Soapbox 
Instances of sexist remarks by DUP politicians are too frequent to be put down to an occasional badly worded comment. It is the job of a politician to say what they mean and there can be little room for ambiguity when it comes to an issue as important as a basic respect for women.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said that during a trip to Ireland later this week he will visit the border areas that are soon to become the divide between the UK and the EU. Meanwhile, Theresa May in the run-up to the election that she has made all about Brexit has reversed her earlier promise to visit the place that will likely be most affected by the split with Europe. In this time of uncertainty for Northern …
Steven Agnew is the Leader of the Green Party Northern Ireland. The Green Party is committed to putting people first. This means securing a referendum on the final Brexit deal, protecting our public services and ensuring that equality extends to all our citizens. “There is nothing to win in this process – and I am talking about both sides. In essence this is about damage control.” EC president Donald Tusk I share the bleak assessment of Donald Tusk in this …
At the height of the stream of public revelations about RHI in December 2016, a press release on The Executive Office’s website declared the names of six appointments to the Northern Ireland ‘compact civic panel’. Arlene Foster described this news as ‘‘another example of us getting on with the work. It presents a unique opportunity to take a fresh approach to dealing with the strategic issues which Government deal with and which impact directly on people’s lives’’. Martin McGuinness added: …
In his response to my criticism of Panorama’s programme on Freddie Scappaticci, or Steak Knife as he is probably better known, which was in essence that the programme had failed to examine the possible role played in the running of Steak Knife by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in Whitehall – and therefore ignored possible high-level political awareness in Britain that the agent had been allowed to murder or connive at murder – Panorama presenter, John Ware rests his case …
Ed Moloney has produced a puzzling critique (“Did Panorama Pull Its Punches?”) of my recent programme on the army agent StakeKnife (aka Freddie Scappaticci) to which your site recently drew attention. He noted that I had made no mention of Scappaticci’s first handler Peter Jones, an army sergeant said to have recruited him. The reason is straightforward. Despite my best efforts, Jones refused to discuss Scappaticci with me. Ed said he found an account by ex NI GoC General Sir …
Linda Ervine is an Irish Language Development Officer at the East Belfast Mission Arlene Foster’s decision to engage with Irish language groups could have positive outcomes for both the DUP and the Irish language sector. As the largest elected party within Northern Ireland the DUP is a major policy maker. In my opinion, it can only be beneficial for the party to acquire a greater knowledge of a sector on which its decisions have so immediate an impact. I am …
John Hume once said the Credit Union movement that of “all the things I’ve been doing, it’s the thing I’m proudest of because no movement has done more good for the people of Ireland, north and south, than the credit union movement.” This is some acknowledgement from a Nobel Peace Laureate but then again he was a founder member of Derry Credit Union and at the age of 27 he became the youngest ever President of the Irish League of Credit …
There is definite support in Derry for Ulster University’s proposal for a graduate entry medical school at Magee campus. After 53 years of exasperation that the city does not have a full sized university, actual excitement for such ideas is always tempered by fear that it will not happen. But at least the city’s response is definitely positive – unlike the apparent reactions in Belfast and Coleraine. A medical school in Derry should be a no brainer. There are …
Forget Theresa May’s boilerplate encomium in the Commons the other day about never being ‘neutral’ about the Union. (Hardly as emphatic as Margaret Thatcher’s claim Northern Ireland was ‘as British as Finchley’). The Prime Minister is leading you up the garden path. She surely knows by now that Brexit has big implications – dire and far-reaching ones – for Northern Ireland. Here’s eight of them: A funding black hole. All in, Northern Ireland draws down about €600m euro of funding …
I awoke last Tuesday morning to the unexpected news that shocked us all and experienced the odd emotions that accompany comprehending an earthly existence ending. Unsurprisingly what followed was a mixed bag of media commentary and public opinion, that spanned from the praising of a Republican freedom fighter to the condemning of a terrorist warlord. Of course between these extremes was the telling of a life of two halves and the impact that Martin McGuinness made in the establishment of …
Peter Osborne has been involved in good relations, cohesion, community enablement and political engagement for over 20 years. He chairs the Community Relations Council and the regional board of Remembering Srebrenica. You can follow him on @OsborneTweets. There is no inevitable forward flow to the peace process. It is work in progress that needs careful nurturing. It cannot be taken for granted. We must make progress when we can, consolidate when needed and hunker down when things get bleak. The …
The 2004 GP contract was the result of significant problems in English inner cities with recruitment and retention of GPs. The continuity of care the bedrock of general practice was lost when GPs no longer were required with the implementation of the new contract to provide out of hours medical services. As a consequence patient care is now the responsibility of the Trusts for the majority of the time. The loss of continuity of care means the GP is no …
A previously unseen archival document compiled on behalf of the Conservative Party Northern Ireland Committee, dated 3 July 1975, and located in the Julian Amery Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, University of Cambridge, reveals that despite Martin McGuinness’s repeated assurances that he left the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in 1974, senior members of the British Conservative Party and British Army believed that McGuinness was still a prominent ‘I. R. A. leader’ in Derry by the summer of 1975, to quote …
I am witnessing the brutal and cruel torture of three women. They have never met yet each tells the same painful story and each can see no way out of their problems. If they fail to find a solution, and there is no guarantee they will, this continuing abuse will lead, slowly and inevitably, to their own destruction. They are victims brought low by circumstances beyond their control and they are imprisoned by a hard-wired human emotion; motherly love. Each …
There are no two ways of looking at last week’s Assembly election results: mission accomplished for Sinn Féin. Manners have been put on Arlene Foster. Foster called the unionist faithful to rally around her to ward off the nationalist crocodile, the bastard child of Papism and the IRA, but in doing so she built a temple to Sobek, the Egyptian croc-headed god of fertility and the army, at which lapsed Catholics turned out in near-record numbers to worship. It is …
We are what we talk. Going by what we read today in social media in Northern Ireland and everywhere else – all that commentary by ordinary people and celebrities: we are fairly outraged people and willing to let loose on each other. This is related to distance and anonymity and clearly not the case when we meet face to face.
I was an observer in only one polling station last Thursday, but anecdotal evidence from candidates and activists at the Belfast count suggest that some of the abuses mentioned below were widespread. Furthermore, election results confirm that which should be an antithesis of democracy: “vote management was good,” to quote the words of one teller. May I therefore call, again, for all parties to come to a voluntary agreement on the conduct of elections, so that future contests do comply …
D.Reid writes for us on why young people should vote today Important is a huge understatement. It is vital and not doing so is hypocrisy. When I walked into school the day after EU referendum, everyone was talking about what this meant and what would happen next. Classes had been debating for weeks about whether the UK was stronger inside or outside of the Europe Union. Then, as autumn rolled in, everyone on social media (especially young people) were going …
In 2013 Arlene Foster told the BBC that the DUP was considering holding a border poll in order to consolidate Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. Yet that confidence has since evaporated with Mrs Foster this week pointing to Scotland and claiming that a border poll would be divisive and destabilising. Indeed she has spent much of this election campaign talking about the risk of such a vote were Sinn Féin to top the poll in the upcoming assembly elections. …
