Sinn Féin and the DUP have made it contemptuously clear that Stormont reform is not on their agenda.
When the SDLP tried raising the subject in the assembly in March, it was told the proper venue was at the assembly and executive review committee. When the SDLP and Alliance raised it this week at that committee, they were given the brush-off again.
Reform rose up the agenda during the last two collapses of devolution. Removing the vetoes of the two largest parties might seem less urgent now Stormont has been restored and neither of those parties appears inclined to walk out. Having to govern together delivers inclusion and requires them to keep each other onboard.
But even in periods of relative stability, there is a constant cost to mandatory coalition. It underpins the risk-averse, indecisive, lowest common denominator politics that ensures little ever gets done.
Read more: Executive Office ‘report’ that delayed review of Stormont structures is 137 words in length
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Growing alarm about sewage spills has highlighted that the problem cannot all be blamed on lack of money. NI Water should be taking better care of the environment, even allowing for underinvestment in its network.
The Stormont-owned company has a special understanding with the Environment Service and the Utility Regulator to make allowances for the poor condition of the sewage system. Friends of the Earth has already denounced this as a “blank cheque” to pollute. Now Alliance environment minister Andrew Muir has said “it is not acceptable that NI Water is held to a different standard” and “I am working to call time on the separate regulatory regime”.
Much of the debate on water in Northern Ireland is focused on funding and the example of Wales, where there is a non-profit mutual company.
We tend to overlook regulation, where Scotland is a more interesting model. Its water service remains nationalised and mainly funded by council tax but the Scottish government has created a powerful set of regulators, covering water in particular and the environment in general. This may have lessons to teach us, although sewage pollution is still a serious problem in Scotland - worse than in England on several measures.
Read more: Bathing water regulations in Northern Ireland have ‘fallen out of step with the needs of today’
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The SDLP has launched Our European Future, a set of proposals that include Northern Ireland sending observer MEPs to the European Parliament and Brussels opening an office in Belfast.
The parliament requires observer members to be from states that have successful applied to join the EU. The SDLP believes this and other rules can be changed, or at least examined during the independent review that must be held after next week’s Stormont consent vote on the Windsor Framework.
However, the time to attempt this was during Brexit negotiations. Any hope of lobbying for it now would require a united front from Stormont, London and Dublin to plead Northern Ireland’s case. There is no sign of this from any quarter.
It might help build consensus if the SDLP framed its proposals more clearly as addressing the framework’s democratic deficit and needless bureaucracy. The party hints at this with mention of “sensible improvements” but it is too slavishly pro-EU to admit current arrangements are seriously flawed.
Read more: Call for north to have European Parliament representation as MLAs to debate EU relations
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There is a far better chance to reform the Windsor Framework at the upcoming UK-EU summit, to be held in the first half of next year. Reports increasingly indicate the UK wants a veterinary agreement that automatically follows EU regulations.
The EU is not keen but would have to strike a deal to achieve its own objectives. Such a deal could instantly remove the agrifood sea border between Britain and Northern Ireland. The DUP should be supporting it at every opportunity but it is too slavishly anti-EU to do so.
Read more: Stormont assembly vote on Northern Ireland protocol scheduled for next week
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Ulster University has been named university of the year by the Times Higher Education Supplement, largely in recognition of its new Belfast campus. This has provoked the usual grumbling about neglect of Magee, a 60-year-old argument that badly needs to be updated with a wider context.
In the academic year just ended, Ulster had almost as many students - 4,755 - at its ‘Birmingham Campus’ as at had in Derry. It had another 3,605 at a ‘London Campus’, with total enrolment at both tripling in two years. This year it has added a new ‘Manchester Campus’. Ulster may already have more students in Britain than Stormont’s 10,000 target for Derry.
The courses it offers in Britain are almost exclusively business degrees for foreign students paying £20,000 a year, suggesting annual revenue of around £200 million. Delivery costs cannot be too high, as each campus is just one modest building.
Could some of those students and their money be directed towards Magee? Having travelled half way around the world to imbibe the wisdom of Western academia, another 300 miles would surely make no difference.
Read more: Tom Collins: Ulster University award cannot disguise its neglect of north-west
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Alliance justice minister Naomi Long is on a collision course with the legal profession. A report she has published on improving access to justice has been denounced by the Bar Council of Northern Ireland, the trade union for barristers, as “a temporary sticking plaster” and “ideologically-driven policy experimentalism”.
It seems strange to condemn something as both too unambitious and too radical. Most of the report consists of large numbers of technical changes that have been under serious consideration for years. These include minor reforms to legal aid, which may explain some professional sensitivities. Long is proposing an immediate 16 per cent increase in lawyers fees but also some changes to eligibility for legal aid and the assessment of lawyers’ costs.
She has especially annoyed the Bar Council by telling the assembly Northern Ireland spends £67 per adult per year on legal aid, compared to £37 in England and Wales, £26 in Scotland and £20 in the Republic. This ignores social deprivation, the barristers claim. Apparently they believe Scotland is twinned with Monaco.
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Newry, Mourne and Down Council is holding another round of public engagements over the Mourne Gateway cable car project. With a new petition against it doing the rounds, opinion seems more divided than ever. The awkward truth about the £44 million city deal scheme is that it is completely daft, yet still likely to be enormously popular.
Read more: Public’s comments on controversial Slieve Donard gondola not shared with councillors
That does not guarantee it would pay for itself, which is perhaps where more concern should be addressed. Vulnerability to the weather must be an issue.
Publicity material shows a system similar to the Greenwich cable car in London, which on average is closed once every three days due to the wind. It is considerably breezier where Slieve Donard sweeps down to the sea.
