Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) – Page 23 – Slugger O'Toole

Gavin Robinson: “I don’t think we can leave it for another year … to make sure we manage all of the bonfires in a much better way” … but what can be done?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 13, 2015, 11:27 pm

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Six fire engines and 35 fire crew sprayed cold water on houses and trees facing the East Belfast Chobham Street bonfire to keep them safe from the savage heat and flames on the Eleventh night. Speaking to the BBC today, local MP Gavin Robinson said: Elected representatives, community representatives, statutory agencies, the police and those of influence with the community – they were all ignored and I think that’s greatly regrettable. … I don’t think we can leave it for …

Election Notebook (Nick Robinson) – a humble & honest recollection of #ge2015 – and a reminder that NI politics don’t matter at a UK national level

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 13, 2015, 6:14 pm

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Nick Robinson’s premise was to document the twelve month run up to the May 2015’s General Election. Between the Scottish independence referendum, UKIP’s rise and wobbles, and early polling that couldn’t predict the next government at Westminster, it was sure to be volatile period on which to report. The diary format of Election Notebook: The Inside Story Of The Battle Over Britain’s Future And My Personal Battle To Report It reveals that the BBC’s political editor inhabits an ever-revolving hamster …

Corrymeela celebrates its 50th birthday with Aperture festival to mark common ground & difference

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 8, 2015, 11:19 pm

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Few people realise that the origins of the Corrymeela Community can be traced not to the start of the Troubles – Corrymeela was actually set up before the Troubles in 1965 – but to Ray Davey’s experiences during the Second World War. The horror and suffering of Dresden impressed upon him the futility of war, violence and division. [historian and playwright Philip Orr] The Corrymeela Community is celebrating its 50th birthday by throwing open the doors at its Ballycastle centre …

Within a constituency, are each MLA’s mileage claims of a similar size? No …

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 8, 2015, 1:32 pm

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Annex B of the Independent Financial Review Panel’s most recent consultation document [the content of which I blogged about earlier] contains a table showing each MLA’s mileage expense claims for 2013/14 and 2014/15, along with the distance of their constituency office from Parliament Buildings. I’ve charted the 2014/15 mileage claims of the MLAs to help visualise the patterns and outliers. Note: MLAs receive a standard rate of Motor Mileage Allowance for business travel by car. The rates that may be …

Is the Independent Financial Review Panel right to interfere with political process as well as pay?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 6, 2015, 1:11 pm

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The three-person Independent Financial Review Panel was established in July 2011. It sets the pay, allowances and pensions of members and office holders of the NI Assembly. A series of consultation papers has steered the panel’s policies on topics including MLAs’ Pension Scheme, Employment of MLAs’ Staff, Prior disclosure of Interests and MLAs’ Salaries and Office Holders Allowances. Elements of the panel’s final consultation in this series are proving particularly newsworthy as they examine travel allowances, expenses around office costs …

Learning to live with Difference – the John Hewitt Summer School (27-31 July, Armagh)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 2, 2015, 4:20 pm

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David Steel (Lord Steel of Aikwood) talking about a federal United Kingdom: “The received wisdom that federal countries need uniform size among the constituent parts, or equal powers among them, is not the case. Nor would it be the case for a federal United Kingdom.” A discussion with CL Dallat, Yasmin Alibhai Brown and Hannah Lowe about shifting demographics in the UK and Ireland and whether we’re stuck in a binary oppositions of 1690 and 1916, of Paisley versus the …

Underfunded youth mental health services; austerity hitting child poverty levels; NI Executive delays

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 1, 2015, 6:30 am

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In 2012, the five-year average rates of suicide in Northern Ireland were 4 times higher than England and Wales for 15−19 year olds and 17 times more for 10−14 year olds. [source] However, in 2013−14, only 7.8% of the total planned mental health expenditure was allocated to child and adolescent mental health services in Northern Ireland. Recent austerity measures are likely to affect the already inadequate financing and investment in all tiers of Northern Ireland CAMHS. The report of the …

Using data for public good – launch of Detail Data

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on June 29, 2015, 12:33 pm

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NICVA’s relationship with investigative journalism website The Detail began with the reporting on the umbrella organisation’s research paper on The Impact of Welfare Reform on Northern Ireland. Lisa McElherron said she was thrilled to launch the Detail Data project. NICVA had been keen (1) to better tell the stories of the sector they represent; (2) to forge better links into the media to tell those stories; and (3) to harness the thirst for public data and to ultimately deliver better …

Claire Hanna joins Fearghal McKinney on Stormont benches on Monday (interview)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on June 25, 2015, 9:18 pm

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Claire Hanna and Fearghal McKinney were tonight selected as the SDLP’s two South Belfast candidates for the Belfast South constituency at May 2016’s NI Assembly election. Claire will also take over from Alasdair McDonnell up on the hill when she is co-opted into his seat on Monday morning. In the end, the selection of the two candidates was uncontested [Ed – so no opportunity for UUP mathematical gaffes?!] and party members in the Wellington Park Hotel room described the atmosphere …

Cyber Crime in NI – can we tell if the PSNI e-Crime unit is effective or the right size?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on June 23, 2015, 10:30 am

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BBC NI’s Vincent Kearney has been behind the scenes at the PSNI’s e-Crime Unit, a 21-strong team who have the tools and expertise to recover data and extract forensic information from mobile phones and computer hard drives. Other than the NI Policing Board and a few academics, Vincent Kearney’s interview with ACC Will Kerr (Good Morning Ulster, immediately after 8am news) provides the most detailed picture of PSNI’s practice and approach to cyber-crime than any reference I can find online. …

You never know when a story’s over … especially when you’re in it … perhaps most especially when you’re trying to tell it …

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on June 15, 2015, 11:56 pm

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Nearly every week, a church story seems to scream out from the front page of the News Letter or the Belfast Telegraph. Religious views are being discussed in the public square. It’s not all wholesome. And it’s not all presented with a great deal of context. But it’s a trend, and circulation figures will prove to the editors whether the stories are selling papers. Gareth Higgins and Brian McLaren are over in Northern Ireland from the US to lead a …

Xchange Summer School 2015: bravery in the face of challenge #xss15 (updated with audio from Jo Berry, Patrick Magee, Ann Travers conversation)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on June 11, 2015, 6:10 pm

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Living through the challenge of austerity mean that the Third Sector in Northern Ireland will “have to show bravery, take decisive action, be willing to change, celebrate diversity and yes, think the unthinkable” according to the organisers of the Xchange Summer School. The sofa set from the inaugural event in Enniskillen has been traded in and this year’s contributors are sitting around a kitchen table that has taken over the stage of the Great Hall in UU’s Magee campus. Introduced …

Listen back to QUB conference on Cross Currents in British and Irish Working Class Life

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 22, 2015, 6:33 pm

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A research group from QUB’s Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities (ICRH) hosted a conference today to look at Cross Currents in British and Irish Working Class Life. Alongside the talks were songs, films and plenty of debate. All the presentations and panels are now online … and you can look back at images, quotes and photos in tweets from the conference that were tagged with the #WorkingClassLife hashtag. Graham Walker opened the conference. Sophie Long introduced the opening …

“I think [UK Government] will take the power [of welfare] back themselves, I think they will legislate for it”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 16, 2015, 12:06 am

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Stop to draw breath in Northern Ireland politics and someone sneaks out and tinkers with the chain of teetering dominoes. To be fair the Stormont House Agreement dominoes were falling quite smoothly until the Monday morning after Sinn Féin’s ard fheis when their U-turn on welfare reform was announced and the party stuck a hand out and took a few of the black oblongs off the table and stopped the sequence. Arlene Foster – on her first day in her …

Hear what four campaign insiders make of the #GE2015 campaign?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 15, 2015, 7:43 pm

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Ulster University’s Institute for Research in Social Sciences and Slugger O’Toole brought together back room staff from five four of the main five parties at lunchtime in Belfast for an Ask the Campaign Insiders event to discuss the recent General Election campaign. John Moore (UUP) Lee Reynolds (DUP) Emmet McDonough-Brown (Alliance) Martin McAuley (SDLP) chaired by David McCann listen to ‘Ask the Campaign Insiders: @johnmooreni, @leereynoldsdup, @EmmetMcDB, @MartinMcAuley & @dmcbfs @IRiSS_UU #ge2015ni’ on audioBoom The conversation and questions covered being …

Cross Currents in British & Irish Working Class Life: a day of talks, debate, performance & song #workingclasslife

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 15, 2015, 9:00 am

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A research group at the Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities at QUB has spent a year organising public-academic engagements posing and interrogating new research questions relating to working class history, politics, culture, literature and music. They’ve been asking … How has working-class life been created in Northern Ireland’s imagined and material worlds? Have the commonalities of class, across sectarian lines, been distorted, or indeed effaced, by the perennial focus on national division in NI politics? How can we …

The Vote … every presiding officer’s worst nightmare (never mind the Electoral Commission) … worth watching

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 13, 2015, 4:30 pm

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90 minutes before polling in the General Election ended on Thursday 7 May, More 4 broadcast the final live performance of a new play from the stage of the Donmar Warehouse. The Vote is set inside a London polling station. The three polling station staff are played by Mark Gatiss, Nina Sosanya and Catherine Tate. It’s eight thirty in the evening and there are only ninety minutes before the polls close and the ballot box can be sealed up. In …

Four Lagan Valley MLAs refrain from publicly supporting Cllr Jenny Palmer in Social Dev debate and two vote against report

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 13, 2015, 11:08 am

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On Tuesday the NI Assembly debated a motion about the Committee for Social Development’s Inquiry into allegations, arising from a BBC NI Spotlight programme aired on 3 July 2013, of impropriety or irregularity relating to NIHE managed contracts and consideration of any resulting actions. Locally within Lagan Valley DUP circles, there has been strong personal support for Councillor Jenny Palmer who appeared on a BBC Spotlight programme as a whistleblower. She alleged that the Social Development minister’s special advisor had …

SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell confirms he will exit from the Assembly “in the next few months”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 10, 2015, 6:34 pm

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I was in a very vulnerable seat in South Belfast. I’m re-elected there and I will be choosing Westminster [interrupted] We will sort out Stormont in the next few months, that will be done. (Alasdair McDonnell) Bookies will be opening two sets of odds today: Who will be Alasdair McDonnell’s replacement as MLA for Belfast South as he confirmed on today’s Sunday Politics that he will step down from his position as MLA? [Claire Hanna must surely be the favourite, …

Now Westminster is settled, here’s all the other unsettling business NI politicians need to get back to

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 9, 2015, 3:35 pm

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It’s back to work on Monday for our local politicians. There’ll be no commission on the union (though David Cameron should now outright reject the idea), no extra £1 billion of cash, and no immediate possibility of bargaining for the 45 ideas in the DUP’s plan. Though over the next parliamentary term there are sure to be plenty of tight votes in which The Northern Ireland Plan can come out of Nigel Dodds’ back pocket and be used as bargaining …