Opinion

Newton Emerson: Lack of transparency in government crept in during direct rule

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.

Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson Newton Emerson

Stormont’s top mandarin David Sterling, the man who actually runs Northern Ireland, has told the RHI inquiry that civil servants “got into the habit” of not minuting meetings with ministers to frustrate Freedom of Information requests, because the DUP and Sinn Féin are “sensitive to criticism.”

This echoes inquiry testimony from another former mandarin, David Thomson, last month - although he did not link any parties to what he termed “greater informality...creeping in.”

While Sinn Féin and the DUP certainly are sensitive to criticism, it would be wrong to blame them for the emergence of this particular habit, or to associate it with RHI.

‘Informality’ is a child of direct rule - it could be seen creeping in during the last Stormont suspension between 2002 and 2007, when civil servants were effectively in charge and thus mainly protecting themselves. Sinn Féin and the DUP might have strongly encouraged that culture when they came into office, but they found it there ready and waiting. A return to direct rule is unlikely to reverse it.

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News that the Information Commissioner will examine Sterling’s testimony can only produce hollow laugher, which of course is part of the problem. The commissioner can in theory find a criminal offence of concealing information but in practice it is a paper tiger. Only one enforcement notice has been issued in Northern Ireland in the Freedom of Information Act’s 18 year history, against the DUP-controlled Department of Finance in 2015, which had ignored the commissioner for four years. Councils also stall for years, as has the Courts Service and the PSNI - the latter once spent three years citing ‘national security’ over a former chief constable’s holiday expenses.

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When it announced a 12-month taxi trial in Belfast’s bus lanes last week, following commercial and political lobbying, the Department for Infrastructure made clear this is to assess the impact on the new Glider rapid transit system. The department also stated the trial will start before Glider comes into operation in September, via the same legislative order creating the Glider lanes - unusual haste and initiative with no minister in place.

Another curiosity has now been alluded to by Unite regional officer Davy Thomson. How can the trial’s effect be assessed if Glider has never operated without taxis in its lanes? Conducting a 12-month taxi-free trial afterwards will not establish a valid baseline as congestion will already have reducing ridership. The department must know this - so it trying to sabotage Glider, or just sabotage the trial?

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Self-described paedophile hunters have complained about poor attendance at a Belfast support rally, after believing their own social media hype.

“Tens of thousands of followers and there’s not even a few hundred here to show support,” one group posted poignantly on Facebook. This is a lesson opponents of the flag protests also learned to their embarrassment - online interaction rarely translates into action.

Considering how much of the heat in our politics seems to arise from the internet, this a lesson that should be more widely noted.

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Sinn Féin was so pleased with the previous stage of the Westminster boundary review last September that it was the only party not to make proposals, sufficing itself with commending the Boundary Commission on its work. Yet it is so upset with the map to emerge following everyone else’s proposals that it is now, in the final stage of consultation, making furious accusations of “gerrymandering” and urging supporters to contribute to a process it could barely be bothered with itself. Among Sinn Féin’s objections is that four more constituencies might no longer return any nationalist to the assembly, which uses the Westminster boundaries. The implication that every constituency should have at least the potential for unionist and nationalist representation is interesting, possibly valid in a power-sharing context but unlawful under the commission’s statutory remit to ignore political concerns - a requirement Sinn Féin praised in what little it said last September. It would also require re-jigging the map of Belfast in ways republicans would detest - and presumably call gerrymandering.

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Unionists have welcomed news the Irish government will oppose northern voting rights in the Republic’s abortion referendum, which is about to become the subject of a judicial review. They may enjoy the feeling while it lasts. Although the abortion case was hopeless even without Irish government opposition, the same cannot be said for preserving the right of northerners to vote in European Parliament elections - supported by a resolution this week in the European Parliament, at the encouragement of Sinn Féin.

The resolution’s wording remains somewhat ambiguous but there is no doubt Brussels can act on this if it wants to – as demonstrated in northern Cyprus, where the EU extends citizenship and voting rights to all residents, whether they like it or not and without any cooperation from their government.

newton@irishnews.com