sinn fein
Other reasons for McArdle’s resignation?
Mick has some thoughts on Mary McArdle standing down as a special advisor below. It may have been that Sinn Fein or Ms. McArdle felt the need for her to move on and as Mick says Ann Travers may on UTV have been determined to see it as an act of reconciliation. A slightly different [...] more »
Thank you Sinn Fein (now how about expanding the shadow of the future?)…
Was the decision to redeploy Mary McArdle from her job as an advisor by Sinn Fein a routine matter of rotating special advisors? Or was it, as the Minister hinted on UTV last night, Ms McArdle’s own decision to move on. Whichever, Ann Travers’ warm words of gratitude suggest that whatever the original intention, she [...] more »
“Enda sounded like Fr Ted trying to explain to a baffled Fr Dougal the difference between “small” and “far away”.”
In the Irish Times, the peerless Miriam Lord on the latest shenanigans in the Dáil Meanwhile, the saga of the Promiscuous Notes rumbles on. It was Gerry Adams’s turn this time to wave them provocatively at the Taoiseach. The Spanish have the right idea, said the Sinn Féin leader. They took the toro pos los [...] more »
Mary McArdle to leave post
The BBC are reporting that the special advisor to Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin, the convicted murderer, Mary McArdle, is to leave her post “soon.” This is apparently as part of normal party policy to rotate staff. Ann Travers the sister of Mary Travers (McArdle’s victim who was murdered whilst leaving church in 1984) has [...] more »
“I have decided to issue licences to those netsmen who have provided undertakings to the Department not to fish…”
Evidently all those 161 publicly funded press officers were busy elsewhere… No press release to accompany the Northern Ireland Fisheries Minster Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín’s statement to the NI Assembly yesterday. It was an update on departmental salmon conservation measures and, in particular, the Minister’s latest position on the issuing of commercial licences to net salmon. Here’s [...] more »
“This has been custom and practice, I have just put it in writing.”
Apparently, 161 publicly-funded press officers are not sufficient to keep Northern Ireland’s troublesome press pack in check… The Belfast Telegraph has gotten hold of a “confidential memo” [not yet online] from the NI Minister of Culture, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, to the various arms-length bodies (ALBs) within the department’s remit setting out “a proposed media communications protocol”. [...] more »
“I believe that schools are best placed to make decisions in light of what they believe is in the best interests of their pupils.”
So sayeth the Northern Ireland Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd. He’s not, however, speaking about academic selection… Following a 12-week public consultation on GCSE reform, which ended on 30 December 2011, the NI Education Minister has decided to give no direction on whether schools should use unitised or linear GCSEs. [Let the market decide! - Ed] Indeed. From [...] more »
“We cannot impose; this has to come from within Northern Ireland.”
Nothing in politics, nor in life, is “inevitable” [except death and taxes! - Ed] Indeed. That includes a “border poll” – despite the protestations of the former International Representative for West Belfast, then temporary Crown Steward, now Louth TD, and Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams. The Irish Times reports his latest outburst “A border poll is inevitable. [...] more »
Sinn Fein’s human rights agenda for the Republic’s constitutional convention…
The Taoiseach is tonight to brief other party and group leaders in the Dail on the long promised constitutional convention; a review of the Republic’s ropey governance system. In fact not everything that needs fixing need bother the Supreme Court. Sinn Fein have been relatively quick out of the blocks to share their agenda, although [...] more »
“The agency’s investigation has produced evidence of what might be characterised as a lawless lifestyle”
The BBC reports the delayed start of the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s [SOCA] application for a civil recovery order of property and assets belonging to Seamus Francis Mullan. A former member of the Provisional IRA who was serving a life imprisonment sentence for the 1985 murder of an off-duty RUC officer before being freed on early release licence in [...] more »
Willie Clarke ‘allowed the option’ of working in Down council…
It’s not particularly thought to have anything to do with the SDLP selection of a successor (who’s still waiting in the wings) for Margaret Ritchie. But the official explanation for dropping an MLA whose not thought to have been under particular electoral pressure reads like a transliteration of ‘spending more time with my family’ to [...] more »
“However, the Minister told us that she was too busy to see us.”
With potential European Commission fines still pending for the Northern Ireland Executive’s failure to protect a special habitat in Strangford Lough, another area of contention, environmentally, has opened up – with further potential EC fines. This time, it’s commercial salmon fishing. And the Department responsible for licensing the nets used is the NI Department of Culture, Arts [...] more »
“Freedom of information it isn’t…”
In the Irish Times, Noel Whelan takes a look at the Irish presidential candidates’ declared expenditure. [So you don't have to? - Ed] Indeed. He starts by comparing that declared expenditure with what they said, during the campaign, they would spend. From the Irish Times article One of those mental notes was made during the [...] more »
“all schools in the Catholic sector should move to an alternative form of transfer as soon as possible and by no later than 2012…”
Six years in the writing, the Northern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education (NICCE) has published its Post-Primary Review Strategic Regional Report. It’s a mixture of proposals of limited school closures, amalgamations… and wishful thinking. As the BBC reports, Catholic Church representatives have been focusing on one issue in particular. Cardinal Brady was speaking at St Mary’s [...] more »
Sinn Fein upgrading Southern economic policies?
According to the Sindo… The party spokesman on European affairs Padraig Mac Loughlainn told the Sunday Independent that it was important to speak to such people when formulating credible economic policies. He said that in conjunction with the party’s two in-house economic advisers — Joanne Spain and Eoin O Broin — the party had sought [...] more »
Contested Space Programme: “What’s strange is that we haven’t heard anything about this until now…”
On 22 January, after the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) announced their £2million Peace Walls Programme, I asked about the absence of OFMdFM’s £4million Contested Space Programme – announced in March last year. On 27 January the Northern Ireland Executive Junior Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson, launched the Early Years Faces and Spaces – Children’s Shared [...] more »
“This is a read-back into the so-called ‘dirty war’…”
In yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph, Brian Rowan attempted to explained the thinking behind Sinn Féin’s expressed concerns about the “Dark Side” [It's "a sound working partnership and one that is to be commended" - Ed] Indeed. From the Belfast Telegraph article …this is not a row for the sake of being awkward. It is a serious [...] more »
Referendum demands may be catching
In that interview trailed by Pete below, the Examiner itself highlights the DPM’s soft voiced approach to an early referendum on unity. Have Alex Salmond’s tactics found their Irish imitator? The deputy first minister believes the Democratic Unionist Party can be persuaded to agree to such a dramatic move. more »
Martin McGuinness: “as far as I was concerned she apologised for her behaviour…”
That’s according to the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, in an interview to be published in the Irish Examiner tomorrow. He’s referring to RTÉ presenter Miriam O’Callaghan and her questioning of his version of his past during a televised debate with candidates in the Irish Presidential election last year. From the [...] more »
“this device may have been here for some considerable time, possibly many years…”
There’s good news, and there’s bad news, as a 36 hour security alert in Kinawley, County Fermanagh, ends with two controlled explosions by the British Army’s bomb disposal team and the removal of a viable device “for further forensic examination”. From the BBC report Police have said that a bomb found in a field in County [...] more »
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A Political History of the Two Irelands competition…
It’s not often we get free things to give away to our readers, but courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan we have a nice paperback copy of Brian M Walker’s excellent history of partition of the island and how identities shifted in both the north east and the south and west: as most of the territory that [...] read our review »
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The peace process not such a good model after all
Which reminds me…. Platform for Change’s driving force Robin Wilson has produced a corrective to the notion that the lessons of the NI conflict are easily exportable. Like myself, Robin is associated with the Constitution Unit. He introduced his new book in a CU blog which I here reproduce. The water crisis in Northern Ireland [...] read our review »
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Eamon Nancarrow’s misadventures in Rock…
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch, they say. When I last saw Eamonn Namcarrow, back in the mid 1980s he was a congenial, good-natured and highly sociable young lad. The next time was 26 years later, in Lavery’s Gin Palace in Bradbury Place. He’d just brought out his first book, Holywood Star about [...] read our review »
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