O'Conall Street

New SDLP face for Fermanagh and South Tyrone

The SDLP has a new face in Fermanagh and South Tyrone and he will be well known to you. Fearghal McKinney is seeking the nomination to contest the next Westminster Election on behalf of the SDLP.

I’ve known Fearghal for a long time and know this is something he has been thinking about for nearly a year.

He wants to play a role in rebuilding the SDLP and be future evidence that we are party with a new generation ready to reconnect with people across our region.

His will be a platform for change in his home county.

A big to do – meantime no progress on education, health parades or a shared future

What a manufactured crisis.

The DUP say the need to the UUP to vote yes but the truth is they don’t.

Sinn Fein say they are the party of equality yet every big decision they have taken in the past year has been built on inequality like denying nationalism a seat at the Executive table.

But that is not the point today.

The point is we need to take a decision in principle to bring these powers to Northern Ireland. It is another small step on the road to real politics here. I’ll be joining my SDLP colleagues to vote yes to that but we will return to the detail in the weeks ahead and argue that the government of policing and justice could be much better.

Not to mention the lack of progress on education, health, a shared future or parades.

The day before the over-hyped vote

If ever you wanted an argument for devolution of more power to the NI Assembly, this morning’s interview with Secretary of State Shaun Woodward was surely it.

He subjected us all to what could only amount to emotional and political blackmail threatening the future of the Assembly if all MLAs did not vote for the devolution of Policing and Justice tomorrow. It was the perfect encore for Naomi Long who in did the Alliance-NIO talking yesterday also threatening the stability of the region if everyone did not get into line and fast.

The DUP and SF do not need the SDLP or UUP’s support to win the vote tomorrow. They have enough votes of their own. My point – if the DUP and SF want to proceed with devolving power they can!

I am not sure the UUP are right in opposing the principle of devolving policing and justice powers which is what tomorrow’s vote is all about.  Personally I can’t wait to get Mr Woodward and his like out of our hair although that will be easier said then done given that the DUP and SF have agreed to let him remain in control of key aspects of security policy.

We were promised at Hillsborough that things would get better on the real issues that matter to people here. So far there is no evidence that . No paper on a Shared Future, no paper on parades, not a line on education, the budget crisis or health.

Even on the inside the DUP-SF axis looks more like a panto then a serious power sharing government.

Gerry and his pacemaker

It’s hard to take Gerry Adams seriously these days. The whiff of sulphur has gone and the air of infalbility has been blown away on the winds of child abuse, policy illiteracy and a sense of nation which means little to the vast majority of Irish people.

Last nights speech was high on rebel rhetoric but short on anything except tax the middle classes and kick the brits.

It will be interesting to see if there is any bounce in the southern polls. To date Mr Adams’ “SF is not interested in managing the economy” line has sunk like a lead balloon.

The more I hear from SF the more I hear the old Ireland. Inward looking, anti European and anti business. A party that gets angry but does nothing. That talks equality but is built on inequality. A party of the few and of the past.

A new strategy for cancer

Traditionally cancer treatments have had a short-sighted focus on the offending individual cells. David Agus suggests a new, cross-disciplinary approach, using atypical drugs, computer modeling and protein analysis to treat and analyze the whole body.

Explanations needed on increased waiting lists & £11million bonuses to consultants

Today I am calling on the Minister for Health to provide a detailed explanation as to why waiting lists have increased for the second quarter in a row. I have also asked him to follow the lead of his Scottish counterpart and seek a freezing of bonus payments to consultants until the public finances improve.

My call follows revelations that £11 million was paid to consultants in bonuses here last year.

The Minister for Health says waiting lists have increased because of the cut backs in the health budget and the delay in approving extra funding for swine flu. This may be so but nobody can properly test his argument because he is refusing to provide details of how he will protect front line services in the face of the proposed cutbacks.

Nor does it explain why the Minister was then able to return £20million to the Department of Finance this month; money which was not spent on Swine Flu.

The increasing trend in waiting lists is extremely worrying and suggests either there is a policy of stealth cuts targeting front line services or the Minister simply does not have a handle on the financial management of the health service in this region.

News that Northern Ireland’s top consultants received over £11m in bonuses last year is concerning. UTV reported last night that one consultant was paid a £73,000 bonus. This is an outrageous amount of money in the current economic climate. It seems the department is favouring the few at a time when many young surgeons and physicians are desperate to get jobs and serve the many in need of care across our region.

The Minister needs to show the same leadership as his Scottish counterpart and seek a freezing of bonus payments to consultants.

Public meeting – attacks on the elderly

Representatives from the PSNI, Age Concern Help the Aged NI and Belfast City Council have been invited to attend the public meeting which will take place on Thursday 11th March at 7pm in St Brides Parish Hall, Derryvolgie Avenue, Belfast.

I am organising this meeting to give concerned residents the opportunity to speak to local representatives and statutory agencies to voice their concerns about the latest burglaries. I would urge as many people as possible to come along and be apart of the community response to these attacks.

It is important that we pull together as a community and work alongside the statutory agencies to ensure that these attacks on the elderly members of our community are put to an end.

Regional action on ‘legal highs’ needed

It was disappointing to get news yesterday that the Health Minister has missed the second British Irish Council meeting in a row to discuss the misuse of drugs in Britain and Ireland .
 
He is sending out all the wrong signals about tackling the drugs trade and consumption across these islands. Last week’s meeting of the British Irish Council discussed the availability of legal highs as well as the drugs crisis in prisons.
 
Minister McGimpsey should have been present for this important discussion to demonstrate his commitment to tackling this problem. He needs to send a much stronger message about the need to deal the drugs crisis, which is particularly severe here in Northern Ireland .
 
Some paramilitaries are now taking matters into their own hands against legal high outlets.
 
Along with the justice agencies, the Minister needs to take much greater control over this issue and move very quickly to control the import and distribution of legal highs as well as educating young people as to the serious health risks these present.
 
The British Irish Council will not meet to discuss drugs for another year.
 
It is time for the Minister for Health to bring forward proposals immediately to deal with legal highs.

Alliance Party fail to support Bill of Rights in key Assembly vote

The Alliance Party engaged in some political gymnastics yesterday to avoid having to support a motion calling for a strong Bill of Rights.

Having voted in favour of an SDLP amendment which strengthened the motion, Alliance MLAs with the exception of Stephen Farry made a bee-line for the door to avoid havingto vote on the substantive motion. Mr Farry stayed in the chamber and abstained in person.

Why?

Well I can only surmise that they did not think the amendment would pass and when it did they panicked because it might embarrass their new bosses in the DUP if the the Assembly were seen to support a Bill of Rights.

I thought my colleague Dolores Kelly put it well:

We had generally assumed that Alliance were on the side of the angels on human rights in general and the long, hard struggle for a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights in particular. The motion before the Assembly was critical of the British government’s approach which ignores the work done by local people on the Human Rights Commission and Forum, including Alliance members.

We called on the government to extend the current consultation on a bill of rights and Alliance supported our amendment. But when it came to the substantive motion they suddenly disappeared and it was voted down by the unionists.

The issue of rights strongly protected and enforced in law goes right to the heart what has divided our society, and in our view a Bill of Rights has the ability to take basic human and civil rights completely out of the party-political arena. Today they went back into the arena with a bump due to the increasingly odd behaviour of the Alliance party.  We hope this does not represent some new departure or unionist line-up as part of dropping their claim to be an opposition party. That would be a great blow to our hopes of a shared future.

Derry execution to lead Assembly business

A series of statements on the execution of Kieran Doherty in Derry last week will be the first item of business in the Assembly today.

Mark Durkan will lead and remind the Assembly that the murder bears the hallmarks of the old Provo-style ‘execution’ which people had hoped was in our past.

You can follow it live at noon here:

http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/stream.htm