O’Conall Street

I don’t want to enter the political debate about Mr Ian Paisley Junior’s resignation as a minister today. From a communications point of view it is closure on his time in office but by no means the end of the questions about him. His party can now move on, whether he has a political future will be a matter for the electorate.

Scanning the reaction David Ford’s quote stood out:

 ”Ian Paisley Jnr’s behaviour has severely damaged the credibility of the Executive.

“However, the questions being asked relate to his behaviour as an MLA.

“This would suggest he must resign as a MLA too.”

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces a tough few days and a serious political and public backlash over the government’s decision to bring National Rock into private ownership. There is also a distinct possibility of litigation from shareholders and serious criticism from the likes of Richard Branson who was hoping to acquire the failing bank.

Reuters reports this morning that Brown will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. and Chancellor Alistair Darling will announce new legislation allowing the government to take over Britain’s fifth-largest mortgage lender after rejecting two private sector bids on Sunday.

The global wires agency also reminds us that the bank borrowed about 25 billion pounds from the Bank of England since the global credit crisis last year wrecked its funding model, sparking the first run on deposits at a British bank for some 140 years.

There are 33,00 blog postings on the issue since the crisis broke last year and over 200 since the government’s announcement yesterday. I cannot find a single positive on. Advocacy works both ways and the conversations between ordinary people reflect the confusion and the underlying negativity about recent events.

Not a blog I would usually plug but Conservative Home today has a very useful roundup of commentary on the issue.

I am writing this on the PDA at the emergency relief dental clinic in Belfast City Hospital. After the politics show I was unable to ignore the agony and surrendered to the skeleton service available through the NHS. I arrived 20 minutes early two hours ago and am still waiting to be seen. Dentists have been exiting the NHS in their droves leaving very many with no option but to turn up at the emergency clinic for a patch up job before taking out the cheque book and a loan to pay for a proper private treatment. A sorry state of affairs and a crying shame on the state.

News has just reached my Blackberry of the plans to nationalise Northern Bank. I am not convinced this is the solution and am even less happy with the fact that it sends the worst possible signal to financial institutions who are not on top of their affairs. This particular episode has done the bank of England’s reputation damage too.

The Prime Minister accepts today that Scotland should be given more powers over its own affairs including on tax matters. Given our Celtic cousins already have the power to add three pence in the pound to income tax we can only assume they will now want to look seriously at varying business taxes, something we continue to fight for the right to do in Northen Ireland. Which brings me back to the debate on the politics show earlier. I have no problem paying politicians a good wage to work for us. At the end of the day you get the representation you pay for. Instead of tripping over each other to oppose a salary hike they should be telling us what they could do to justify it. A serious campaign to give the Assembly tax varying powers and some action on the NHS dental service would be a decent start.

Back to waiting!

I have been invited on BBC Northern Ireland’s Politics Show tomorrow to disucss politicians salaries and expenses. Over the past couple of weeks the issue has never been far from the top of the news agenda here. There have been reports about a possible 16% pay increase for our local MLAs and questions about whether they are worth it. The story of Ian Paisley Junior’s three salaries from the public purse continues and following the Conway affair in England there is a debate about whether family members should be employed by public representatives.

The bloggers have been considering the issues also. Henry McDonald on the Guardian Blog, Slugger,  A Tangled Web and Splintered Sunrise have all had something to say. What is interesting is that they and indeed the public seem more interested in the double or triple jobbing than the pay.

The Newsletterleads today with yet another Ian Jnr story, this time about the £62k he has claimed to pay rent for the DUP’s Ballymena offices. A good piece of journalism by Stephen Dempster and Sam MacBride which is likely to raise a further question or two.  

John Paul Coackley, RTE Radio’s Head of Operations has an article in today’s Irish News  about the station’s decision to shut down it’s medium wave output on the 24th of March.

 I have nothing against the man but he has sailed as close to the wind as is journalistically possible to justify the decision.  A number of his assertions are questionable.  In the article he says claims that under international agreements separate jurisdictions have separate licencing agreements. This makes perfect sense but in no way explains why RTE could not apply to become a ‘UK’ broadcaster also. To my best knowledge there is no point of international law which would prevent them from doing so.

Secondly he claims just 2% of ‘listeners’ tune in to RTE on MW. Is this listeners in the Republic where the choice of FM is available or does it include people living in NI? I strongly suspect he is using southern stats only.

Later in the article he claims RTE’s FM coverage is available in 75% of NI and that there is only a problem in the Belfast metropolitan area. When you consider that over 60% of the North’s population live in this areas the argument is not quite so strong.

Finally I really do think it is disingenuous to quote legislation (2007, Broadcasting Act) that is intended to ensure the Irish diaspora (i.e. people living outside this island) have access to RTE as a signal of the broadcasters commitment to the North. It is also pretty bizarre to describe people on this island, be they British or Irish, as part of the diaspora.

The Labour Party in the South has written to the Taoiseach on this matter. RTE has a significant audience in the North and their right to listen to our national broadcaster has been severely curtailed. As I said in a earlier post, cutting people off in the North in this way, contradicts the ethos of the Good Friday Agreement. Tuning in to RTE radio medium wave forms part of the traditional cross border links enjoyed by many in Northern Ireland, serving all ages and social groups.

The matter has been raised at the recent meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications Energy and Natural Resources and the Committee is to invite RTE to come for a chat. I am happy to hear the SDLP, SF, labour and Fine Gael remain on the case.  

P.S. Wonder if we can expect a digital offering soon?

Being a political communications strategist anywhere Ireland is not easy, but in the North the unique structures of government present a particular challenge to those tasked with communicating often complex issues to an electorate not particularly interested in the detail.

During the last month we have seen a good example of how things can go wrong in communications terms. The SDLP’s opposition to the budget and programme for government, a perfectly rational thing to do, which could have given the party a political edge in an Assembly dominated by the DUP and the SF has instead left the electorate and the media confused.  It has baffled SDLP supporters and created a sense that the party was hanging its only minister, Margaret Ritchie out to dry. This could have been averted if the party had prepared its support base and the media for its opposition using the time between the publication of the draft budget and the final vote (some six weeks) to communicate its intention to oppose unless things dramatically changed. It simply did not do this and left it until the eleventh hour to announce a dramatic rejection thus failing to capture the media agenda.

In a mature parliament with an established lobby of political correspondents, expert in the procedures and machinations of parliamentary business it would have been a high risk strategy. In our nascent regional forum with restricted media output it was always doomed to failure.

A classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The good thing is there won’t be an election for a few years so plenty of time to improve. As I said it’s not easy being a political communicator here.

There is a great lesson in this for anyone in any communications role. If you don’t prepare you audience for dramatic news you run the risk they simply won’t understand when you communicate it.

That’s that off my chest. Spent the day with 80 budding earth scientists at W5’s Gold Mine which is organised in association with the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland. Great fun and very rewarding.

The other night I was sitting out on the patio under the crisp winter sky with a mug of Spanish hot chocolate. A perfect end to a long day on O’Conall Street.  I drifted back to an dinner I attended recently in the company of twenty or so other business people.  We enjoyed a lively and extremely constructive debate with Nigel Dodds, the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Investment. I have always recognised Dodd’s ability and to see him able to dedicate himself to the furtherance of the Northern economy was heartening. He talked extensively about the challenges facing our small region and was very open minded about how we might effect a step change in economic terms over the next five years. He was lobbied hard on the issue of corporation tax and was strongly supportive of the need to achieve a significant reduction from the British Government. He also addressed the skills challenge facing ever changing manufacturing and services sectors.

Last week at the gigis I had a number of conversations with senior business figures about the past few months. Optimistic is the only word to describe them. To a woman, and man, they are up for the new North. They are increasingly crossing the border, building deal by deal, an island economy which threatens nobody. They are also looking to the Executive for leadership and vision. They want to be incentivised to invest, encouraged to hire and to be able to profit from their own risk. That seems to be to be a fair deal. In a month when some of our traditional industries surrendered to global pressures knowing there is a new breed of manufacturing are service sector entrepreneurs in our small region determined to make a go of their businesses, right here right now, is an indication that after a lost generation the time has come to start trading.

John Simpson, the elder statesman of Northern economists was commenting just the other week that our public sector although big is no bigger percapita than Scotland’s. Whilst efficiencies are needed and their is certainly scope for a reduction in the number of public servants North of the border, the real answer is to grow the private sector allowing it to become the genuine driver in this region, making us better able to maintain the public services we hold so dear. I left that dinner pretty sure this is one thing Nigel Dodds and I can agree on.  

Just got the news that O’Conall Street has been shortlisted for the Best Irish Business Blog at the Irish blog awards.

Thanks for the nomination.

If you are from the North you will know what a Lundy is, and today I can hear the mob on O’Conall Street baying for the RTE ‘traitors’ who decided to shut down the ‘national’ broadcasters medium wave output, leaving many tens of thousands of listeners in the North without coverage.

The Good Friday Agreement signed ten years ago commits RTE to extending coverage to the 32 counties. With the exception of a boost in the TG4 signal the Irish broadcaster has done damn all to deliver on this solemn commitment in the Agreement. Over the past decade I have heard every argument going. From programme rights to advertising licences, RTE has always has a selfish reason for doing nothing.

The people of Ireland are closer today then at any time in recent history. I know an orangemen on the north coast who loves RTE and he is not alone. RTE is popular in NI, but do the D4 liberatchi give a toss, apparently not.

It will take the southern government getting serious about this issue to effect change. Meantime the only major institution on this island which seems determined to live in the past is the very one which for decades was believed to be a breeding ground for liberals and ‘new irelanders’. 

RTE are denying many northerners access to their own culture, sports (they have first rights to big GAA games for example) and news of their fellow countrymen and women. Hardly a credible position for a so called national broadcaster.  

Busy week on O’Conall Street so please be patient if the posts are not as regular as normal. Food on the table and all that.

Before I go. Amy cleans up at the Grammys and deservedly so - what an artist. Daniel  is the toast of the BAFTAS - glory to the living embodiment of the New Ireland, and, it’s a hat-trick in the States for Barack - is this the beginning of the end for the Ice Queen of Arkansas?

From a Dubliner in Antrim, my sympathies to the Saffron’s.    

You hear me go on a lot about the shift from traditional public relations to advocacy. We have been tracking this global shift in Weber Shandwick for a couple of year and last week we launched some European research on the topic.

Richard Moss a fellow Weber Shandwck Director in Europe and the man responsible for the research gave an interview to PR Week TV which you may find interesting. More as always on this blog and from Weber Shandwick.