Opinion

Ability of one party to trigger petition of concern no laughing matter

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

THE revelations in the Dáil by the Independent TD Mick Wallace seemed to catch the entire political and business class in Northern Ireland off guard.

Wallace is a colourful character to say the least and his comments about Nama and the sale of the Northern Ireland portfolio to the US company Cerberus and a Belfast law firm were at times sketchy and inconsistent but ultimately did the job of lighting the touch paper.

His outlandish and most likely improbable claim that £7m was sitting in an off shore account apparently ‘earmarked” for some unknown Northern politician raised more than a few eyebrows.

Unsurprisingly the media went into over-drive as politicians first led by the Ulster Unionist leader queued up to say “Not me, guv!”

Up here we are fond of saying that the past is another place but so too is the truth. Over time we have watched as the past has caught up with today proving that it’s far from being another place.

The truth about Wallace’s claims will no doubt catch up too. At that time the wheat in this story will be separated from the chaff and then due process will follow without the spin of speculation.

The oddest thing about last week was the notion that anyone would take seriously the suggestion that any politician in Northern Ireland would be worth throwing a bung at – let alone £7m!

That’s not to say that there’s a impenetrable ‘Ready Brek’ glow around Northern politicians protecting them from keeping inappropriate company or making them immune from a day at the races or a fact finding junket to a sunny destination.

The new legislation governing the new super councils is ridiculously weak and left out the most obvious safeguard - that of councillors declaring donations from third parties.

Dr Tom Frawley, the ombudsman noticed this defect early on but his warnings about the potential for corruption in planning matters have fallen on deaf ears at Stormont.

To be fair the overwhelming majority of politicians that I have come across are women and men of integrity who driven not by greed or personal gain but by a desire for public service.

It would be equally stupid to believe that amongst their ranks, just as in society, there aren’t an equal number of charlatans, rogues and ruffians.

It’s clear that the code of practice for councillors in the new super councils is deficient and heightens the risk for corruption. Mark H Durkan, the SDLP Environment Minister responsible for local government would do well to correct this sooner rather than later.

The inability of the Assembly to clean up its act in the eyes of the public was further demonstrated by Sammy Wilson’s latest immature outburst describing the Commissioner for Standards, Douglas Bain as a “wee wimp” and a “faceless commissioner.”

The cause of Mr Wilson’s temper tantrum was the Commissioner’s rather timid sanction that the former broke the members code of conduct by describing Jim Allister as “ a thug” during a committee hearing.

Wilson is a serving MP in a sovereign parliament and he more than most knows what unparliamentary language is, as well as knowing the penalties for breaking it at Westminster.

The Commissioner for Standards in the Assembly is a nonsense post when the Assembly can ignore his findings or when a political party like the DUP once again misuses the petition of concern safety clause to protect an individual from censure from the legislature’s own independent arbitrator on standards.

There is little point in the Assembly having a commissioner for standards when his rulings are about as effective as a chocolate fireguard.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that some political parties in Northern Ireland misuse the petition of concern for narrow party and now it seems personal political interests. As a result of this abuse the electorate should think long and hard about giving any single party to the power to trigger it alone.

The conduct of the Assembly and the Executive is directly responsible for the shrinking interest from the public, whilst the cost of running the institutions continue to rise.

The current impasse of welfare reform is only one of a series of big-ticket failures from the Executive. The spectacle of Ministers doing solo runs on policy or taking each other to court makes the governance of Stormont look like the Grand Duchy of Fenwick in the Peter Sellers movie the Mouse that Roared! In fairness that movie was funny – Stormont on the other hand is no laughing matter!