This week began with the secretary of state saying Sinn Féin and the DUP have reduced the number of differences between them, making a Stormont deal doable. Then a court case and a television programme reminded everyone of just how many problems have been carefully ‘reduced’ by focusing on an Irish language act. The BBC Spotlight investigation into Stormont's Social Investment Fund was a reminder that Sinn Féin campaigned in March’s assembly election against alleged “corruption” - a word that topped the party’s posters while it was still refusing to call an Irish language act a red line. How long can this stay consigned to the memory hole? The court case, a legal challenge by RHI claimants, saw the civil service daringly defend itself by emphasising the scheme’s cost and incompetence, in order to justify reining it in. This created terrible headlines for the DUP, just days after talks sources said “the Arlene issue” had been sorted.
Can that issue stay sorted through more months and years of RHI court cases, inquiries and headlines?
It will take lot of signs in Irish and Ulster-Scots to keep public attention diverted.
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Unsurprisingly, the DUP has not joined the other four main parties in calling for the immediate resignation of assembly speaker Robin Newton (no relation.) Spotlight’s case against Newton hinges on how much advice you can give a UDA-linked social enterprise without being its adviser, especially if the enterprise thinks you are its adviser. No doubt this will all be taken under advisement.
The surprise is that the DUP would gladly relinquish Newton’s post. Speakers do not vote and under present assembly arithmetic the DUP needs all the votes it can get - it would be hard pressed to raise a petition of concern otherwise.
Sinn Féin is in a similar position, so both parties will have no problem agreeing to offer the speaker’s chair to a smaller party, which would have the added bonus of knocking one vote off the centrist bloc holding the balance of power.
This is just the sort of cynical status quo stitch-up Sinn Féin has vowed to end but... oh look. A trilingual sign.
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North Down DUP councillor Wesley Irvine has denied Spotlight’s claim that he attended a UDA meeting, insisting the event was “a flute band meeting”. It seems appropriate that Spotlight’s allegation was made by a whistleblower. Any informers in attendance were presumably Down recorders. The difference between a paramilitary meeting and a flute band meetings is of course exactly like the difference between giving advice and being an adviser
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In 2007, a Police Ombudsman’s report linked the Mount Vernon UVF to 10 murders over the preceding 16 years. Many of the bereaved have now been waiting a quarter of a century for justice - and it must be asked why they were given any hope over the past decade that a supergrass trial was the answer.
The Public Prosecution Service has dropped cases against all 13 suspects, including two former special branch officers, named by Mount Vernon UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty, on the grounds that there is no realistic prospect of convictions.
This view is certainly correct. Anyone claiming detailed knowledge of involvement in multiple murders is almost by definition a compromised witness and dependence on their testimony is futile, as every supergrass trial to date has shown. This latest attempt at a trial has a familiar end. Haggarty, who has pleaded guilty to 202 terror offences including five murders, could walk free immediately due to serving three years on remand.
So the entire episode has merely frustrated the justice possible from prosecuting Haggarty alone.
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Stormont departments shuffle their unspent funds around three times a year, in what are known as monitoring rounds. This is meant to require executive ministers - in fact, it has become one of their most prominent collective efforts. Failing that, it should require direct rule ministers - the secretary of state stepped in to perform the last monitoring round in July, based on policy guidance left by the last executive.
But now civil servants have performed the October round, without ministerial input of any description. This is despite the reallocation addressing a politically fraught issue in health funding, with £40m found to offset a £70m budget hole. It also comes amid warnings from the secretary of state that he must set a full budget within days, heralding formal direct rule.
Playing crisis politics with money now looks completely discredited - it is clear that a crisis is never allowed to come.
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Have Catalans pointed the way to a permanent settlement in Northern Ireland? Declaring a united Ireland but not having one sounds like the ultimate compromise. Sinn Féin representatives certainly seem inspired – many have changed the red circle logo for an Irish language act on their social media accounts to the Catalan flag, which is doubly apt. Declaring an Irish language act but not having one was what Sinn Féin was sold at St Andrews.
newton@irishnews.com
