NI 1 rest of UK nil

WE have a lot of smart young people in Northern Ireland. This week ‘A’ level results showed our students consistently outscored their counterparts in England and Wales.

Grades were higher and a shed load of young people recorded A* and A grades.

Encouragingly there was an upsurge in students taking the science, technology and maths subjects.

Disappointingly there are too few places for our students in our universities. Those battling through clearance to find a slot somewhere – anywhere – deserve our thoughts and sympathy. But most of all they deserve our admiration after two years of hard slog studying.

The cap on university places has meant that there are too few places for too many students.

Surely this is wrong-headed planning for the future.

Yes, there are some daft courses out there...and please we don’t need any more media studies graduates, but most courses teach critical thinking along with the skills of their chosen niche.

Such critical thinking may invite some to consider whether university funding is a devolved matter or not.

If Northern Ireland is to develop and build for the future, the Department of Employment and Learning must, surely, invest in our bright students.

They are the ones that can help economically; they learn the skills that can help those not fortunate enough to leave school with ‘A’ levels, or even GCSE’s.

Instead there is a paucity of places and an apparently shrinking budget in too many courses.

Critical thinking students may, at some point, ponder the fact that India produces more Maths PHDs in a year than the entire EU in five years.

The Asiatic and Sub-Asiatic countries realised years ago that the more graduates and post-graduates that can be supported, the more their country as a whole will benefit.

While China, Korea and India are now close to becoming the real power-houses of world creativity and achievement, we here, are seemingly denying students opportunities to study at home.

Instead we have slavishly followed the path of cuts to third level education and have allowed education to become embroiled in seemingly endless rows and bickering. At least some undergraduates may be able to write a thesis on how it got this bad.

The sound of the pipes...

A WISE sage once said that the sound of the bagpipe was one of three things. It could be the missing link between music and noise. Or, it could be a sound imitating a cat trapped in a cloth bag. Or it could be a joke that the Irish played on the Scots that they never got....

Whatever, Northern Ireland’s pipe bands were the most successful country in the recent World Pipe Band Championships.

Culture, Arts and Leisure Minister, Nelson McCausland, has been effusive in his congratulations, as befits his post and background.

But one wonders what other musical events Mr McCausland should celebrate that Northern Ireland excels in.

Perhaps as the leading proponents of the bodhran or penny whistle? Or the efficient beatings of the Lambeg drum?

One suspects that he will, not, however, be queuing up to celebrate some of the country’s most successful musical earners like Van Morrison, The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, Therapy?, or The Answer...unless they can add the pipes to their repertoire!

Thank you Auntie!

IT’s good to know that the good old BBC cares. This week they have helpfully published the ‘Doomsday Timetable’. [BBC reporters didn’t actually say that, but we’re taking the editorial liberty of saying what they won’t]

At least ‘Doomsday Timetable’ would be what one could be led to believe if you heard reports of what is coming down the track in terms of the schedule to work out just how much money had to be saved from the national debt.

Helpfully Auntie Beeb outlined how over the summer axe on services would be considered by the Northern Ireland Executive, with this month departments all considering the option between ‘salami slicing’ of budgets and ‘sweeping cuts’.

It is becoming increasingly tiresome how the lives of workers and frontline services are being dealt with in euphemisms. A salami slice is still jobs and services gone, and sweeping cuts means a more demonstrable ending of careers and services.

Which all means that come September, we shall see MLAs fall over themselves to say that they ‘understand’ the financial pressures, before saying that they don’t want to see their local service ended, or the service they are being lobbied to save slashed.

The upshot is that there needs to be some leadership without the technocrat waffle; there needs to be honesty; and there needs to be at least one cadre of MLAs which will stand up and say that this hospital has to close, or this education programme must end. Tough decisions will need to made as the Executive sets its spending priorities for the next four years.

Yes, it is unlikely. Rather we suspect that there will be a few headline grabbing quangos or ‘white elephants’ cut - the relevant ministers taking a bow and quietly forgeting that this was what the Review of Public Administration was meant to do. There is such a thing as hitting an ‘Aunt Sally’.

If one reads enough Executive Information Service press releases, a pattern emerges. That pattern is of promises to save money being retreaded every so often.

And while such promises are regularly made they are rarely fulfilled. Education and Skills Authority to replace the education and library boards anyone? Or what about the reduction of the number of local councils?

We fear that rational cuts in Northern Ireland‘s budget have not been made soon enough and that Ministers will now be forced to slash services when the plans could have been made well in advance to make such cuts less painful.

In terms of where the cuts should fall, nothing should be left off the table - the taxpayer contribution to the civil service pension pot included.

Alas, Auntie will be on hand as the timetable of doom comes closer to its October 20th end. When the NI Executive Budget spending review goes out for consultation, it may already be too late for too many people.

Dissenter and talker

IT is a strange term ‘dissident’. Type it into the Microsoft Word dictionary and reference sources and words pop up like dissenter, rebel, protester, or unorthodox.

Words that don’t crop up include ‘low-life’, ‘scumbag’, ‘murderous’ or ‘dinosaur’.

Yet, such words have been bandied about when references are made to the so-called dissident republicans – along with ‘misguided’ and ‘enemies of Ireland’.

Now apparently, such dissidents are the subject of talks. So says the deputy First Minister. Martin claims that the government have taken the old BT ad tag line ‘It’s good to talk’ to heart and have opened lines of communication with dissident groups.

Of course, politicians north and south have been huffing and bluffing that such talks are not and indeed should not take place.

At this point armchair reviewers of Norn Iron’s chequered history should begin taking notes.

After all, when John Major was calling the Provos all the names of the day, meetings were underway with the ‘RA. And when any shade of politician was busy denying talks with loyalist terrorists, you could be sure that their comrades not in arms were talking to those with arms.

As Churchill [the prime minister] said: “jaw, jaw better than war, war”....so do such talks take place? As Churchill [the nodding dog of TV ad insurance fame] says: “Oh yes!”

But therein lies the rub. Talks must take place if there is to be an end to violence. But at the same time violence is being wrought upon men and women across Northern Ireland. One cannot but help notice that there may be a connection between a recent upsurge of dissident attacks and the possibility of talks. Are these sad, relics of the past trying to improve their bargaining hand?

If they are, to what end? Will they, like some fabled John Le Carré spy ‘Come in from the cold’? Or are they holding out for a decent deal and pay-off?

For all the comments on talk shows and waffle from ministers, it will all in the end come down to two factors: what price a human life and whether the so-called dissidents will ever look at the calendar and notice that this is the 21st Century and not some misty eyed poorly remembered distant past.

As one local songwriter said: “Ignorance kills Irishmen as surely as if we fired the gun.”

Reassuring words

IT’s good to know that the Justice Minister has his finger on the pulse. This week he said he was “extremely concerned” at the upsurge in dissident paramilitary attacks.

Memo to Mr Ford: excepting those carrying out the attacks, we are all “extremely concerned”; especially those who have been injured, those who have had a ‘lucky’ escape from a bomb blast, those who will now suffer post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of their lives and those who have livelihoods destroyed.

In terms of stating the obvious, Mr Ford’s comments are up with ‘Tsunami not good’, ‘Earthquake bad’ and ‘floods worrying’.

But, at least Mr Ford has some sway on policing; the DUP on the other hand are heading along to see Mr Chief Policeman Plod, Matt Baggott, to express their concern over dissident attacks.

One wonders whether their representatives at the Policing Board could have made the same representations: or could have the DUP Ministers not nipped along to talk to Mr Ford.

It is all so confusing for the average person: who is concerned, who is actually in charge and who is going to make a decision. Sounds just like the average failed attempt by our politicians to do anything that makes any sense at all to Joe public.

United we stand, divided...well we just don’t know

And so to the unionist quandary... is a united unionist poll stance a good thing, or is it a move to sectarian head counting, or even a diminution of the ‘broad church’ of unionism?

Ahead of the deadline for nominees for UUP leader such debates are taking up much mindspace within unionist circles.

But while they wrangle and discuss the pluses and minuses of such unity within unionism, the reality must surely be that for most UUP voters (and a fair amount of DUP and Tory voters) the main concerns are whether they will have a job come 2011 and how long they will wait for a hospital appointment.

Consulting on consultants

OHH to have been a consultant in recent years...no not a hospital consultant, they’re wealthy enough as it is! We were more thinking about the sort of consultants that work with our plethora of councils.

Over the past three years our local councils have spent £23m on various consultants, bean counters and sharp sited management consultanty types.

Local Government already has a healthy amount of white collar workers, with numerous accountants, human resources staff and payroll types in each of the 26 corners of the wee country we call home.

Maybe rather than hiring in men who habitually drive expensive saloon cars would it not be better to see if they could pool some expertise.

What, they thought about that and couldn’t agree? Seriously? Oh, that’s right – golden opportunities lost and all that.

Don’t Look Back In Anger

WHEN Oasis asked people not to look back in anger did they have Northern Ireland in mind? No, probably not, but that was the call being made by Ian Paisley Jnr this week in west Belfast when he said that we all had to move on from the Troubles.

Perhaps he has a point, but one wonders when regularly there are extensive swathes of forest and hours of radio transmissions given over to finding that ever elusive beast called truth.

We think we’ve come up with a novel solution. Yes, it was all our faults.

Anyone born in the 20th Century who has any connection to Northern Ireland, who has visited, or worked here should immediately stand up, admit it was their fault and make a general apology. Governments, politicians, paramilitaries, police officers, soldiers, generals, rioters, innocent bystanders, babes in arms – hell everyone just say sorry.

Otherwise we’ll all spend the rest of eternity blaming the other guy who was obviously more to blame than us.

Let’s leave the past to historians and concentrate on making today work. Mmmm, maybe a bit too radical!

Healthy education budgeting

IT all seems a wee bit weird but it turns out the harbingers of doom for our frontline health and education services in the current financial difficulty may have been over-egging the tales of woe...or were they?

This week Finance Minister Sammy Wilson apparently struck a deal with the people at the helm of health and education, Michael McGimpsey and Caitriona Ruane respectively.

The deal was that ‘savage’ cuts to services of £45m were not to take place. In return, the Health and Education Ministers must allow the Finance Department's Performance and Efficiency Delivery Unit access to their departments.

And the £60m of unspent money normally shifted between departments will go back to Whitehall.

Allow us to be a wee bit cynical here, but is Sammy's Department pulling a fast one here? For a start no sooner had the absence of cuts taken place than Ruane was out of the blocks announcing there was money available to build some of the new schools.

On close examination, the Health and Education Departments are avoiding having save squillions of pounds; but there will be a close examination of what efficiencies they can make.

In Northern Ireland pubic sector efficiency savings have been a blunt tool. Regularly next step agencies are told to make three or four per cent efficiency savings, with nary a direction as to where to they are to be made.

So, where are these efficiencies to be made in education? How’s a about doing away with all those annoying education and library boards and having a central administration; lets call it the Education and Skills Authority for the sake of argument. Ohh, that’s been tried, and isn’t likely to happen any time soon – or before the Assembly election.

Then how’s about all those hospitals cluttering up the countryside: you can barely turn a corner without either a hospital or a campaign to save a hospital. But well dare anyone who tries to close such a hospital, because then MLAs will be squealing about local services.

In other words, there is a lot of shifting of figures and playing with totals in advance of autumn’s Treasury spending review. There is much to look out for in the detail.

And by the way, waiting times are on the increase for a whole host of services...

Talk dirty to me...

SURE and begorrah and fair faa ya etc. Far be it from us to disparage any language spoken proper like in Norn Iron, but leaving aside the ‘Bout ye’, the ‘Á Chara’ and ‘It’s teemin’ wi greetin’ MLAs’ the language issue sure has us all exercised.

You may now turn over your answer sheets and complete the following exercise: The Minister for Education Caitriona Ruane is right to invest in Irish Medium Schools and Jim Shannon MP should be commended for addressing the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ in Ullans. Discuss.

Once you have completed that exercise take a step back into the real world and try to use the language that is common to many people in the world…that would be Mandarin or Urdu then? Errrr well English will have to suffice.

The language issue in schools raised its head last week when Ms Ruane announced that four Irish Medium Schools were given conditional approval to open, with most opening doors in September.

The Minister insisted she was only doing her statutory duty to meet parents’ demands.
Meanwhile prospective UUP leadership challenger, Tom Elliott, claimed that there were 830 empty desks in the Irish Medium sector, with a massive increase in the capital expenditure in the sector.

Education committee chairman Mervyn Storey was equally bemused by the decision, saying that there was a dichotomy between the Minister claiming there was no budget for other schools capital schemes and the announcement of four new Irish Medium schools.

Now, education has hardly been a sea of calm discussion at the best of times, but there does seem to be a wee bit of strangeness going on when there is a list of schemes left swinging in the proverbial wind – presumably with parents equally demanding of development – and four new schools opening.

There is a concept that may seem radical to some in Government. It is called ‘prioritisation’. We suggest that this drastic concept be adopted and that the Minister, together with politicians of all shades of opinion, gather together in a tranquil discussion, with measured advice from senior officials.

Then we realised that such a suggestion may confuse MLAs involved in education debates. Words like, calm, tranquil, and measured seem to have been deleted from their dictionaries. And with budgets as they are, it is unlikely that new dictionaries will be bought any time soon…unless they are Irish Medium dictionaries.