Soapbox 
Stevie Maginn is the Green Party NI rep for West Belfast Earlier this month, the 6th assessment report of the UN International Panel on Climate Change was published. This is the 6th report by the IPCC since 1988, reminding us that the alarm bells on climate breakdown have been going for some time, and is more stark reading for people and policymakers. It suggests that under all projection models, the Earth is now likely to reach 1.5C of warming above …
Cllr Brian Pope is the Alliance Party Group Leader on Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon should be given all the local powers necessary to win the race to become UK City of Culture 2025. It is fantastic news that Armagh and the surrounding borough have been officially listed to compete for this coveted title. We share an impressive heritage both architecturally and socially, and the area has been a centre of cultural and …
Shanice Atkins is Press & Policy officer/ freelance writer from Derry. “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” Marie Curie It happened as I sat there on the squeaky, plastic seat. The air of anticipation gone, a giddiness still lingered. All those seated, waiting their 15 minutes smiled at one another, nodding in a silent appreciation of what we had just received. The promise of days beyond COVID seemed just within reach. Moments before …
Cllr Brian Pope is Alliance Party Group Leader on Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council. Our hard-pressed retail sector has suffered sizable losses during the pandemic and therefore it is hoped that the new High Street voucher scheme will boost local commerce and give people some much needed retail therapy. It will provide individual shoppers with £100 to spend on our high streets rather than online, and comprises a significant cash injection into our local high streets. Whilst the new NI …
Colin Harvey is Professor of Human Rights Law, Queen’s University Belfast. The prospect of comprehensive human rights legislation here appeared to have faded. The Bill of Rights process has been stuck since the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission submitted its final advice in 2008. The pattern is a familiar one. Political unionism’s objections ensured that the British Government did not legislate; a convenient excuse to avoid adopting a Bill of Rights worth that title. Instead the region is left with …
Andrew Muir is the Alliance MLA for North Down Planning policy rarely makes the national headlines but directly touches upon the lives of everyone in Northern Ireland. Whether it’s an extension in your local area, a new housing development around the corner, or a major new business development that could provide jobs for thousands, planning matters. As an MLA at the Northern Ireland Assembly, planning issues are never far from the top of my inbox. Earlier this month the Department …
Colin Harvey is Professor of Human Rights Law, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. The debate about constitutional change remains odd. Status here is intended to rest on nothing more robust than majority support. It is accepted that if Northern Ireland wants to leave the Union it can, provided the mechanisms of concurrent consent in the Good Friday Agreement are followed. This is not a radical proposition dreamed up by a subversive academic conspirator, but an accepted and agreed part …
Alan Millar is originally from Donegal, now working as a journalist in North Antrim. 2021 winner of the Scots Language Society Hugh MacDiarmid Tassie, his long interest the tradition of Scots writing in Ulster reflects a Donegal minority background. I NOTED with interest the headline in the Irish Times article ‘UK was groomed: Irish writers throw book at Brexit, first run on Monday June 27 2016 and retweeted from the archives in last week’s five-year anniversary of this ill-fated and highly …
It’s been fifty years since the establishment of the Housing Executive in 1971. Here, the organisation’s current Chairman, Professor Peter Roberts, delivers some home truths on social housing, arguing a partnership for change must be established to open the gates to a more positive future for housing in Northern Ireland. Over the past eight months, since Minister Ní Chuilín’s ambitious announcement on the future of housing and Minister Hargey’s commitment to the revitalisation of the Housing Executive, I’ve been asked …
Cllr Brian Pope, Party Group Leader (Alliance), Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council Whether the latest DUP upheavals will result in a fractured party is of less interest than the impact it might have on its uneasy alliance with Sinn Féin. Ever since the St Andrew’s Agreement was signed, in 2006, we have been caught in a grip of an apparently immovable object – that being the DUP / Sinn Féin coalition. Some may herald the success of this uneasy partnership, …
Dr. Clare Rice is a postdoctoral researcher at Newcastle University: a specialist in power-sharing and Northern Ireland’s politics. She tweets as @Clare_Rice_. All views expressed are the author’s own. The word ‘honeymoon’ evokes sentiments of a relaxing, happy and easy-going time. The big event is over, and in the bubble of positivity that follows, the focus shifts to the future. For Edwin Poots, this phase has been as good as non-existent since he became the new DUP Leader. The unceremonious …
Jennifer Wallace, Carnegie UK Trust It was with great interest (probably more interest than is normal, even for policy wonks), that we at Carnegie UK opened the most recent blog from the NI Assembly research team. The briefing by RAISE comes at a critical time as Northern Ireland’s second Programme for Government is about to be published, when everywhere from New Zealand to the northeast of England, the concept of wellbeing is being cited as central to economic recovery and …
Cllr Brian Pope is Party Group Leader of the Alliance party on Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council. No fishing. Do not slam the gate. No visiting vessels beyond this point! Sometimes it feels like we are being blamed for something we haven’t done or for something we have yet to do wrong. This was my experience on a recent family trip to the North Coast. Don’t get me wrong; we had a wonderful time and the scenery was spectacular, but …
Sinéad McLaughlin is an SDLP MLA for Foyle and is the SDLP spokesperson for the economy For the last 14 years, Northern Ireland has been led by joint first ministers from Sinn Fein and the DUP. This leadership was supposed to deliver prosperity after the peace that was delivered by the leadership of John Hume and the SDLP. But instead of prosperity, the North continues to have some of the worst economic outcomes anywhere in Western Europe. My city of Derry …
Éamonn Toland read Modern History and Economics at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, where he received a Lawlor Foundation Scholarship. He worked as a management consultant with Accenture and McKinsey & Co., and as an entrepreneur and an executive with Paddy Power. As well as being a media spokesman for Accenture, he has written articles for the London Times and Telegraph, appeared in television shows and documentaries, and been a key speaker at numerous conferences. Together with his wife and son, …
By Rónán Davison-Kernan from EVANI. The group was formed in 2016 and earlier this year transitioned to become the Electric Vehicle Association Northern Ireland, a not-for-profit community interest company. Their two main aims are to represent the interests of electric vehicle users in Northern Ireland and to promote EV use here. Electric vehicle sales in Northern Ireland tripled between 2019 and 2020, going from 579 units to 1,680 – despite the pandemic. To put it another way, there were almost …
Andrew Clarke is a DUP Councillor in Mid and East Antrim. Late in 1786, a plough pushed its way through Ayrshire fields. Brittle frosts had yet to kill the gentleness of summer, and the soil yielded easily. The plough’s great keel crashed through a simple nest, and its mouse barely scampered to safety. The misfortune of the simple creature moved the ploughman – one Robert Burns – to pity. Yet on reflection, Burns concludes his own plight is worse, burdened …
Nat O’Connor is Adjunct Lecturer in Maynooth University and a former lecturer in Ulster University. The EU contains federations (like Germany), unitary states (like Ireland) and highly devolved countries (like Italy). It also copes with the diverse relationships EU member states have with non-EU territories, including overseas territories and co-operation that extends beyond the EU. There was no fundamental incompatibility on a constitutional level with the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland remaining in the European Union. However, once …
Michael Donnelly is a member of the Dolmens Climate Network Dolmens Climate Network, in south County Down, wishes to speak out in the aftermath of the massively destructive wildfire we just experienced in the Mournes. Our community right now is sad but also cross, frustrated, and determined that we all take this seriously and do something different. Thousands of acres of upland heath is burnt and we will never know how many animals have perished with their nests destroyed during …
SOAPBOX: Is there a fairer way than co-option to replace Northern Ireland Assembly members or councillors who resign mid-way through their term. Scott Moore proposes using the STV-DQ (Different Quota) system …
