Opinion

Brian Feeney: Stormont an extraordinarily extravagant county council

Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

Historian and political commentator Brian Feeney has been a columnist with The Irish News for three decades. He is a former SDLP councillor in Belfast and co-author of the award-winning book Lost Lives

Stormont is an extraordinarily extravagant county council for a place the size of the north
Stormont is an extraordinarily extravagant county council for a place the size of the north Stormont is an extraordinarily extravagant county council for a place the size of the north

IF you read the joint statement on the plans of the Executive in this paper on Monday through to the end, though it's doubtful many readers will have made it that far, what strikes you immediately is how little they agree about.

Secondly how trivial is what they agree about. Third, that what they agree about is what a local council does and of course that's essentially what Stormont is, an extraordinarily extravagant county council for a place the size of the north.

Let's face it, you'd be astonished if they couldn't agree about town centre improvements, funding local sports facilities and such like. As regards the assertion that their outcome based Programme for Government has received an `overwhelmingly positive' response, since the listed outcomes are motherhood and apple pie, why wouldn't people agree with them?

However, most professionals who delved into the detail weren't especially impressed. For example the BMA's response to the consultation said: "There is no sense in either the outcomes, indicators or measures to capture how `the system' can aid or hinder people's outcomes, particularly around health and social care." Hardly a ringing endorsement from the medical profession.

Despite blowing their own trumpet on the administration of the Conservative government's austerity package the joint statement is silent on when they are going to impose the benefit cap here, which they must, still less about the chances of taking full control of health and social service expenditure here.

Not a word about corporation tax reduction because it's all up in the air after the Brexit vote. Why invest here when you have no access to the customs union or have to pay a 20 per cent tariff to sell to the EU?

They assert in a completely meaningless sentence that, "we are also building on our action plan to tackle paramilitarism working alongside law enforcement agencies to end this scourge".

Pull the other one: it's got bells on it. What a load of rubbish. Loyalist paramilitarism is endemic. Writing that with Martin McGuinness calling for self-confessed UDA gang boss Stitt to stand down and Arlene Foster saying, `no, nuffink to with with me guv' is the best example of how fatuous their statement is. Do they think people are daft? The last part of the sentence about law enforcement agencies is manifest insulting nonsense since the PSNI are committed to ignoring the UDA. Anyone remember the last person charged with membership of the NIO's favourite terrorist organisation? Incidentally the same organisation which killed a local gang boss as recently as August.

You could go on and on listing the airy-fairy spongy stuff but more interesting is what they can't agree on and that of course is anything important. Any idea what happened to the grandiloquently titled Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition which took seven months to appoint and has produced a big fat round zero? In fact if you read the statement carefully you will see that they admit at the outset they can't agree on anything of substance. They acknowledge they have very different ideologies and on Brexit have opposing standpoints on this important issue.

Having got that out of the way they then go on to list the trivia. You might notice that while they make extravagant claims about the health service they're silent on education. Hmm. Must be important because they can't think of anything to agree about there.

The other insight this piece of waffle offers is just how utterly pathetic the so-called Opposition at Stormont is. So far the UUP and SDLP have agreed that closing rural bank branches is a bad thing. Unfortunately that has nothing to do with any Stormont minister so what's the point in wasting time debating it? Far better to posture about boycotting the White House, which particular delusion of grandeur Colum Eastwood will never be allowed to forget. He must have been disappointed that Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin didn't announce that shocking news to the Reichstag and Duma at specially convened emergency sessions.

It's the incompetence of the Opposition in forensically dissecting the important matters the Executive Office is failing to deal with which allows the First and deputy First Ministers to come out with Monday's drivel.