Taoiseach Enda Kenny showed a political tin ear when he called for an all-Ireland Brexit “forum” - an idea Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the SDLP each claim to have initiated. This immediately recalled the New Ireland Forum of 1983-84, a ludicrous exercise that richly deserved Margaret Thatcher’s dismissive response. Kenny’s carelessness has allowed Arlene Foster to paint her unprepared weakness as Thatcherite resolve, to her own audience anyway, by shooting the proposal down. The DUP first minister was correct to point out that all-Ireland mechanisms already exist under the Good Friday Agreement, enabling everyone to “pick up the phone” whenever they want. What Kenny should have done is picked up one of those phones and put Foster on the spot. Still, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The forum fuss has allowed Sinn Féin to quietly drop its unwise demand for a border poll.
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Another gift from Brexit’s ill wind is that our politicians will soon have no-one else to blame for their nefarious schemes. Domestic water charging is a case in point. NIO direct rule ministers insisted it was “a European requirement” under the EU’s Water Framework Directive, although the briefest glance through that optional Brussels bumpf showed otherwise. Sinn Féin infrastructure minister Chris Hazzard has now ordered a stop to the compulsory fitting of water meters in new homes, while he works on repealing the relevant legislation. How can he do this while we are still in EU? Simple - the EU never had anything to do with it.
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An anti-austerity rally at Belfast City Hall was called off at the last minute after heavy rain threatened the sound equipment. Organisers Awaken NI, who ironically appear to be a left-wing umbrella group, have been criticised by many in attendance for not anticipating Northern Ireland’s summer weather. Asked on their Facebook page why they had not purchased “a couple of gazebos from Argos”, they said: “we don’t have funding”. Will these brutal cuts never end?
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Chancellor George Osborne has responded to Brexit by vowing to cut UK corporation tax to 15 per cent, just 2.5 per cent above the Irish level. This has “driven a horse and carriage” through Stormont’s economic plan, according to finance minister Mairtin O Muilleoir. Undercutting the Republic is a possible plan B but that would be a political challenge for Sinn Féin, which has rationalised corporate tax cuts as all-Ireland harmonisation. An obvious alternative would be cutting commercial rates, which many businesses struggle to pay, although this is mainly an issue for retailers. A rates review is currently lost in O Muilleoir’s department. However, the business tax we would ideally cut and devolve is employer’s national insurance - literally a tax on jobs.
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Set about destroying a children’s playground with an axe and you will be removed by the police in short order. But set about destroying it with a bonfire and all that can be done is removing the playground itself. Belfast City Council has spent a fortune repairing the Comber Greenway in east Belfast after last year’s bonfire at Chobham Street, with a new playground strategically placed to deter recurrence. As this has clearly not worked, protection of property is required. Belfast Telegraph journalist Linda Stewart points out that 35 police officers were available to escort fracking equipment into Woodburn forest. Why can at least that much effort not be put into saving an entire neighbourhood from thuggery? Yes, we all know the answer. But let’s hear the chief constable say it.
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The scandal of Stormont’s £1 billion Renewable Heat Incentive scheme - officially confirmed by the Audit Office but actually known to anyone who spoke to a plumber in the past five years - has been blamed by DUP economy minister Simon Hamilton not on his predecessors Arlene Foster and Jonathan Bell but on civil servants, who he says have accepted the blame. Civil servants may well be at fault but it is a fundamental principle of government that responsibility lies with ministers. Otherwise, why have them? Hamilton now says everyone who availed of the scheme will be inspected to see if they meet both its “letter and spirit”. This is a promising phrase, given how often Stormont has had its eye wiped by the private sector. Could its £7 billion PFI liability benefit be worth a similar review, for example?
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Karl Airport Parking has suspended operations while it resolves a planning dispute, after years of legal battles with nearby Belfast International. This mirrors the saga of Boal Airport Parking and Belfast City Airport but somehow it seems worse that Aldergrove was once a public asset. It was sold to its managers in 1994 in a privatisation deal that lost the taxpayer £11.6m, according to the Audit Office. If the airport wants to be a nationalised monopoly again, can we have our money back?
newton@irishnews.com
