Sunday, October 21, 2007
“A totally different animal to that which we have had in the past”….’s
More on the GUBU events at Stormont. Reg Empey and Gregory Campbell: ‘dancing on the head of a procedural pin’ (that would read ‘Jesuitical’ in old money - ed), or a subtle return to ‘Majority Rule’? A couple of things worth highlighting from today’s Politics Show:
Fitzpatrick reads out the original statement from OFMDFM in July:
“The First and Deputy First Minister have seen and read your submission and they have agreed that the paper does not contain a decision for the Executive to take, therefore it follows that they do not feel that the issue should be brought before the Executive for their consideration.”
Martina Purdy quotes Robinson’s interview on Friday’s Newline:
“We at St Andrews sought to give the Executive the power so that if they took decisions Ministers couldn’t take a decision which was not in accordance with the Executives view on a matter. Now, this will test whether that has been sound. And that will be a lesson to us all.”
Indeed.
Adds: It might be useful to backcheck Campbell’s argument against Ritchie’s original statement.
Mick Fealty @ 09:53 PM
“your submission” at the beginning of July isn’t necessarily closely related to Ritchie’s subsequent actions. Poots portrayed the submission as ‘no change’.
‘dancing on the head of a pin’ is a trite comment; it presumably used in a Paxman-like - or should that be -lite - manner.
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:08 PMIt was a quotation from Jim Allister.
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:26 PMBalderdash Nevin.
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:34 PMIt’s, er, still trite - from Jim Allister or a Paxman-lite interviewer. Do you suppose there could be something of the Jesuit about Jim? ;)
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:39 PMThanks, Joe.
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:40 PMHang on Nevin:
1. in July she is told “you’re on your own here - we don’t want to know.”
2. October - she stops funding murderers
3. DUP politicans claim they wanted a say after all, while SF clearly haven’t got a position or a clue.
and you are OK with all this?
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:40 PMCan we keep this civil Joe?
I’ve gone back and listened to that section of the YouTube recording you highlighted Nev. All Poots actually says is ‘no change’. What does that mean?
And surely that communication from OFMDFM cedes action to the Minister?
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:42 PM“in July she is told “you’re on your own here - we don’t want to know.””
Brendan, we now have the helpful statement from the FMDFM. What would we useful would be Ritchie’s July contribution to the Executive.
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:47 PMIt certainly does cede options proposed by Ritchie in July, Mick. Perhaps the legal eagles didn’t have sight of Ritchie’s intentions at that stage. There’s still a great lack of clarity about who said and did what and when. Perhaps it will be teased out during the course of the week, other squalls permitting.
Posted by on Oct 21, 2007 @ 11:54 PM“All Poots actually says is ‘no change’. What does that mean?”
Mick, it could mean that her July proposals still lay within the Chuckle Brothers ‘comfort zone’. Did she later wander off into no-women’s-land, wittingly or unwittingly?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:07 AMNevin
The key point made by Reg Empey was that procedures in the executive were completely extraordinary and represented a fundamental change in the relationship between members of the executive.An exit from the executive by both the UUP and the SDLP, may not be imminent but it is all but inevitable.
Obviously, this will have wider implications for the Assembly project.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:11 AMYes we can Mick.
I in no way impugned Nevin. I have had quite a bit of discussion with him recently and it has all been civil.
But his assertion is clearly balderdash - reread, if you need to, the first sentence of his post which spawned my response.
Ritchie has not wavered an iota from July.
If your policy now is that you can not challenge what you consider to be a factual error, it’s news to me.Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:11 AMNevertheless Nev, it establishes clearly that the Minister could not have been seen to have acted ultra vires in any of her statements.
Until, that is, the controversial meeting the day before her 60 day deadline expired; the disputed minutes for which only finally turned up with Empey on that Tuesday morning. It was that meeting alone that, apparently, changed everything.
Poots and Campbell both say that she came to the Executive (well, yes, she was there). But she did not raise the issue. Empey said that the agenda item pertaining to that discussion had been added at the very last minute.
Doesn’t this sound a bit odd? Three ministers don’t appear to have noticed that that such a transfer had happened? And it’s hardly the kind of trivial detail that a minister would need a scribbled note that he had maybe left at home to jog his memory for.
Or am I reading into it too heavily?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:20 AMIf it was a challenge, then some content to that effect would help the rest of us. No change in policy Joe.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:23 AMIt’s late. I’m off. Night all.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:32 AMSleep tight Mick.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:45 AMDare it be said that the Clerk of the Assembly in conjunction with his Civil Service and Mssrs Paisley and McGuinness are all at fault for not providing, at the earliest opportunity, a clear and agreed policy framework for operating a form of collective responsibility in line with what was envisaged at St Andrews.
Surely the Civil Service had an anticipatory duty to draw up a framework and its associated guidelines on what would constitute a collective decision and how to go about exercising that form of decision making.
The failure is not with the minister but with the FM and DFM, as the head of goverment, to see to it that before embarking upon devolved administration that, at the very least within a month of its start, some thought had been given to this matter of providing protocols around collective responsibility.
The onus seems to be on Margaret Ritchie to explain herself for going solo, whenever months into devolution and having her attempt to invoke a form of shared decision making spurned, both the DUP and SF go into overdrive whenever, clearly, its two leaders of the Executive have failed to anticipate a framework by which to give leadership to their very own Executive colleagues.
Ultimately, reference the contract, are we all to assume that direct rule decisions have primacy over a democratically elected minister who has been elected by the people of Northern Ireland.
Are we to honour undemocratic direct rule or democracy? The argument legal or among the public is that had devolution been in place would such contractual arrangements been agreed?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 01:11 AMDC - a protocol would have been a good idea and one imagines there may be one after this little fiasco. A pity the civil servant given the task and hell may be frozen by the time it’d be agreed.
You mention the Clerk to the Assembly - who’d have absolutely no role in such an affair. The Assembly has its own rules - Standing Orders - and how the Executive does its business is up to them.
The confusion is easily understood after Robinson’s point of order last Tuesday. His point should have been dismissed immediately since it had nothing to do with the rules of the house. It was a simple procedural matter but the Speaker needed to call a 20 minute recess because of it (that turned out to be 30 minutes).
Once the Speaker returned he added to the confusion by referring to the Head of the Civil Service - who he had no business in discussing a point or order with! It was the Clerk he should have been discussing the issue with.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 01:41 AMIn terms of the Clerk and Civil Service, I didn’t give them any primacy as to fault, I lumped them in with Paisley and McGuinness as all to blame for not conjuring up something sooner and put to and agreed by the Executive and Assembly if needs be.
It seems that as has been referred to before on slugger that the good ship ‘NI ‘07 Executive’ has left the harbour with the bow doors open.
Therefore, to solely blame a minister is wholly inappropriate in respect of the non-submission of agreed guidelines over how collective responsibility ought to work.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 01:51 AMWell said Rubicon.
Also, Gregory Cambell is going on about how the DUP support the stopping of funding, just not the way Ritchie did it. Then how come Ian Paisly Sr (and MMcG) sent the report back down to the minister saying their was nothing for the executive to discuss? She tried the concensus route but the OFMDFM didn’t want to know. She was right to do what she did.
I really think Paisley Sr is an incompetent fool. Sinn Fein messed up too by trying to score cheap points against the SDLP.Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 02:02 AM“I really think Paisley Sr is an incompetent fool.”
Well you could also draw that conclusion from watching his deliveries from the dispatch box in regards to questions put to him during First Minister’s Questions.
To watch an old man struggle is embarrassing and unnecessary, and struggle he does, even Peter Weir forces a snicker while Paisley Jnr shuffles out the responses on behalf of his father beside him. It’s a bit sad.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 02:06 AM“Ritchie has not wavered an iota from July.”
Joe, we’ve not seen the alleged options she put to the FMDFM(?) at the beginning of July. She claimed that ‘they didn’t want to know’ in the piss-poor interview conducted by Thompson in Hearts and Minds. Why couldn’t he have worked his way chronologically through the process rather than hop about trying to trip the Minister up?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 07:09 AM“Nevertheless Nev, it establishes clearly that the Minister could not have been seen to have acted ultra vires in any of her statements.”
Was the Minister permitted to act independently of the Executive on this issue - a legacy of a decision taken by the diect rule ministers, Mick?
From the FMDFM statement in July it appears that she put some options to the office of the FMDFM and was told that, as ITO there was no decision to take, there was really no point in putting the proposals before the Executive. If her statement in mid-August was not cleared by the FMDFM and so not presented to the Executive then presumably she had moved beyond the protection of the Executive.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 07:38 AMPosted by DC on Oct 22, 2007 @ 01:11 AM
...operating a form of collective responsibility in line with what was envisaged at St Andrews.
I hope this is useful:
2. A statutory ministerial Code. An amendment to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 would provide for a statutory ministerial Code, and place a duty upon Ministers (including junior Ministers), notwithstanding their executive authority in their areas of responsibility as defined in the Agreement, to act in accordance with the provisions on ministerial accountability of the Code. The Code would reflect a requirement for safeguards to ensure that all sections of the community could participate and work together successfully in the operation of these institutions and that all sections of the community were protected. There would be arrangements to ensure that, where a decision of the Executive could not be achieved by consensus and a vote was required, any three members of the Executive could require it to be taken on a cross-community basis.
3. The 1998 Act would be amended to require inclusion in the Code of agreed provisions in relation to ministerial accountability. Consistent with paragraphs 19 and 20 of the Agreement, this would provide for the Executive to be the forum for:
(i) the discussion of, and agreement on, issues which cut across the responsibilities of two or more Ministers, including in particular those that are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance and Personnel.
(ii) prioritising executive proposals;
(iii) prioritising legislative proposals;
(iv) recommending a common position where necessary – for instance, on matters which
concern the response of the Northern Ireland administration to external relationships;
(v) agreement each year on (and review as necessary of) a programme incorporating an agreed budget linked to policies and programmes (Programme for Government).
4. The Code will also provide for the discussion of and agreement on any issue which is significant or controversial and:
(a) clearly outside the scope of the agreed Programme for Government or
(b) which the First Minister and Deputy First Minister agree should be brought to the Executive.
5. The new Code would be discussed by the parties and agreed by the Executive when formed. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister would propose the Code to the Assembly. It would have effect once endorsed by cross-community support there. Any amendments to the Code would require cross-community support in the Assembly.This is what this row is all about. Either Robbo can stop Ritchie (in which case she’s out) or he can’t (in which case the executive will soon after die on one pretext or another). Just one thing though, does section 5 mean there is no code?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 07:48 AMNev, Briso,
I think we should be told. But I think you are wrong about it dying. These guys have invested too much in keeping it going. And they have no other homes to go to. Persistent vegetative state, perhaps.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2007 @ 07:54 AM
