Government
Expressing Identity — Addressing Division: CRC Annual Policy Conference 2013
Tweet Expressing Identity: Addressing Division Apologies for tardy posting; thanks for Mick for posting snippet by Eamonn McCann: This year’s annual policy conference of the Community Relations Council (CRC) was held in Derry-Londonderry, a fresh change from the usual Belfast venues. Indeed, the Maiden City has demonstrated leadership in community relations for many years. In [...] more »
How well does the Catholic church understand its own teaching on abortion?
Tweet This is well worth noting before it passes over us, on the question of abortion in the south. James P Mackey is visiting professor at the school of religions and theology at Trinity College. And he’s been looking back at some of his old Catholic textbooks from Maynooth: The Roman Catholic hierarchy has formally [...] more »
Sinn Féin: Hyde Park bomb charges “vindictive, unnecessary and unhelpful”
Tweet Reports that John Anthony Downey, 61, from County Donegal, has been charged with the murder of four members of the Royal Household Cavalry in the 1982 Provisional IRA bombing in Hyde Park, London – he was arrested on Sunday at Gatwick Airport - has prompted a statement from Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly, MLA and member of the Northern Ireland [...] more »
“the current system is inefficient and we need to examine the case for reform of teacher education provision”
Tweet The BBC reports on the latest attempt by the Northern Ireland Employment and Learning Minister, the Alliance Party’s Stephen Farry, to reform the teacher training system here. It follows the publication of a report on the first stage of the Study of the Teacher Education Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. From the ministerial press release “The [...] more »
Ann Travers: “If had joined the IRA or a loyalist paramilitary and killed someone, I would be being listened to…”
Tweet Ann Travers talks to Wendy Austin earlier on Talkback on the SDLP’s petition of concern that will finally kill the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill. I’ll try and get a better quality recording as and when it becomes available, since for a number of reasons, I think this is an important interview. I’m going [...] more »
Gove calls for a split with Wales and NI on GCSE and A Level reform…
Tweet Here’s one to put on the long term forecast. Michael Gove was over last week (not that our Education Minister was very forthcoming on what they actually talked about)… and now he has announced there is such a gap between his reforms in GCSE and the way it is done in Wales and Northern [...] more »
Azerbaijan Presidential Inquiry over Eurovision Vote
Tweet Denmark may have won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, due to last year’s winner, held in Malmö, Sweden, but Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev is reported to have ordered an inquiry into why his country, apparently, failed to provide any points to their neighbour, Russia. Russia gave maximum points, 12, to the Azerbaijan entry. From [...] more »
Taoiseach could do with answering some of the questions he once aimed at Michael McDowell?
Tweet Funniest moment of the weekend was when Sean O’Rourke took the sugar off Willie O’Dea’s wee bun when he mentioned Michael McDowell’s behaviour (blogged by George for Slugger at the time) over his intervention under remarkably similar circumstances to Alan Shatter’s stroke against Mick Wallace on last Thursday’s PrimeTime (12 minutes in)… Though, as [...] more »
“Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
Tweet Last Thursday’s The View gave most of the programme over to the vexed issue of parading. It includes a number of noteworthy points. Neil Jarmin points out that the Parades Commission has missed an opportunity offered it by Paddy Ashdown’s Strategic Review of Parading to give it a more robust set of processes (that [...] more »
Flaws in Enda Kenny’s case on abortion exposed as the hierarchy brings out the ex factor
Tweet The next Catholic primate of Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has told the Sunday Times( £ ) “You cannot regard yourself as a person of faith and support abortion,” Martin said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “You cannot believe you are with your church and directly help someone to procure an abortion. This [...] more »
OFMdFM: “as open and transparent as possible”
Tweet After much foot-dragging, the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers have released the cost [to date - Ed] of their 12-day March junket trip to Brazil and the USA to “Develop and promote political, investment, trade, university and tourism links” – an eye-watering £155,509. As Mark Devenport tweeted So were FM and DFM’s recent [...] more »
Taking years off your life – NI life expectancy deprivation gaps show increase over last decade
Tweet When I asked Billy Hutchinson on Wednesday about the lack of publicity around any PUP campaigning on health and life expectancy, I was thinking about the kind of life expectancy figures that have been released yesterday by the Department of Health in their Inequalities Monitoring System/Life Expectancy Decomposition comparative report: Chapter 4 deals with [...] more »
Gerry Adams (and Sammy Wilson) putting on a Poor Mouth over £4 Billion of ‘elusive’ cuts?
Tweet “At a public meeting discussing disruption as a result of the G8, an official from the British Foreign & Commonwealth claimed that the summit would bring in up to £700 million into the local economy. “This is a figure that has been plucked from thin air, for no other reason but to deal with [...] more »
OFMdFM panic move was “like a funding application where the Secretary of State had cracked the whip”
Tweet Well, here’s a bit of a YouTube Smorgasbord of comment on OFMdFM’s Towards a United Community… It’s telling that the joint tactics of the representatives of the OFMdFM parties used a lot of shouting, jeering and intervention to smother what was in aggregate a decent three pointed challenge from Alliance, the UUP and the [...] more »
25% increase in homelessness as a result of intimidation (just one OFMdFM’s real problems)
Tweet Courtesy of Mark Devenport tweeted directly from Stormont… Jennifer Hawthorne told Social Development Committee figure stood at around 580 cases, 387 of which were due to paramilitary intimidation — Mark Devenport (@markdevenport) May 16, 2013 Some things won’t just go away by chiding the media for being too pessimistic… This is one of the [...] more »
#DigitalLunch short: Seanad Reform…
Tweet It’s rare I’d pull out a leader for the subject of a blog, but this morning’s editorial in the Irish Times is also a useful reader for those who’ve missed the intricacies of the debate on the future of Seanad Eireann. And not least its shifting loyalties on the benches of Dail Eireann. When [...] more »
PSNI: “if the NCA is unable to operate fully in Northern Ireland, this will have a detrimental impact on our ability to keep people safe”
Tweet With continued political deadlock here over the new UK National Crime Agency (NCA) the PSNI have issued a statement warning of potential problems ahead, and proposing a suggested solution to complaints about accountability. From the PSNI statement Criminality has no respect for boundaries. It is therefore vitally important that the PSNI can access both [...] more »
Increasing numbers of passengers let the train take the strain … apart from a 10 year decline on the Enterprise
Tweet Monday morning’s Belfast Telegraph splashed with the front page story that passengers numbers have fallen by 22% on the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise train over the last decade. The ‘exclusive’ – based on figures in DRD’s Future Railways Investment consultation document [pdf] that was published in January – was picked up by Talkback at lunchtime as [...] more »
“creating consistency between each of the devolved institutions across the United Kingdom”
Tweet While the bullshit distraction that is the DUP/Sinn Féin “Building a United Community” paper [pdf file] was being paraded across the airwaves last week - Think of it as a revamped Contested Space Programme [Don't tell the International Fund for Ireland - Ed], pre-empting consultation on area-based planning, and Girdwood times 10. [And another non-working [...] more »
British Labour contemplating a radical change agenda?
Tweet Of Irish Labour can offer a cautionary tale to its British cousins it is, that whatever you do do not land yourself in government without a credible plan of action in a time of internationally imposed austerity. Perhaps looking for strategic gains in tackling some of the long term damage of the Thatcher era [...] more »
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Books
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Breakthrough on Ireland’s bank debt?
Tweet This looks like a breakthrough on the Republic’s bank debt problem: According to a statement issued at 4am (Irish time), eurozone leaders pledged to “examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with the view of further improving the sustainability of the well-performing adjustment programme.” read our review » -
Talking to a brick wall: how to make politicians listen?
Tweet It took me a long time to warm to advertising agencies. The first time I worked with one I was working in sales management on Fairy Washing Up Liquid. I was due to attend a meeting at which I was to be told what consumers really thought of the brand. I remember my reluctance [...] read our review »
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Friday afternoon thread: Why confession works in a world of ‘cheaters’…
Tweet This is really worth watching… It suggests the very Catholic option of opening a new page by having a confession process does in the longer term help people to behave better… Presented by Dan Ariely, author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves. read our review »
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