Opinion

Newton Emerson: Challenging future for Belfast's Bombardier factory

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.

Brexit is a further complication in Bombardier's plan to sell its Belfast business. Picture by Mal McCann
Brexit is a further complication in Bombardier's plan to sell its Belfast business. Picture by Mal McCann Brexit is a further complication in Bombardier's plan to sell its Belfast business. Picture by Mal McCann

QUESTIONS are being asked about what Brexit means for the future of Belfast's Bombardier aircraft factory.

One issue where leaving the EU is certainly irrelevant is the threat posed by other UK plants.

Bombardier makes all the wings for its C-Series jets in Belfast and has no other facility capable of doing so.

However, last year it sold a majority stake in the C-Series to Airbus, which manufactures all its wings in north Wales and designs all its wings in Bristol.

GKN Aerospace, the other rumoured buyer of the Belfast plant, also does all its wing work in Bristol, specifically to be near Airbus.

Even if Airbus or GKN want to acquire the Belfast plant, there will always be a pull for them to centralise operations in Britain - as well as a push from Brexit to move out of the UK altogether,

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Public discussion ahead of Stormont talks next Tuesday has focused on suspending or changing the petition of concern to let deadlocked issues pass - an idea long backed by same-sex marriage campaigners.

Critics of the idea say it would breach the Good Friday Agreement but this is incorrect.

The Agreement created the petition and specifies how many votes are needed to pass one but it says nothing about how or when a petition is used.

That is left to the assembly to decide via its own standing orders.

The petition's purpose is to protect minorities from majorities.

Making an order not to use one while no designation is in the majority, as is the case with the present assembly, would be entirely consistent with the letter and spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.

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Indirect rule is not causing much confusion in China, which has its own democratic deficit.

Stormont civil service chief David Sterling has travelled to Beijing, where he was treated - perhaps correctly - as our de facto provincial governor.

Sterling received a formal welcome from China's vice-minister of foreign affairs, with all the ceremony that would have been reserved for a first and deputy first minister.

He addressed a conference on regional aspects of China's 'Belt and Road' global infrastructure initiative, met with governors of Chinese provinces, called in for a photo-shoot with the Northern Ireland Executive's overseas promotion bureau and even got a mention in the Communist Party's newspaper, the People's Daily, where his title was described as "head of NI civil service", as if that required no further explanation.

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Paul Sweeney, a Labour MP for Glasgow, has apologised after telling the Commons that organisations such as Saoradh, the Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys of Derry are "the only barriers to peace".

Sweeney said it was not his intention to conflate dissident republican violence with loyal order parades.

Almost as disappointing, although no unionist will say so, is conflating the Orange Order with the Apprentice Boys of Derry.

While the Orange Order has managed to avoid triggering serious violence for the past three years, the Apprentice Boys have been actively avoiding it for 30 years, making Derry a model for resolving parade disputes.

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Stormont's Department of Finance has launched a recruitment competition for an additional 300 civil service middle managers, or "staff officers and deputy principals", to use the official terminology.

These are already the grades where pay and staffing increases are highest, while numbers elsewhere have generally fallen.

In 2015, Stormont committed £700 million to a public sector redundancy scheme so generous its target of 2,500 civil service volunteers was oversubscribed by a factor of three.

The new recruitment competition is open to external candidates, so people paid to leave can now apply to come back.

Will this be subtracted from the £88 million a year the redundancy scheme was supposed to save?

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The UUP has rather cheekily asked the Audit Office to look for evidence of the savings promised from council reorganisation.

Setting up the 11 supercouncils in 2015 was supposed to save £438 million over 25 years, for an up-front cost of £178 million.

These figures were produced by consultants and used as justification by DUP local government minister Edwin Poots.

But trying to project savings over a quarter of a century is meaningless, savings in the future are worth less than spending in the present and even the impressive-looking £438 million number is just £18 million a year.

Add in a deal with the unions for no mandatory redundancies, plus new headquarters buildings and executive severance packages, and council reorganisation can only have cost a fortune. Shuffling bureaucrats around to save money always does.

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It does not take much to cause a distraction in Northern Ireland, as Ian Paisley has revealed.

The DUP MP was in the news last week after being uncharacteristically discombobulated by his party running a gay council candidate.

He popped up in reports again this week after an MP in England lost a recall petition, reminding journalists of Paisley's near-miss last year with the same mechanism.

But all that was forgotten after her made a few colourful remarks about telling tourists in the Republic "you're in the wrong part of the island".

Everyone then dutifully had the conversation Paisley no doubt preferred them to have.

newton@irishnews.com