Opinion

Newton Emerson: There is no one who can match John Hume's achievements

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

John Hume in his home city of Derry during 2004. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
John Hume in his home city of Derry during 2004. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin John Hume in his home city of Derry during 2004. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

John Hume’s legacy will be discussed for “centuries to come”, Good Friday talks chair George Mitchell has said, so there will be plenty of time to look at more than his role in the peace process. While that obviously dominates contemporary views, as reflected in coverage of Hume’s life this week, his other achievements were of comparable significance. In the 1960s, his social activism brought discrimination in Northern Ireland to the world stage and united the disparate nationalist politics of the preceding half-century into a single movement. In the 1970s, he single-handedly persuaded the Irish-American establishment to repudiate the IRA. In the 1980s, he was the driving force behind the Anglo-Irish Agreement, overcoming disinterest in Dublin and hostility in London to gain the Republic its first role north of the border. Any part of this record would go down in history. Overall, there is nobody in Northern Ireland’s history to match it.

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The executive’s five-step lockdown exit plan, published in May, did not include a proper reopening of schools. Its final step had only early years classes back full time, with everyone else in indefinite 'blended learning'.

DUP education minister Peter Weir produced subsequent guidance for schools on June 17, on how to reopen part-time with social distancing.

Nothing changed until Weir brought plans to abolish social distancing to the executive this week, enabling full reopening everywhere.

In the interim, while planning partial reopening, many schools antagonised parents so much that complaints from teachers, heads and unions will now fall on deaf ears.

It is implausible that Weir plotted this Machiavellian outcome but doing the minimum until the last minute has had the same effect.

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Although almost all schools in Northern Ireland are fully publicly funded, 90 per cent are under some degree of church control - 40 per cent via the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools and 50 per cent via Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist ‘transferor representatives’ on boards of governors. The usual basis of their role is historic ownership of long-replaced school buildings.

Church buildings and other resources would have been extremely useful to schools when they were making plans to reopen with social distancing and this should not have been much to ask: most church halls are empty during school hours, for example. Yet instances of such cooperation appear to have been vanishingly rare. Perhaps it is time to reconsider what the public is getting from this partnership.

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TUV leader Jim Allister has discovered two-thirds of prosecuting staff at the Public Prosecution Service are Catholic.

He has asked the Equality Commission to investigate, noting the PPS “must command cross-community confidence... for the effective administration of justice.”

Ironically, the Equality Commission has long struggled to address a two-thirds Catholic imbalance in its own workforce.

Whatever Allister expects to be done, 50/50 recruitment is presumably out.

He has always condemned this former PSNI policy, most recently in February, when he criticised Alliance for considering its reintroduction, calling it “overtly and deliberately discriminatory” and “non-compliant with human rights”.

Two-thirds of police officers are Protestant.

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Face masks have finally enabled the DUP to socially distance itself from Sammy Wilson. A number of party figures have openly criticised his one-man crusade against what he calls “muzzles”, including former fellow MP Emma Little-Pengelly, now a special adviser to Arlene Foster, and Stormont health committee chair Pam Cameron.

Even Ian Paisley jnr is sitting on the fence, saying the issue is “difficult”.

It is hard not to suspect the DUP’s true feelings about Wilson and Brexit are being subconsciously unmasked. Some would certainly have welcomed a muzzle during his recent comments against a sea border.

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The Department of Finance has apologised “unreservedly” after writing to churches telling them they would be banned from conducting all weddings if they did not indicate by August 17 whether they would perform same-sex marriages.

The mistake, which left churches horrified, was due to a misunderstanding of new legislation. It is a frustrating epilogue for same-sex marriage campaigners, who formed an umbrella group - Love Equality NI - to lobby for the law during Stormont’s collapse. Their campaign was a model of engagement, seeking to respect and address opponents’ concerns, but it was all based on reassuring churches they would never be forced to conduct same-sex weddings. How much trust has been wrecked by one act of bureaucratic carelessness?

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DUP MLA Carla Lockhart has suggested people who repeatedly fail to turn up for hospital appointments should be penalised. She was responding to the latest waiting list statistics from the Department of Health, relating to ‘normal’ pre-epidemic conditions, which show 360 appointments are missed every day.

At 9 per cent of total appointments this is a serious problem but some perspective is required before waving the big stick. Hospitals cancel 10 per cent of appointments themselves, often for avoidable or trivial reasons. The Department’s statisticians should also explain how ever-lengthening waiting lists cause patient no-shows by rendering appointments irrelevant, forgotten and in some cases, tragically, too late.