Opinion

Brian Feeney: Revised code on Spads has been published too soon

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

Conor Murphy said spads should adhere to the high standards expected of those in public life. Picture by Hugh Russell
Conor Murphy said spads should adhere to the high standards expected of those in public life. Picture by Hugh Russell Conor Murphy said spads should adhere to the high standards expected of those in public life. Picture by Hugh Russell

On Monday Conor Murphy, our new minister of finance, published a revised code for special advisers, Spads for short.

Jim Allister didn’t think much of it; he wants new legislation because, as he says correctly, a code is just a code. He and Murphy are both a bit previous. You can see why Murphy rushed the fences. The executive is now appointing Spads, so they want new appointments to come under the new code, but there’s nothing to stop their job contracts containing provisions for a later code of conduct to be introduced.

Allister’s proposed legislation contains merit as his plans always do. Most people would support a lot of his ideas. First, there are too many Spads – eight in OFMdFM and a total of sixteen – that’s more than the Irish government has, though nothing like the carry on in Westminster where Cameron had 34 in 2015. Allister wants the number reduced.

Secondly, they’re paid too much. Murphy has proposed pay is capped at £85,000: still too much. Admittedly some Spads, generally the DUP’s, were really smart, highly educated and expert, though one was once signed up before he had finished his degree exams. Others, and this most often applied to SF’s, were not as clever, recruited for long service to the movement and nothing else. The DUP’s ran rings round them.

There’s a fundamental problem with Allister’s plan for legislation however. If a party wants to, it can circumvent any legislation. SF did so with Allister’s previous law stopping anyone with a serious criminal conviction becoming a Spad. Thanks to testimony by Máirtín Ó Muilleoir at the RHI inquiry, we know SF continued to use people whose appointment would have been disbarred by Allister’s law. As Sam McBride outlines in his book ‘Burned’, SF had ‘a parallel system to circumvent the law’. The best example is Aidan McAteer, Martin McGuinness’s right hand man, who is smart and a strategic thinker, who would’ve have been ineligible to be a Spad, was a ‘super Spad’, managing the ‘real’ Spads and also, in effect SF ministers.

SF’s ‘parallel Spads’ operated in Stormont departments, accepted by senior civil servants. However, as Sir Malcolm McKibbin, Head of the Civil Service, explained, ‘whether or not Aidan McAteer had been in the building, and whether I had ever seen him, he could’ve exercised that same function from party HQ.’ The major problem with Allister’s proposals, well meaning as they are, is that when it comes down to it, a political party or party leader can take advice from whoever or wherever they like. You can reduce the number of Spads, reduce their pay, codify their influence, their roles, but in the end, none of it matters a damn.

Murphy’s proposals look fair enough on paper, but like all others, because of the nature of political parties, they can be got round. There’s another reason though, why publishing them now is too soon. Sir Patrick Coghlin’s imminent RHI report is bound to make a series of important recommendations covering the whole range of procedures at the assembly and executive. He had better, otherwise his inquiry will have wasted millions.

Now, why didn’t both Allister and Murphy wait for Coghlin’s recommendations? Not surprisingly, Murphy’s proposals were immediately accepted by the executive – plus ça change – because you couldn’t disagree with the good intentions expressed in them. Was this a pre-emptive strike? Was it in case Coghlin’s recommendations go further or even contradict some in Murphy’s paper? Will the executive accept Coghlin’s recommendations, and if not, why not?

Why appoint a judge-led inquiry and ignore his findings? Remember, there is no formal opposition in this assembly. There are only five MLAs not in parties in the executive so Allister’s will be the only articulate voice pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. Sadly Murphy’s revised code going through on the nod is the sign of things to come.