SCHOOL EDITION 29 MAY 2024 - Flipbook - Page 10
10
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2020
editor@irishnews.com
www.irishnews.com
THE IRISH NEWS
Pro fide et patria
OPINION
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Learn
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A
S EXPECTED, the new executive has moved quickly to
tackle the most pressing issue
facing the re-established power-sharing administration, namely the
ongoing industrial action by healthcare
workers including thousands of nurses.
In his first announcement on the first
full day of business in the assembly,
Health Minister Robin Swann yesterday
declared that pay parity with England
would be restored for this year and
next year.
This move is estimated to cost £109
million, with the health department
finding an additional £79m for this year.
The extra £30m required has been financed by drawing forward proposed
funding allocations for future years.
The fact that the money has been
found to pay the healthcare staff is
hugely positive but there is also the
crucial issue of safe staffing levels – a
key demand by the nurses including
the Royal College of Nursing whose
members took part in strike action for
the first time.
Mr Swann said his department is
providing a written commitment “to
immediate high-level engagement with
unions to produce a costed implementation plan” within an agreed short
period. The executive hopes that the
unions will agree to halt their industrial action and we must now await their
decision.
It is clear that progress has been
made in terms of meeting the demands
of nurses and other employees but it is
regrettable that this issue was not resolved before it reached crisis point.
There is a lesson to be learnt by
the authorities in how such disputes
are handled and shows that when the
sincere concerns of professionals are
brought to officials, in health, education or other areas, they must be treated with the seriousness they deserve.
There was another funding announcement yesterday, this time by
Education Minister Peter Weir, who allocated £45m to 18 schools for building
improvements. Again, this is a welcome
development and a step in the right
direction.
However, the reality is we are going
to need a huge injection of cash to address hospital waiting lists, welfare mitigation payments, school budgets and
much needed infrastructure projects.
Finance Minister Conor Murphy has
said the amount being offered by the
British government as part of the Stormont deal “falls way short” of what was
expected.
If funding commitments were made
to the parties then they must be
honoured.
H
Have they
been had?
AVE they been had? Boris Johnson
blew in with Storm Brendan on
Monday and flew out again as the
storm abated, puffing, blowing and
blustering, but in Johnson’s case leaving
no mark of his presence.
Party leaders at Stormont had hoped
for some concrete result, at least a ball
park figure for the money promised in all
the government commitments given in the
deal they signed up to last Friday. Instead,
windy arm waving from Johnson.
The more you look into the deal the
more obvious it is that there are almost
no dates or deadlines for the financial
promises. It also becomes clear that when
the British government is talking about
‘multi-year budgets’ it means a lot of the
money promised will be spread over three
to five years – apart from ‘immediate
support to the health service’ – not doled
out this year as parties believed last
weekend.
Furthermore, finance is conditional
as laid out in detail in Annex A ‘UK
Government Financial and Economic
Commitments to NI’. Ominously the Annex
points out, ‘The financial package will be
accompanied by stringent conditions to
deliver a greater level of accountability
for public spending’. There will be
independent monitoring and reporting
overseen by the UK government.
To this end an independent Fiscal
Council will be set up by July.
Of course this oversight is not
unconnected to making sure the
chicanery around Red Sky, Nama
and above all, RHI, is not repeated.
RHI ‘and its implications’ will
be carefully reviewed by the UK
Brian
FEENEY
government. In short the executive, given
its dreadful record 2007-17, will not be
trusted any longer.
Apart from finance and its oversight
there’s precious little definite in the deal.
Even the commitment to ‘publish and
introduce legislation’ within 100 days to
implement the Stormont House Agreement
to address legacy issues, which sounds
great, will go nowhere given the Colonel
Blimps on the Conservative benches. How
will such legislation get through given the
promise Johnson repeated on Monday to
prevent ‘unfair’ prosecution of soldiers,
whatever that means?
It’s not going to happen.
Why is there no date for changing the
immigration rules to recognise family
members coming to the north or to honour
the commitment in the Good Friday
Agreement to recognise that people here
can be British or Irish or both?
At least there’s a date for inserting
an Irish language act in the Northern
Ireland Act (three months) but with the
bill of rights, here we go again. An ad hoc
assembly committee to outline the terms
of reference to be agreed within thirty
days, and then?
One of the reasons for the woolliness
of course is that this isn’t the parties’
agreement. Don’t forget they couldn’t
reach one, so they could hardly come
up with dates and deadlines for stuff the
parties didn’t know about. Down to the last
minute the DUP were dragging their heels
as our proconsul had made publicly clear
before Christmas. That’s why they had to
be given all kinds of pathetic sweeteners
like being able to fly their fleg three more
days, introducing the army covenant
which is in danger of contravening equality
legislation here, and establishing a strange
body called the Castlereagh Foundation
which seems to be a government funded
sectarian playground for unionist
historians – is that an oxymoron? Again,
like almost everything else these are all on
the long finger with funding or personnel
involved unknown.
Still, despite everything, a much
chastened Arlene Foster, as you may have
noticed minus passive aggressive crown
brooch, gave an emollient speech to open
the assembly sitting on Saturday with
even a nod towards the controversial Irish
language she used to disparage.
She referred to a picture girls at
Our Lady’s Grammar School Newry
had given her with the motto, Ní
neart go cur he cheile. Someone
translated it for Arlene as, ‘we’re
only strong together’. The real
translation is, ‘there’s no strength
without unity’.
The more you look into the deal
the more obvious it is that there
are almost no dates or deadlines
for the financial promises