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Loyalist accused of further sex offences 
Politics 20/11/09A high-profile loyalist accused of raping a 13-year-old girl is being investigated for further alleged offences against two other potential victims – one of them a boy aged 12, the High Court has heard. Mark Harbinson, a prominent Orangeman during the Drumcree marching stand-off, faces a number of child sex charges following the...
Schools obliged to teach evolution
Politics 20/11/09Primary-school pupils will receive compulsory lessons in evolution and British history, Britain’s children’s secretary Ed Balls said yesterday. Schools in England and Wales will be legally required to teach Darwin’s theory about the origins of species in science lessons...
Minister: Shared future must be priority
Politics 18/11/09A shared future must be a priority for all in Northern Ireland if the progress of the last fifteen years is not to be jeopardised, social development margaret Ritchie said yesterday. The Stormont executive has yet to discuss and agree a strategy for a shared...
Lenihan insists on pay cap for bank boss
Politics 18/11/09THE Republic’s finance minister Brian Lenihan last night threw out plans by Allied Irish Banks (AIB) to pay its new chief a salary e133,000 (£118,000) above a government imposed pay cap. AIB wants to appoint insider Colm Doherty as its managing director with a contract exceeding...
Taoiseach calls on strikers to rethink
Politics 18/11/09The Irish government was last night accused of sleep-walking into next week’s one-day strike against public sector cuts. Labour leader Eamon Gilmore called on taoiseach Brian Cowen to call in the state’s industrial relations mechanisms to...
£1m given to marching bands
STORMONT Assembly 17/11/09MARCHING bands have been given almost £1 million in grants to buy musical instruments and fund projects in the past five years. The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure has revealed that through the Arts Council it has provided £878,949 in 183...
Obesity-linked illness costs north’s economy £500m
STORMONT Assembly 17/11/09OBESITY-related illnesses could cost the Northern Ireland economy more than £500 million next year, a damning government report has warned. It predicted that 60 per cent of men and 50 per cent of women would be dangerously overweight by 2050.
Identify political donors: survey
STORMONT Assembly 17/11/09The names of individuals or groups who donate money to political parties in Northern Ireland should be made public, according to new survey findings to be presented to assembly members today. Chairwoman of the UK Electoral Commission Jenny Watson will tell MLAs that action needs to be taken to boost public...
SDLP MLAs to resign council seats
Politics 12/11/09SDLP assembly members Alban Maginness and Pat Ramsey are expected to announce within weeks that they will resign their council seats as part of a party policy on ending double-jobbing.
Calls for accused’s wife to leave DPP
Politics 12/11/09UNIONISTS have called on the policing board to expel from a policing body the wife of an alleged IRA man who had property and cash seized as part of a financial investigation.
Retaining reserves not a precondition: Robinson
Politics 12/11/09THE latest twist in the negotiations for the transfer of policing and justice came yester- day when the DUP leader Peter Robinson signalled that the retention of the police full-time reserve was not a precondition.
Meeting of North/South Ministerial Council
Politics 12/11/09THE Republic’s minister for foreign affairs Micheal Martin held a series of meetings in Belfast yesterday. The minister, who was in Belfast for a gathering of the North/South Ministerial Council at Stormont, also met the Northern Ireland Policing Board, Human Rights Commissioner Monica McWilliams, SDLP leader Mark Durkan and several executive ministers.
Take time to do the job right says UUP
Politics 12/11/09In the fourth in a series of interviews with parties about the devolution of policing and justice powers, political correspondent William Graham asks UUP assembly member Basil McCrea about his party’s position
Maskey: I would not object to a unionist justice minister
DEVOLUTION OF POLICING AND JUSTICE 11/11/09Alex Maskey has said he would have no objection to a unionist minister for justice some time in the future – with Sinn Fein also likely to hold the post in due course. He stressed, however, that his party’s primary focus is to get policing and justice powers...
Service charging for flats to be probed
STORMONT Assembly 10/11/09Working practices of companies manage communal areas in apartment blocks are to be investigated by a new Stormont working group, it was announced last night. The move comes amid concerns from an increasing number of the 40,000 flat residents...
McGuinness demands help for mutual society’s savers
STORMONT Assembly 10/11/09Help for members of the Presbyterian Mutual Society (PMS) “needs to be expedited” as people are enduring great uncertainty about their savings, Martin McGuinness said yesterday. At assembly question-time Mr McGuinness was asked by Ulster Unionist Tom...
Call for £700m in health savings to be monitored
STORMONT Assembly 10/11/09A government efficiency unit should be called in the examine the health minister’s budget to ensure that a proposed £700 million in cost-cutting measures does not hit frontline services, the assembly was told yesterday.
Sinn Fein, DUP to meet Brown again amid police reserve row
STORMONT Assembly 10/11/09The DUP and Sinn Fein will have further talks with Gordon Brown tomorrow, as it remained unclear last night if the PSNI’s full-time reserve would be a unionist precondition for the devolution of policing and justice powers.
Auxiliary body set up to support RUC
STORMONT Assembly 10/11/09The full-time reserve was formed in the early 1970s as an auxiliary group of police officers to support the RUC in mainly security-related work. At its height there were around 3,500 members of the full-time reserve. Forty-nine were killed during...
PPS reform high priority after transfer says SDLP
DEVOLUTION OF POLICING AND JUSTICE 10/11/09The SDLP wants to see radical changes when justice powers are devolved including reform of the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), Alex Attwood has said. The party’s policing and justice spokesman said there must also be changes in the prison service and...
DUP delay plays into the hands of those trying to make mischief
DEVOLUTION OF POLICING AND JUSTICE 09/11/09There is a sense of frustration about how long the devolution of policing and justice powers is taking and the politics being played out around the issue, Alliance Party assembly member Stephen Farry has said. It appears a reasonable financial package...
It’s a laugh a minute in world of politics
STORMONT Assembly 09/11/09TUV leader Jim Allister used his party conference at the weekend to launch a brutal verbal attack on his former friends in the DUP leadership. Almost every senior DUP member was named and singled out for the harshest of criticism.
DUP ‘clinging to sinking ship’
STORMONT Assembly 09/11/09The Traditional Unionist Voice, led by Jim Allister, has claimed that DUP leader Peter Robinson is “clinging to a sinking ship’’. The former DUP man’s party, which had its annual conference at the weekend, has been tipped to gain a...
‘No excuse’ for delay over policing move
STORMONT Assembly 09/11/09SINN Fein has said the British government must not allow unionists to block the deal on devolving policing and justice powers to the assembly. Assembly member Conor Murphy said there was “no excuse” for any further delay and called on the British...
