THE WEEK THAT WAS….
“Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!” (“Arise children of the fatherland, the day of glory has arrived!”). So goes the first line of ‘La Marsaillaise’. There wasn’t, however, too much ‘glory’ on display in Paris on Wednesday night as the ‘Hand of Frog’ put paid to the Republic’s dreams of World Cup glory in South Africa.
In two strokes of the hand, Monsieur Henri has finished a historical relationship between Ireland and France that used to keep British strategists up at night. If only the playing fields of Eton and Harrow had come up with the idea of Association Football a couple of hundred years earlier there might have been no need to worry about French landings during the Williamite Wars or the United Irishmen’s 1798 rebellion.
Mind you, while it’ll be sometime before ‘two-touch Thierry’ ventures south of the border, there is a small queue of Stormont Departments already forming outside the French Embassy vying for the dexterous striker’s skills. Such is the ability of some branches of Government to drop the ball they could do with a bit of Gallic handholding.
Top of the list would be Education. Leaving aside the chaos of post-primary transfer procedures, which has left normally mild-mannered parents frothing at the mouth in anger, the Department has had to eventually concede that the Education & Skills Authority (ESA), which was meant to replace existing education structures on January 1st, 2010, will now not do so because there’s no agreement on the legislation.
To think, only on Monday the Minister told Jimmy Spratt (DUP, South Belfast that: “As the Member knows, ESA will be set up on 1 January 2010”. If only Henri was on the Department’s substitute bench he could be called upon to defy nature itself, bend the laws of political physics and spare their blushes. Then he could pop round to Health and rectify their small oversight of not telling GPs that they would soon be administering swine flu vaccines to the under fives. Oops!
In an attempt at damage limitation, Henri now says he is “embarrassed” and “extremely sorry”. Perhaps politics wouldn’t suit him after all.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Oral Questions
The Health Minister replied to queries about his disability strategy, hospital services west of the Bann and was irked by a question on what constitutes an ‘efficiency saving’ and what was a ‘cut’.
Over at DRD the Minister revealed that he’ll be launching a public consultation later this month on Belfast’s new Rapid Transit system, reiterated his opposition to water charges and detailed various road schemes. The DSD Minister’s paper on a ‘Shared Future’ remains ‘Lost in Executive Space’ along with the black hole in her Housing budget.
Written Answers
Alliance was pressing OFMDFM to progress the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration strategy missing since 2008, the DCAL Minister confirmed he has attended as many GAA engagements as Orange Order events and Education noted that the percentage of those leaving school without five GCSEs has fallen from 14.2% to 10.3% in five years.
DETI explained recent rises in energy costs for business users and noted that 215,000 people in NI are employed by SMEs. DoE noted that Strabane has the lowest household recycling rate (23%), Health reconfirmed that free personal care is too expensive to introduce and DRD has zero plans to extend the railway network.
COMMITTEES
The Canine Breeders of Ireland were sinking their teeth into DARD’s Animal Welfare Bill, Finance was trying to eek out efficiency savings while DEL was trying to get its head round making science and maths subjects interesting.
OFMDFM was updated on NI’s Investment Strategy, Education was totting up budgetary considerations and Environment was blowing hot and cold with its Climate Change Inquiry.
DSD towed a Caravans Bill into discussions as did DETI, which was also briefed on NI’s Renewables Obligation. DCAL, meanwhile, was all at sea in the Ulster Museum talking about a new Maritime Museum.
AND FINALLY….
MLAs are still feeling sore about last week’s never ending Department of Justice debate – with Alex Attwood (SDLP, West Belfast) apparently bearing most of the blame for promulgating the debate beyond the realms of common decency.
The SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone (Mid-Ulster), in a refreshing display of honesty, actually flagged the debate up on his Twitter page as a “big yawn” and expressed his pleasure at returning to the “real world” the following day. It didn’t get any better this week, when the SDLP’s Deputy Speaker, John Dallat (East Londonderry) went out of his way during a debate to remind Mr. Attwood that he only had three minutes to speak.
Even the DUP MLAs are nicer to him…
