NI Executive – Page 24 – Slugger O'Toole

“…involved in criminal activity of any sort within G District from July 1, 2010 to July 28, 2011”

Pete Baker on April 20, 2012, 2:53 pm

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Given the PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggot’s current concern about certain communities, and confidence, here’s a Londonderry Sentinel report that may be of relevance. It relates to an incident in the city in August 2010 which, at the time, was blamed on dissenting republicans. From the Sentinel report At the time locals said that around 20 masked men appeared in the Campion Court area having disembarked from a white van. They began to remove materials intended for use at a bonfire …

Lough Neagh: “It’s not for sale.”

Pete Baker on April 20, 2012, 1:44 pm

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The Northern Ireland Assembly may have picked up the curio Mick noted, and agreed to set up a working group “to explore and pursue actively the potential for a cross-departmental approach to bring Lough Neagh back into public ownership.” But, as the Belfast Telegraph reports, they failed to inform the current owner, Lord Shaftesbury, of their intentions In a statement yesterday, the 12th earl, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper (left), revealed that the decision of the Assembly on Tuesday was “unexpected”. The Shaftesbury estate said it …

OFMDFM: “We welcome our friendship with the Peoples Republic of China…”

Pete Baker on April 19, 2012, 1:15 pm

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In the Irish Times, David Adams takes issue with the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers’ “kowtowing last week to a visiting delegation from China”. On Slugger, Patrick focused on some of the propaganda aspects of the visit, and the OFMDFM press releases during the visit should probably be noted at that point. From the Irish Times article Yet one either believes in the inalienability and universality of fundamental rights, or one does not. It really is that simple. If the former is …

“in order to ensure the safety of the community and the officers responding…”

Pete Baker on April 8, 2012, 11:14 pm

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The BBC reports that the PSNI have defended the delay of over an hour before officers arrived at the scene of a car bomb alert in Newry on Saturday night. Unlike the security alert on Friday in the Newry area, this one was eventually declared a hoax. From the BBC report A hijacked taxi, containing a suspect device, was abandoned close to houses on Martins Lane on Saturday night. Residents used their own cars to block the road and tried …

Cross border education: lay out all the facts please

Brian Walker on April 5, 2012, 12:27 pm

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Is this form of cross border cooperation actually divisive? Contrast two stories about the SF led Education department’s plan for a survey of 50,000 “border families “ (i.e. families on both sides of the border) on the takeup of school places by children from the other side. Liam Clarke’s story records the objections of DUP’s Mervyn Storey, chair of the Assembly Education Committee, to SF minister John O’Dowd’s plan on the grounds that the minister “ has lost all sense of …

NI Justice Minister: “While this area will obviously require careful handling in Northern Ireland…”

Pete Baker on April 4, 2012, 4:34 pm

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Some Northern Ireland MPs have united in opposition to suggested proposals to extend the UK Government’s powers to monitor people’s phone, email and internet records. Some don’t appear to have an opinion… Although there does seem to be some dispute about the actual proposals themselves. Meanwhile, as the BBC report, the UK Government has actually consulted on other proposals to replace the public interest immunity [PII] system with an extended closed material procedures [CMP] in all civil cases, including inquests, involving evidence whose disclosure might harm the …

“This is part of the culture of Ireland”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2012, 7:00 pm

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Even though a group of 4 gold torcs were discovered near Stirling in 2009, they’re not that common. According to the BBC report, Dr Greer Ramsey from Armagh County Museum told Belfast coroner, John Leckey, that “10 torcs have been discovered in Ireland and 38 in Britain”. ANYhoo… the coroner has ruled that a [IIRC] 47 37 inch long flange-twisted gold torc, found in a bog in County Fermanagh, is an item of treasure. And, as we know, “strange things happen in the bog“. From the BBC report It …

“The intention is to appoint a single commissioner…”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2012, 12:43 pm

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Apparently the Northern Ireland Executive OFMDFM are advertising for a single Victims Commissioner to replace the four three current encumbents. According to the UTV report The decision to reduce the number of commissioners is understood to have been prompted by the accomplishments of the previously appointed three. Bertha McDougall, Patricia MacBride and Brendan McAllister – who leave the £65,000 posts in May – are believed to have accomplished so much in establishing initial contact with victims that their workload can …

Chief Constable on NI Media: “they are part of the confidence-building…”

Pete Baker on March 28, 2012, 7:53 pm

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The PSNI Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, has been speaking to the Leveson Inquiry about the Northern Ireland media. From the BBC report Mr Baggott said: “The local media in Northern Ireland have an absolute commitment to the future of the province. “They have a stake in it. And they are part of the confidence-building and they have an ownership of the issues.” Mr Baggott said the local media also understood the consequences of the way something was reported, and the consequences …

“Ministers agreed that it was appropriate and necessary for the Executive to set the tone and provide leadership”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 20, 2012, 10:00 am

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The Executive has decided to take the lead role in organising events for the forthcoming Decade of Commemorations. (Thursday, 15 March 2012) The political, social and cultural consequences of what happened during the decade of 1912 -1922 reverberate throughout Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to this day. So starts a statement from the NI Executive. A mere fortnight before the centenary of the Titanic’s sinking, you’d think that the decade of commemorations had snuck up on the NI …

“I am determined to develop a response which fully matches our responsibility under the Habitats Directive…”

Pete Baker on March 15, 2012, 10:07 pm

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With the Northern Ireland Fisheries Minster, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, displaying Helleresque logic in her efforts to avoid European Commission fines over the Executive’s failure to act to conserve atlantic salmon stocks, BBC NI’s environment correspondent, Mike McKimm, has an update on the NI Executive’s continuing inaction over environmental vandalism at Strangford Lough – a designated Special Area of Conservation, an Area of Special Scientific Interest and a Ramsar (protected wetland) site. From the BBC report Unless the departments can persuade the European Commission otherwise, they …

“I have decided to issue licences to those netsmen who have provided undertakings to the Department not to fish…”

Pete Baker on March 13, 2012, 5:15 pm

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Evidently all those 161 publicly funded press officers were busy elsewhere… No press release to accompany the Northern Ireland Fisheries Minster Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín’s statement to the NI Assembly yesterday. It was an update on departmental salmon conservation measures and, in particular, the Minister’s latest position on the issuing of commercial licences to net salmon. Here’s what the Minister told the NI Assembly In conjunction with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), conservation limits have been established for a suite of …

“This has been custom and practice, I have just put it in writing.”

Pete Baker on March 13, 2012, 3:14 pm

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Apparently, 161 publicly-funded press officers are not sufficient to keep Northern Ireland’s troublesome press pack in check… The Belfast Telegraph has gotten hold of a “confidential memo” [not yet online] from the NI Minister of Culture, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, to the various arms-length bodies (ALBs) within the department’s remit setting out “a proposed media communications protocol”. From the BBC report DCAL said the objective was to promote best practice in communication and to ensure that the media and the public were …

Learn from the English experience in secondary schools

Brian Walker on February 15, 2012, 11:03 am

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Interested parties would do well to examine battles over secondary school admission in England. The Northern Ireland debate, such as it is, is locked in parochialism and stand- off. Unwisely it seems to steer clear of the English experience – on political grounds?- even though we have broadly the same schools system. The major difference is that in England, academic selection is prohibited in most areas but admissions policy still can be just as controversial. English secondary education, the argument …

“all schools in the Catholic sector should move to an alternative form of transfer as soon as possible and by no later than 2012…”

Pete Baker on February 13, 2012, 11:12 pm

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Six years in the writing, the Northern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education (NICCE) has published its Post-Primary Review Strategic Regional Report. It’s a mixture of proposals of limited school closures, amalgamations… and wishful thinking. As the BBC reports, Catholic Church representatives have been focusing on one issue in particular. Cardinal Brady was speaking at St Mary’s College in Belfast when he criticised continuing academic selection by schools. “It is totally unacceptable that some Catholic schools are, in effect, becoming all ability …

Lord Chief Justice: “it is difficult to regard the remarks as anything other than undermining and unhelpful to the administration of justice in Northern Ireland”

Pete Baker on January 26, 2012, 4:53 pm

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Apparently, I haven’t read it, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, MP for Neath, devotes two pages of his recently published memoirs to an attack on Lord Justice Girvan. More specifically, an attack on the then Mr Justice Girvan for his 2006 High Court ruling that Peter Hain “acted for an improper motive” when appointing Bertha McDougall Interim Victims Commissioner and was “in breach of the Ministerial Code of Practice” and that the then Secretary of State “approve[d] …

Strangford Lough: “It is not as if the two departments did not know what needed to be done.”

Pete Baker on January 24, 2012, 3:42 pm

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It’s worth stating at the beginning that the European Commission haven’t, yet, imposed a fine for the Northern Ireland Executive’s failure to protect and restore a special habitat, of [protected species] horse mussel beds, in Strangford Lough – a designated Special Area of Conservation, an Area of Special Scientific Interest and a Ramsar (protected wetland) site. But, BBC NI environment correspondent, Mike McKimm’s latest report suggests it won’t be long coming… Agriculture implement fishing regulations and controls in Strangford Lough. Environment tries to …

“local communities need help – particularly funding and local political leadership”

Pete Baker on January 22, 2012, 3:25 pm

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In June last year The Detail’s John Breslin was asking questions of the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), and the “significant amount of money under its control, or on the way, that has not yet been either allocated, or is in the hands of, particular projects.” On Thursday last week the IFI announced a Peace Walls Programme with an initial allocation of £2million, and invited “expressions of interest from community organisations for financial assistance”. According to the IFI press release Dr Denis Rooney CBE, Chairman …

Reducing the number of departments by one and missing the opportunity to meet manifesto commitments

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on January 12, 2012, 9:00 am

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Peter Robinson told me at the end of March that: I have a well worn copy of the manifesto because I keep it in front of me and I keep looking to see what else we have to do and we have to accomplish. Like many other local party leaders, this week’s settlement on the number of departments and method of selection of the Justice minster won’t require any pencil ticks to be made on the pages of Peter Robinson’s …

Martin McGuinness: “This decision is a very decisive decision…”

Pete Baker on January 11, 2012, 3:16 pm

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…and not at all another fudge to keep the Department of Justice upright while they re-apply the same sticking plaster as last time. And as TUV leader Jim Allister said, “The Committee, of course, will lend itself to that farce.” According to the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness Mr McGuinness said the office of the first and deputy first minister was committed to tackling “the size of the assembly and the number of departments”. “The whole issue of d’Hondt will …