Opinion

Nama arrests likely to stymie any Stormont inquiry

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.

New DUP chair Emma Little Pengelly said she would be asking the National Crime Agency (NCA) for advice on how not to “prejudice” the criminal inquiry
New DUP chair Emma Little Pengelly said she would be asking the National Crime Agency (NCA) for advice on how not to “prejudice” the criminal inquiry New DUP chair Emma Little Pengelly said she would be asking the National Crime Agency (NCA) for advice on how not to “prejudice” the criminal inquiry

THE theme of this week was that one investigation may stop another. As the assembly resumed its Nama inquiry, new DUP chair Emma Little Pengelly said she would be asking the National Crime Agency (NCA) for advice on how not to “prejudice” the criminal inquiry. With the NCA now making arrests, it is hard to see how Stormont can hear any incriminating testimony.

At the inquest into the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, the PSNI announced it was reopening its investigation after matching a palm print to a finger print. It is remarkable that this was missed for 40 years, including by a 2011 Historical Enquiries Team review. In Northern Ireland, prosecuting authorities can require a coroner to suspend an inquest if new information could lead to a homicide-related charge. Of course, prosecutors may then fail to secure a conviction.

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Queen’s University vice-chancellor Prof Patrick Johnson has been widely mocked for a Belfast Telegraph interview in which he said “society doesn’t need a 21-year-old who is a sixth century historian” but rather “a 21-year-old who understands the tenets of leadership, who is a thinker”. Studying any period of history tends to involve thinking about leadership. Perhaps even more unfortunate was Prof Johnson’s concern about a Northern Ireland “brain drain”, despite his plan to cut courses, raise undergraduate entry requirements and prioritise students from Britain and abroad. Does he need to think some more about his own style of leadership?

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One of Peter Weir’s first acts as DUP education minister has been to visit an Irish language school in west Belfast. This looks like a crystal clear move to allay fears about his party’s attitude to the Irish sector. The minister’s statement ahead of the visit also seemed designed to reassure. “No sector will be favoured, no sector will be discriminated against”, he said, adding that he would ensure “all pupils, all schools are treated equally.” There is just one little problem. As education minister, Weir is required by law to “encourage and facilitate” Irish-language and integrated schools - a favour not granted to other sectors. In 2014, Sinn Féin education minister John O’Dowd was found by a judge to be doing “the opposite” of this with regard to integrated schools. Is Weir planning to extend that equal treatment to Irish-language schools?

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BBC Northern Ireland spent a whole day discussing a comparison between the Boys' Brigade and a paramilitary organisation by republican writer Jude Collins, yet nobody at Broadcasting House seems to have had a twinge of déjà vu. In 2007, BBC Northern Ireland aired a documentary about Bangor-based novelist Colin Bateman, who started his career with a satirical column in the County Down Spectator, where he famously compared the Boys' Brigade to a paramilitary organisation. Bateman’s official biography still describes him as “one of the few people to be sued by the Boys' Brigade.” The film had great fun with this, even recreating the author being condemned from the pulpit. It is not clear who now looks more ridiculous for taking the same comparison seriously - Collins or the BBC.

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Cultural organisation Conradh na Gaeilge has been granted leave for a judicial review into the executive’s failure to produce an Irish language strategy. A similar case last year on a missing anti-poverty strategy resulted in the strongest ruling possible for Stormont to get on with it. Yet the new draft programme for government, while mentioning poverty, contains no mention of a strategy - let alone any hint of urgency at being potentially in contempt of court. The judicial review bluff has now been well and truly called and campaign groups must reconsider this expensive form of legal activism.

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Reality could not dawn more slowly on the Orange Order if it stopped the rotation of the earth. A valuable series of articles in the News Letter has revealed that Portadown district has been begging Garvaghy Road residents for talks, using a priest as an intermediary. Having defeated the Order to universal relief 15 years ago, residents politely declined. Portadown’s district master is now proposing that Sinn Féin and the DUP “grasp the nettle” of parading, even if this means revisiting the draft bill both parties agreed six years ago in conjunction with the Orange Order, only for the Order to torpedo it by suddenly changing its mind. It seems that what is really being grasped here are straws.

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Ideological salvation is at hand for tweeting Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams. The National Union of Students Black Students Conference in Brighton has debated a motion to replace the term ‘black’ with ‘culturally black’, to include those who are not “ethnically black” but who still “identify with the struggle against racism and oppression”. The motion was defeated. However, black students who spoke against it were accused of racism by non-black students, so the term should be compulsory in months.

newton@irishnews.com