative significance. So our reverence for the voice of the laity is not about some form of democracy.

That’s the poetic way of putting it. Alex Kane sees it slightly differently:

Having used a technicality to prevent the debate taking place on Thursday, all three motions were glued together, debated on Saturday and passed by 235 votes to 113. It’s what is best described as the “nothing has actually been resolved” outcome.

The General Synod affirmed the traditional stance on marriage (a relationship between one man and one woman); held out the hand of friendship and welcome to those with a different sexual orientation; and instructed a standing committee to “progress work on the issue of human sexuality in the context of Christian belief and also to bring a proposal to General Synod 2013 for the formation of a select committee with terms of reference including reporting procedures”.

Imperfect as it may be, there is at least a democratic muscle to be engaged, even if the result is less than pristine. Those, like Brian Rowan looking for change within the Catholic church have no obvious such channel to seek redress or reform.

The Irish Times reports some odd comments by the Irish Government Tourism and Transport Minister, Leo Varadkar, at a meeting of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly at Leinster House in Dublin.  Odd, that is, given what we already know.  From the Irish Times report

Mr Varadkar said tourists and business visitors should not be forced to source one set of travel papers for the UK and a second set for th Republic.

“This means that there are real opportunities to attract more high-value, high-spending visitors from rapidly growing economies like Brazil, India, China and Russia to both Britain and Ireland,” he told the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly at Leinster House in Dublin.

Mr Varadkar said Ireland and Britain could become a “mini-Schengen” referring to the 20 countries in mainland Europe signed up to common travel and visa rules.

In Ireland, a visa waiver for UK visitors has been extended until the end of October 2016. It allows long-haul travellers to pass in to Ireland without additional travel documents.

“While the visa waiver is a step forward, it should be just that – one step of many to come,” he said.

“It makes no sense to me that a tourist flying into Dublin from Dubai needs a separate visa to travel to the Titanic Experience in Belfast and to see the Giant’s Causeway. And it makes even less sense to the tourist.”

Of course, at present and, apparently, until the end of October 2016, those visitors only require a UK visa to travel around this “mini-Schengen”…  Provided they fly to a UK city first.  [Like Belfast? - Ed]  Indeed.

The reports of Mr Varadkar’s comments refer to it as a ‘call for reform’ of the visa rules.

Mr Varadkar made the call at the latest meeting of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly as it sat in Leinster House. His idea has been backed by co-chairman Joe McHugh [TD].

But his Irish Government colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the UK Government to improve the Common Travel Area in December last year.

And, as I’ve mentioned previously here on Slugger, the Irish Justice and Equality Minister has already told the Dáil what that MoU means, and why “persons granted an Irish visa are not permitted to use that visa to travel to the UK”.  From Dáil Written Answers 18 April

[Minister for Justice and Equality (Deputy Alan Shatter)]  At present persons granted an Irish visa are not permitted to use that visa to travel to the UK. This is primarily due to the UK requirement that all visa applicants supply fingerprint (biometrics) data electronically as an essential element of applying for a UK visa. Quite obviously Ireland does not have the capacity to capture such data for all visa applications worldwide; currently for UK visas this is done in over 150 countries.

However, I can inform the Deputy that in December 2011, together with the UK’s Immigration Minister, I signed an agreement which, among other things, commits both countries to developing a Common Travel Area visa. Such a visa would allow tourists and business visitors to travel to the Common Travel Area and to travel freely between Ireland and the UK. It is anticipated that such a visa will prove an attractive option for tourists and business visitors and it is intended to conduct a trial scheme which will be used to gauge likely demand and to resolve the substantial practical issues around its introduction. [added emphasis throughout]

The Irish Government could always ask the UK to capture that necessary data for them…  Just a thought.

Well, they did it. I was in P4 when the team I (“Foolishly?” – Ed) chose to support in Primary School last won the championship of English football. Yesterday I watched them win again just round the corner from where I saw them gain promotion against Gillingham in 1999, when “typical City” similarly left their own salvation to the very last minute.

And it was a good feeling. And better for the longer wait and the tougher win. The sentiment in the pub where I watched it was pretty pro City. Even the small group of Rangers supporters where relieved that: one, they got to stay up; and two, someone had taken what’s almost become Alex Ferguson’s domestic silverware home.

But to quote Mancini, this crazy end to this crazy #EPL season was that this was likely a one off. In order to reel in Manchester Utd’s long incumbency as Premiership champions and make the league genuinely open and exciting again, City’s new owners have had to spend £1 billion in cash.

And it was a pleasing upset of an odd applecart. Writing in the The Thunderer column today, Matthew Syed noted:

This Premier League season has had it all: stunning matches, impossible results, heroic defending and sublime attacking brilliance. And then, to top it all, we have witnessed the most mind bending finale in living memory.

Henry Winter in the Telegraph does have a comparable memory, but it wasn’t yielded by the #EPL. He goes back to the old First Division of the Football League, “Arsenal’s 1989 triumph at Anfield when Michael Thomas drove through Liverpool’s defence as Brian Moore intoned ‘it’s up for grabs now’.”

But, as argued here before, what Man City’s oil rich owners did with that money was to undo the social engineering of the Premiership. Of course they needed a top rank manager to make that work. Mancini is no Professor Wenger. He was brought to City because he knows how to win, and was paid accordingly.

And he’s not going to settle for taking just one title off United (which would change absolutely nothing). His aim will be to restore the inevitable grind of winning to its customary dull repetition, only with celebrations in Manchester blue rather than red…

The first penalty Man United will pay is the £20 million penalty they will have just for coming second.

Ferguson, in a faint echo of the famous Gerry Adams line, will not go away. But neither is Mancini, whose mirroring of Fergie’s tantrum on the touchline during the derby indicates that for once, someone has finally got a handle on the Scotsman’s brand of gamesmanship.

But the club also has deep enough pockets to enable them to become the new Man U. That will take at least three to four seasons, but once achieved, the Premiership will oblige any new incumbents by similarly cutting the financial legs from under anyone who looks even half ready to take on the champions elect.

This crazy season was crazy in the sense that it was competitive right to the end of the very last minute and then beyond. As junior member of the blue tribe it would suit me personally to see Man City clock up Premierships season after season.

But what I fear is that the Premiership’s feather bedding of its champions will continue to degrade the honours. And at worst, see the top flight of English football become as open and as competitive of as Saturday afternoon wrestling on ITV back in the 70s…

The Guardian’s Henry McDonald reports from anarchic Londonderry on the continuing activities of vigilante group, Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD).  Watch the accompanying video report here.  From the Guardian report

Some RAAD members are ex-Provisionals who back the peace process but still take up the gun against members of their own communities accused of antisocial activities. Others connected to RAAD have joined organisations such as the Real IRA, which is also running a campaign of terror attacks against police officers, security installations and even high-street banks in Derry.

Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Féin MP, secret IRA negotiator with MI5 in talks leading to the Provisionals’ 1994 ceasefire and Northern Ireland‘s deputy first minister, has now taken a very public stand against some of his former comrades. In an interview with the Guardian just 24 hours after a young man turned up for an “appointment” to be shot, McGuinness called on his fellow Derry citizens to hand over information about RAAD to the police – a call in the past that could have cost a republican their life.

Behind the claims of popular demand for short-circuit, rough Taliban-style “justice” there is a wider political power-play going on in Derry between those republicans in Sinn Féin who support the power-sharing settlement in Northern Ireland, and those who oppose it and see the peace process as a “sell-out”. The huge numbers of men being shot or expelled from the city where the Troubles began in 1969 is a direct challenge to the authority of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the power-sharing executive at Stormont.

In response to the latest round of shootings Matt Baggott, the PSNI’s chief constable, promised the body that scrutinises his force – the Northern Ireland Policing Board – that his officers would bring those behind the vigilante terror campaign to justice.

So far no one has been charged over the killing of Andrew Allen. So far no one has been jailed over a single “punishment” attack or beating that has taken place in Derry in the past 12 months.

Read the whole thing.

The only extraordinary thing about yesterday’s Red C poll results for the SBP, was the clear swing towards Yes, by six per cent age points. That’s probably reflective of a poor campaign thus far, and the degree of uncertainty thrown up by the chaos in Greece… And, as Stephen Collins noted on Saturday:

…far from undermining the Yes campaign, the arrival of Hollande on the scene with his emphasis on growth should actually be a help to it in the final stages of the referendum debate. The amicable chat he had with Enda Kenny during the week won’t do any harm either.

Not that any of that is reflected in the relative fortunes of the parties. In fact, there seems to be remarkably little impact on the positions of the parties. Fine Gael moves down 3 points, which is the only statistically significant movement. Though I’d take that with a dose of salt until there’s a real indication of trend this far out from the next election.

One detail worth remarking upon, is the consolidation of support for the Yes camp amongst Fianna Fail voters. Pat Leahy in the Sunday Business Post notes (£):

The gains [in treaty support] in the past fortnight are across most groups, but are most noticeable among Fianna Fáil voters (who have rebounded sharply in favour of the treaty), among middle-class voters and in Dublin

The party can probably thank Micheal Martin, their own most unFianna Fail like leader for that modest boost to the yes vote, and, if not yet in any statistically significant way, consolidation of the party’s total. Slapping an silence order on Dev Og may have served to consolidate the strength of the party’s message.

Many party supporters have been champing at the bit to have a good old rattle at the government. But the rather (by FF standards anyway) gentile Mr Martin has taken the view that the party needs to get out from under the nylon suited, cynical, my-party-right-or-wrong image they finally sunk under in last year’s general election.

Elsewhere, Donegal SW TD Pearse Doherty was engaged in a little market making activity in an interview in which he emphasised his own Blueshirt/Legion credentials insisting that middle class voters were coming over to his party, Sinn Fein.

If Sinn Fein are to push forward they need to cleave their way past traditional urban hunting grounds. It’s essential that they get into the heads of the middle class; the kingmakers of Irish politics. And indeed, a poll rating of a fifth of the Republic’s population suggests they are making some headway in that task.

But there is more than one game at play. Martin’s relative success in bringing his own party’s support more fully behind the treaty may be, however tentative, the first signs of recovery in that party’s coherence and fortunes.

Which makes another of Doherty’s speculations interesting… After a very interesting detour around the question of Gerry Adams’ successor, he said this about Fianna Fail:

Asked about former Fianna Fáil deputy leader Éamon Ó Cuív’s stance on the referendum, Mr Doherty said he believed Mr Ó Cuív would launch a leadership challenge against Micheál Martin in the coming weeks.

“I would suspect that Éamon Ó Cuív is hoping that the austerity treaty will be rejected and that will give him a chance to launch a challenge against Micheál Martin.”

Either Mr O’Cuiv has been taking Sinn Fein into his confidence, or the young Gaoth Dobhair man is deliberating trying to sow further dissension amongst the real target of their big push for power in the south…

Or maybe even both!

To most of us who don’t count ourselves as Anglicans, the Church of Ireland is something of a mystery… But in advance of any future departure of the current Archbishop of Armagh’s departure, all hell seems to have broken loose at last week’s Synod (over sex, as Alan notes below), as various factions compete for pole position.

It’s not as though there’s a huge slate of candidates. Beyond Harper himself there is a long/shortlist of just eleven candidates from the twelve dioceses.

The tensions seem highest between liberal Bishops Michael Burrows of Cashel & Ossory and Paul Colton of Cork, Cloyne & Ross (who alone of the twelve opposed a conservative restatement of the Irish church’s views on sexuality and marriage) and the evangelical Bishop of Down & Dromore Harold Miller; probably the most committed conservative and who’s diocese is one of the most populous in Ireland.

The figures on the final vote were pretty conclusive, but show a fairly high degree of dissent: Clergy for 81 , against 53 – Laity for 154, against 60 (more detail at Thinking Anglicans).

The News Letter reports, that the motion, sponsored by the Oxbridge educated Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough Michael Jackson:

…was the first time that the church had openly debated homosexuality since the News Letter revealed last September that the first serving Church of Ireland cleric had entered a civil partnership.

Yesterday a liberal Dublin minister blamed conservatives from Northern Ireland for having “suddenly appeared” on Saturday to vote through the motion.

But the leading evangelical bishop, Harold Miller – who seconded Saturday’s motion – dismissed that and said: “Anyone who wanted to be there could be there.”

The motion — who said that “faithfulness within marriage is the only normative context for sexual intercourse” — was only discussed on Saturday after tense behind-the-scenes meetings following Archbishop Alan Harper’s refusal to allow it to be discussed because of a point of order on Thursday.

Slugger understands that tensions were running high during the debate and that substantial pressure was applied by the yes camp… And there is some speculation amongst liberals that the degree of politicking involved is with a half an eye to winning support ahead of any future election of a new Archbishop of Armagh…

So those who had expected murder in the cathedral on either Thursday, Friday or Saturday, even on all three, were predictably disappointed. What they got instead was . . . sex!

In this morning’s Irish Times, Patsy McGarry looks at the parallels between the Church of Ireland’s May 1982 Synod meeting which tackled the issue of women priests and the May 2012 Synod which has been dominated by the issue of gay priests.

The traditional marriage motion played a game of hokey cokey, withdrawn one day and reintroduced another.

The Irish Times reports that the Bishop Paul Colton of Cork, Cloyne and Ross explained to Synod that “in his 14 years as bishop he has not yet attended a meeting of bishops where sex was not discussed”.

He regretted this, as there were so many other important things to be done, such as proclaiming the gospel, tending to the sick and dying, and teaching children.

Even his 83-year-old mother had noticed. “All you did in Cavan was chat, chat, chat about sex and now you’re going to Dublin to chat, chat, chat about sex. I wish ye’d get on with it,” she said. Bishop Colton added, promptly, “With the work of the church, of course!”

The News Letter’s Sam McBride summed up the vote:

The motion — who said that “faithfulness within marriage is the only normative context for sexual intercourse” — was only discussed on Saturday after tense behind-the-scenes meetings following Archbishop Alan Harper’s refusal to allow it to be discussed because of a point of order on Thursday.

Saturday’s vote came after an attempt to remove the Press was rejected. The synod voted for the motion by 245 votes to 115. Clergy voted by 81 to 53 and laity by 154 to 60. A series of amendments to the motion were defeated before the final vote.

The motion — which was implicitly a rejection of civil partnerships or gay marriage — has been welcomed by evangelicals, who see it as a restatement of the church’s orthodox teaching. But liberals are largely unhappy and have claimed that it could lead to a “witch hunt” against gay clergy.

Interesting split between clergy and laity.

The motion will allow next year’s Synod to return to the subject with the Standing Committee able to bring recommendations for further discussion. And outside Synod, the debate will continue. Back to Patsy McGarry:

Where they see a setback, older heads will recognise another step on a road to change where the motto must always be a simple “hasten slowly”. It is, of course, the Anglican way. It is how our Anglicans sustain their remarkable capacity to repeatedly do what so few others can do here in Ireland. As Archbishop of Armagh Most Rev Alan Harper put in one of his many wise asides on Saturday, it is that capacity “to agree to disagree, agreeably”.

Adds – The Belfast Telegraph’s article this morning wonders whether the Church of Ireland’s position on marriage “could cause division along North-South lines, as well as between liberals and conservatives”. Alf McCreary also includes reaction from Gerry Lynch who points out:

Nobody says that my love life is not ‘normative’ when the collection plate is passed round, or when I come in on a Saturday to get the church ready for Sunday, or spend time with distressed people who often turn up at a city centre church.

Hmmm… First we had Inkgate, then Inkgate II … Now it’s the DUP’s turn to answer some awkward question regarding a spot of free riding by Ian Junior this time… According to Diana Rusk in today’s Irish News that equates to about 112 letters a day… In response the North Antrim MP said that that estimate would be about right, claiming that “I get 220 letters every single days. My post bag is incredibly heavy – ask my postman.”

That would be an impressive turnaround Ian… Inside the paper Ms Rusk also notes that in 2010, all of Sinn Fein’s 28 MLAs used 13,250 envelopes at a cost of £6,894.72… That’s just over half of Mr Paisley’s total.. Oh dear…

RTE’s The Week in Politics is well worth watching… It was the Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore who drew the short straw left him by the Taoiseach’s refusal to debate Gerry Adams on television.. It was notable more for the heat than any modicum of light it generated from either side.

“Let’s stick to Ireland…” was Gerry Adams answer to the Sean O’Rourke’s opener on the crisis in Greece. And he did, no matter how many times he was invited to speculate about what may become of Greece, Adams refused to be drawn away from the island of Ireland.

Not far into the debate, O’Rourke remarked “maybe I am wasting my time asking you about Greece”. Adams consistent focus on Irish unemployment brought him some benefits, not least because Gilmore made the mistake of doing what Micheal Martin said the Yes side shouldn’t… ie, to allow “rebuttals to dominate their efforts.”

But Greece is relevant. An exit would demonstrate that nothing inside the Eurozone will come to any country as of right. Mr Adams has been aided in his absolute defence by the fact that that it hasn’t happened yet. Good behaviour will be rewarded with access to ESM, bad behaviour and the door, if not open is certainly sitting ajar.

Half way through the programme, there is a cut of Ms Legarde (she who holds the big umbrella), saying it is all about “implementation, implementation, implementation”. The bottom line of that in the short to medium term at least, is austerity on the terms laid out in the Fiscal Compact…

Having arrived at the 530km-wide giant asteroid Vesta in July last year, Nasa’s Dawn Mission scientists have published some of their findings in Science magazine.  As the BBC’s spaceman, Jonathan Amos, notes

They confirm that Vesta has a layered interior with a metal-rich core, just as Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury do.

Using information about the shape of the asteroid and its gravity field, scientists can even say something about the likely size of this core.

The Dawn team calculates it to be about 220km (135 miles) across, representing about 40% of the radius of Vesta, or roughly 18% of its total mass.

They have also calculated the age of two major crater basins on the protoplanet, such as Rhea Silvia below, to be surprisingly young.

From the JPL News press release

“We know a lot about the moon and we’re only coming up to speed now on Vesta,” said Vishnu Reddy, a framing camera team member at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany and the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. “Comparing the two gives us two storylines for how these fraternal twins evolved in the early solar system.”

Dawn has revealed details of ongoing collisions that battered Vesta throughout its history. Dawn scientists now can date the two giant impacts that pounded Vesta’s southern hemisphere and created the basin Veneneia approximately 2 billion years ago and the Rheasilvia basin about 1 billion years ago. Rheasilvia is the largest impact basin on Vesta.

“The large impact basins on the moon are all quite old,” said David O’Brien, a Dawn participating scientist from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. “The fact that the largest impact on Vesta is so young was surprising.”

Here’s an animation of the mapped gravity field of the giant asteroid Vesta closely matching the surface topography. [Video from JPLNews]

And a virtual flight aboard Dawn over the giant asteroid. [Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA]

And if you want more information on what Dawn found at Vesta, here’s the Nasa TV science briefing on 10 May.

Dawn will remain at Vesta until 26 August when it will start the next leg of its journey - Destination [the even larger protoplanet (dwarf planet)] Ceres, ETA 2015.