And

But Mr Gormley questioned how the independent review team had come to its conclusion.

“No specific act or omission of mine has been brought to my attention which leads me to question my conduct,” he said.

He also asked why he had lost his job while others who were involved in the same “collective decision making process” had not.

“In performing my duties as a Non Executive Director of NIW I challenged certain aspects of the process undertaken by the Independent Review Team.

“I find it regrettable that of the 28 people interviewed by the Independent Review Team that I am the only individual who has not had an agreed record of his meeting with the IRT included by them in the records of their enquiries, or incorporated into their findings.

“It should be equally noted that over 70% of the issues identified in the internal audit and subsequently included in the IRT review occurred before I joined the organisation.”

He said that since he joined the board, he was not aware of any contract that was not compliant with the company’s procurement protocols.

I got to know Mr. Powell quite well in the sense that we knew each other sufficiently to engage each other. He was intellectually fascinating despite my differences with him on the obvious issues. He was however a big thinker by Northern Ireland political standards.

He saw increased representation as a victory for democracy in Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom. But many in his Ulster Unionist Party didn’t celebrate the outcome of the Speaker’s Conference. Indeed, I heard Ulster Unionists hyper-ventilating on this matter at an Ulster Unionist party Conference in the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle.

Why? Simply that Powell had engineered an opening of the doors of Westminster to Hume, to be followed by Mallon, Mc Grady and so on. More Nationalist MPs joining Gerry Fitt were not what Unionists desired.

In those days, the SDLP was a greater enemy than Sinn Fein with Hume increasingly internationalising the Northern Ireland problem in Europe and in America. Ulster Unionists did not see this as an advance while Powell, the enlightened one, saw this as democracy and normality at work.

The point I am making is, however noble the Conservatives are in seeking to organise in Northern Ireland with the goal of “lifting politics here onto the national stage and stopping politics being dragged down into the gutter,” Unionists of all shades are craving unionist unity to stop Sinn Fein becoming the biggest political party in Parliament Buildings.

Republicans always need of necessity Unionism of some cue to be in bed with them but a blind man or woman on a galloping horse can see at the heart of their ‘project’ is the fragmentation of Unionism. That project is currently on track aided by Jim Allister of the TUV. That is his prerogative.

When I quoted a Unionist source previously who stated that the Hatfield Talks were about “forming an electoral entity” ahead of the Assembly elections this angered some of Slugger’s readers. Therein, may well hang the tale.

Jonathan Caine and other Conservatives have stated they are not into “head counts.” But the problem for them is that many of their Ulster Unionist bedfellows are precisely into “head counts.”

These people are not rookies. They are at the highest level in the Ulster Unionist Party and in the top echelons of the DUP. And I am told the Conservatives are bankrolling the Ulster Unionist party to fight the Westminster election.

Is there not a danger that David Cameron and his colleagues are going to be duped at the end of the day?

Ulster Unionists and Democratic Unionists are openly declaring Sinn Fein must be stopped from getting into a position where Martin Mc Guinness becomes First Minister after the next Assembly election. To definitively put a stop such an outcome, possibly the only instrument, clever device, or cunning plan means putting in place “a formal electoral entity.”

This is a euphemism for Unionist unity which, in Cameron’s own self selected terms, would be the quintessence of a sectarian head-count.

Should Sinn Fein and the SDLP engage in a parallel exercise many thinking Catholics of the Hume school would head for the boat and rightly so. If orange head-counting is wrong so is green head-counting.

Conservatives may yet show themselves to be innocents. Has David Cameron a post dated letter of guarantee ( It is de rigueur for every party leader to give one now) from Reg Empey that he will not opt for head counting? Are Ulster Unionists going to be glad to take the money but remain local in disposition?

There are certainly many Unionists and Conservatives who share this analysis.

From David Cameron’s point of view forewarned should be fore-armed.

For my money, the Dave show with Sir Trevor came over flat. He seemed happier in his own skin than Gordon but unlike the PM , he didn’t say a single interesting thing. Cheeky chappie Piers Morgan would have livened it up with the odd squib as he did for Gordon. The appearances on non-news shows continue even before the campaign has started.  Latest Gordon on his public image on Woman’s Hour.

It was marriage (not Sarah’s PR experience) that did it… When we’re talking about the death of a child it’s very difficult.. but I’ve got nothing to hide…(Bullying charges ) were damaging.. I’m a tough guy but I work in an open plan office and we are a family..  people have worked with me for 15, 20 years..”. 

...why is there still an irredentist rump, still carrying on as if it’s 1972, reducing a complex dispute over power and equality and national allegiance to something as naively simplistic as Brits Out?

It could be the men who murdered Kieran Doherty look around and see that the supposedly new Northern Ireland looks suspiciously like the old one. It could be they see a society still so bitterly divided, still so deeply segregated, that they believe they can exploit historical animosities, that they can capitalize on an almost reflexive tendency among most people in Northern Ireland to view things along narrow sectarian lines, as “us versus them,” an “us” that remains largely defined by a combination of religion and national identity.

And they may have a point. While the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland have shown a willingness to not kill each other, they have been less enthusiastic about the prospect of actually living with each other. Northern Ireland remains very segregated, physically and psychologically. Most people live in neighborhoods that remain overwhelmingly populated by one of the two main traditions: Catholic nationalists, who aspire to unity with the Irish Republic, and Protestant unionists, who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

And it comes at great cost, not least in the duplication of services:

Not only is there an official ethos of separate but equal, but an infrastructure underpinning it. There are three times as many so-called peace lines — elaborate walls separating working-class neighborhoods — than there were at the height of the Troubles, 88 of them at last count.

I walked through Protestant housing projects in North Belfast and noticed many vacant apartments. On the other side of the peace line, the Catholic projects were overcrowded. But there is no attempt to move Catholic families into the vacant apartments because, as they say in Belfast, even the dogs in the street know there’d be riots.

With segregation the status quo, there is an enormous duplication of public services, such as schools, community centers, and health clinics. The Alliance Party, the only major political party that draws substantial numbers from both sides of the divide, estimates that duplication of public services costs more than $1 billion a year, this in a place the size of Connecticut with a population of less than 2 million.

You can read the whole thing here

MPs approved procedural changes, which will mean that for the first time in over a century parliament will take control of its own agenda.

The changes require the new parliament to establish immediately a backbench business committee to set the parliament’s agenda for 15 days of each session. The MPs also approved a proposal establishing a general house business committee in the new parliament to be comprised of one third government representatives, one third opposition frontbenchers and one third elected by backbenchers of all parties. It is envisaged that this group would ultimately set the parliamentary agenda for all non-ministerial business.

These may sound like technical changes but together they will dramatically increase the independence of parliament from whatever government is elected in May. By taking the power to appoint chairs and select committee members from the party leaders and whips and giving it to backbenchers in a secret ballot, the capacity of those committees to hold ministers and public servants to account will be significantly enhanced.

By restoring to itself the power to set its own timetable and agenda, parliament will have brought about a significant rebalancing of the relationship between it and Whitehall.

One of my colleagues on this US trip noted that one of the abiding criticisms of the Irish system was not that it was derived from the British system, so much as it has failed to evolve since independence. Given the how the expenses row of the kind ignited by the Daily Telegraph in England, has barely begun in the Republic.

Whelan, concludes parliamentary reform is a no brainer, “taking back control over its own affairs is something Dáil Éireann should set about doing now.”

Bloody Sunday was a key moment in the rise of the Provisional IRA. Thirty eight years later, The Saville Report is being published following the Provos’ disbandment. It would be unfortunate if the changed political circumstances were to dictate the way parties in the North respond to the findings.

There has been a strangely muted reaction to the outrageous plans of the Northern Ireland Office for publication of the Report. In a separate development, an attack on the Inquiry by the prospective Minister for Justice at Stormont resulted not in clear demands that he stand down but in frantic efforts by Nationalist politicians to rescue him from his own behaviour.

The fact that groups once at war have made their peace with the British establishment should have no bearing on judgments as to what happened in Derry in 1972. The political wing of the Parachute Regiment, the New Labour Government, represented in the North by the former Tory Shaun Woodward, is not an honest broker in relation to the Saville Report but an uncritical supporter of the British Army, a facilitator in the cover-up of crime.

The fact that appalling atrocities were also carried out in the North by both Nationalist and Unionist paramilitary groups cannot be allowed to obscure the ugly role of British forces, exemplified in the Bloody Sunday killings. The main paramilitary groups have either left the stage or say that they are in the process of so doing. Nothing less should be demanded of the perpetrators of the Derry massacre.

If, as many of us are confident will be the case, Lord Saville and his colleagues find that the Bloody Sunday killings were unlawful, the demand of all who have campaigned for the truth should be for the disbandment of the Parachute Regiment.  I believe that that demand should be voiced loudly and insistently at local councils, at Stormont, at Westminster and in every forum where we can find a hearing.

Woodward’s thorough bad faith is clear from his determination that representatives of the British Government, including members of MI5, be given days to pore over the Report before the families or their representatives are allowed sight of it. This is the same MI5 which supplied Army commanders with false information about the Bogside in the days before Bloody Sunday and which has just been denounced by Britain’s top judges for perjury and collusion in torture in the Binyam Mohamed case.  Woodward’s suggestion is that MI5 should be invited to recommend the deletion of lines in the Report which, in its opinion, would put national security at risk. 

This, of course, was the exact reason given by MI5 in the Mohamed case for wanting the suppression of documents relating to torture. The appeal rejected MI5 bona fides with something approaching contempt.

Despite all this, I suspect that some in the audience will have been entirely unaware of the role Woodward intends for MI5 in relation to Saville. There has hardly been a major controversy about the matter. This, in my view, is because Nationalist politicians don’t want a row which might unsettle the institutions which they have become part of.

The same issue is raised even more sharply by the outburst from the prospective Minster for Justice at Stormont, Alliance Party leader David Ford.  A leaked email revealed that Ford - like some Unionist sectarians, right-wing Tories, the Daily Mail etc. - regards the Bloody Sunday Inquiry as “pointless”. He’s entitled to his view. But it is a view which, whatever about other ministries, ought to have disqualified him immediately from the job of supervising the justice system.

But, astonishingly, it was the larger of the two nationalist parties which rushed most quickly to his rescue, arranging a meeting with a number of relatives of the victims at extremely short notice and then issuing Ford with a clean bill of health. The fear was that if their chosen nominee for the position wasn’t rehabilitated pronto, plans for the devolution of policing and justice might be endangered.

Once again, politics trumped truth.

I don’t make it a secret that my own views on these matters are dictated by my politics. I am a socialist, and therefore a firm opponent of both militarism and paramilitarism. I base my hopes for the future not on a system which takes the division between the communities for granted but on the self-activity of the mass of working class people. So I have no stake in the Stormont system. Neither do I believe that the choice before us is between the Stormont deal and a return to all-out violence. These are things we can debate over the coming years.

But we don’t have the luxury of years when it comes to Bloody Sunday. I say that even those who do have a stake in the system should step back, take a hard look and ask themselves whether, in this instance, and perhaps without thinking the issues through, they have not allowed the system to take precedence over all other considerations.

Whilst Arlene Foster might like to be MP, it is clear that unless there is a unity candidate unionism is most unlikely to retake FST. Furthermore, there is considerable the animosity between the DUP and UUP in FST and many UUP members remain annoyed with Foster personally for having jumped ship from the UUP to the DUP. Hence, any personal ambition she may have to be an MP is unrealistic, at least in the short term, and as such her standing aside is maybe less painful for her than if she had a good chance of being elected. In addition since the DUP’s decision to enter power sharing with the UUP, support for the DUP seems to have dropped in FST. Although Foster herself won the Enniskillen by election, easily defeating the UUP candidate; areas outside that district electoral area seem to have swung more firmly against the DUP. In the European election there was some suggestion that although some small unionist towns like Lisbellaw (within the Enniskillen DEA) stayed loyal to the DUP, others such as Kesh and Ballinamallard and the unionist vote in the border areas of West and South Fermanagh has moved away from the DUP. The South Tyrone part of FST has also been suggested to have become more disenchanted with the DUP following their entry into government with Sinn Fein.

In view of all of this it was quite possible that if Arlene Foster were to stand again against Tom Elliott for the Westminster election, she might come off second best in the intra unionist contest: the opposite result to the 2005 election. Such an outcome would be a bit of a blow to the DUP and, hence, for Foster to offer to stand aside is further good politics as it will then increase the pressure on Tom Elliott to do likewise and help allow an agreed civic unionist candidate to emerge. Although Norman Baxter has ruled himself out, he may come under renewed pressure to reconsider his position and indeed the CUs may be put under pressure to allow some form of words to be devised which could permit an agreed candidate to be less than a fully fledged member of the Conservative Party should they win at the general election.

All the above also leaves aside the effect that an agreed unionist candidate would have on nationalist / republican voting intentions. Although Fearghal McKinney the former UTV presenter has declared his intention of running for the SDLP, this is a seat which would require a seismic shift in voting for the SDLP to win. Rather it is quite possible that an agreed unionist candidate would result in an even larger percentage of the nationalist vote supporting Michelle Gildernew in an attempt to head off a unionist victory. It might also reduce any tendency to a fall in Gildernew’s hard line vote from those who object to Sinn Fein’s supposed compromises. Though few would see Ms. Gildernew as on the moderate wing of Sinn Fein; Fermanagh seems to have amongst the largest percentage of republicans who object to the new dispensation. If there were a single unionist candidate, then the SDLP might, paradoxically find a reduction in its vote despite their new high profile candidate and the election might begin to approximate to the bitter head count battles of 1981 when the SDLP failed to stand against either Bobby Sands or Owen Carron.

Although it’s worth noting that the Crescent Capital news section includes an Irish News report on Fund III, “which Crescent fund managers claim will raise up to £60 million”, which reveals

Crescent says the pre-marketing phase to the third as yet un-named fund has already started, and its team is preparing to speak to institutional investors in America and Scandinavia, as well as Britain and Ireland, ahead of its proposed launch in early 2011.

Central to its plans will be securing a Europe-wide tender which Invest NI is launching in the spring.

Whilst of the last investment fund, Crescent Capital II in 2004, worth £22.5 million.

Investors in Crescent Capital two included Invest NI (£7.5 million), the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee (£6 million) and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the second biggest pension fund in the US.

and

A spokesman for Invest NI told the Irish News: “Subject to board approval, we intend to go out to tender in the next couple of months to select fund managers for two new funds – a co-investment scheme and a development fund.

“The co-investment scheme would co-invest alongside Business Angels and seek to encourage the development of the Halo network.

“The proposed development fund will work alongside private investors to meet the gap in access to capital in the local venture capital market for investments between £450,000 and £1.5 million.”

From the Bel Tel

The findings also show that a minority of people, some 40%, felt that having just the two rights were sufficient, while 44% argued they were not. When polled on socio-economic rights, however — such as the right to adequate accommodation or an adequate standard of living — up to 95% of respondents felt that this was very important. In summary, 83% of people felt that there should be more than just the two rights recommended by Government included in the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

The old heart of the city behind Berry St strikes me as just about salvageable.  Bankmore St off Ormeau Ave was part of a mixed area of traditional terraces (focusing on Cassidy’s pub for some of us), whose name was appropriated for the sectarian killing ground of the lower Ormeau in the early 70s. Oldies will remember the Bankmore 11 football team that was almost wiped out. The small desert that remains is a kind of testimony to the terrible moral and social failures of that time. More social housing would seem to me highly desirable of the quality much of Belfast has enjoyed for the past 30 years. Development here presents a big challenge for Shared Future ideas, although by definition, these can’t be forced on communities.  Spare us from more speculative high rises and apartments please.  I was delighted to see that Maurice Craig, described here as “Ireland’s first conservation warrior” and author of the celebrated poem ( here slightly adapted as a song),  “May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast” is still thriving, well into his nineties. The poem
(although not quite word for word accurately recalled here I think), is as fresh as ever.       

...the BPL [Boston Public Library] is in moderately hot fiscal water, and one solution that has been aired is the closing of a number of branch libraries. Both president Amy Ryan and board chairman Jeffrey Rudman insisted that they find this prospect distasteful, but that did little to pacify the crowd. The library-going public understandably does not want any branch closed.

Some suspect that this crisis is not entirely about money, and they’re probably right. The library is facing a shortfall of roughly $3.5 million, mostly because of expected state budget cuts. That is steep, but not necessarily insurmountable. Some people believe that the library could raise that much money, if money were the only issue.

No, another issue — carefully couched — is consolidation. That means closing underused branches or those in lousy facilities, instead of spending the money to make them marginally better. Of course, to say that publicly would be terrible politics, even if has the benefit of a certain cold logic. [emphasis added]

Politics to a certain extent is about divining the public will and acting in accordance with that… But can the public will can be about improving things in ways that produce good outcomes in the longer rather than the shorter term?

And from Section 4 of the report - “Analysis of Failures by DRD as Shareholder”

4.1 Background

The Shareholder Unit (SU) in DRD was originally established as one element of the overall governance model appropriate to NIW as a government owned company. As noted previously, from 2008-09 NIW was categorised as an NDPB for public expenditure purposes. This was an indirect result of the deferral of domestic water charging which necessitated the continuation of funding by DRD. This change in status coupled with the overall desire of the DRD Accounting Officer to improve public accountability led to the governance architecture for NIW being strengthened in May 2008. [added emphasis]

And

4.3 Findings

A key issue for NIW has been and continues to be the confusion over organisational strategy and the status of the organisation as both a GoCo and an NDPB. This has created an incredibly complex governance and stakeholder environment involving the Utility Regulator, the SU; and from 2008-09, the additional overlay of NDPB accountability requirements. In addition to the complexity of the model, evidence presented to the IRT has highlighted the significant resource commitment required across the entire governance system to maintain the model. This governance structure is heavily demanding on both DRD and NIW and is reflective of the increased public accountability. [added emphasis]

IRT’s key finding for DRD, as Shareholder, relates the slow speed of response to the following events:

• strengthening NED capacity and ensuring this was in line with good governance;
• appointing a new CEO following the Chair’s appointment into dual role; and
• appointing the CEO of NIW as Accounting Officer immediately following reclassification of the organisation as an NDPB.

The IRT recognises that the delays outlined above were in part due to the complex political environment surrounding the Water Reform programme and in part due to the timeline required to secure inter-Departmental approvals and clarification with DFP. That said, these delays contributed to the creation of a governance environment that has led to the circumstances in which the governance failures noted in the previous section have occurred. However, this is no excuse for the failures in procurement which have been identified within NIW.

In terms of DRD’s role in the Internal Audit environment of NIW we consider that prior to May 2008 DRD was slow to act to ensure that NIW was taking internal audit matters seriously. Recent events have demonstrated that the DRD has given enhanced attention to NIW’s performance in following up audit recommendations. The Department has been encouraged by the increased attention this matter has received under the direction of the current CEO to whom it has given strong support and encouragement.

Update As Nevin notes in the comments zone, the Chairman and two of the three non-Executive directors sacked had been re-appointed to the Board of NI Water by the Minister in April 2009.

“As somebody who was actually at Hatfield throughout, I can say that while one of the parties might have arrived with that agenda it was most definitely not the basis on which the Conservative Party brought the participants together.

“As we made clear at the time, the purpose was to help promote political stability and in particular explore means of overcoming the impasse on policing and justice and avoiding a collapse.

“There is only one electoral pact - between the Conservative Party and the Ulster Unionist Party.  That is what both parties are committed to making work.”

Firstly, the Ulster Unionist constitution allowed the party membership to recall it’s delegates (and in parties like this, your negotiators are delegates and not representatives) and instruct them on what position they could take in negotiations. This had three results

• They were unable to negotiate meaningfully while their opponents were under no such duress.
• They became an attractive target for ‘entryism’ and as soon as the negotiations were over, a large section of their party left to join a different party - the party for whom they had clearly been the agents for some considerable time
• They were electorally smashed at the subsequent elections. A lot of the sharper leadership material departed leaving the sort of geniuses who were able to negotiate this great victory in charge.

The British Labour Party succumbed to similar madness in the 1980s. The Bennites made a strategic decision to expose the party leadership to the wrath of its activists. It campaigned on a ‘deselect your MP’ platform whereby a small number of fanatics in the Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) would seek to unseat candidates who didn’t toe the anti-EEC / pro CND / Alternative Economic Strategy (AES) line. The net result was supposed to be a coherent party that could campaign on a socialist platform. It ignored a few key points:

1. They were they not popular polices in the first place. And, compounding this error, most political parties form their policies by negotiating with the electorate. This was effectively ruled out by this process
2. That there were small unrepresentative groupings - particularly Militant - that would be able to use this opportunity (in much the same way that the DUP used the UUP more than twenty years later) to use the party as a vehicle for their own party development

Militant weren’t as capable as the DUP and they managed to seriously damage the party and facilitated a polarisation of British politics. It allowed the Thatcherite Tory radicals a much more open run than they really deserved.

So, are the Lib-Dems open to a spot of Entryism of the Militant / DUP variety? None is evident at the moment. But take a look at their slogan, will you?

“Change that works for you. Building a fairer Britain”.

Labour’s slogan is “a future fair for all.” The Tories are going an a “year for change” message. This is not a party with a distinctive principled vision that it has communicated to the electorate. It’s not one that has a coherent membership.

Their leadership may have to conduct the biggest negotiations of their lives as delegates. Their instructions will come from a membership who is receiving overtures from the two other main parties.

I’m glad I’m not in Nick Clegg’s shoes.