Opinion

Newton Emerson: PSNI crackdown against loyalism looks patchy

So what? Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd got it wrong when he criticised UUP leader Robin Swann over the Irish language and the Good Friday Agreement
So what? Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd got it wrong when he criticised UUP leader Robin Swann over the Irish language and the Good Friday Agreement So what? Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd got it wrong when he criticised UUP leader Robin Swann over the Irish language and the Good Friday Agreement

THE UVF appears to have marked the end of Hate Crime Awareness week with a wave of racist attacks in east Belfast.

If such tactics are being used to send a message, it would not be the first time - in 2013 and 2014, racist attacks in east Belfast coincided with loyalist 'concerns' about policing.

Among the many purposes racism serves for loyalism, it is as an up-yours to the liberal priorities on which a modern police is judged - and loyalism has clearly judged that this alarms senior officers enough to scare them off.

A crackdown against loyalism is currently underway via the PSNI's new Paramilitary Crime Taskforce, although resolve still looks a bit patchy.

It took two days of media and political pressure before the PSNI would "not rule out" loyalist orchestration of orchestrated attacks in a loyalist area.

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Antibiotic use in Northern Ireland is 30 per cent higher than in England and is contributing to the "global crisis" of antibiotic resistance.

So warns Northern Ireland's chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, in his latest annual report.

Media coverage of this issue often blames irresponsible patients, which makes little sense when antibiotics are controlled substances.

Officials prefer to blame doctors - Alliance health spokesman Paula Bradshaw said Stormont's Department of Health and the five health trusts cited "the number and nature of drugs and treatments prescribed by GPs".

However, GPs point the finger at pharmacists, noting that Northern Ireland's prescription system operates largely on trust and has too high a volume of transactions to be easily audited.

Addressing that would of course be the responsibility of the Department of Health.

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In 2013, when the three smaller parties complained they had been excluded from the executive's anti-sectarianism strategy, Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd famously replied, "So what?"

Yet it fell to O'Dowd to get on a high horse over the weekend and accuse the UUP of having "clearly abandoned the Good Friday Agreement", after UUP leader Robin Swann told his party's annual conference he opposed an Irish language act and thought it was time to consider changing the rules on mandatory coalition.

"The Ulster Unionist Party is now firmly anti-Agreement and should be honest enough to admit it," O'Dowd thundered.

As was soon pointed out, there is no mention of an Irish language act in the Good Friday Agreement - in fact, that was the point of Swann's speech.

Less widely noted is that the agreement contains several detailed promises of reviewing Stormont's operation, both at fixed intervals and in the event of problems, with a view to changing the rules.

Perhaps Swann should have called this an 'unmet agreement'.

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Like many people, Swann appears to believe the alternative to mandatory coalition is voluntary coalition. That seems as drastic as it is unlikely.

If the concern is continuity of government, all that is required is to tweak the rules so everyone is still entitled to their power-sharing seats in the executive but no party is required to take them - or critically, to stay in them.

So if Sinn Féin walked out, for example, everyone else could just say "So what?"

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Caitriona Ruane is still facing questions over her £55,500 principal deputy speaker's salary, which she donated to four charities after the assembly collapsed in January and she declined to contest her seat in March.

Fortunately, a full paper trail should exist. Each charity would have been in line for a five-figure sum, plus one quarter as much again provided they claimed Ruane's basic-rate income tax back from HM Revenue and Customs.

Ruane can claim the higher rate back herself by submitting a tax return.

All this requires mandatory record keeping by both charity and donor.

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The latest planning application for Belfast's Royal Exchange redevelopment proposes an almost complete demolition of the North Street Arcade, gutted in an arson attack in 2004 and since left to rot.

Just the facades and other "historic elements" will be retained - and most of them will be reconstructions.

Planning policy only permits this for listed buildings, such as North Street Arcade, in "exceptional circumstances".

In its application, developer Castlebrooke Investments cites precedent "where historic buildings have sustained major damage unintentionally".

Perhaps that applies to the rot, but not the fire. The arcade was listed because of its iron-framed roof, which the arsonists deliberately targeted through multiple seats of ignition and high-temperature accelerants.

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The British government is considering tax relief and subsidies on the purchase of electric bicycles, while government-free Northern Ireland can barely keep them legal.

In August, sales here had to be suspended when it emerged the executive had forgotten to update the law and recognise that the vehicles are not motorcycles.

Stormont has now reversed Norman Tebbit's famous dictum. It needs to get back to work and look for bikes.

newton@irishnews.com