RPA – Slugger O'Toole

Local Government Bill back in the Assembly: will MLAs support a new voting method and social media use in meetings?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 1, 2014, 9:28 am | Readers 53

It may be April Fools Day, but MLAs are back in the Assembly debating 34 amendments (broken into four groups) to the Local Government Bill which reaches its Final Consideration Stage today. (115 amendments were considered over two days in the last round). The Local Government Bill is the main business in today’s plenary session with a two hour block from 10.30am to 12.30pm and then starting back at 3.30pm and continuing until everything has been debated and voted on. …

Did you hear the one about the politicians who didn’t want their photos taken? Local Government Bill (updated)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 18, 2014, 11:13 pm | Readers 61

MLAs have been starting to debate the Local Government Bill and six groups of amendments – totalling 115 – at today’s plenary session of the Assembly. A lot of worrying about photographs being taken of councillors with their eyes closed and being misconstrued as being asleep. Is this the first time in history that councillors have not wanted their picture taken? Update – amendment failed. A lot of worrying about the cost of audio equipment and staff time to record …

The fear of ‘them’: “They start a process of neutralisation” and then “they start imposing their Irish language [and] their Sinn Fein republican agenda onto everyone”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on October 20, 2013, 10:12 am | Readers 97

The UUP suffer from the same problem as their larger rival: there’s a tension between the leader’s more moderate language and the more traditional and hard line rhetoric of other elected representatives. Here’s a portion from Mike Nesbitt’s speech as party leader: [Mike Nesbitt] I say this to the pro-Union community: It is time to get on the front foot. Be confident. But be generous too. I am not the sort of Unionist who feels threatened by an Irish Tricolour. …

Ending co-terminosity

Nicholas Whyte on April 29, 2012, 5:19 pm | Readers 155

One of the less frequently used buzz-words in Northern Irish politics is “co-terminosity”, which is shorthand for the fact that members of the Northern Ireland Assembly are elected from constituencies with the same boundaries as those used for Westminster elections. It seems to me that co-terminosity has had its day, and if the long-postponed local government reforms come in, it would make a lot of sense to shift to a system where Assembly members are elected from constituencies which are …

All politics is local: links and open thread

John Ó Néill on April 25, 2011, 10:10 am | Readers 28

With a broad slate and geographically dispersed contests, it might be a great help if people highlight local battles worth watching in the council elections. I’ve linked all the councils and local electoral areas at the end of this post for ease of reference (it will be useful if people name the one they are putting a flag over in comments, obviously). Some of you might remember eleven in 11? Under the Review of Public Administration (RPA) there would now have been only eleven councils, so it is worth bearing in mind …

Three ballots on the same day

Paul Evans on October 15, 2010, 11:50 am | Readers 4

So despite Peter Robinson’s concerns that it will confuse voters if the ballot on voting reform, it seems that the AV Referendum will happen on the same day as both the Assembly Elections and the local council elections – 5th May 2011. Following the totally unpredictable SNAFU around local government reform, readers will recall that the plans to condense the current twenty six local authorities down to eleven super councils next year has meant that Councillors in NI have been …