Announcing a Pat Finucane public inquiry in the Commons, Secretary of State Hilary Benn explained repeatedly and at length that this decision was made for “exceptional reasons” due to “unique circumstances”.
An inquiry was promised following the 2004 Cory review, which recommended a balanced set of inquiries. All but the Finucane inquiry were delivered, as the family objected to its terms.
Without those circumstances, Benn said he would have referred the case to the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).
His statement was intended to address the accusation from unionists and others of a hierarchy of victims. It did not convince the DUP and the TUV, but the most interesting question came from UUP MP Robin Swann.
Is this the last Troubles inquiry, he asked, with everything else now required to go to the ICRIR?
Benn replied there must be other opportunities to seek truth and justice but he would only specify “inquests and civil cases”.
So the government does intend this to be the last Troubles inquiry. It is just not ready to admit it.
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The executive took seven months to agree a draft programme for government that has promptly been dismissed as waffle. Although this is less than ideal, critics should maintain some perspective.
It took the Irish government five months to agree its programme for government, which also groups vague policy goals under meaninglessly broad “missions”.
That is what it takes to cobble together a coalition and get everyone pointing in roughly the same direction.
Stormont could have been two months quicker had it not taken the summer off but it also had to contend with July’s general election.
In the Republic, as in most democracies, negotiating a programme is part of assembling a coalition. At Stormont, power-sharing means an executive is formed before negotiations start. This could be said to excuse delay and necessitate waffle.
Recent rule changes mean smaller executive parties have up to two years to enter opposition and there has been some wobbling in that direction by the UUP. This could herald Stormont’s evolution towards a more conventional approach, negotiating the programme for government and the composition of the government at the same time.
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The programme for government remains a draft because it is now out to public consultation, another quirk of Stormont’s system. When the Irish government formed its coalition, its three parties only had to consult themselves.
The public is being asked for “new ideas”, in particular on affordable ways to transform public services. One jumps out straight away. Average sickness absence in the Northern Ireland civil service is 13.8 days per year, up from 12.3 days last year, one third due to “stress”.
This is almost double the rate among civil servants in England, three times the UK average for all employees and six times the rate in the private sector.
The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, which compiled the figures, says a lower sickness absence rate among younger civil servants is due to stricter conditions during their one-year probation period.
Making those conditions permanent could produce miraculous recoveries.
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One indisputably daft pledge in the programme for government is to ask London to ask Washington for US immigration pre-clearance at Belfast International Airport, as at Dublin and Shannon. The aim is to restore Northern Ireland’s transatlantic air routes.
Pre-clearance in the Republic is a unique legacy of the Irish-American special relationship. Although there are some comparable facilities in Canada and the Caribbean and others have been considered elsewhere, it is generally impractical to secure a little piece of America in a foreign airport. Among the many challenges is that US Homeland Security staff must be US citizens and not have dual-citizenship of the country in which they are based.
As pre-clearance has been judged unworkable at London-Heathrow, Amsterdam-Schipol and Tokyo-Narita, there seems little chance of it ever happening at Crumlin-Aldergrove.
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The Department of Finance held a public consultation earlier this year on ending various types of rates exemptions, such as 50 per cent relief for vacant shops. The summary of the responses it has just published is quite an insight into what politicians face when they try to balance the books.
There is a political consensus that the £400,000 cap on the rateable value of houses should be scrapped as it disproportionately benefits the wealthy and would raise a not-inconsiderable £11 million a year.
Yet three-quarters of the 1,200 respondents on this issue want the cap retained. Their reasons include such irrelevant points as poor value for money for public services, the unfairness of paying more for the same service, the potential impact on house prices and, best of all, “a fear that this change would create ‘golden ghettos’ where only the ‘super-rich’ can afford to live”.
Respondents also mentioned the effect on low-income pensioners in expensive houses, although help is already available for such people, if indeed any of them exist.
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So farewell then to the Loyalist Communities Council. It is presumed defunct after Hilary Benn and assistant chief constable Bobby Singleton let it be known they have no intention of ever meeting it.
This is not because the PSNI or the government object to the concept of such a group; it is because they feel it did not develop the concept.
“They realise that it’s powerless and nothing more than a talking shop for old men,” an NIO official told the Sunday Life.
Under the current model of paramilitary transition, which is Stormont policy, something like the LCC is too useful not to encourage. It would be a surprise if another something like it did not come along.
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Human rights group the Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ) has accused the PSNI of being more interested in investigating a campaign against a proposed gold mine in Co Tyrone than environmental offences alleged by protestors. The PSNI says there has been “significant” property crime at the site and CAJ’s report “fails to give sufficient consideration to the rights of everyone involved”.
If CAJ is struggling to accept equal rights for capitalists, it might help to recall the famous anecdote from Jessica Mitford. When the wealthy socialite joined the Communist Party, the application form asked for ‘father’s occupation’. Remembering her father owned a gold mine, she wrote ‘miner’.