Government – Page 8 – Slugger O'Toole

Good Relations Week

Paul Gosling on September 25, 2023, 9:03 am

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Last week was Good Relations Week, the annual Community Relations Council event that aims to build relationships between people of different backgrounds in Northern Ireland, including across the traditional Catholic and Protestant divisions and also people of differing ethnicities. You might say this remains work in progress, which is not the fault of the CRC. Northern Ireland remains a toxically divided society – exemplified, and arguably amplified, by the inability of the two largest parties of the two largest communities …

Why do we still have ‘peace walls’?

Paul Gosling on September 11, 2023, 9:02 am

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Why, a quarter of a century after the Good Friday Agreement, do we still have peace walls and interface barriers? The truth, of course, is that the peace deal ended the conflict, but failed to end division and embed reconciliation. Murdered journalist Lyra McKee famously wrote that more ‘peace walls’ have gone up since the GFA than have come down. This is despite a strategy from the The Executive Office containing the target to remove them all by 2023. Yet …

I simply will not allow Northern Ireland to become, or be viewed, as a failed part of the United Kingdom

Soapbox on September 10, 2023, 10:30 am

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Doug Beattie is the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party As we move into the second week of September and Westminster have a week under their belt, following recess, the problems facing Northern Ireland mount. Education is facing major problems, our health and social care lurches from crisis to crisis and the Police Service of Northern Ireland is in turmoil. Politicians must take their fair share of responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in. In just one month the …

LA vs Belfast: How do you move forward in a divided city? (Tuesday 12 September) #imaginebelfast

Soapbox on September 7, 2023, 8:59 am

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poster for Imagine Belfast event about Los Angeles vs Belfast: How Do you move forward in a divided city?

Imagine! Belfast Festival are hosting a free transatlantic hybrid event from 8pm on Tuesday (12 September) asking what if anything can Belfast and Los Angeles learn from each other, and from the world, about how to find reconciliation and achieve cooperative governance?

Connecting the North West

Paul Gosling on August 14, 2023, 9:02 am

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Derry and Donegal are not only marginalised by their geographic position on the periphery of the island of Ireland, but they are also very badly served by the transport infrastructure. They are not alone in this: there are similar complaints from Sligo, Fermanagh and elsewhere in the West. After a long campaign, parts of the A6 road between Derry and Belfast have been upgraded – though it is still not a dual carriageway between Dungiven and Castledawson. It was back …

WATCH: Is Better Possible? Prof Jon Tonge’s assessment of GFA legacy and his ideas for reform #JHISS23

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 31, 2023, 6:56 pm

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Jon Tonge being filmed speaking at the 2023 John Hewitt Summer School in Armagh

As well as joining the panel in Slugger’s The State of Us discussion at last week’s John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh, Professor Jon Tonge delivered a talk asking ‘Is Better Possible?’ at this point in Northern Ireland’s history, 25 years on from the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. He looked at some of the positive statistics as well as the more negative ones around the institutional uptime. He compared the local situation with other countries enjoying consociational government, and looked …

Flaming July – the evidence is clear that climate change is happening…

Paul Gosling on July 31, 2023, 11:01 am

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trees on fire

Only the most devoted conspiracy theorist could deny climate change given the devastating events of recent weeks. Spring was marked by deadly fires in Canada, terrible floods in Northern Italy and even an unfamiliar heatwave in Northern Ireland. Now things have got even more deadly, with awful new fire outbreaks in Greece, Italy Algeria and Tunisia. And a severe worsening of ice melting in the Antarctic. Meanwhile, the drought and loss of agricultural land in the Horn of Africa is …

#Census2021: The private made public: sexual orientation in the census

Soapbox on July 28, 2023, 10:17 am

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change, board, door

Dr Paul Nolan is an independent researcher based in Belfast. He writes on conflict societies, social trends and demography. In 1977 Reverend Dr Ian Paisley launched the Save Ulster From Sodomy! Campaign. The exclamation mark built into the campaign title was intended to convey the urgency of the situation: at that time a Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association had been formed to campaign for the extension of the Sexual Offences Act (1967) which had decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting adult …

GFA and Windsor Framework ‘tributes to complexity’: McDonagh at JHISS

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on July 26, 2023, 4:53 pm

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At the opening address of this year’s John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh, Bobby McDonagh, former Irish Ambassador to the UK and Permanent Representative to the EU, explored themes of the nature of identity, the beauty of complexity, the power of language, and reasons for optimism in the future of society on this island. McDonagh began with reference to this year’s chosen poem by John Hewitt, “An Irishman in Coventry”, written in 1958. The poem deplored “The glittering fables/Which …

Opsahl Commission 30th anniversary: ‘civic poetry’ still yielding insights

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on July 24, 2023, 9:15 am

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Laurence Simms (joint secretary of the British-Irish Secretariat) hosted a reception to mark the 30th anniversary of the Opsahl Commission, which invited and gathered oral and written submissions from individuals and civil society organisations about their suggestions for the way forward in Northern Ireland. Several dozen guests at the Notting Hill residence listened to reflections by various participants of the initiative and shared their stories with each other afterwards. Simms welcomed all who travelled long and short to attend. Remarking …

Boycotting Nolan is a refusal of a much needed opportunity for politicians to connect with the public…

Mick Fealty on July 11, 2023, 4:02 pm

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As Ryan Tubridy takes what may well be a last roll of the dice to save his career in front of a Dail committee today, it looks like he’s planning to tough it out, but while we wait for an outcome it is worth taking a look at a controversy closer to home. The Irish News over the last week has published a number of articles by commentators some of whom I like (£) and admire (£) on the subject …

On the limitations and failures of modern day Populism in Britain, the US, Northern Ireland and Ireland…

Mick Fealty on June 16, 2023, 1:11 pm

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round gold and white analog clock reading at 7:10

We can say with some certainty that the current penchant for populist politics will not end with the exit of Boris Johnson, nor with any putative departure Donald Trump. Nor is it likely over. But it has not been good for international relations. In the Irish Times this week Fintan O’Toole warns that the game is far from over for Trump in spite of the most extraordinarily detailed indictment which details actions the former President may struggle to explain to his …

Where is the Peace Dividend?

Paul Gosling on June 5, 2023, 9:01 am

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A few days ago the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the House of Commons was told that for some communities here, the expected peace dividend from the Good Friday Agreement never arrived. Tim Attwood of the John and Pat Hume Foundation reported on its recent ‘Peace Summit’. “One of the young people said, ‘The conflict was not the problem; the peace is’, because, in so many places, they do not see the dividend. Some working-class people in parts of Belfast …

If “Others” have the casting/blocking vote, both nationalism and unionism need to show they are open for development

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2023, 11:10 am

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We're Open

Fintan O’Toole yesterday (or at least his headline writer does) poses a useful question: What if Sinn Féin makes Northern Ireland viable? But to that hypothetical I would add another: What if Northern Ireland already is viable? This is a non trivial consideration. Reform processes have been ongoing for at least two and perhaps three generations (depending on how you count them (in the country where people marry later one generation is thought to be 30 years). There are issues that …

Before thinking about a border poll, there are many regulatory issues that need serious tightening

Soapbox on May 24, 2023, 8:20 am

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vote, poll, election

Matt Qvortrup is Professor of Political Science at Coventry University. Currently a visiting professor of Constitutional Law at the Australian National University, his latest book I Want to Break Free: A Practical Guide to Making a New Country, is published by Manchester University Press. “Blessed are the peace-makers”. Peter Mandelson, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was becoming lyrical, and almost metaphysical, when he spoke about the vote on the Good Friday Agreement at an event just outside Jerusalem …

‘DE bankrolls segregation’: Northern Ireland education costs additional £226m annually

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on May 16, 2023, 9:18 am

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The Integrated Alumni charity, in partnership with the Integrated Education Fund (IEF), hosted an event that looked at the cost of division in Northern Ireland, especially its education system. This included a discussion among a panel of candidates for the upcoming local government elections and an audience of several dozen adding live, interactive responses with their mobile phones. Matt O’Neill (chairperson, Integrated Alumni) welcomed guests and introduced Dr Matt Milliken (Ulster University), who presented an overview of a briefing paper …

Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath lays out proposals for a new Ireland national wealth fund…

Mick Fealty on May 12, 2023, 7:40 am

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glut of money, 500 euro, euro

One of the big issues dogging countries across the western world is how to manage increasing fiscal pressures in a world that has suddenly become highly volatile and subject to multiple economic and socio political shocks. The lunatic Trumpian fringe amongst the US Republicans scant majority is threatening to impose a debt ceiling on government which would reset it to 2022 limits and provide for a one per cent increase each year going forward. Sounds reasonable until you consider this …

And the winner is………….Slugger reviews the PEBs of #LE23

David McCann on May 11, 2023, 11:43 pm

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We are back! The Slugger Party Election Broadcast Review has returned to give its assessment of the party election broadcasts of the 2023 local elections. A valuable public service to election nerds and people who have devoted hours and days of effort to create these three minute wonders. A bit like the Eurovision Song Contest, high scores aren’t any indication of likely success at the ballot box. It’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at the aesthetics and impact of one aspect …

Human Rights under threat

Paul Gosling on May 8, 2023, 9:00 am

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Human rights are under threat in the UK, warns the Northern Ireland Human Rights Chief Commissioner Alyson Kilpatrick. While the immediate question is whether the British government will change the law in order to remove large numbers of asylum seekers to Rwanda, this is in the context of proposals for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. This would have significant, negative, implications for Northern Ireland, given that this is one of the foundations of the Good …

WATCH: Implementing the Agreement #GFA25

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 3, 2023, 7:05 pm

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It would take until December 1999 for full powers to be devolved to the first Northern Ireland Assembly. So what happened between April 1998 and December 1999?