G’Day folks!

“G’DAY Northern Ireland, on behalf of the backpackers and travellers of Australia we’d like to apologise but we’ll not be clogging up your byways and highways in coming weeks and months, but it seems you’re a violent bunch of cobbers!”

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to the news, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs has advised Aussies travelling to Northern Ireland to be careful not to get caught up in violence, after recent public disorder and dissident Republican attacks.

Which is rich coming from a nation of convict descendants! We mean c’mon they elected a Sheila as PM then had an election which resulted in a hung parliament (we’ll maybe pass over that one!).

Seriously though, we blame the parents. Yes, the parents who let their Aussie offspring spread across the globe.

All of this is a rather convoluted way of saying that the perspective we gain of nations is that of stereotypes. In the 70s and 80s the stereotype of Northern Ireland was of a violent place where only the wary set foot, when in reality the vast majority of the population went on their daily routine.

As we moved towards the tentative peace, and then the ceasefires throughout the 90s and more recently the popularity of ‘Norn Iron’ as destination increased with all the subsequent job creation and boosts to the economy.

But a few nutters (check the footage, there was no more than a hundred or so involved in the pubic disorder at Ardoyne on the Twelfth) can persuade people through the global media that Northern Ireland is a dangerous place.

Perhaps we should retaliate? What about the Northern Ireland Executive issuing advice not to travel to Australia owing to poisonous spiders, sharks, venomous snakes and kangaroos with bad attitudes.

Quango killer

THE honourable member for East Antrim, former CCEA Chief Examiner of A Level Economics and current Minister for Finance and Personnel has this week set himself up as the quango killer.

Sammy Wilson spoke after Monica McWilliams decided that she will be stepping down from the Human Rights plinth and has handed in her notice to the Human Rights Commission.

Minister Wilson took the opportunity to outline his belief that quangos like the Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission and the Children’s Commissioner should be axed or amalgamated.

But, hold on a minute. Are these not the quangos that keep Government right on equality, human rights and children’s rights?

Could it be that there is a prevailing view that when the really big, big, big cuts come down the line, having these pesky commissioners questioning why certain services are being cut, might make it awkward for the Executive?

Or, is it a case that by standing tall against these lefty types the Finance guru can show that he is making harsh choices on all behalf of all of us?

Whatever the motive, the actual savings of taking the action Minister Wilson proposes are pretty small against closing hospital services, reducing spending on housing, and the costs to be saved by not building as many schools as proposed.

Oh, hold those would be decisions the Government appointed quangos might actually challenge. How dare they!

Putting your money where your mouth is

WHEN you are committed to a political cause or ideology there comes a point when you might decide that you want to make a financial contribution to the party that best matches your thinking.

In Northern Ireland you can do that safe in the knowledge that no-one will get to know about it.

All that may change with proposals to open up the names of party donors to public scrutiny.

Or it may not as the security situation worsens, according to unionist parties.

Sinn Féin on the other hand already publishes donors in the Republic of Ireland.

All of this will no doubt be a case for much debate over coming months, but we just wonder, with the economic downturn, who exactly can afford donations and why they want to splash the cash on our particular brand of politics?

Rime of the ancient NI Water mariner

AND the wedding guest regaled all with his tale of abandonment on the high seas:

“Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink,

Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink...”

Were Samuel Taylor Coleridge alive now, goodness only knows what rhyming couplets he would deploy to describe the current situation at NI Water!

A suspended permanent secretary, sacked board members, numerous investigations, leaked emails and the semi-detached state owned NI Water mired in sewage-like supposition.

At this stage it would be inappropriate to comment further, except to say that this is a real opportunity for Northern Ireland politicians to behave maturely and with wisdom.

There is an opportunity to carve through the morass and leave aside petty politics. Already there has been point scoring. If they were to leave that aside, gain clear answers, translated in a way that the public can understand, then the esteem of politicians would grow.

If they do not, how will they even begin to implement water charges?

NI Water could be, to use a poetic device of Coleridge, the albatross round NI Executive ministers collective necks.

Ugly politics

OH DEAR, is the UUP leadership race going to get ugly?

After years of being the beige old men of Northern Ireland politics (as one visitor to a recent conference quipped, you can spot the UUP youth wing...they don’t have zimmer frames) could the Ulster Unionist leadership race become exciting?

There has been a complaint lodged about Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA Tom Elliott announcing his candidacy too early. Elliott has scoffed at this...and it does seem a wee bit petty to try and score points on a technicality; but then again there are a few legal types in the UUP who like to see if they can read small print.

With other potential candidates yet to nail their colours to the leadership mast, we only have a few short weeks before it all gets interesting.

But the real risk is that any rowing and fighting that might keep outsiders entertained will also divide the party that once prided itself as being a bastion of ‘broad church unionism’.

Unhappy hour

ALEX Attwood has barely his feet beneath the DSD table and his is planning a radical overhaul of Northern Ireland’s booze laws.

Tackling cheap beer offers at below cost price, a clampdown on drinking establishments with disorder problems and stronger powers to check customers’ ages are among the ideas being touted.

With the prevalence of alcohol addiction and health problems these are all measures to be welcomed.

But, one has to wonder if there is an idea at Stormont that the streets of Northern Ireland can become café culture byways where civilised and ultimately well behaved throngs will sip chilled Sancerre with petit meals and cultured quips.

Unfortunately it is not likely.

And Mr Attwood would do well to remember that a certain amount of drinkers partake to help obliterate thoughts of what passes for politics here...

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.”