Patrick Murdock 
It is at this point in the summer cycle that all of us can watch Lough Neagh, and some of our other inland lakes and waterways, turn green as the blue-green algae blooms, and it is at this point too that the annual political pantomime begins. Many of our politicians can be seen this summer on Facebook and Instagram, standing at the water’s edge and grandstanding to the electorate that they understand the problem. And yet the fact remains that …
Northern Ireland’s hospitality sector is in genuine difficulty. But between a political class performing concern over taxes it doesn’t control and an industry body lobbying against the very reforms that would help, accountability seems to be in short supply. A BBC report by Maria McCann on the VAT gap between Northern Ireland and the Republic makes points that are difficult to dismiss; until you stop and consider the powers Stormont already has and consistently fails to use. It brings to …
No dedicated heat pump grants. No smart meters. Excessive profits extracted by the owners our electricity network and sent south. While the rest of these islands modernise their energy systems, Northern Ireland’s devolved government has spent four years producing plans and achieving almost nothing; and ordinary families are paying the price Northern Ireland has a heating problem unlike anywhere else in the United Kingdom. According to the most recent official figures from NISRA, 61% of households rely on oil central …
Walk down most high streets in Northern Ireland — Lisburn, Ballymena, Newry, Newtownards, and the secondary streets of Belfast — and you will see town and city centres in distress. Empty shop units sit alongside an over-proliferation of charity shops, vaping stores, barbers and nail bars which, to an outsider, would suggest that Northern Ireland people spend their lives searching for second hand bargains, have the best-kept hair and nails in the UK and every citizen carries a vape wherever …
A few weeks ago, I wrote an opinion piece highlighting how Northern Ireland’s antiquated pub licensing system is damaging the social fabric of our communities. Pubs are closing not because they’re financially unviable, but because a critical shortage of licenses has turned the limited number that exist into highly sought-after commodities for operators opening venues in more profitable locations or for supermarket chains. Northern Ireland currently operates with just 1,113 pub licenses and 678 off-licenses. For the past century, we’ve …
Stormont is a very peculiar institution. In the same week that the Finance Minister, John O’Dowd called for additional tax revenue raising powers to back fill another financial black hole in Stormont, whilst announcing increased business rates on Landlords who own empty commercial premises, the Communities Minster, Gordon Lyons, rejected the Licensing reforms he was advised to implement by the University of Stirling choosing instead to stick with existing policies that not only will set back the night-time economies of …
Now our politicians have returned with great fanfare to Stormont, a lot has and will be written in the press about the DUP’s boycott with its demands of ‘no divergence from the rules the rest of the UK trade by’ and the desire of all our political parties who want to restore our public services and secure the fair and decent pay rises our public sector workers deserve. Little, however, has been written about the difficulties being experienced by the …
Following the publication of my recent article on Monday literally pleading for Stormont to reallocate money from its capital budgets to stop the collapse of the local economy, it is pleasing to hear Westminster announce targeted financial support for Northern Ireland. However, the pronouncements from our Politicians in recent days as to how they are going to spend these funds is however deeply worrying and their approach needs to be challenged and scrutinised to ensure these funds are not wasted …
As the Covid-19 Pandemic continues to spread and government measures to contain the virus are rolled out, it is becoming clear that many businesses in NI will not make it through this crisis in particular SME’s and businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors. The difficulties in trading in NI are well documented as business struggle with the highest levels of local taxation in the world through the ridiculous business rates system we have here and the literally endless red …
Following the abrupt end to the holiday season, the kids have gone back to school and many of us have begrudgingly returned to work. The holidays seem but a distant memory. However, my time off got me thinking about many things and as I stood outside shivering for the non-existent taxi that would never arrive to take me home in the early hours after my single night out during the holidays whilst waiting with the hundreds of other revellers doing …
This week we are over in Poland attending the Coworking Europe Conference 2019. After the success of last year’s conference in Amsterdam, this year the conference is being held in Warsaw with over 600 delegates from Europe and other international countries from as far away as the US and India in attendance. The Irish delegation is made up of ourselves from Newry as well as representatives from Dublin, Cork and Wicklow. For those of you who are not familiar with …
Last Tuesday as the MP’s voted overwhelmingly to reject Theresa Mays’s Brexit deal, I voiced my support of the People’s Vote by attending the protests in Parliament Square which was happening as the votes were cast in Westminster. As well as the large vocal crowd that had gathered, I listened to a number of speakers voice their Brexit anger with speakers ranging from the usual Politicians and Celebrities but also frontline NHS staff and factory workers. Two students from Belfast …
When Chancellor Philip Hammond presented his budget earlier today, he announced significant financial assistance to help small and medium-sized high street retailers in England, lobbing 1/3 of business rates bills for properties with an NAV lower than £51,000. It is still unknown whether similar savings will be extended to the struggling retailers of Northern Ireland. Technically the revised Barnet Formula will allow for such savings to be included in future Northern Ireland Budgets, however due to the current Stormont impasse, …
House of Fraser, with the announcement last week that it is to close 31 Stores across the UK, is just the latest in a long line of retailers which have either gone to the wall, or are scaling back their high street retail operations through store closures. Business rates are effectively a trading tax which businesses have to pay to have a high street presence, which in the era of online retail, puts bricks and sticks retailers at a tremendous …
As we approach Halloween, we should remind ourselves that as a people who have fought and continue to fight to preserve our rich cultural heritage protecting cultural traditions going back hundreds of years, it is with irony that one observes this week a cultural tradition that the Irish exported to the United States, now being exported back to us in a watered down ‘Americanised’ form which we now accept as our own culture without any of the rich cultural heritage …
I thought this was worth a mention for Tim Martin from JD Wetherspoon highlighting the crippling cost of drinks licences in the region. He said: “You have to pay an astronomical amount for a drinks licence here, whereas in Dublin and London they have removed most of the restrictions and you get a quicker response to changing trends in the industry. In London and Dublin at the moment there’s a lot of craft beer bars set up by small entrepreneurs, …
A recent report issued this week by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) highlighted a huge surge in the sale of Electric Vehicles (EV) with a 20% increase in EV registrations in the UK. Figures for New Car registrations in Northern Ireland are down 0.9% from January 2016 levels compared with increases in the rest of the UK and figures for the uptake of EV registrations specifically for Northern Ireland are not available so we do not know …
Whilst the rest of the UK is enjoying viewing the latest Christmas advert from the UK up market department store chain, John Lewis we should spare a thought for the Northern Ireland shopper who unless they are ready to travel across the water to England, Scotland or Wales or Visit their concession at Arnott’s in Dublin, will not get to experience what all the fuss is about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr6lr_VRsEo A John Lewis department store was first mooted at the Sprucefield site …
Earlier today the Chancellor left the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Business Growth Strategy in Tatters following the release earlier today of Budget 2016. Many of us have argued on the Slugger Platform in recent years, that the current obsession by Stormont to put all of its economic eggs in the 12.5% Corporation Tax basket was misguided and their efforts would be better served to create the economic conditions to enable our indigenous businesses, large, medium and small to thrive. This could …
As we settle into the new year, there has been plenty of posts written about how the political landscape is likely to change in 2016 both north and south, which parties are forecast to do well and which ones could potentially suffer at the ballot box as well as the rise and fall of various political personalities in 2016. Little however has been written about the policies required to transform Northern Ireland from the economic basket case it currently is …
