Great wee
place...
NORN Iron is on the up, from a
feel good factor experienced by the thousands of police officers from across
the UK enjoying our fine weather through to an anticipated 300,000 people descending on Derry~Londonderry for
Fleadh in August.
This great wee place hosted a G8 Summit that was notable not for its lack of a solution to the Syrian crisis, but rather for the absence of petrol bomb wielding protestors.
Add into that the global exposure
of a huffing Putin, an eloquent Obama and Cameron plunging into the waters of
Lough Erne...
Following on from prime minister
Shinzo Abe’s visit to Titanic Belfast, there was also the announcement that
Japanese company Terumo BCT was to create 416 new jobs at its medical
device factory in Larne. Parts of the east Antrim town, like 80’s New Wave
punk band The Vapours, may have to think about ‘Turning Japanese’…
The Orange Order is even playing
its part in Derry’s city of culture programme by holding a major part of its
Twelfth of July celebrations in the city with senior figures in the ‘Order’
from across the UK attending.
With Gillian Anderson (she of
X-Files fame) starring in our very own home grown crime drama, The Fall, Game
of Thrones set to a return for Season Four, and a new Dracula movie to be filmed
here, all seems well.
Such is the positive mood that
assistant chief constable Alastair Finlay was moved to say there wasn’t “any
reason why we will have a difficult marching season".
Which is all fair comment.
But then the numpties, head
cases, bampots and their associates from all sides of the so-called divide are
often determined to make a fuss; some of that fuss usually ends up in upset and
sporadic civil disorder (that’s rioting to you and me).
This means it imperative for our
political leaders to be circumspect and considered when opening their traps
claiming this, that and the other.
And, our media should impose a
broadcast and print ban on politicians and their ilk during the ‘marching
season’. Drastic? Well we might at least get some relief from the blame game,
ACC Finlay might get his wish for avoiding a ‘difficult’ marching season and we
will all remember that this really is ‘a great wee place’.
Is this
privatisation by the back door?
EDWIN Poots, minister of health
and other stuff, has been accused by his chief tormentor, the SDLP’s Conall
McDevitt, of trying to privatise our ‘beloved’ health service.
In the latest round of bashing
and counter-bashing, it emerged that Mr Poots went against the recommendations
of his officials and issued a ministerial order that two new health centres
(one in his own Lagan Valley constituency) were to be built using private cash.
This is not the first time that
the minister has been accused of ‘privatisation through the back door’.
However, it all raises the issue
on how to pay for our population’s health needs. The health ‘service’ has been
a victim of its own success. People have developed the exceedingly bad habit of
living longer – aided and abetted by the medical profession.
More diseases are manageable,
cancer treatments extend life, and pensioners are living in their own homes.
This cannot continue. Otherwise
the public purse will be stretched beyond what the NI executive can convince
Westminster to fund.
T
here are two possible solutions.
One – cut a NI executive
department or three to release funds. Yes, we know that this will mean some
senior civil servants retiring early but they all need to brush up on their
golf.
Two – stop hospital bed blocking
through more community based healthcare as proposed by health board chief
John Compton.
Savings here will at least mean
we’ll be able to afford the repayments on our two shiny new health centres.