NI Executive – Page 13 – Slugger O'Toole

“The first and deputy first ministers held a private meeting with the prime minister in London..”

Pete Baker on November 7, 2015, 12:31 am

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Back to political reality, because some recent posts have been less than relevant. No names, no pack drill. ANYhoo… As the BBC reports, following the Northern Ireland Secretary of State’s declaration that, “I think it is possible that we could have a deal next week“, the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers, the DUP’s Peter Robinson and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, met with the Prime Minister in Downing Street today on Friday 6 November. The BBC reports that There is …

Martin McGuinness: “…it is not conducive to getting a good outcome.”

Pete Baker on October 28, 2015, 4:29 pm

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Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness doesn’t appear to have had much to say today about the behind-closed-doors talks at Stormont – apart from telling the BBC’s Chris Page The timeframe for a deal in Stormont’s inter-party talks is “days, not weeks”, the deputy first minister has said. Martin McGuinness said he believed a deal was “achievable” and that the talks process was “intensifying”. Still, it’s good to see Sinn Féin on the same page as the Prime Minister, David Cameron, at …

NI Commissioner for Public Appointments: “We just do not have diverse representation on our public boards.”

Pete Baker on October 19, 2015, 4:39 pm

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The new Commissioner for Public Appointments in Northern Ireland, Judena Leslie, made her first media appearance on BBC NI’s The View last week. And she began where her predecessor left off, criticising the lack of diversity in those public appointments. From the BBC report Northern Ireland has about 1,400 public appointments, ranging from unpaid boards of further education colleges to many high profile paid positions. Women, ethnic minorities and people with a disability are all under-represented on public bodies. Thirty-three …

Stormont deal now looking likely

Brian Walker on October 12, 2015, 10:27 am

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Very gradually, the language surrounding the political talks is changing from negative to cautiously constructive, as Noel McAdam’s report shows .. In the strongest indication the party could return to the Executive, Mrs Foster has said the DUP will respond “positively” to positive developments during the inter-party talks on IRA activity and welfare reform. There may be sticking points over dealing with the past but these are not political deal breakers. Newton Emerson in the Irish News and at length …

On the political future, the answers are available and lie mainly with ourselves

Brian Walker on October 3, 2015, 1:50 pm

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Yelps of alarm are appearing in the papers as the political talks are poised to enter a third week without signs of resolution. Depression seems to be the order the day. Theresa Villiers reports a big gap remaining between the parties . Jim Downey in the Indo depicts a chronic low intensity crisis which the Republic has ignored and over which it has little leverage More or less quiet”? If you look closely, you can see that the place isn’t …

Well Eamonn, those are your doubts about the latest legacy proposals, but what would you do differently?

Brian Walker on October 1, 2015, 10:59 am

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In the Irish Times Eamonn McCann is sceptical about the proposed Stormont House Agreement Bill’s ability to deal with the past. At Westminster on October 12th, Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers will introduce legislation on dealing with the past. But the chances of it working are very small. Even handedly, he shares fears that both the Bloody Sunday police investigations involving the army, and the information given under immunity on the Disappeared involving the IRA, will finally and quietly result in …

For the AssembIy solution, it’s the Stormont House agenda, stupid!

Brian Walker on September 27, 2015, 2:30 pm

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Amid all the sterile political sparring, the most significant development in the Assembly stand- off has been the one that has been almost totally ignored – the UK governments’ publication of a summary of measures which would form the basis of a Northern Ireland (Stormont House Agreement ) Bill to be included in the Queens Speech at the beginning of the Westminster session. With the addition of the paramilitary monitoring review , the summary confirms the obvious fact that the …

Culture of ignoring the law and disorder is the real block to peace

Mick Fealty on September 18, 2015, 5:14 pm

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LAW AND DISORDER: Gerry Adams wants no preconditions going into these talks next week. But as Warren Little points out we do need to talk about a more general problem of tolerance for organised crime.

Gerry Adams: “Even if I’m wrong [about the continued existence of the Provisional IRA…]”

Pete Baker on September 14, 2015, 7:16 pm

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PROVISIONALS APPEAR THEN DISAPPEAR: It’s not the Provisional IRA structures that are the immediate cause for concern. It’s the involvement of those ‘structures’ in the events leading up to, and including, the murder of Kevin McGuigan, and the continued denials which have followed.

Nearly two decades of sectarian politics have produced increasing indifference to politics, which is progress of a kind. Age, education and income are now the great dividing lines.

Brian Walker on September 10, 2015, 10:34 am

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The Guardian’s Henry McDonald reports an advance of the findings of a complex opinion survey carried out by Social Market Research Belfast for four universities and coordinated by a team including Professor Peter Shirlow, now at Liverpool. In common with the NI Life and Times opinion surveys the poll confirms a much more complex state of public opinion than a straight standoff between unionist and nationalist or a hardening of attitudes between them. A huge amount of political agnosticism is …

Are you impressed with the latest Assembly moves?

Brian Walker on September 9, 2015, 2:47 pm

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Gaming in the Assembly crisis reaches new heights ( or depths) with the DUP delivering an undisclosed ultimatum to the secretary of state and the Ulster Unionists implementing their own ultimatum by refusing to take part in talks on the basis of the Stormont House Agreement, even though Mike Nesbitt’s way out of one part of the impasse is through the same Stormont House Agreement. Meanwhile Sinn Fein postures above the fray as yet another old warrior enters the frame. …

Who is responsible and what’s at stake in the Assembly standoff

Brian Walker on September 3, 2015, 12:00 pm

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David McKittrick emerges from retirement to pass a magisterial verdict on the Assembly in the Newsletter, while the paper has just run a long and fascinating interview with David Trimble by Alex Kane. His view of the history since 1998 is not a million miles from the familiar saying that Sinn Fein were clever enough to play their weaknesses to advantage while unionists were too stupid and bigoted to realise that they’d won. Presumably recorded before the latest developments in …

“Those who the police believe ordered and implemented the murder of Kevin McGuigan are mainstream not mavericks.”

Pete Baker on September 2, 2015, 1:42 am

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Via Newshound. And for the, apparently, hard of understanding. Suzanne Breen hones in on the important detail at the heart of the current political kerfuffle. From Suzanne Breen in the Sunday Life The North has plunged into a political crisis, the Stormont institutions are on the brink of collapse, and unionist and nationalist politicians are bickering as though the peace process never happened. It may be argued that the events leading to this chaos matter not a jot to people in the Republic. IRA …

Sinn Fein’s self interest more than pressure over the IRA, will keep the Assembly in being

Brian Walker on August 30, 2015, 12:48 pm

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So the pressure is mounting on Sinn Fein North and South to do – what exactly? Agree to accept or at least put up with a revival of the International Monitoring Commission and dissociate themselves from the IRA? This would require a new political calculus all round. Still, the Irish government may have made a move in that direction. Will the British follow? The Sunday Times (£) reports a revival of pressure in the Shinners over the IRA’s ill gotten …

Closer engagement not boycott, is the route out of crisis for the Northern Ireland Assembly

Brian Walker on August 29, 2015, 2:48 pm

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Is Jeffrey Donaldson MP offering a way out of “ crisis?” He said it would be a different situation if Sinn Féin “came clean” and said murder had been carried out by members of the Provisional IRA and said they would work to rectify the situation. He said the Sinn Féin leadership needed to “recognise they have a problem” and then work could begin to solve the crisis. The IMC issued its final report in February 2011 and Mr Donaldson …

“The real story is not the existence of some skeleton structure, but the sound of gunfire…”

Pete Baker on August 27, 2015, 3:02 pm

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It’s not the still-extant Provisional IRA structures that are the immediate cause for concern, although “stupid” questions could, and should, be asked about their ultimate purpose, it’s the involvement of those Provisional IRA ‘structures’ in the events leading up to, and including, the murder of Kevin McGuigan, and the continued denials [of that reality! – Ed] which have followed. As I mentioned previously …a key element in the recent events under investigation, which I noted previously, [is] the Provisional IRA investigation into …

The collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly can be averted

Brian Walker on August 27, 2015, 10:51 am

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The Ulster Unionists appear to have succumbed to the revulsion many unionists feel at the very idea of sharing power with the spawn of the IRA that most of them have suppressed every day since 1998. The danger now is that they will set off a chain reaction and take the DUP with them. The DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson says the UUP’s move does nothing to support the DUP’s aim to exclude Sinn Fein from the Executive, even if this …

Tánaiste: “This is an insidious threat to Northern Ireland’s future as a healthy, stable democracy, and therefore a threat to the whole of this island.”

Pete Baker on August 25, 2015, 7:00 pm

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Brian’s weariness at another political crisis notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to dismiss reaction to recent events as a “kerfuffle”. There are legitimate concerns, and two men have been murdered. The Irish Justice Minister, Fine Gael’s Frances Fitzgerald, has asked the Garda Commissioner for a “fresh assessment” of Provisional IRA activities to take into account “what the PSNI have been learning about any PIRA structures as a result of [the rigorous investigation being carried out by the PSNI into the …

Threatening the existence of the Assembly is a victory for terrorism

Brian Walker on August 25, 2015, 1:38 pm

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Oh God, not another fundamental breakpoint founded on the highest principles, whether they’re about welfare or the IRA! Come on, get real. This kerfuffle over “IRA structures” will pass. For all their simulated outrage over the IRA or welfare, no politician – none of the leaders anyway – want to close Stormont down. Electoral politics are also in play on both sides of the border. We should discount it. No clear advantage can be gained by any party threatening to …

Villiers: “My understanding is, very much in line with that of the chief constable, that a number of the organisational structures of the Provisional IRA still exist…”

Pete Baker on August 24, 2015, 5:50 pm

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Sinn Féin continue with their policy of denial [of reality… – Ed], although Gerry Kelly has come closest to acknowledging that reality according to this RTÉ report Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Kelly said based on the political evidence over the past ten years, the IRA has not been active and therefore does not exist in the circumstances that people are talking about. Hmmm… Meanwhile, the governments continue to make excuses. From an Irish Independent report yesterday Earlier this year, in …