Economy – Page 6 – Slugger O'Toole

Identity politics is the enemy of good government. Can they be reconciled?

Brian Walker on April 4, 2017, 2:33 pm

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Banging on so much about culture and identity politics is like debating the Resurrection with a famine victim, at best a momentary distraction, at worst an insult. In politics and too much comment, political rhetoric is easy macho stuff. It produces a quick high and the tunnel vision born of long-term self-satisfaction, while the practical business of government is played out on a sectarian battlefield or put on automatic pilot to look after itself. At the back of their minds, …

The Assembly crisis is costing £300 million a year in Health alone

Brian Walker on April 3, 2017, 8:38 am

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The Belfast Telegraph has an exclusive on the depth of the health crisis. It shows the real world gap between the obsessive zero sum game that dominates politics and the practical need for regional government of some sort. If the RHI scandal broke the Executive, will the long-term health scandal remake it? Northern Ireland’s health service is facing a potential overspend of more than £300m this year – which will worsen already unacceptable hospital waiting lists, a former Northern Ireland …

At last! The British and Irish governments have produced an agreed plan to put to the Assembly parties from Monday 3 April

Brian Walker on April 2, 2017, 2:47 pm

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Not before time, a detailed talks plan agreed between the two governments has been presented to the Assembly parties and will form the basis of talks over a 10 day period beginning tomorrow. Brian Rowan, former security correspondent and Assembly candidate, has got sight of it and has summarised it in EamonnMallie.com As I’ve been arguing for weeks this is the essential move if the talks are to stand any chance of success. At worst it shifts part of any …

New powers for Stormont? That’ll get’em going!

Brian Walker on March 31, 2017, 3:52 pm

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James Brokenshire has solemnly warned that if Stormont is to receive new powers as result of Brexit, power sharing must be restored. This blatantly original statement puts him in line for a Nobel Peace Prize or a slot on Pointless. It’s just the sort of threat that will have them rushing to the conference table next Monday. It puts a small cart before a big horse that is out there somewhere roaming the range. Who cares about powers when what …

Assembly election an opportunity to realign priorities for Northern Ireland

Soapbox on March 1, 2017, 10:55 am

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As we stand in the voting booth on the 2nd of March, can we really vote believing that the current system has fundamentally made a positive impact on the amount of money we have left in our pockets at the end of every week? Can we support a system that prioritises flying a flag over feeding a family? Can we truly believe a language act will increase employability skills to ensure the next generation are better equipped to generate and …

Sounds familiar? England’s own cash for ash

Brian Walker on February 23, 2017, 9:39 am

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From the Times today (£) £450m lost over failed green power programme Minister who backed plan now works in sector Britain is wasting hundreds of millions of pounds subsidising power stations to burn American wood pellets that do more harm to the climate than the coal they replaced, a study has found. Chopping down trees and transporting wood across the Atlantic Ocean to feed power stations produces more greenhouse gases than much cheaper coal, according to the report. It blames …

Tony Blair has made the case for a rethink on Brexit and Northern Ireland will need a new financial deal. Is anybody listening?

Brian Walker on February 17, 2017, 6:01 pm

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Hurtling at us like a comet but unnoticed by the local worthies is the prospect for repatriating powers direct from Brussels to Stormont, Holyrood and Cardiff Bay. Among them are powers over agriculture and energy, which in Ireland are linked or integrated north and south. How they’ll be divvied up is hasn’t even been examined. The British government retain a substantial interest in these areas where powers currently rest with Brussels as it negotiates new trading arrangements to replace membership …

Theresa May’s week of shuttle diplomacy produced only gloom in Dublin

Brian Walker on February 4, 2017, 9:20 am

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At the end of a week the when Theresa May touched down in Dublin again, the Irish Times is deep gloom. Noel Whelan’s pessimism is not placated by May including Dublin in a transcontinental shuttle that began in Washington, touched down in Ankara and Cardiff and ended up in Valetta. She can’t have meant business if she only had James Brokenshire with her, he snorted. It seems a bit ungracious to dismiss her visit, the second, in which she accorded …

The splits over Brexit in the election campaign distract from bigger realities. As usual

Brian Walker on February 1, 2017, 10:18 am

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So no news in the fact that the DUP and Sinn Fein remain at odds over Brexit. Sinn Fein’s new Northern leader Michelle O’Neill rejects Theresa May’s assurances on an open *frictionless?” border. Mrs O’Neill said: “What we are very sure of is the implications of a hard Brexit are going to mean a hard border – a soft border is a nonsense. Nigel Dodds dismisses this as hot air, adding a twist by reminding the UK government that moving …

Theresa May holds the initiative as she makes promises on an open border

Brian Walker on January 31, 2017, 11:37 am

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While the world is transfixed by Trump, we made a little quiet progress on the interlinked politics of Brexit and the future of the Assembly. What did we get from Theresa May’s immersion in the generally anti-Brexit atmosphere of the joint ministerial committee and a summit with Enda Kenny? A warm gesture of commitment, that’s what, riding above the divisions which leave her unfazed for now and rather more than we might have expected, in the form of an article …

Ireland must seek EU permission to make a draft bilateral deal with Britain

Brian Walker on January 18, 2017, 11:15 am

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Dublin reaction to Theresa May’s big Brexit speech is understandably cautious verging on the sceptical. Is more substantial content to be expected when Theresa meets Enda in Dublin next week, no doubt to discuss her hopes that an open-ish border can be achieved through “frictionless “ trading monitored digitally and immigration rules enforced mainly through national insurance and taxation rather than entry points? Probably not, even though the promptness of the visit after the speech is welcome and she has …

Theresa May’s aim of free trade with the EU outside the single market is the way to avoid a hard border. The Irish should start lobbying their EU partners now.

Brian Walker on January 17, 2017, 5:30 pm

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We will put our precious Union at the heart of what we do.. We will strengthen our relationship between the four nations of the UK.. I hope for the same spirit of unity, especially in Northern Ireland and that the parties will establish a new relationship as soon as possible.. The devolved administrations will be fully engaged (in the Brexit process). That is why we have set up a joint ministerial committee.. We have received papers from Scotland and …

Is greater Sinn Fein militancy the right answer to wider voter disillusionment?

Brian Walker on January 16, 2017, 10:29 am

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Chris Donnelly’s analysis of Sinn Fein’s position in the Irish News is welcome as an all- too rare piece of criticism from an independent-minded sympathiser. The DUP would do well to emulate it. But self- criticism has a long way to go. The hope must be that behind the scenes amid the bluster of an election campaign, it will continue and produce realistic positions in the end. Chris does not go far as to say that the party has reached …

How will Ireland square the circle of close relations with Brexit Britain and continuing loyalty to the EU?

Brian Walker on January 15, 2017, 8:10 pm

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An Irish government official said to me a few weeks ago: “ we’re with the other guys now.” That arresting comment meant that Ireland was making a necessary shift further away from Britain and towards the continuing relationship with the EU. A binary choice is in prospect, goes the argument, depending on the Brexit outcomes. There was a certain amount of whistling bravado in the remark – perhaps belied by the Irish government’s intense efforts with its continuing EU partners …

“Now, it’s probably going to be a difficult argument with the Treasury at the minute…”

Pete Baker on January 11, 2017, 3:13 pm

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Interesting, short, snippet from the BBC on that perennial favourite, and long promised, corporation tax cut. From the BBC’s news in brief. Northern Ireland’s corporation tax rate is due to drop to 12.5% from April 2018 – but the RHI crisis calls this into question. “That legislation can only happen if the Treasury gives the green light,” said BBC News NI Economics Editor John Campbell. “What’s called a commencement’s clause. “Basically, the Treasury has to say, “we’ve looked at Northern …

SNP pressure to stay in the single market boosts the UK case. Why not champion these ideas for Northern Ireland?

Brian Walker on December 21, 2016, 11:36 am

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Nicola Sturgeon herself admits there are challenges in the SNP’s proposals to keep Scotland within the single market if the rest of the UK is without. The generous view of the paper Scotland’s Place in Europe is that at least it sets out a position, which is more than the than the UK government has done so far. Witness Theresa May’s stonewalling performance before the Commons Liaison Committee yesterday and the Guardian’s sketch of it. Furthermore the Scottish case could …

Genuine power sharing with Sinn Fein would have averted the RHI mini-crisis

Brian Walker on December 18, 2016, 2:13 pm

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Did the BBC snatch or stage Jonathan Bell’s prayer before his confessional trial before Nolan? Either way it resembled nothing more than a man having his head laid on the block and making peace with his Maker before execution (and I don’t mean Nolan). While the mawkishness of the prayerful moment recalls the early Paisley playing the martyr before or after some act of provocation, Bell’s evoking of the DUP’s spiritual origins is unlikely to save him. He is now …

FT recommends staying in the customs union to help solve the Irish problem

Brian Walker on December 14, 2016, 8:34 am

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Irish Finance minister Michael Noonan was too hasty in slapping down “a special deal on the side ” between the UK and Ireland in response to the report on Ireland and Brexit from the Lords EU committee. He spoke even as it was admitted that Ireland would probably be worse affected than Britain. This is no time to reject any well-intentioned idea for resolving what is probably the single most difficult problem of Brexit. The committee was also right to …

Brexit requires a special deal for Ireland say the Lords, and the Executive cannot stay aloof. That means you, Arlene

Brian Walker on December 12, 2016, 3:51 pm

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In the first of six reports on Brexit the House of Lords committee on the EU recommend that the British and Irish governments should negotiate a new bilateral agreement to minimise the impact of Brexit on British-Irish and North-South relations. This will be welcomed as the first serious attempt by British legislators to cut through the thicket of thorny problems particular to both parts of Ireland. As the Guardian reports, the Lords EU Committee “touches lightly” on the Good Friday agreement. It …

“It is not just Stormont that has a Social Investment Fund.”

Pete Baker on December 11, 2016, 4:50 pm

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Newton Emerson in yesterday’s Irish News with some details on the other, less talked about, ‘social investment’ funds out there. From the Irish News IT is not just Stormont that has a Social Investment Fund. Belfast City Council runs the Belfast Investment Fund and associated Local Investment Fund, with a combined pot of £31 million over three years for ‘community projects’. Alliance has claimed the council funds “aren’t advertised properly in any meaningful way”, leaving “those in the know in prime position to …