Opinion

Newton Emerson: What matters is that the executive managed to reach a deal on restrictions, despite their differences

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.

<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;; ">What matters is they reached a deal, despite differences over school closures, all-Ireland harmonisation and the economy that almost collapsed devolution on the way into lockdown in March</span>
What matters is they reached a deal, despite differences over school closures, all-Ireland harmonisation and the economy that almost collapsed devolu What matters is they reached a deal, despite differences over school closures, all-Ireland harmonisation and the economy that almost collapsed devolution on the way into lockdown in March

People about to lose their jobs or hospital appointments can legitimately decry Stormont’s latest coronavirus measures.

Others need to be more realistic about what can be achieved by a mandatory five-party devolved administration in a divided society - and in a crisis.

The DUP and Sinn Féin may have stitched up a backroom deal, bounced the rest of the executive into it, treated the assembly like a rubber stamp and made a farce of the ‘new approach’ promised in January’s restoration.

But what matters is they reached a deal, despite differences over school closures, all-Ireland harmonisation and the economy that almost collapsed devolution on the way into lockdown in March. The compromises agreed have not compromised the effectiveness of the measures, which meet the executive’s scientific advice.

Of course, Stormont’s decisions can be criticised but it is absurd to expect decision-making without politicking and occasional pantomimes. If that is the standard we set for success, real failures will go unnoticed.

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Planning approval for Casement Park has provided a more light-hearted demonstration of Stormont’s structural limitations. Sinn Féin managed to welcome the approval without mentioning it was granted by SDLP infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon. Instead, the party thanked its West Belfast MP Paul Maskey, although planning is devolved and MPs have nothing to do with it.

There is no reason to believe behaviour would be different if roles were reversed. Mandatory coalition has become a system used to spread blame yet hoard credit.

It is common in other coalitions, including recent governments in the UK and Ireland, to place senior and junior ministers from several parties in each department.

Should Stormont consider that instead of its single-minister silos?

Elsewhere, Mallon has declined to review plans for an aquarium in Belfast, despite the “serious concerns” expressed by Exploris in Portaferry that a new competitor will put it out of business.

Although the facilities will be over 30 miles apart, Exploris says both will depend on school groups from Belfast. So this all comes down to numbers of urchins.

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Something strange is going on at the DUP-controlled Department for the Economy.

Minister Diane Dodds has informed the assembly that petroleum company Tamboran has amended its exploration licence and no longer intends to frack for gas in Fermanagh.

However, Tamboran is still interested in drilling for gas. The department has allowed it to apply for a licence on this despite the company not supplying accounts for the past five years. Statutory regulations require accounts “no more than twelve months before the date of the application”.

Environmental campaigners in Fermanagh might be wise to put their champagne back in the fridge.

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Ireland’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe has committed €500 million over the next five years to the cross-border infrastructure projects in his government’s ‘shared island’ programme, as well as in January’s New Decade, New Approach deal.

This is a significant sum, especially in an emergency budget focused on coronavirus.

Projects first in line are believed to include the A5 dual-carriageway and university expansion in Derry.

However, it must be set against the €400 Dublin previously pledged to the A5 in Northern Ireland, before pulling out in 2011 due to the banking crash.

Smaller sums have since been repeatedly pledged then withdrawn, most recently last year, when Donohoe - also finance minister in the last Irish government - switched €27 million to meet cost over-runs at Dublin’s new children’s hospital.

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Ulster Bank held an event in Derry in August last year to unveil the design of a new £20 polymer banknote, use of which Northern Ireland has pioneered for decades. The notes finally went into circulation this week with epically bad timing. Last Wednesday, the Australian government’s scientific research organisation - which invented polymer banknotes in the 1980s - reported that coronavirus can survive on them for up to 28 days, ten times longer than previously thought.

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Nobody is being told to ‘celebrate’ Northern Ireland’s upcoming centenary.

Officially, the occasion is to be “marked” with “recognition” and “awareness”, as determined by a cross-community and all-party Centenary Forum.

That leaves full scope for a nationalist perspective. Nevertheless, Sinn Féin and the SDLP have sent back their invitations, with the SDLP issuing a particularly strangulated statement on how it still intends to “engage with the debate”, just not in any way that might engage it in the debate.

Will nationalists boycott the forum then complain its discussions are unbalanced? It seems inevitable. Unionists do the same when invited to discuss a united Ireland.

No wonder partition has lasted this long.

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‘Ulster-Scots for Trump’, a campaign by former Belfast unionist councillor Jolene Bunting, has a touch of linguistic ambiguity.

It unwittingly invites the question: what is the Ulster-Scots for Trump?

The US president had a Scottish mother and a father of German descent, whose family had Anglicised its name. So in fact, Trump is Ulster-Scots for Drumpf.