Board of NI Water
Why did Sinn Fein feel compelled to invent ‘malicious’ untruths about Declan Gormley?
Tweet This morning in the High Court, both Sinn Fein’s and Declan Gormley’s counsels will be making their cases on the figure in damages to be reached by the jury in Sinn Fein malicious libel trial. We should have a figure to run with by lunchtime. As Tom Kelly – rather prophetically – warned back [...] more »
“the tribunal finds the minister’s evidence is implausible and lacks credibility” [Updated]
Tweet If you thought the controversy around NI Water and the then NI Regional Development Minister, Conor Murphy, MP, MLA, had gone away, think again. The BBC reports that an industrial tribunal has found that Alan Lennon, a Protestant overlooked for the post of chairman of NI Water in March 2011, was discriminated against on [...] more »
Murphy: “The person who has responsibility for dealing with these things is me”*
Tweet Conor Murphy’s line today on the leaked PAC report is strangely reminiscent of his party colleague, the chair of the PAC, Paul Maskey. But it is also in line with his own original interview with Jamie Delargy in UTV’s Stormy Water special back in August, that this was all about procurement issues, not the [...] more »
NI Water: PAC chair complains about leaked report to UTV…
Tweet As Pete noted earlier, the chair of Stormont’s Public Accounts Committee, Paul Maskey is not best pleased that a copy of that committee’s draft report has found its way into the hands of Jamie Delargy of UTV. Not surprisingly, since as Maskey points out, it is not yet been official adopted by the committee. [...] more »
NI Water: How Murphy’s sackings left MacKenzie accountable directly to DRD
Tweet Fed up with drinking copious amounts of Northern Ireland Water stories on Slugger? Not as fed up as I am writing them. We kicked off back in July after that PAC when no one but the Belfast Telegraph (who have taken a ‘MacKenzie loyalist’ line throughout), whilst an industrious Jamie Delargy was working on [...] more »
NI Water: How Mr MacKenzie jettisoned millions in commercial savings…
Tweet Adrian Rutherford was pretty close to the mark with his suggestion in Wednesday night’s paper edition of the Belfast Telegraph that Northern Ireland Water may have been ordered by the courts to pay out up to £10 Million in back payments to the French IT contractor Steria. In dispute had been payments for services [...] more »
NI Water: Isn’t it time we were told what’s really been going there?
Tweet The Belfast Telegraph have a special piece in yesterday’s paper, which notes at the end just how little the general public understand the Northern Ireland Water story. Hardly surprising, since it has become almost the definitive insider’s insider story. Yet it is striking too that so few in the press appear able to convincingly [...] more »
NI Water: So just how many STAs was DRD using?
Tweet This Assembly Questions to the DRD Minister Conor Murphy should flush out some interesting answers about the use of Single Tender Actions inside the Department: 2. Mr P McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister for Regional Development how many single tender actions were issued by (i) Roads Service; (ii) Translink; and (iii) the [...] more »
NI Water: Minister failed to pick up Board’s early questions about Dixon?
Tweet Okay, another bullish performance from Minister Murphy here on the UTV report, though it is rare to see such a normally competent performer stuck for words in front of a camera. What’s complicated things for him was the robust nature of the questioning from Conall McDevitt, on the amount of work the Minister did [...] more »
NI Water: CEO crunched by dual responsibilities?
Tweet By demand, here’s a chart explaining the different primary relationships within and between DRD and NI Water. The complexity was introduced by the introdcution of the designation “Sub Accounting Officer” for the CEO, Mr McKenzie. It may or may not make things clearer for those of you who still care. This was on foot [...] more »
NI Water: DRD kept their ‘demonstrable independence’ hidden from Commissioner
Tweet Yesterday’s written answer from the Minister of DRD to Patsy McGlone’s AQW will bring some disquiet, particularly in light of the aribitrary manner by which his department dealt with the last Board at NI Water. What DRD understands by the word ‘independent’ is not something many people in business or the wider world would recognise. [...] more »
NI Water: Were the IRT’s Terms of Reference ‘Gerrymandered’?
Tweet The latest we hear is that DRD/NIW are having problems getting anyone to take on the role of chairman of NI Water. Slugger understands that a number of individuals have declined an approach. It is not difficult to see why. As a careful reading of the final report makes clear the IRT itself did [...] more »
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Books
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Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
Tweet A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate [...] read our review »
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At the current rate of progress, gender equality of MLAs at Stormont will only take another 65 years
Tweet Bronagh Hinds’ chapter of Everyday Life After the Irish Conflict: The Impact of Devolution and Cross-Border Cooperation [reviewed yesterday] examines women’s political participation points to limited progress in addressing the gender balance of political institutions. The proportion of councillors who are female rose to 24 per cent in 2011 from 14 per cent in [...] read our review »
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A poem for the day – Launching the Whaler Juan Peron
Tweet A Belfast epic, and one of my oldest poems, the opener of my first collection, Grub. The gist of the story was found in Moss & Hume’s Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast, 1861-1986, which tells how Eva Peron was due to launch a huge whaling vessel in Belfast, [...] read our review »
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