Poots village idiot remarks showed poor handling from the Speaker…

It’s not always easy to judge when something useful or interesting or important is going on in any parliamentary body. But given how glacial progress is through Stormont it is a hard station squeezing anything consequential. Last week the big controversary was the Minister for Health’s failure to apologise for calling his parliamentary colleague a ‘village idiot’. However that story sort of died when Stephen Nolan brought in Matthew Parris in to talk about the matter, who was frankly surprised …

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NI Assembly Speaker: “They are treating the House with contempt…”

Despite changes to the Standing Orders in June 2009, the Northern Ireland Assembly Speaker was forced to crack some heads together in the chamber today over MLAs’ attitudes to Question Time –  as UTV reports here. Hansard records what the Speaker, Willie Hay, had to say [permanent link] Mr Willie Clarke is not in his place for question 1; that is another issue that I intend to deal with. Departments and Ministers spend a great deal of time and resources on Question Time …

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Just how independent is the Assembly of the Executive?

This might strike some as pure anorak fare. It begins slowly as Mark Durkan tries to get to the bottom of Peter Robinson’s controversial point of order last week. He doesn’t get much change from Speaker Willie Hay though. Yet Durkan points out at least four counts grounds for supposing important Assembly protocol was breached: There was no mention of standing order in Mr Robinson’s question, therefore it was not actually a valid point of order. It should not have …

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