O'Conall Street

New politics needed to tackle sectarianism

I debated the DUP’s Nelson McCausland on UTV this week about the need to really tackle sectarianism in Northern Ireland. You can watch it back here.

Living with childhood diabetes

My six year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes just before Christmas. An emergency admission a several nights in the Childrens Hospital has been followed by a new routine of carb counting, blood testing and insuline pens. Her regime requires four injections a day and so far we are just about keeping her blood sugar levels within the magic 4 – 8 mmol/L.

Ill post occasionally on my experience as a parent and the small steps I am trying to take to promote more resources to support diabetes sufferers in Northern Ireland. For starter I would lkie to see more pumps available for both adults and children. All the research suggests they are a very effective way of managing the diabetes and many experts believe children should be encouraged to use them from diagnosis.

If you have type 1 diabetes or have a family member with the disease please do get in touch.

SDLP Councillor Niall Kelly forces Facebook to take down Neil Lennon hate page

Facebook has performed a textbook U-turn and closed a page calling for the execution of football manager Neil Lennon after SDLP Councillor Niall Kelly insisted they take action against such on-line hate.

Stuckon.co.uk has the rest of the story:

The page, entitled the ‘Shoot Neil Lennon Fan Club’, featured mocked up photographs of the Celtic F.C. manager as bullet riddled and bloody, and featured over 800 protests, with many of them urging that he should be shot or hanged.

Facebook chiefs had turned down requests to remove the page, citing that any comments didn’t pose a credible threat or showed any intention to assassinate Lennon. The social media giant’s stance spurred Belfast SDLP councillor Niall Kelly to enter the fray, and he contacted Facebook to request that they take down the page whilst condemning the fans who had taken part on it.

Many businesses and organisations use Facebook as a way of promoting their services and interacting with their customers. Even though they may be exposed to some negative feedback from their customers, many people in the search engine optimisation industry agree that it is a powerful tool that, if used correctly, can increase a company’s Internet profile.

However, not many businesses expect to receive bullets through the post like the embattled Lennon, and so Facebook reconsidered their decision. A spokesman said:

“We react quickly to remove reported content that violates our terms. The goal of these policies is to strike a very delicate balance between giving people the freedom to express themselves and maintaining a safe and trusted environment.”

Other anti-Lennon pages, such as ‘Hating Neil Lennon’, were also removed from the site.

Latest admission from DRD will further dent public confidence

The Regional Development Minister needs to make a statement on how a memo which his officials claimed had never been received by his department actually was.

The revelation follows evidence given by the Minster and his officials at the Assembly’s Regional Development Committee on Wednesday when they claimed that it had never received a critical memo from Northern Ireland Water on 23 December outlining the organisations preparedness for a severe weather episode. This contradicted evidence given by NIW officials to the committee two weeks ago.

The Permanent Secretary of the Department has now clarified that a memo was in fact received by the Department from NIW on 23 December.

This latest revelation will further dent public confidence in the department’s role in the crisis. The fact that neither the Permanent Secretary of or Minister knew that a crucial memo had been received when in fact it raises serious questions about internal communications in the Department of Regional Development.

Wednesday’s evidence session highlighted serious gaps in the communications processes between NIW and DRD. It left many of us feeling like a culture of complacency is pervasive in DRD with regard to NIW.

The draft PAC Committee report questions the capacity and skills of the Department’s Shareholder Unit to manage its relations with NIW. The report also raises serious questions about the department’s ability to scrutinise NIW. These latest revelations will only raise further serious questions about the basic fact that nobody from the Minister down appears willing to take responsibility for this crisis.

The time for buck passing has to stop. The department needs to focus on the important job of trying to restore public confidence and stop trying to cover up the failings of the Minister and other who should have had their eye on the ball over the past for years.

There is no escaping the basic reality that the Minister has had four years to try and address the problems with Northern Ireland Water yet nothing has changed.

Minister Conor Murphy has made a direction ensuring nobody can sue NIW for losses suffered as a result of the water crisis

The Minister for Regional Development’s decision to issue a directive in the middle of the water crisis will prevent tens of thousands of households from being able to make claims for loss or damage sustained as a result of loss of water supply.

The Minister has granted NI Water a general indemnity from having to pay any compensation. He has left tens of thousands of householders without any right to claim compensation.

This adds to the confusion given his party colleague Martin McGuinness stated that compensation was a possibility. His actions under Article 295 of the Water and Sewage Services Order 2006 would appear to directly contradict this position.

Boys, gaming and school

If like me you are the parent of a boy who is a gamer then this TED talk may be of interest.

DRD budget leaves NIW £48million short in breach of PC10 agreement with the Utility Regulator

The Minister for Regional Development has not provided enough funding in his budget to allow Northern Ireland Water to meet its investment obligations over the next three years.

The budget published by the department yesterday will leave Northern Ireland Water £48million short in between now and 2013. This is inconsistent with the agreement reached between the regulator, Northern Ireland Water and the department, late last year, called ‘PC10’. The agreement was signed just one month ago on December 12^th.

Minister Murphy is teeing up Northern Ireland Water for another major crisis. By knowingly underfunding Northern Ireland Water he will reduce the organisations ability to meet its obligations under PC10 which in short means less mains upgrades and less investment in the water system overall.

This is a very serious situation. The Minister has consistently argued that one of the major problems with our water system is historic underfunding. Yet he is now proposing to significantly underfund Northern Ireland Water at a time when there is a clear need for investment.

It raises several questions.

• Firstly did the Minister understand the implications of this shortfall when he submitted his budget?
• Has he discussed this proposed shortfall with the regulator?
• Has he discussed this change with NIW?
• Is NIW happy to operate under this significantly reduced funding arrangement, and how does he intended to reassure customers that the necessary investment will be made in our water infrastructure over the next few years?

 Here are the detailed figures.

 PC10 agreed figures (Dec 13^th 2010)

 Total operating expenditure                   2010-2013       £615.4m

Capital Investment Programme             2010-2013       £577.5m

 DRD budget (Jan 12^th 2011)

 Current (operating) expenditure          2010-2013       £595.5m

Investment expenditure                           2010-2013       £549.4m

DRD budget cuts will hit old, disabled and rural communities hard. Public Transport big looser.

Conor Murphy, is proposing swingeing cuts in roads maintenance and public transport which are going to hit rural communities, the elderly and disabled most.

His budget will make this region less competitive at times of economic recession.

The department’s budget will mean more floods as gully maintenance is cut back and could make our roads more dangerous as road singage and markings will not be maintained. Conor Murphy is also proposing to reduce the number of bus services and significantly increase bus and rail fares. There will be few buses on the streets of Belfast and on all rural roads.

The people who will lose their jobs are those who work in public transport. The minister’s also proposing to seriously cut disabled transport with many shopmobility and bus services being withdrawn. DRD is already the most polluting department in our region. The minister keeps talking about sustainability but has put forward a budget which will make public transport worse.

This will affect all investment in cycling and walking which will do nothing to encourage people out of their cars and onto alternative modes of transport. It’s the budget of a minister who has no vision for our region, and who, having failed to deliver, is now going to hand over a department in deep crisis to his successor.

It does nothing to support economic recovery and will in fact make transport in our region worse. It’s at odds with the minister’s own draft regional development strategy and the Transport Bill which he recently introduced.

ETA’s anoucement has an air of IRA about it. But Spain is another country and they do things their way.

Today’s ‘permanent, general and internationally verifiable’ ETA ceasefire is a step forward from the cessation of hostilities announcement last September but still not enough according to all of Spain’s constitutional parties. Students of the Northern Ireland peace process will see IRA strategy here. Offer goodwill, try and internationalise verification as happened here with decommissioning. But keep enough questions hanging to maintain as much control of the process as possible. This I am sure ETA believe is the best way to enter negotiations whilst hanging on to as many bartering chips as possible.

The problem is no bartering chip has any value if there is no process to barter in. That is ETA’s dilemma. The socialist Spanish government is under no political pressure to move. They reject any suggestions of internationalising the process saying that it is the spanish police and army who will do any verification. Even Basque nationalists are not clambering for an Irish style internationalised process.

That said the Basque question is by definition an international one as the Basque Country itself crosses an international boundary between Spain and France.

The next few months will be interesting. ETA can’t row back but the Spanish government cant stand still either. They will have to propose an internal process which is sustainable.

Ireland’s process may not be Spain’s solution but there is no doubt that the game is changing and that state and subversive will have to find some space to ensure the absence of violence becomes a sustainable peace.

The politics of violence and the violence of politics – Gifford’s shooting and our experience

Its been a bad week for politics.

A Governor murdered in Pakistan, fatalities in Egypt, a judge dead in Arizona as Rep Gabrielle Giffords fights for her life after being shot for doing her job.

The dead and injured were all progressives. People who see politics and government as inclusive, tolerant and caring. Their views angered those of opposing opinions, people who were willing to lie and invoke hatred for political advantage but not take responsibility for the consequences.

This is a problem we should know a lot about. Every week press releases are issued here by political figures which are designed to invoke prejudice or raise fears.

In the US its the language of war, the imagery of guns and the ‘targets’ on Sarah Palin’s maps. Here its the invocation of sectarian fears and prejudice.

People will say there is no equivalence. That we know how to manage our divisions but that the US does not.

Nonsense.

They are the same. They are both illustrations of the politics of violence and the violence of politics as William Crawley put it this morning. They are both designed to invoke fear and make people hate political adversaries.

The bottom line is that any political figure anywhere who lies about opponents or uses loaded language to invoke fear and prejudice, is opening up a space which can be filled by hate filled murderous people.

Such people killed many of our neighbours over the past 40 years, they murdered the governor in Pakistan and shot Rep Gifford through the head.

Let’s respond by resolving not to do the easy thing. To banish the loaded language and stick to the facts.