Many historians consider the first spark of the Troubles to have been Ian Paisley’s 1964 rally at the Ulster Hall, where he demanded a tricolour be removed from Sinn Féin offices on the Falls Road within two days or he would lead a mob to remove it himself. The RUC duly obliged, provoking nationalist rioting that strengthened Paisley’s hand. This week, Sinn Féin has demanded that Provisional IRA flags be removed from the Falls Road because the people erecting them are aping “loyalist nonsense” by trying to “aggravate a section of another community.” Meanwhile, the PSNI rushed to the scene after false reports of “a number of youths removing flags”, presumably to stop them disturbing the peace.
How far we have come.
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The Department of Social Development says it “intended” to extend pub opening hours over two days this Easter but minister Lord Morrow, who took office three months ago, ran out of time to pass the necessary legislation. That will have avoided any clash with his religious views on the demon drink. However, a worse conundrum looms this June after David Cameron announced two days of extended pub opening hours in England and Wales to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday - something the rather busy British government apparently can manage in three months. Will Morrow deny unionist voters a loyal toast, unless it is of Schloer?
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Earlier this month, smoking was banned on all NHS property in Northern Ireland, with the Belfast Health Trust soberly informing the media that a warden had been employed for enforcement across the Royal hospitals site. Now it has been reported that Russian gangs moved onto the Royal and City grounds “in recent week” to deal heroin. Of course, this can just be injected.
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DUP finance minister Mervyn Storey may believe the world is only 6,000 years old but it is certainly not young enough for him to have been born yesterday. His department’s review of commercial rates will not conclude until after May’s Stormont election but Storey has taken the unusual step of pre-announcing a few conclusions. In a speech to business leaders, followed up by a departmental press release, he revealed there will be more transparency on bills, while increases will be held at or below inflation. However, “it will be for the next Executive” to decide “other matters, such as the sensitive issue of full exemption for charity shops.” Splitting your good and bad news either side of an election is so appealing that it is a wonder all reviews are not scheduled accordingly.
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The British Medical Association is asking GPs in Northern Ireland if they will consider submitting undated resignation letters en masse to pressurise the UK government over contract negotiations. It is hard to gauge how this news will have been received by Stormont health minister Simon Hamilton. Like all DUP assembly candidates under Peter Robinson’s watch, he will not have been allowed to run without submitting an undated resignation letter himself.
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It is that time of year again when satnav firm TomTom produces its annual survey declaring Belfast to be the most congested city in the UK and around the 14th most congested in the world. Wesley Johnston, who runs the NI Roads website, has been pointing out for some time that these figures are meaningless because the survey merely compares peak and off-peak journey times - so a city at a standstill all day would have zero congestion. Belfast’s score could as easily be interpreted as making it the least congested city in the UK, because traffic speeds up the most outside rush-hour. Journalists are happy to mine Johnston’s site for stories 364 days a year but alas TomTom’s churnalism still proves impossible to resist.
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Alliance leader David Ford has surprised observers by declining an Irish government invitation to the Easter rising centenary. Ford said he was “uncomfortable” commemorating an event that dissidents could claim to the “inheritors” of, especially as justice minister in the wake of a prison officer’s murder. But does spurning the Republic’s official claim on that inheritance not strengthen the dissident’s claim?
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An academic study showing Northern Ireland would be better off in a united Ireland, commissioned last year by Friends of Sinn Féin in San Francisco, has been re-launched in Dublin and Belfast to immediate denunciations from the DUP, which called it “Gerry Adams-style economics”. This criticism could not be more wrong. The report’s Canadian authors made their numbers add up by using a ‘Tory island’ model of small government, low taxes, free markets and no debt, which is perhaps why Sinn Féin sat on it for five months until the southern election was over. Of course, a united Ireland is perfectly viable - but only if Adams has nothing to do with it.
newton@irishnews.com
