We’re all doomed: Chapter 42

ONE suspects that there is a secret plan to have the dark clouds of despair gathered ready to descend, before Finance Ministers and the Chancellor emerge in October to tell us all it isn’t as bad as we thought.

Once again, this week the men with the calculators and their Ministerial masters met in London to discuss budge cuts ahead of the October Spending Review.

And once again Minister for Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson reminded us of the cuts we’re to face and the fact that there may be a lot more in coming years.

This constant repetition of the message of doom is beginning to grate on the nerves. Does Sammy – and his partners across the land – need to constantly remind us of the situation lest we forget for a moment?

Or is this all about softening us up for the introduction of water charges with the implicit message that if we pay more bills we won’t have as many cuts….

Will we see the DUP ministerial team force through a plan which will see householders pay more to government for a service (sounds like a tax…) which will be used to make sure some public services are protected…

We eagerly await the conclusion to this “We’re All Doomed” story to be entitled: “The Blame Game – it wasn’t us what done it guvnor, but you’ll pick up the tab anyways”.

UK City of Culchies…sorry Culture

CONGRATUVERYMUCHWELLDONEHEY to Stroke City – living proof that several hundreds years of fighting, bickering, sieges, riots, and crimes against language and fashion can have an endgame after all.

We raise a glass to the Maiden City, and wish each and every resident the very best as they get down to preparations as the City of Culture 2013.

And we’ve figured out where the several hundred jobs that are to emerge are to come from: employing translators to help clarify what residents of Stroke City are saying when commenting on each and every aspect of what culture means on the banks of the Foyle.

All hail the museum!

MUSEUMS are dusty, dimly lit halls of learning, masquerading as public facilities, right? Wrong! The Ulster Museum scooped a major prize this week.

And the man who wanted to re-write the rules on museums was quick to praise the award. Yes, Nelson McCausland, who wanted creationists exhibits and more on Ulster Scots said a big well-done.

With Richard Dawkins, scientist, author and arch-defender of evolution in town filming for a TV programme, the museum could have topped it all off with a debate: Nelson meets Richard: Who gets the last word?

We suspect that the museum wouldn’t want its excellent reputation ruined...but whether it was the geneticist or the politician who would take the blame remains a matter depending on much cogitation and rumination amongst the political classes. Well they have to have something to do now they’ve got a few weeks holidays!

Politics – it can be complicated!

IN case anyone thought that politics was a simple thing they had that notion disabused this week, with MPs who don’t sit getting challenged about getting money for not sitting, and unionists getting all confused about sitting or not sitting together.

In brief, Sinn Féin get expenses for being MPs, which the unionists don’t really like and had a wee rant about it in Westminster. Sinn Féin appear to be hard-pushed to explain how they represent constituents when they travel close to, but not into Westminster (apparently something to do with history...) Confusingly one republican MP said that they needed these expenses to represent the constituents that voted for them...and here’s us thinking that MPs were meant to represent all their constituents and not just those that put the ‘x’ in the “right” box.

Meanwhile, the UUP are having a ‘will we or won’t we’ moment over so-called unionist unity. Some members are saying: oh yes please. Others are saying: oh no thanks.

Some say that a united unionist proposition would stop Martin McGuinness’ ascent to the heady heights of First Minister. Others say, hogwash, an amorphous mass of unionists under one banner is just that a mass that ends up a mess.

Anyone willing to suggest ways of addressing these problematical concerns is urged by us to write the solution on the back of a postcard and send it to someone who will listen...and right now no-one is listening to anyone else. Situation normal then...

Being educated in education

THIS week politics in Northern Ireland has been dominated – and not for the first time – by the multi-faceted complexity that is education.

To quickly sum up: there has been a row about capital spending on school projects, a fight over summer schemes, a Supreme Court case, and a protest about education’s community relations budget.

Education Minister Caitriona Ruane will be among the MLAs looking forward to the Summer Recess more than most.

And perhaps the recess will also give Education Committee chair, Mervyn Storey time to gather some breath before the autumn term’s renewed jousting.

The rows in the Assembly chamber have begun to take on a predictable hue: the Education Minister says it is all the fault of those pesky unionists; the pesky unionists say it is all the fault of that dratted intransigent Education Minister and her dogmatic ways.

Sometimes, however, you have to sit back and wonder what it is all about.
Is it about finding a solution to the morass that is education, or playing to the galleries and to hell with the consequences?

This week there was more than the usual bile.

And sometimes it seems that the Education Minister is her own worst enemy. If there was a particular reason why the names of the schools that were successful in the capital funding couldn’t be released to the Assembly, it was neither clear, nor adequately explained.

As to the Supreme Court ruling about so-called precautionary suspensions, well the less said the better...apart from a board having to spend £100,000 on a court case it lost.

Then there was the mysterious case of the summer schemes for special needs pupils. Let’s say that this was one case when the opposing camps of the educational divide could find common ground. As they say in Belfast: “Aye right!”

In the chamber – and on the airwaves – the name calling continued unabated. From the Caitriona camp came the missive that if the unionists had signed off the Education and Skills Authority then we wouldn’t be in this mess. Under the unionist banner came cries that the Minister needed to kick the proverbial ass and step in.

Dig deeper and both sides’ positions were complicated.

We could go into the stages and complexities, covering such areas as discretionary versus statutory provision, the application of the Disability Discrimination Act and other such arcane....well arcane stuff.

But, suffice to say that two of the boards have ‘done the decent thing’ and reinstated the summer schemes and the associated transport, with an announcement from the remaining board expected soon.

Meanwhile it still leaves the unionist side having to explain why they didn’t reach a compromise on the Education and Skills Authority; and the Education Minister having to explain why with the schools out for summer, the Education and Library Board’s budgets have not yet been agreed!

The last word on the summer schemes has to go to the North Eastern Board, which rather sniffily said that they hadn’t cut their summer scheme for children with special needs...
And to think this was just the end of the Summer term, can’t you just wait until schools are back in September!

Savings and cuts

THERE maybe a case for the Northern Ireland Executive to dip into the dictionary of euphemisms.

For the last number of years cuts in budgets have been called ‘efficiency savings’. Now they are cuts.

What is the difference between a three per cent efficiency saving or a three per cent cut? Answers on the back of a postcard to the Northern Ireland Executive…

Slash and burn baby!

THE Minister for Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson MP MLA, has warned that MLAs need to get real about the need for cuts.

He has criticised members for calling for extra expenditure at a time when the message of doom and gloom is being pedalled.

One senses that there was a certain sense of frustration from the former chief ‘A’ level economics examiner.

And for once, we tend to agree: like it or not there is a period of austerity ahead. That the private sector must bear a large portion of the blame is now irrelevant. That we, as taxpayers, bailed out banks and other businesses is now irrelevant.

So let’s all gather together and pick some front line services – say health and close them down. And if closing them down is too politically unpalatable then reduce spending so that they become practically unworkable.

Or we could pick school re-developments. After all the children get the education, who says they need to have classrooms that are barely habitable.

Road works – a bloody luxury! Just weave round the potholes.

And every community and voluntary group will no longer get the funding they need to plug the service gap that Government does not fill.

Alternatively MLAs and Executive Ministers could sit down and look at the services that are not really needed to keep NI plc going for the next couple of years. You know like the Sports Stadium. Oh, they didn’t agree on that one after spending a fortune on it.

Instead we listen in shock as a summer scheme for children with special educational needs is to have services greatly reduced.

Cheers for that MLAs! Now stop passing the buck around the bureaucracy and protect the front line and trim the fat.

Accelerated passage

WHILE the Northern Ireland Executive bitches, blathers and bumbles its way towards failing to enact any sort of change in local government, education et cetera, there is one piece of legislation that will be slipping under the radar very quickly.

On Monday and Tuesday, the Assembly will debate and rush through the “Allowances to Members of the Assembly (Repeal) Bill”. This legislation will tidy up some anomalies on how MLAs get pay rises, and how they can be compensated when they bow out from the Assembly.
Is it just us, or is there no justice in this? When the Finance Minister is sounding dire warnings over cuts and the Executive couldn’t agree on tea or coffee without a row, our esteemed political classes are sorting out how they get paid and how they get compensated.

No doubt there is a valid reason why this is receiving accelerated passage. The legislative equivalent of a laxative, to make things run quickly, is being applied to make sure that the procedures paying MLAs are all agreed well before the 2011 election.

When civil servants, public sector workers and associated private sector suppliers are facing either pay cuts or job losses, perhaps it is time for MLAs to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror. Perhaps it is time to take off their jackets, roll up their sleeves and do some work; some creative thinking and sort the mess out.

Instead they are looking after themselves.

Council saga with no happy ending

FAIL! Another failure from the Northern Ireland Executive this week: the Review of Public Administration hopes dashed against the rocks of party political selfishness.

The plan to reduce the bloated local government bureaucracy from 26 councils to a still high number of 11 foundered as the members of the Executive sat around in wee clumps of huffing Ministers.

And then the finger pointing began: with Sinn Féin, SDLP, UUP and Alliance on one side, and the DUP on the other.

There are really no adequate words to describe the increasing list of failures at Ministerial level. Yes, there has been some good work done by the Executive; but then again that’s what their supposed to do. In fact, the good, run-of-the-mill work only highlights the dismal failure on all sides to behave as if they were grown-up, mature human beings.

The majority of employees face some sort of performance appraisal: targets are set and if targets are met they get remunerated appropriately. Given the bloated salaries that Ministers receive, it would surely be a time for the Executive team to be paid according to what they do.

Where to start

IT’S difficult to find the right words or sentiments to comment on the end of the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday.

The 5,000 page tome was finally delivered this week and Derry’s Guild Hall saw some quite remarkable scenes, with hundreds cheering the Prime Minister and the tears of Jean Hegarty – amongst other relatives – poignantly captured on camera.

That the inquiry had to take place was still being called into question after its conclusion; while within hours there were several politicians calling for new inquiries into other events in the dark days of the Troubles.

The tragic deaths in Derry had to be investigated, if only to drive a wedge between an event that marked so much horror in the midst of horror, and a 21st century where only the truly stupid believe that violence can achieve any of their aims in Northern Ireland.