Who won the war? The debate continues

'The war ended on terms satisfactory to the British, and was an absolute implosion of republican principles', Anthony McIntyre, former IRA Prisoner and hungrer striker.

‘The IRA knew that it was time to move onto a new era.” Alan McQuillan, Former senior officer in RUC and PSNI

Suzanne Breen, Belfast Telegraph, July 26th, 2025

TWO DECADES AFTER SÉANNA WALSH ANNOUNCED THE PROVOS' HISTORIC CESSATION TO THE WORLD, FORMER PRISONERS, A POLICE CHIEF AND ACADEMICS REFLECT ON WHETHER GROUP'S ARMED CAMPAIGN ACHIEVED ITS GOALS OR REPRESENTED DEFEAT DISGUISED AS VICTORY

It was a softly spoken former prisoner in a white shirt who made one of the most momentous declarations in republican history.

Standing in front of a tricolour, Séanna Walsh became the first person since the 1972 truce talks to publicly represent the IRA without wearing a balaclava.

On July 28, 2005, the republican who had spent almost half his life in jail announced a “formal end to the armed campaign” from 4pm that day. All Provisional units were ordered to “dump arms”, and the organisation pledged to decommission its weapons.

In the statement recorded on DVD for broadcast media, IRA members were instructed “to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means”.

It added: “Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.”

Walsh was carefully chosen to deliver the declaration. A former friend and cellmate of Bobby Sands, he had spent a total of 21 years in prison.

First arrested as a 16-year-old in 1973 for robbing a bank, he had served three years in jail. He had been free for only three months when he was back inside for possessing a rifle.

He joined the blanket protest and went on to become IRA commander in the H-Blocks in late 1981 after the hunger strike had ended. Walsh's third stint behind bars lasted almost eight years.

On release, he got married but was returned to prison when his youngest daughter was only two weeks old after he was caught making explosives and mortar bombs. He was freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Another republican perspective

Former IRA prisoner and writer Anthony McIntyre, who served 18 years in jail, is a long-term critic of Sinn Fein's political direction.

He believes it was astute for the republican leadership to select Walsh to deliver the declaration.

“Séanna was picked because of his association with Bobby Sands. It was an attempt to suggest that this statement had the imprimatur of Bobby,” McIntyre says.

“We have no idea what Bobby would have thought of the statement, but his death was an act of defiance against everything the Provisional movement eventually went on to embrace.

“Séanna was also picked because he was one of the IRA's most committed volunteers. As a married man with kids, who had already served a serious amount of time in prison, he had the option of a cushy number — sitting in a Sinn Fein office directing the POW department.

“He chose to put the gloves back on and return to active service. But, in the end, he was the man who publicly announced the failure of the IRA campaign.”

McIntyre argues that the leadership tried to “dress up its defeat as some sort of victory” in the statement.

“It doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny,” he says.

“In the battle between the British state and republicans, the British state won.

“The IRA agreed that there would only be Irish unity by consent. It had opposed the consent principle for decades. It had always insisted it would coerce Britain into withdrawing.

“The war ended on terms totally satisfactory to the British. It represented an absolute implosion of republican principles and strategy.”

McIntyre asserts that republicans were now included in the political process, but that republicanism was excluded.

“The Good Friday Agreement was a compromise between unionism and nationalism,” he says.

“It was an internal Northern Ireland solution, and that solution defined the cause of the conflict as an internal one. The message was that the conflict hadn't been caused by Britain, it had been caused by unionists and nationalists not getting on.

“The IRA accepted that de facto. Had the Good Friday Agreement been a compromise between republicans and the British state, we'd have joint sovereignty, not an internal solution.”

McIntyre adds: “I'd never condemn the IRA campaign, but I certainly wonder why we bothered fighting it.

“It was a waste of time when the IRA leadership itself would later effectively agree that other non-violent ways were possible.”

IRA declaration ‘critically important’

Former PSNI assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan describes the IRA declaration 20 years ago as “critically important”.

He says: “It was the fruition of extensive behind-the-scenes talks. I viewed it as extremely positive. The statement was a final recognition of a process which had gone on and on. It was about putting the past to bed.

“Key people in the republican movement were acknowledging that violence hadn't been successful and their campaign had failed to deliver.

“I'm not saying that to rub anybody's nose in it — it's just the reality of the situation. The IRA knew that it was time to move onto a new era.”

McQuillan believes that the IRA declaration was hugely favourable for Northern Ireland, although some have failed to build on its benefits.

“The nationalist community has enjoyed great success since 2005. It's been very different for unionism,” he says.

“Unionist politicians have failed to seize the opportunities of peace and are still fighting battles from the 17th century over bonfires and the like. The economic potential of this place also hasn't been realised.”

McQuillan insists that what followed from the 2005 statement must not be under-acknowledged.

“It has not been perfect since. The republican leadership hasn't been able to control everybody all the time. Some IRA members have done things but, by and large, they've stuck to their word.”

Historian and commentator Dr Brian Feeney says the declaration 20 years ago marked the definitive end of the IRA campaign.

“It was similar to the 'dump arms' order of Frank Aiken, the chief-of-staff of the anti-Treaty IRA in 1923 at the end of the civil war and the decision to follow a political path.

“When the 2005 statement was issued, I believe there was a big sigh of relief by those in the republican movement who had worked so hard to achieve it. This was something that had been 10 years in the making.”

Like McIntyre, Feeney sees significance in the IRA choosing Walsh to make the historic declaration.

Splinters rather than splits

“He had spent a very long time in jail. He could never be accused of not doing much during the Troubles. He wasn't a careerist,” the historian adds.

Feeney recalls the success of the IRA leadership in bringing the vast majority of the republican movement with them.

“As Brendan Behan said, the first item on the agenda for republicans is usually a split,” he says.

“There was a split in 1997 (when IRA quartermaster general Mickey McKevitt and others left to form the Real IRA), but it didn't materially affect the peace process.”

Feeney views the 2005 declaration as marking the end of the peace process and the beginning of the political process.

“A political agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP followed at St Andrews the next year. The year after that, Sinn Fein went into government at Stormont with the DUP with Ian Paisley becoming First Minister and Martin McGuinness Deputy First Minister.

“In the lead-up to the July 2005 declaration, there had been security crises with the murder of Robert McCartney (six months earlier) and the Northern Bank robbery (in December 2004). But, after 2005, the crises would be political rather than security ones.”

Feeney states that while paramilitaries continue to exist here, they do so in a different context now.

“There has been dissident republican and some UDA/UVF activity over the past 20 years, but both sides aren't targeting each other,” he says.

“Dissidents have tried to kill police, they're not shooting loyalists. And loyalists are involved in a range of activities, but they're not shooting republicans. There has been peace between the two main sides.”

Dr Marisa McGlinchey, assistant professor in political science at Coventry University, describes the 2005 statement as unprecedented in republican history.

“Yes, the IRA had been on a ceasefire since 1994, which was broken for a short period, but then resumed in 1997. However, this was the first time that the IRA definitively ended armed struggle and put its weapons beyond use,” she says.

McGlinchey notes the difference from ceasefires declared after previous armed republican campaigns.

“In 1962, the IRA released a statement — largely penned by former Sinn Fein president Ruairí Ó Brádaigh — that ended the border campaign which had been ongoing since 1956,” she says.

“The statement talked about a lack of public support and the overall failure of the campaign. But the weapons were never destroyed. In contrast, they were deliberately kept for another day.

“Getting rid of the weapons in 2005, by whatever means, signalled a line in the sand. There would be no going back.

“The leadership were clearly demonstrating that, unlike in the past, there'd be no return to armed struggle. In the development of the republican movement, it's hard to imagine a more definitive or historic moment.”

‘Tame dogs’ - McKee

McGlinchey recalls the staunch opposition to decommissioning by PIRA founding member Billy McKee, who was firmly in the ranks of those opposing Sinn Fein's political strategy.

“I met Billy McKee one day after Mass at Clonard Monastery, where he was a daily communicant,” she recalls.

“We went to his home where he told me the one thing he would change, if he could, was getting rid of weapons.

“He said, 'I would never have handed over the weapons in the first place. It might have come at a critical stage where they might have thought they weren't making anything of it. It's ok to call it a day and look forward to the next. Be ready for it and prepare for it because when they lost the weapons, they lost everything. They just became tame dogs'.”

McGlinchey says other republicans she has interviewed, like former Sinn Fein publicity director Danny Morrison, interpret events very differently and emphasise that the majority of republicans supported the leadership.

She says: “Morrison told me that 'fortunately, there were people there who were able to transform their talents from military to politics almost overnight and the bulk of prisoners supported the change'.”

Morrison told her: “I know for a fact, because I was in jail with hundreds of people, that 80+% of former prisoners support the change and what a minority are saying is, 'you don't have a right to change, you are sell-out b******s'.”

McGlinchey describes the IRA's decision in 2005 to not retain weapons “for a future opportunity” as previous leaderships did as a choice which “irrevocably changed” history.

“It's a necessary step, some would say, in the peace process and Sinn Fein strategy which has paid off with a Sinn Fein First Minister,” she explains.

“Twenty years on, it's hard to imagine the strides that Sinn Fein has taken in terms of popular support, had the IRA not dumped its arms. In terms of achieving its ultimate objective of Irish unity, that remains to be seen.”

Ballymena six weeks on: 'The problems are still here and need to be dealt with'

Gabrielle Swan, Belfast Telegraph, July 26th, 2025

WHILE THE VIOLENCE MAY HAVE ENDED, MANY ETHNIC MINORITY RESIDENTS WHO WERE TARGETED HAVE FLED THE TOWN AND, SOME SAY THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE RIOTING REMAIN

The riots which tore through Ballymena have faded from the headlines and, according to one local, “rightly or wrongly, life goes on for most people in the town”.

Nearly two months since the mayhem that was unleashed on the streets, the town is noticeably emptier.

Particularly, fewer foreign nationals can be seen out and about with some re-locating after fleeing in fear for their lives. Those who were targeted will likely never return.

The area was already described as a tinderbox due to the impact of social deprivation and tensions between different communities.

On June 7, an alleged sexual assault on a schoolgirl proved to be the tipping point.

Two days after the alleged attack in the Clonavon Terrace area, a protest was held in Harryville which quickly descended into violence.

Two Romanian boys were arrested, with a third suspect fleeing back to the eastern European country.

The PSNI has confirmed it is working to extradite the adult to Northern Ireland. The teenage suspects, who can't be named due to their ages, appeared before a youth court in Coleraine as riots raged.

107 police casualties, 56 arrests

A total of 107 police were injured during the disorder, with officers pelted with fireworks, bottles and masonry for three consecutive nights.

Fifty-six people, including children, were arrested during what many politicians condemned as “racist thuggery”.

Streets were set on fire with some houses occupied by ethnic minorities also set alight.

Many immigrants were targeted with some receiving death threats and other having their cars destroyed. The shameful scenes were beamed around the world as the media descended on the town and reporters began appearing on residents' doorsteps.

BBC Newsnight, Al Jazeera, AFP and a series of other global news agencies arrived to cover the disturbing story.

One local man was heard calling out to an acquaintance “we're getting our country back” as many others fanned the flames.

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly was among the political leaders who travelled to Ballymena.

The DUP MLA met local residents where much of the unrest occurred and warned it served “no purpose whatsoever”.

She also stressed that the family of the victim of the alleged sexual assault had been “very clear” that they did not want violence.

This week, in the aftermath of what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, hollowed out houses remain boarded up and covered in fading paint stains. Patches of scorched tarmac are still visible.

They are scars that serve as a chilling reminder of what happened.

‘Locals live here’

Flags and 'Locals live here' signs remain pinned on some doors and windows either out of fear or as a result of residents simply forgetting to remove them like Christmas decorations in January.

When the Belfast Telegraph knocked on the doors of the homes that were singled out, we were met with either silence or the confused faces of new occupants wondering why we were there.

Last month, support worker Demi Laverty said “intense social and economic deprivation” was at the heart of the violence.

“Everybody has been focusing on the riots, and not necessarily what has been really going on in Ballymena,” she said.

“Ballymena is ranked as one of the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland.

“Out of over 800 areas, Ballymena is ranked number 14 in terms of most deprived. For such a small town, I think it just speaks for itself.

“Unfortunately, with the riots being so highly reported on... [people have] focused on the riots.

Ms Laverty believes it shows how “misinformed people can be” in relation to the town.

“The socio-economics and deprivation here is multi-layered,” she added.

“That is where terminology like racism and sectarianism come in. Deprived areas are more likely to be impacted by those things.”

‘Legitimate concerns’

Timothy Gaston, a TUV MLA for North Antrim, said there have been 'legitimate concerns' over immigration to the area which he says “have not been dealt with”.

He also disagrees with the labelling of the disorder as “race riots”. “Let's not forget how this all kicked off. Let's not forget the [alleged] victim at the centre of all of this,” he said.

“Two thousand people appeared in Harryville to stand with that family on the Monday night.

“Those legitimate concerns haven't been dealt with. Yes, the town is a bit quieter, but the concerns still exist.

“There is not the same urgency being shown by the statutory agencies. Yes, there has been a holiday period, but I want to see them redouble their efforts and step forward and take these issues head on.

“This has all been labelled as race riots - it's not. There are underlying issues here that causes people to come out onto the streets.

“Violence is absolutely wrong but there are underlying issues here in Ballymena that need dealt with.”

Mr Gaston said the Government faces big questions about how money is spent to transform communities which should be done “in the right way”. “And that includes making it safer for women to walk the streets of Ballymena,” he added.

“There is ending violence against women and girls, this is what really sparked this off, the straw that broke the camel's back was the [alleged] sexual assault.”

Mr Gaston acknowledged that people have left the area and said if they want to return “they have to adapt to the way and integrate into the community”.

“We have a wide spread of foreign workers across Ballymena, many of them are involved in the community, many of them contribute. It's essential for them to be there and fulfil jobs in our local factories, manufacturing and hospitality,” he continued.

“It's essential that foreign nationals feel welcome to come to Ballymena. But there is a deep concern that there are some elements of unchecked immigration who have come under the radar.”

Healing and Cohesion

Meanwhile, former Presbyterian minister and moderator Norman Hamilton, who lives in Ballymena, has been pondering how “healing and cohesion” can be brought back to the town. “Obviously over the July period, the town has had its usual celebrations, things have settled down generally,” the retired clergyman said.

“On the surface, life seems to have returned to normal. Rightly or wrongly, life goes on for most people in the town.

“This is the holiday period and the normal routines have kicked in, so I don't think you would notice much of a change in the tone around the town.

“Some families are having huge changes in the passing number of weeks.

“I think many of the locals have been just horrified over what happened, and rightly so.”

While Mr Hamilton is optimistic about the aspirations of residents, he acknowledged hurdles need to be overcome.

“They would want some healing to come back into the area, some cohesion to come back into the area, and that is a big task for the Ballymena town itself, but also a great challenge for government and politicians,” he said.

“That is in a sense to lift this whole area up, that is my heart's desire.

“People do want to live today and into the future, but that doesn't undo the damage that has been caused in the past.

“It is still there and it needs to be dealt with and changed, so we don't have a repeat of it here, or indeed anywhere else across the province.”

At its first meeting since the violence, Mid and East Antrim Borough Council agreed to write to the First and Deputy First Ministers to ask for support to draw up a recovery plan.

Mayor Jackson Minford urged councillors to show leadership.

"Our ambition is that Mid and East Antrim would be a safe, inclusive and welcoming borough where diversity and cultural differences are celebrated and communities live in peace," he said.

The council's interim chief executive, Valerie Watts, proposed the development of a strategic reset plan to support long-term recovery.

Why can’t Stormont fix poverty, but it can claim 70p for milk?

Patrick Murphy, Irish News, July 26th, 2025

THIS week’s charity appeal is on behalf of the political parties at Stormont. They are so poor that items they claimed for last year include 70 pence for refreshments for Sinn Féin and £1.46 for a mouse mat for the DUP.

Other claims included £2 for a newspaper (Alliance), £1.59 for refreshments (UUP) and £1 for cleaning supplies (SDLP). These claims came under the heading of Constituency Office Operating Expenses, which suggests that our political parties cannot afford to even buy a pint of milk for themselves.

So can you find it in your heart to donate to the Stormont Sanctuary for Penniless Political Parties? A donation of just £29 would buy an air fryer for the DUP. £56 would allow Alliance to buy a Nespresso machine (no, I don’t know what that is either) and for £2.09 you could pay “consumables” for the SDLP.

The poverty among these parties is palpable.

20 years to produce Poverty Strategy

Of course, all the claims are within assembly guidelines. However, the guidelines are an affront to the electorate, because these are the same parties which took nearly 20 years to produce an anti-poverty strategy. What they finally produced was so embarrassingly bad that the first minister distanced herself from a document to which she had just agreed.

The Trussell Trust says 200,000 people currently face hunger and hardship here, including 62,000 children.

Now we learn that among embarrassingly petty claims for “consumables” were three from Sinn Fein (for 70p, 50p and 40p). One DUP MLA claimed £1.13 under that same vague heading and a UUP MLA also claimed £1.09 for “consumables”. (Is that just a word for something you can eat?).

Meanwhile, emergency food distribution from Trussell foodbanks has increased by 95% for adults and 90% for children, compared with five years ago.

MLAs’ basic salary is £55,000, probably rising to about £70,000 in the near future, so if they want an air fryer or a mobile phone, why can’t they pay for it themselves?

The parties would presumably say they have the right to claim for these items from the public purse. However, with rights go responsibilities and the parties have failed miserably in meeting those responsibilities.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly at The Open Championship at Royal Portrush, where they cancelled a press conference.

No Photo opportunities at Food Banks

“ Stormont’s response to those failures is for the first and deputy first ministers to have their photographs taken – not at a foodbank or in an overcrowded hospital waiting area. Instead, they swan about at The Open golf tournament

More than half a million people are on health waiting lists; the A5 remains unbuilt; Lough Neagh is more polluted than ever; children in 85 schools sit in classrooms with health-threatening black mould; 1,400 looked-after children have gone missing in the past five years and no one knows for how long and Belfast maternity hospital is currently 10 years overdue at a cost of almost £100 million.

Stormont is responsible for these (and many more) failures. It cannot produce a Programme for Government with a single measurable objective, but it can find £1.5 million for constituency office expenses and £11 million for MLAs’ salaries and expenses.

Stormont’s response to those failures is for the first and deputy first ministers to have their photographs taken – not at a foodbank or in an overcrowded hospital waiting area.

Instead, they swan about in the company of British royalty and at The Open golf tournament, where they cancelled a planned press conference, presumably to avoid awkward questions about their government’s shambolic administration.

Cost of Sectarianism

So how do they get away with it? The simple answer is sectarianism. If people were dying of hunger in the streets here, SF and the DUP would still be elected.

The DUP claims to be defending the union (with a bankrupt Britain) while SF says, “Let’s talk about a United Ireland”. That’s another way of saying, let’s not talk about Stormont’s shameful abandonment of health, welfare, education and infrastructure.

What used to be an aspiration is now used as a distraction.

Of course, Stormont is praised by both Britain and the US because it represents no threat to the established order. Senator George Mitchell, for example, recently said that we should not try to hold Stormont to “impossibly high standards”.

That effectively means we should be grateful for poverty, ill health and growing inequality.

Would he consider it appropriate for us to suggest that he should be grateful for Donald Trump’s administration, which recently abolished the US department of education and is currently undermining the legal system there?

Of course, none of what columnists write will have the slightest impact on how the political class continue to fail us. Most MLAs will not even read this.

The only way of finding out which, if any of them, read it, will be by seeing who claimed £1.60 for a newspaper in the next expenses returns.

Despite denials, Stormont negotiated water charges - and selling off NI Water

Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor, Belfast Telegraph, July 26th, 2025

THEY DENIED IT FOR YEARS, BUT FILES UNCOVERED BY THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH SHOW IT WASN'T BRITISH MINISTERS WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA OF WATER CHARGES - IT WAS PUT TO THEM BY POLITICAL FIGURES IN STORMONT CASTLE COMMENT

For more than two decades, Northern Ireland's biggest parties have insisted they've always opposed water charges — but newly-declassified files show that the idea of selling off NI Water and charging the public came from the Stormont Executive.

Multiple documents from 2002 uncovered by the Belfast Telegraph in files opened at The National Archives in Kew show that Stormont's private willingness to sell off the then Water Service — now NI Water — surprised Tony Blair's chief of staff.

Yesterday Mark Durkan, who was deputy First Minister at the time, expressed surprise at what is in the documents, saying that they didn't accord with his recollection of the Executive's stance and that he had personally led Executive opposition to water charges.

The most significant document is difficult for the UUP and SDLP — then Stormont's lead parties — to disown because it came from two of their most senior backroom figures.

David Trimble's special adviser (spad), David Campbell, and Durkan's spad, Damian McAteer, wrote to Downing Street on a highly confidential basis, hoping that what they proposed would lead to the Treasury bending its rules to allow Stormont billions of pounds to spend.

This wasn't a flippant idea thrown out and quickly discarded but a carefully considered strategy which involved months of preparatory work within Stormont and negotiations with Downing Street. The Campbell-McAteer memo fundamentally contradicts what the public have until now been told.

The Executive's narrative has been that it would never have sold off the Water Service or brought in domestic water charges but that when devolution fell in October 2002 the big bad Brits used this issue as a stick with which to beat the parties back into government.

The reality is very different.

The Campbell-McAteer memo was sent to Jeremy Heywood, the Prime Minister's principal private secretary, on February 5 2002. Under the heading 'Reinvestment and Reform Initiative (RRI) for Northern Ireland', it set out how Blair, along with Trimble and Durkan had agreed “to explore the possibility of an additional financial package”.

The spads said that their political masters were “very grateful for the progress that has been made in our discussions” which had “identified a number of possible avenues”.

They said that “our ministers agree that the next step would be to discuss these issues with the appropriate people in the Treasury”.

They added: “We are continuing, of course, to treat this work on a strict 'need to know' basis at this stage.”

The DUP's ministers were not attending Executive meetings at this point and it is not clear that water charges were discussed at the Executive table, meaning that Sinn Fein may not have been aware of the full detail of what was going on.

The paper focused on the lack of “sustained investment in [NI's] basic infrastructure, such as roads and water”, alongside public sector reforms.

It said there was “a unique opportunity” to undertake a “fast track programme of investment in essential public services in Northern Ireland”.

They went on to argue for a “multi-billion programme of investment” funded from “public, personal and private investment”.

Sale of assets

But who would pay? The paper made clear this would be from the “sale of aspects of the Northern Ireland Executive's assets” and “this would include part or most of the Water Service...the programme would mainly be funded by the injection of private capital drawn in by the sale in whole or in part of major assets such as the water industry, coupled with new arrangements for the Northern Ireland Executive to borrow prudently through the Treasury, and with new income streams from charges relating to domestic water and sewerage services.”

Showing considerable consideration had been given to water privatisation, it continued: “It will be essential for the sale or part-sales to be done in a new and distinctive way that avoids the mistakes and unacceptable consequences of past privatisations… the view of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister is that all the proceeds of any sale should be fully reinvested in devolved public services and the economic and social regeneration of the region”.

Explicitly considering water charges, the spads said: “If there are charges for domestic water and sewerage services, then unlike the position on energy, these need to be set at levels that are no higher than in England.

“The Water Service in Northern Ireland could be prepared for sale or part sale and time is needed for restructuring, primary legislation, and the introduction of new financing arrangements that would make it marketable.

“As in England before water privatisation, an enormous investment programme is needed, and it will be essential that….[this happens] without excessive increases in water charges in the period after the sale.”

They expressed concern that the model should be such that it couldn't be “stigmatised”, highlighting that “there are models for not for profit structures and/or other PPP [public-private partnership] arrangements, as distinct from conventional privatisation, and these should be pursued so as to identify the best way of securing the benefits of the programme.”

They said clearly that “the whole initiative hinges on proceeds of sales”.

By this point, the letter was confirming what had already been discussed face to face for months.

Labour Govt surprised at willingness to sell NI Water

Four days earlier, Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, told the PM: “We've worked up a radical economic package for Northern Ireland with DT/MD's special advisers. I'm slightly surprised by their willingness to contemplate a PPP for NI Water.”

He said that if they were prepared to press ahead then the Treasury would need to let them keep the proceeds, which he said would be one or two billion pounds.

Powell's note was accompanied by a confidential memo from Downing Street economist Jacob Nell who said they were “on the verge of opening formal negotiations between HMT [Treasury] and NIE [Executive]”.

He said the Executive hadn't been told that he had a “backchannel” to the Treasury who were being kept informed. There had by then been two meetings in Downing Street between Trimble and Durkan's spads and senior Stormont officials.

He said: “The core of the proposed deal is that NI will agree to private sector involvement in its commercial assets, notably its Water Service. The NI Water Service has income of £50m a year from business. If it charged households in NI at the same rate as in the UK it would raise another £150m.

“Sale of an asset as a rule of thumb can realise 4-5 times its income stream, so potentially, if water rates are introduced, NI could realise proceeds of up to £1bn.”

The official added: “Other measures in the package may include: sale of a share in Belfast Port, Ulsterbus or some other commercial state-owned asset”.

NI subsidy dependent

Nell said this preferable treatment for Stormont could be defended because Northern Ireland was “too state-dominated” with 38% of its workforce in the public sector as opposed to 20% across the UK and was “too dependent upon subsidy...too often they look to London for palliatives of cash rather than tackling the underlying problem”.

He said that this was evident in health where “despite spending 11% more on health per capita than the UK average, 22% of patients in NI wait over 12 months for an operation as opposed to 4% in England.”

The official warned of the potential that “the commitment to reform, notably to do unpalatable things such as introduce water rates for households (necessary for successful privatisation), raise rates from their current low level and drive a [privatisation] through in the face of opposition, may disappear once the NI Executive have got some cash.

“The worrying precedent is the privatisation of Belfast Port, which was promised as part of the Chancellor's Initiative, but then not implemented because of political opposition.”

A seven-page Stormont document given to Downing Street on February 7, 2002 detailed how the Water Service could be transformed. It made clear that no decisions had been taken, but that privatisation was on the table.

It said that domestic charges could mean income of between £120m and £186m a year, setting out three possible models — a not for profit structure, a public private partnership, or full privatisation.

It added that “these models all depend on the preparation of the Water Service for sale in whole or in part” and “it would need a specific income stream to finance its costs and its debt”.

The paper accepted that this was “very vulnerable to criticism”, but added: “Assuming very substantial proceeds would be available, and would be retained by the NI Executive in full, one option would be to take the criticism head on, pointing out, in justification, to the unique opportunity to mount a much larger infrastructure programme than would be possible by any other means.”

‘Paying our own way’

In April 2002, SDLP finance minister Sean Farren said in a speech to the CBI that the Treasury would argue that “we should pay our own way more fully. This will mean looking hard at the rates and at the financing of our water and sewerage services.”

He specifically mentioned the possibility of domestic water charges, highlighting that “as private citizens we pay considerably less in local taxes than people do in England and, while it may be unpalatable, we may also have to accept that if we want better public services here we will have to pay more for them”.

One source said the backlash to this “spooked” the SDLP.

On March 29, 2002, a Stormont official sent Downing Street a draft letter to be sent by Trimble and Durkan setting out the policy as it stood at that point. It proposed a Treasury-Stormont working group “in relation to water in particular”.

It said they would seek “financial advice on [the] Water Service and other strategic services where possible PPP approaches could be relevant...[to] establish if some models can also yield proceeds from part of full sale of some businesses”.

It pointedly added: “This needs to include analysis of the level of charges that might be feasible in relation to domestic water and sewerage services”.

In May 2002, the RRI initiative was announced. When Trimble addressed the Assembly, he said: “We need a new debate about services and the necessary hard choices. We must all accept that good services must be paid for, planned and expertly managed. Resources and reform must go together.”

However, he made no reference to the hardest choice — water charges — although there was a clear subtext that more money would have to be raised in taxation by some means.

Two months later, a 'concept paper' was sent to Downing Street about the RRI on a 'strictly confidential' basis, setting out international private sector responses.

The author, who wasn't identified, proposed the creation of “an international private sector consortium of complementary and critical financial and intellectual resources” which would “work closely with the Northern Ireland Executive” on the RRI initiative.

This “select, hand-picked group of individuals and organisations” would have “the opportunity to invest” and major banks — including Barclays, HSBC and Deutsche Bank — had expressed interest.

In April 2002, senior NIO official William Fittall said of the financial package: “The initiative has been kept to a very tight circle around Trimble and Durkan.”

Robinson and McGuinness

He said Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness were not fully informed, adding: “A key issue which will need nailing down…is how Trimble/Durkan propose to handle McGuinness and Robinson”.

He said the Executive was “likely to be briefed on at least some aspects of the package” but that “if Trimble/Durkan keep the other parties completely in the dark” there was a risk of the announcement being “overshadowed by a row”.

Ultimately, the Water Service became NI Water, a government-owned company. Initially, there was a flurry of investment, some of it funded by the private sector.

 But without the resources to upgrade antiquated infrastructure, the situation has for years been getting progressively worse.

Draining the swamp of Lough Neagh

Now the crisis is such that in many parts of Northern Ireland houses can't be built because it wouldn't be possible to flush the toilet or get clean water from the taps.

Lough Neagh has been turned into a foul-smelling sea of pollution into which Stormont flushes raw sewage but then extracts drinking water for more than 40% of Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein now holds the Department for Infrastructure, which is responsible for this. It has ruled out any change in how NI Water is funded or structured — but simultaneously refuses to raise more revenue by taxing those wealthy enough to pay.

No other Stormont party is vocally calling for water charges (Alliance once was) and there is a fatalistic acceptance that Stormont should just manage an environmental and economic disaster.

The DUP said it has “never supported charging people twice for the same service”. Sinn Fein said it “has consistently opposed water charges as they would place an added burden on already hard-pressed workers and families”. The UUP didn't respond.

What these documents show is that more than two decades ago senior Stormont figures were examining radical options for improving the water system.

Not all of those ideas were sound. Privatisation of such a fundamental asset has not worked in England and involves short-termism.

But now we've regressed to a point where ministers are standing with fingers in their ears, incapable of managing the most basic public service - supplying water and removing human excrement.

Walking to his own Beatt

Open, opinionated and at times indiscreet, Doug Beattie entered politics after decades in the British Army. He tells Political Correspondent John Manley about his childhood, his exploits as a soldier and why some think he’s a Lundy

DOUGLAS Ricardo Beattie. Even the middle name, given to him by his late mother after screen heartthrob Ricardo Montalbán, hints at someone less conventional.

There are many aspects of the former Ulster Unionist Party leader’s life and personality which typify the role he held up until September last year: ex-military, raised in staunchly unionist Portadown, an uncle “murdered by terrorists”, “not feeling at home” when across the border.

Yet there are other characteristics that marked Doug Beattie out as different from his predecessors.

He’s proudly working class; candid and forthright, too much so, colleagues may argue; he’s ostensibly secular – not agnostic but adverse to organised religion – and with no loyal order associations. He describes himself as “Irish and British” and was among his party’s strongest supporters of same sex marriage, which led anti-protocol protestors in his home town to label him a “queer lover”, while he’s also been called a ‘Lundy’ and had his effigy burned on an Eleventh Night bonfire.

It was his “liberal language” which he believes “really annoyed” unnamed party elders, who ultimately forced his resignation from the leader’s role: “Some people saw me as being too liberal and too moderate – they wanted to return to traditional, conservative Ulster Unionist Party values.”

The Upper Bann MLA is philosophical about the ending of his three-and-a-half-year tenure in the UUP’s top job.

“People may well have had a problem with me but there’s nothing I can do about that,” he says.

“If people dislike me, then they dislike me. I knew for a fact that what I was trying to do was the right thing.”

Mr Beattie is nothing if not thick skinned.

Decades of military service

Decades of military service that began with being bullied by his seniors because of his Irishness, it was a career that saw him posted all over the world with the Royal Irish Rangers, including to Syria, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Cyprus, Iraq and Kosovo. In 1980s West Berlin he was tasked with guarding Adolf Hitler’s former deputy Rudolph Hess in Spandau Prison.

He was awarded the Military Cross for his part in a bloody battle in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2006, by his own admission the most intense and brutal conflict he’s ever been involved in.

The 59-year-old’s army experiences are recalled in two memoirs – 2009’s An Ordinary Soldier and Task Force Helmand, published the following year.

When delivered in person, Beattie’s account of conflict is compelling. He speaks at times graphically and almost matter of factly of fallen comrades, 14-year-old suicide bombers and the aftermath, the threat from IEDs (improvised explosive devices), gun battles lasting 36 hours.

“These are things that you have to deal with in war. The stuff of nightmares, stuff that keeps you awake at night.”

The traumatic circumstances he relays would suggest some lasting psychological impact yet he’s never sought to be assessed for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

“I tell you why – because many doctors will throw you some pills because they don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to be packaged like that,” he says.

“I’m not having a go at those who’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, of course they have, and that’s fine for them but personally, I didn’t want to be packaged.

“Do I have issues for myself that have to I deal with? Yes, I do, but I deal with them.

Dealing with depression after Afghanistan

“I came back from Afghanistan with a real sense of sadness, of depression but after six-to-eight weeks that passed. Sometimes we feel a little bit depressed, sometimes we feel stressed, that doesn’t mean it’s PTSD.”

THERE are notorious contemporaries of Beattie’s in Portadown, both alive and dead, who ended up taking the paramilitary rather than military route in life but the former army captain insists it was never something he countenanced.

“It may sound clichéd but I came from a family where we didn’t talk religion or politics,” he recalls.

“I didn’t know what religion I was until quite late on in my life. I’m a Protestant yes, Church of Ireland, but we weren’t a church-going family.

“I didn’t flirt with any notion of paramilitarism or getting involved in that. We were a staunch military family.”

Beattie’s father was a soldier in the Royal Ulster Rifles and latterly the Royal Irish Rangers.

After retiring from the armed forces after 22 years, he returned to his home town of Portadown before signing up full-time with the UDR.

Beattie’s mother soon followed her husband’s example on a parttime basis.

Defending the UDR

When challenged on the UDR’s tarnished reputation in the eyes of nationalists, the Upper Bann MLA acknowledges its members were almost exclusively Protestant and that it “wasn’t whiter than white”.

“What you have to do is transpose yourself into that time and what was happening in Northern Ireland, and nothing was good, nothing was right, and people were living their lives day to day, in some cases, trying to stay alive, whether you’re a policeman or whether you were in the military.

“And the vast majority of those who joined the Ulster Defence Regiment, my father and mother included, joined it for the right, laudable reasons – to fight terrorism and protect all of society, all communities.

“Did some fall foul of the law? Absolutely they did, and some went behind bars and some did not, while others corrupted the organisation, so it wasn’t whiter than white.”

Mr Beattie says he therefore understands why the UDR is vilified in some quarters but maintains that the ex-members he speaks to are “mortified that anybody from the force went outside the rule of law”.

Lundy with a Military Cross

Doug Beattie was a captain in the Royal Irish Rangers and was awarded the Military Cross for his part in a battle in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 200

his Portadown office was attacked and he was called a Lundy during his tenure as UUP leader

It was while serving in the UDR in her early forties that his mother succumbed to cancer, triggering a steady deterioration in his father’s moods, corresponding with an increased reliance on alcohol.

A 15-year-old schoolboy at the time and the only one of six children still living at home, Mr Beattie stresses that his father’s behaviour was never violent but “quite the opposite”.

“I used to have to walk to and from school and when I got home I’d have to light the fire before cooking dinner for my dad coming home,” he recalls.

“Later in the evening he’d turn to alcohol and around two o’clock in the morning he’d wake me and bring me downstairs, saying: ‘C’mon and listen to this song that me and your mum used to love.’

“He’d reminisce about his time with my mum and how they’d travelled the world together but he’d get me out of bed to do it, so I was waking up in the morning pretty knackered having to go to school. He was never violent, never angry, just sad and reminiscing about his life.”

At 16, much to his own and his father’s surprise, he joined the British Army.

Service in Northern Ireland

In addition to the more exotic locations that his military career has taken him, he did two tours of duty in the north of Ireland.

He didn’t enjoy either posting, the first of which took him to south Armagh, while on the second he got to meet then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at Derryard, a permanent vehicle checkpoint outpost close to the Fermanagh-Monaghan border, which had been attacked weeks previous.

“Northern Ireland was home to me and I felt I was in a fish bowl with everybody looking in,” he says without divulging much detail of serving on home turf.

“Northern Ireland tours were always difficult. There wasn’t a huge amount happened in many cases, as far as I’m concerned, although we did lose some colleagues but I never really enjoyed it to be perfectly honest.”

Despite being an avowed unionist, the former army captain insists on describing himself as Irish. He argues that when people say they are ‘Welsh and British’ or ‘Scottish and British’ it’s regarded as entirely acceptable but that some people find it hard to understand a person who professes to be both Irish and British.

“I’m from this island but part of a kingdom, a United Kingdom, and I think that’s something to be celebrated in many ways,” he says.

 A sense of belonging

“I have more than what other people have: more than those who view themselves purely as Irish or those who view themselves purely as British.”

Asked how his Irishness manifests itself, he retorts that “people always want a box to tick”.

“I find that quite a difficult question to answer, because people say: ‘Well, do you like GAA? If you don’t like GAA you can’t be Irish or ‘Do you like Guinness? If you don’t like Guinness, you can’t be Irish.’

“It’s a feeling. It’s what you believe in yourself. It’s a sense of belonging. I have a sense of belonging to this island, this part of this island, and to this United Kingdom.”

While he doesn’t have an Irish passport he supports the Ireland rugby team and points to the British Army regiments in which he served – both with ‘Irish’ in their titles, along with images of the harp and shamrock included in their emblems.

In regards to his Britishness, Mr Beattie says much of it is “ingrained in you from a very young age, what you feel part of, where you feel at home”.

“I’m affiliated culturally to the whole of the United Kingdom, though not necessarily every part of it and all the different aspects.

“Do I think being part of the United Kingdom is good in regards to defence of the realm and nation? Of course I do, I spent long enough doing just that.

“Do I think economically, we’re better off within the United Kingdom? Yes, I do.”

When he crosses the border he says he feels like “a visitor” though praises the “beautiful country and beautiful people”.

The South is not home

“It’s something good, something to be cherished and it’s a lovely place to go,” he says of the south, “but I don’t feel at home because it’s not home. I feel like a visitor, and I am a visitor.

“But that’s not to say that I don’t have a kinship. That’s slightly different.”

Unlike former DUP leader Arlene Foster, the former UUP leader says that in what he stresses is a “hypothetical scenario” of a united Ireland he would not leave.

In relation to Gaeilge, Mr Beattie insists has “no issue whatsoever” before he adds: “I know people think I have.”

“I didn’t want an Irish language Act but I didn’t want an Ulster Scots act either, because both were growing really well based on the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

“But I’m not against the Irish language. I have no issue with the Irish language – it’s part of my identity. It’s part of my culture. It should be funded. It should be cherished. It should be respected.”

He does, however, have reservations about dual language signage in areas where there may be opposition.

On the future of political unionism, Mr Beattie believes there are too many parties advocating on behalf of the union yet he also thinks that one party can’t represent the entire bloc.

He argues that it’s a “difficult nut to crack” and that the prospect of dissolving the UUP to make way for a more moderate party is not one he’s keen on.

The Upper Bann MLA believes Westminster elections provide the best opportunity for his party to cooperate with the DUP: “That where it’s easier to crack, where you can actually work as a unionist bloc, standing for the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

Loyalist pastor’s home is damaged by petrol bomb

Allan Preston, Irish News, July 26th, 2025

POLICE are investigating a petrol bomb attack on the home of a loyalist pastor in north Belfast.

Clifford Peeples was seen inspecting the damage at the property in the Forthriver Road area following the attack around 3am yesterday.

Police say a petrol bomb was thrown at the property, with officers and fire crews attending to make the area safe.

“It appeared that the petrol bomb had been thrown through the living room window causing damage inside,” a PSNI spokesperson said.

“One person was present in the property, fortunately no serious injuries have been reported at this time.”

The attack is being treated as arson with intent to endanger life, with any witnesses or those with footage urged to call 101, quoting reference 141 of July 25.

Aged in his mid-50s, Mr Peeples received a 10-year prison sentence for possession of arms in 2001.

With a long association with loyalism, he had been caught with a pipe bomb and two grenades when, according to a PSNI spokesperson his car was stopped by police outside Dungannon in October 1999.

In 2023, he was reported to have travelled to Ukraine to join in the war against Russia – posting pictures of himself at the time in British army fatigues and holding a sub-machine gun.

He has also been involved in legal proceedings against the UK government over the Northern Ireland Protocol, claiming the post-Brexit trading arrangement breaches the Good Friday Agreement.

Most recently, he has complained about “a policy of secrecy” around Stormont Executive meetings.

He had taken legal action about a meeting between the First and Deputy First Ministers and the Chinese Ambassador to the UK at Stormont Castle in May last year.

With the details initially withheld over concerns it would harm international relations, Mr Peeples made an application to judicially review the Executive Office and their policy of disclosure.

Dismissed by the High Court in February, he is currently waiting to appeal the case.

Lack of Leadership at Stormont

Gail Walker, Belfast Telegraph, July 26th, 2025

There's an onus of leadership on O'Neill and Little-Pengelly to turn up together and defuse flashpoints... and to stop ducking interviews

The strange collapse of a planned joint press conference by Michelle O'Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly at last week's Open could not have come at a worse time.

It was meant to enhance the profile of Northern Ireland, the Executive, the peace process and the future to a global audience as well as mop up some responses to current issues which had occupied considerable public attention.

Instead, it was a shambles. Scheduled for noon, last Thursday's press conference was pushed back several times before it was finally cancelled at 3.30pm as Stormont's leaders breezed past the assembled journalists. “Time has been against us,” proffered The Executive Office.

Instead the media got a press release puffing The Open and soft soap footage of the two ministers chipping golf balls into a washing machine — a bizarre sentence to write at any time though I suppose the cheesy spectacle did echo the precocious Rory McIlroy's feat on UTV's Kelly Show many years ago.

The upshot, however, was to leave the press corps feeling not only shortchanged but deceived, abused and treated with a kind of contempt. Media outlets have to manage resources. Travelling 60 miles to the North Coast to hang around for hours for a no-show leaves reporters hacked off.

Public need answers

Nor does it impress the public. Given that the last few weeks were fraught with issues which were certainly familiar, but took on markedly new forms, it was actually crucial the First Minister and deputy First Minister made themselves available for interview.

Safety concerns over a south Belfast bonfire, an effigy of migrants in a boat at another, the Comber summer camp cancellation and the band parade in Portrush were all making headlines — with other annual topics bubbling away and about to unfold over the rest of the summer.

The pair briefly addressed the Comber issue during interviews with BBC NI's Good Morning Ulster but at a press conference they would have expected to have been asked about all these events and to have provided detailed answers.

The public also would have appreciated hearing from their leaders what was being done to defuse tensions. The answer? Nothing.

That's bad enough. But the fact is it is itself a symptom of a failing structure.

There is no 'rapid response team' at Stormont.

It's very clear now that if it's possible to avoid commenting, being interviewed or answering Freedom of Information requests then that opportunity will be seized and the issue ducked. It's the opposite of accountability.

It's particularly annoying because so often these are issues which the two first ministers are actually in their posts to address.

They are the only people in the Executive who have the clout to make interventions which are decisive in how Government here responds to crises.

Ministers across the various departments, civil servants, even police chief constables, don't have the role or the authority that the first minsters have by virtue of the mandate which they bring to bear on each and every issue.

Don't forget these two individuals represent directly the two strains of politics here from which practically every single problem we have emerges. They represent those viewpoints to a greater or lesser degree.

The onus is on them even moreso to be visible, active, intervening. To take action immediately when an issue arrives. Not three weeks later. Not when it's been defused by some other crisis arising.

Not never.

As it is, we end up lurching as a society from one crazed version of public life to another.

Yet these offices are there to make our lives easier. To reduce the tensions among communities. To source solutions to seemingly intractable problems. To engage directly with those who would seek to disrupt, whether by intent or default. That's their only job.

Most of us in our daily lives make sure we do what we are meant to do, at home or at work.

We are sensitive about any suggestion that something not done was our fault — we lose sleep and get up early the next day to see it gets done. That's being human. That's being responsible.

Bizarrely the only group of people in Northern Ireland who don't seem to be afflicted with this sensibility is our politicians.

There has been comment everywhere over the failure of leadership here, yet no-one at Stormont ever seems to think 'do they mean me?'

It's over a week since the bonfires and summer scheme crises. Now, more bonfires and other new contentious issues, like kids playing for GAA trophies named after IRA men, hove into view.

Has a ministerial car pulled up outside any recent flashpoint and decanted the two ladies of the first ministers' office onto the pavement, bringing to bear on a seemingly small area of conflict the full weight of the peace process?

So that the peace process is not just about big government documents, but about two leaders sitting together in somebody's living room over a cup of tea and bluntly outlining the challenges that everyone is facing and what is expected from every citizen.

That is what makes things work. Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness understood that with the murders of the soldiers at Massereene and of PSNI officers Stephen Carroll and Ronan Kerr.

Cast your mind back. Look at the action taken by the people responsible for leading our population into the future. That was the template.

There are no days off.

It's all very well to talk about trade deals and tourism boosts.

Yes, the cross-community engagements are important. O'Neill attending the Remembrance Day service, her visit to Windsor Park, Little-Pengelly playing camogie at a GAA club — we can't be blasé about such symbolism.

But the hard stuff has to happen every single day. Get in the car!

Without that, there is a sense of inaction everywhere. It's not only Lough Neagh that stinks. It's like the rest of the place. Stagnant.

Michelle O'Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly are strong women and seasoned politicians capable of handling awkward questions.

Hiding from the media — and the public — is not a good look. It doesn't pull the wool over the international media's eyes either. A glance at the sectarianism on social media, with no head-on attempt to stymie it by our leaders, told the true story.

Yes, we do expect miracles. Well-chosen words would have reset the tone and lowered concerns about the band parade, for example.

Stormont's sizeable press team needs a strategy where our leaders act jointly to defuse tensions. Again and again.

Firing golf balls at a washing machine is a PR spin strategy that fools nobody.

Lake polluted, ombudsman missing and solutions scant

NEWTON EMERSON on the week that was, Irish News, July 26th, 2025

FORMER police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan has expressed concern that the ombudsman’s office is being run by its chief executive, an ex-PSNI and RUC officer, after current incumbent, Marie Anderson, took a leave of absence last month.

“This is no comment on the individuals, or the integrity of the individuals concerned, it’s simply a matter of fact and perception,” she told The Irish News.

O’Loan is raising a legitimate problem but the cause is that Anderson has not resigned, forcing the chief executive to take the reins. Although the ombudsman has indicated she will retire in December, she could stay on until her contract runs out next July.

When policing and justice were finally devolved in 2010, the law was amended to allow the first and deputy first ministers, acting jointly, to “call upon the ombudsman to retire in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness”.

The law clearly expects this request to be obeyed. It says the ombudsman “shall retire” on the date specified by the first ministers.

As the DUP has said it wants Anderson to resign, the obstruction is presumably with Sinn Fein first minister Michelle O’Neill. All concerns should be directed to her.

Chicken shit

MOY Park has been fined £4,000 at Ballymena Magistrate’s Court for a range of waste management offences at its site in the town, including failure to notify the authorities about potentially significant pollution.

As many wits have noted, the fine is chicken feed for Northern Ireland’s largest company, representing 0.0002% of its £2 billion annual turnover.

Standard practice elsewhere has been to replace fixed monetary fines with percentages of turnover. In England and Wales, water companies can be fined up to 10% of turnover for pollution offences.

Since 2014, pollution fines for other companies are set in turnover-based bands. For example, a company with a turnover of £50m or more can be fined between

£1m and £3m. Since 2023, courts have been able to set unlimited fines for serious cases. Revenue goes to the Environment Agency or a fund to upgrade the water system.

There is nothing to stop Stormont taking a similar approach here, apart from its craven approach to tackling polluters in general.

ALLIANCE environment minister Andrew Muir has received no proposals from other parties to reduce pollution in Lough Neagh.

Muir revealed this in response to a written assembly question from his party colleague John Blair, which shows Alliance wanted to get this point on the record.

Its exasperation is understandable. Alliance’s supposed executive partners are happy to criticise and obstruct policy at the behest of farmers and food processors.

 Capitulation to Farmers

They have even parroted the demand by the Ulster Farmers Union to cancel the consultation exercise on Muir’s plans. Yet they have no ideas of their own – or if they do, they cannot be bothered to suggest them.

“ Since last week’s cancellation of a children’s sports tournament in Comber, a dialogue of the deaf has been underway on social media between unionists and nationalists regarding the Orange Order and the GAA

Jonathan Powell, right, was Sir Tony Blair’s former chief of staff

Sinn Fein and themmuns’

FRIDAY at 5.30pm is the classic time to make an announcement you would prefer to receive no media coverage.

That was the time eight days ago when Sinn Féin issued a statement on a meeting with the PSNI, but perhaps the meeting finished at 5pm and the party was rushing its message out as quickly as possible.

Issued in the name of policing spokesman Gerry Kelly, it said a Sinn Féin delegation had “met with senior PSNI officers to critically challenge a litany of issues… There have been repeated examples of inconsistent policing across our communities, particularly in recent weeks. Our Sinn Féin offices in various parts of Belfast have been inundated with complaints…”.

Or to put it in Ulster Scots: “themmuns gets everything”.

Several more lines of this followed, ending with “Sinn Féin will continue to hold the police to account”.

Such statements have the capacity to cause minor political crises but thanks to its timing, this one produced no reaction.

Knives out for Jonathan Powell

THE knives are out in London for Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff during the Good Friday Agreement and now prime minister Keir Starmer’s national security adviser.

The Conservatives have accused him of running a diplomatic back-channel to “terrorists” via a peace-building charity he runs called Inter-Mediate. It has been funded by the Foreign Office to engage with “non-state armed groups” in Syria.

Shadow cabinet office minister Alex Burghart has called for a parliamentary inquiry.

The Daily Mail has reported a Whitehall source saying “these are essentially outsourced spies and spooks”.

Northern Ireland connections are everywhere in the story:

Inter-Mediate boasts of Powell’s Good Friday role; Burghart also happens to be our shadow secretary of state.

But the London press has missed the near-comic parallel with the Loyalist Communities Council, launched by Powell in 2015. That fiasco rather knocks the shine off any reputation as an international Machiavellian man of mystery.

Police ombudsman Marie Anderson has taken a leave of absence from her role

Dialogue of the deaf

SINCE last week’s cancellation of a children’s sports tournament in Comber, a dialogue of the deaf has been underway on social media between unionists and nationalists regarding the Orange Order and the GAA.

Nationalists complain that the Orange Order requires members to be Protestant. Unionists consider this an absurd objection to a Protestant religious organisation.

Unionists complain that the GAA requires members to support Irish culture and identity. Nationalists find this an absurd objection to an Irish national cultural organisation.

This is another occasion when insight can be gleaned from the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich’s useful 1985 observation: “I think 90% of religious bigotry is to be found among Protestants. Whereas the bigotry one finds among Catholics is mainly political.”

Irish Times letter

AN INTERESTING letter has appeared in the Times from a New Jersey based academic asking if Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights applies to Troubles legacy cases.

Article 6 requires a fair trial within a “reasonable time”.

Although no time is specified, European case law has established this should be seven years for a serious crime of violence, including by the state.

The letter-writer appears to believe this period starts with the crime itself. In reality, it starts with arrest of the suspect and ends with the conclusion of all legal proceedings, including appeals.

So it does not impose a statute of limitations on the Troubles.

However, it is relevant when people were arrested or questioned many years ago. The fact that a veteran’s association is thinking about this suggests we will hear more of it.

It is strange we have never heard of it, to my knowledge, from our own rights sector.