Planning upheaval…and it’s not RPA

FOR years local councils have had a consultative voice in the planning process.

The plan under the Review of Public Administration is for planning to become the responsibility of local councils.

There already were some question marks against the new 11 councils taking over planning, but against the context of the furore surrounding Iris Robinson’s alleged access to property developers’ cheque books the entire planning process has come under the spotlight.

A recent meeting of the Assembly’s environment committee concluded that it needed to write to the DUP Environment Minister about what role the committee should have in any investigations into the controversy surrounding the Robinson issue.

Which can only lead to a reasonable person to ask how many investigations are needed? Westminster, the Assembly Ombudsman, Castlereagh council…is this a case of investigation envy.

Of course, it isn’t just the Robinson family that has been hitting headlines. The Adams family has had its share of unwelcome time under the glare of the media spotlight, with allegations of unreported allegations against Liam Adams, brother of Sinn Féin party leader Gerry Adams.

Ian Paisley Junior has asked the Assembly Ombudsman to investigate whether Gerry broke any rules. Sure what’s another investigation among friends? After all, if policing and justice is devolved, our MLAs will need something to talk about.

McGreevy murder – the problem with policing and justice

The trouble with attempting to have your cake and eating it is that the crumbs make a terrible mess. So it is with Sinn Féin. Endorsing policing at a regional level, but still playing to community reservations about how reformed the police actually are, ends up with no one being particularly happy.

Policing and justice are things that ideally one shouldn’t attempt to equivocate about. Just as you can’t be half pregnant you can’t support the police in theory, turn a blind eye to the existence of the IRA Army Council, and express reservations about aspects of policing on the ground.
By doing so Sinn Féin has caused itself two problems. Unionist politicians have found their stance to be reason enough (rightly or wrongly) to block the devolution of policing and justice. Sinn Fein have rattled the cage over this but short of bringing down the institutions there is very little they can do about it.

The bigger problem presented by their ambiguous stance is the growth of disquiet amongst the nationalist electorate about perceived ‘lawlessness’ in certain areas of Northern Ireland.
No one under estimates the difficulty for Sinn Féin, given its history, in giving its full stamp of approval to policing in NI but the public expressions of support that leading members of the party have given have not yet been enough to persuade – an understandably sceptical population – to fully engage with the PSNI to combat crime in West Belfast and South Armagh.
Perhaps only time will change things because short of Gerry Adams physically accompanying the PSNI on patrol it is difficult to see what else Sinn Féin can do to convince nationalist residents in places like West Belfast to help the police.

Likewise perhaps only time (and the ‘disbandment’ of the Army Council?) will convince unionists to agree to the devolution of policing and justice. Indeed we may have to wait until a new raft of post Troubles politicians come forward in Sinn Féin and the DUP for this to happen successfully.

This week on the Hill

While there were political rows in the media about the number of councils and the Maze stadium, proceeds in the House were fairly restrained. The debate on the Eames/Bradley Consultative Group on the Past tabled by David Burnside enabled him to get a lot of things of this chest about Ian Paisley but did not greatly add to the sum of human knowledge.

Likewise, the debate on the Report of the Assembly Review Committee into the devolution of policing and justice didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Yes, the parties have made considerable progress on agreeing the mechanics of how it would work but no there was no progress on deciding when it would happen.

Perhaps the most telling remark came from Gerry Adams. In response to considerable provocation from the DUP about how they would block any transfer of policing and justice powers for the foreseeable future, Adams threatened to retaliate by blocking….any idea of a new stadium at Blanchflower Park. Mr Adams has been upping his profile again in recent weeks but as a gesture it revealed more about how Sinn Féin are tied into the process than anything else.