Do you know what the BIC does?

At the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly this morning, the first point raised in debate (really just fielding Q&As for Peter Hain speaking on behalf of the British Irish Council from the parliamentarians in the body of the hall) came from one of the few Tory MPs, Bob Walter… (Bob’s in a safe Tory seat that just got marginally safer after boundary changes) most of his colleagues are busy conjuring up next years…

I wanted to ask an intelligent question about the BIC, but when I looked at the website there is note telling us that it was last updated 26/09/2008… It appears that it conducts its affairs in secret… We need to know what it is talking about… If we knew what was on the agenda, then people could make representations in advance of their meetings…

Actually the BIPA is hosted under it’s old url: biipb.org/… Much of the debate this morning was about how these new institutions can be made more useful to the parliamentary institutions who ultimately pay for it… Labour peer Alf Dubbs suggested the proceedings of both bodies should be synchronised to fall at the same time…

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty