Swine flu

With as yet only one confirmed case of swine flu in Northern Ireland but fears over more in the autumn we’ve finally figured it out…the end is nigh!

First there was mad cow disease.

Then came avian flu

Now it’s swine flu.

We’re facing farmageddon!

Quick, someone tell agriculture minister Michelle Gildernew!

Shuffle time!

The DUP, Sinn Féin and SDLP have all been talking about shuffling ministers, ending double mandates and making sure that representatives aren’t holding posts as MLA, MP, councillor and so on.

While political pundits have been expending time deciding who will stay and who will go, party officials across the country are hoping that shuffling doesn’t mean re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic!

What it may mean though is that all Northern Ireland parties, especially the DUP and Sinn Féin, will have to bring to the fore untried and untested candidates for the next Assembly election in 2011. Now that could prove interesting!

And finally…

Usually this is the point when news bulletins and political commentaries end on a pithy note; a quip or unusual story to raise a smile.

But, the headline here is more important.

We sincerely hope, but fearfully doubt, that the senseless, stupid and unnecessary murder of Kevin McDaid in Coleraine will finally shake the population to decide that sectarianism is a waste of time and a waste of life.

Sure, the politicians were unanimous in condemnation, as they were over the recent murders of the two soldiers and a police officer.

All sides would do well to remember that when any of us are cut we bleed red. When any of us are bruised the marks are black and blue. When our bones are broken the cracks do not sound like party tunes or rebel songs. When our children are born they don’t bawl out chants of ancient division. When we take pleasure in our families, or mourn a passing, we do so in basically the same way.

And finally, we are the same. Genetics, DNA, hereditary traits, bodily components…these are all made the same.

Politics is the art of making real the desires and wishes of the populace. It is the art of the achievable. It is the art of compromise. It is the art of striving to achieve an end.

Those that hail sectarianism and peddle paranoia towards the ‘other side’ will never understand that in the end we will all face the same fate.

There is no victory in death. There is no victory in murder.

Only in peace can we understand that victory is never as important as taking part in a process to enable and support each and every citizen without exception, without exclusion.

The killers will never understand the dignity and compassion of Mrs McDaid or the widow of Constable Stephen Carroll. That is because they have neither dignity nor compassion.

And finally, when they realise this defect in their make up, the killing may come to an end.

Patient Body Meets In Public...

THIS week board members of the Patient and Client Council (PPC) met in Derry’s Millennium Forum. The new Health and Social Care body is one of four established by the Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey, on 1 April.

PPC board meetings are open to the public.

According to the PCC’s website it exists ‘to represent the interests of the public by engaging with the public to obtain their views on services’ and to ‘promote the involvement of patients, clients, carers and the public in the design, planning, commissioning and delivery of health and social care’. You would therefore have expected the public gallery to be packed to the rafters with interested spectators…unfortunately this wasn’t the case. With members of the public numbering one, the meeting continued.

The proceedings finished slightly earlier than expected, as the venue had inadvertently been double booked. With a large group of 4 year old girls in pink tutus clamouring at the door, PCC chair John Keanie was forced to bring proceedings to a close. One can only assume that the girls were there for their weekly dance lessons and hadn’t turned up a couple of hours late for the meeting!

Should I stay or should I go…

IN the words of the song by The Clash “if I go there will be trouble, if I stay it will be double”. Such is the dilemma facing the double jobbing DUP MLAs, after party boss Peter Robinson declared that the double mandate members will have to choose.

Stark choices face the honourable members of the House of Commons, with Peter promising a summer re-shuffle of his executive party colleagues and committee chairmen (and woman that is his Parliamentary companion and wife…).

The basic equation goes: £64,000 a year salary as an MP or £43,000 as an MLA. Plus of course, expenses for offices, etc.

But it would be churlish – and in fairness probably wrong – to say that any of our politicians would be make a choice based on money.

Instead we have a proposal that would change the faces at the top table at Stormont, strengthen the DUP’s representation at Westminster (the MPs would be able to go to the Commons more than two days a week) and new blood could be introduced.

And only the most cynical of observers would say that the announcement from the First Minister comes as a result of an impending report to Parliament that is expected to condemn double jobbing.

Civil war in North Down

THE leafy glades of North Down have turned into a bloody political battleground of local politics. The tranquil avenues of Cultra and Helen’s Bay (not to mention Bangor West) have reverberated with a veritable shouting match.

First we had Lady Sylvia’s “Tory? Not !” statements, followed quickly by the Sunday Life’s revelation that Ulster Unionist Councillor Diane Peacock hadn’t been attending council meetings too often. Then came the decision of the UUP association chairman in North Down, Mark Brook, to quit his party for the DUP.

Some might have seen North Down as potentially a target for the Conservatives in the forthcoming Westminster election. With it’s higher than average property values, lower than average unemployment rates and sheer numbers of Mercedes Benz and BMW’s on the roads, it could be transplanted directly from middle England.

But with the political civil war in full flow it was a wise move by Conservative leader David Cameron to avoid Cultra and its environs when he visited Northern Ireland earlier in the week. Portadown and Ballymena must have seemed a safer bet.

Does the pupil have a note to explain their absence?

THERE was a furore when the Irish News reported that Education Minister Catriona Ruane had taken her daughter out of school for 3 days so she could join her mother on a visit to Cyprus.

It has to be the ultimate absence note – one signed by the Education Minister. After all, if your school really, really wants an impromptu inspection then it would be a brave principal that would pick up the phone to ask the Catriona Ruane to explain why their offspring was off during term time.

Ruane’s stout defence of a parent’s right to absent their child from class rang hollow for some. There must come a point where the media considers the implications for the child. One can only imagine the reaction of her daughter’s classmates to the story, which received widespread coverage in the local press.

And, one can only imagine the reaction of the Minister when news broke that the Irish Government announced that it was not continuing to jointly fund the Middletown Autism Centre of Excellence in Armagh.

Beleaguered Ruane insisted that it would not be the end of the centre. But one has to wonder what it heralds in terms of funding from the Republic.

The €400 million promised by the Irish Government for infrastructure developments in the north (better roads to you and me) could also be at serious risk, given the perilous state of public sector finances south of the border.

And, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board is reporting a 26 per cent increase in visitors from the Republic, and a shopping centre in Banbridge reporting a 20 per cent increase in sales thanks to southern shoppers.

It would be a brave member of the Dáil who would recommend better roads to take the euros across the border.

Catalonia visit

ROOM 144 at Parliament Buildings was unusually quiet on Wednesday afternoon. Normally buzzing with debate and rancour as the Committee of the First Minister and deputy First Minister holds forth on the many topics that come within its remit, this week silence descended on the room.

No, members had not fallen asleep – instead they were off to Spain. Or, more precisely Catalonia to find out how the devolved Catalonian assembly managed to work as a region of Spain within the EU.

Important stuff no doubt. But given the expenses fiasco could they not have simply sent an email, written a letter, picked up the phone?

Average temperature in Barcelona on Friday was 24 degrees Celsius. The average temperature in Belfast on Friday was 16 degrees celsius. Nah, that email idea just wouldn’t have worked.

Better to meet face-to-face in Catalonia.

Election around the corner

JUST a couple of weeks to go and the European poll will take place amidst a backdrop of limited understanding as to what Europe does for NI, now that the Troubles has ceased to be a reason for Brussels to dole out dosh to it.

Of course, a sensible answer would be to point out how European administrators have helped rein in greedy phone companies excessive charging for cross-border roaming; how Europe has enacted important environmental controls; or even that many laws administered locally are interpretations of what has already been set by Europe.

But the truth of the matter is that the real reason for a European poll is that we can all indulge in a sectarian headcount. And then we can all mull over the battles within the Unionist camp, judge whether the old guard has retained its status, and see just how many first preference votes Sinn Féin grabs.

Then we can let Europe get along its merry way and do all the stuff we don’t need to know about but affects our lives each and every day.

Have you filled out your expenses form?

SOMETIMES satirising public representatives can be like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. Usually it is because some of our local politicians only open their mouths to change feet.

This week…well the pen proves to be mightier than the sword. That is the pen that fills in the expense forms.