It seems like a small matter and that is the point. Stormont’s inability to pedestrianise a short stretch of road in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter feels emblematic of its inability to do anything.
The Department for Infrastructure has spent four years planning and failing to close half of Hill Street, the cobbled street that features in so many tourist images of Belfast. The department has now put the scheme “on hold”, citing costs and other priorities.
Sinn Féin infrastructure minister John O’Dowd has blamed “Tory austerity”, for which he has been justly ridiculed. It is usually unionists who whinge about the trivial cost of putting up a street sign.
In a further absurdity, there is already a sign marked ‘Road Closed, Business Access Only’. Everyone ignores it because they have realised there is no enforcement.
As far as is known, every business on Hill Street supports pedestrianisation, as does the taxi industry, which finds the congested street a nuisance to serve. Local business and regeneration groups have been enthusiastically cooperating to advance the plan. There are no competing bureaucratic interests: the Department for Infrastructure has sole responsibility for all the streets and pavements in Northern Ireland.
So there is simply no excuse for not getting this minor job done. It is a pure example of Stormont’s uselessness.
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DUP education minister Paul Givan has been strongly criticised by every other executive party, plus the SDLP, for meeting the Loyalist Communities Council. His critics objected to the meeting taking place at all, as well as to the LCC using it to object to an Irish-language school planned in east Belfast.
Givan cannot block the school and is unlikely to want a repeat of anything like the 2016 Líofa bursary row, when his cancellation of Irish-language funding contributed to the collapse of Stormont.
While the LCC’s objection was obviously scandalous, the conundrum with the meeting is that its main purpose was officially legitimate. Givan had agreed to meet the LCC to discuss educational underachievement in loyalist areas.
This type of engagement is how Stormont’s ‘paramilitary transition’ policy is meant to work. If executive parties want a different policy, they need to change it.
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The PSNI has denied advising victims of racist attacks to “negotiate” with community leaders linked to paramilitary organisations. The claim was made at a Stormont committee last week by the North West Migrants Forum.
It was widely believed because it was all too believable but the Forum has made disputed claims before. Last year, it said medical responders are sometimes unable to cross the border due to visa restrictions. The Ambulance Service has denied this ever happens.
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The Court of Appeal has ruled against the new Troubles legacy body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Retrieval (ICRIR). But this is not quite the defeat for the ICRIR some have claimed.
Judges found the government should not have a greater power to veto disclosure of information to families than exists under the inquest system. There should also be no ban on bringing civil cases. However, they rejected the other claims against the ICRIR, including that it lacks operational independence.
Changing the disclosure rules and permitting civil cases would allow the ICRIR to operate in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Hilary Benn, the secretary of state, made it clear at the Labour conference that this is what he intends to do.
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The real impact of the appeal court ruling is via the Windsor Framework. Judges confirmed it prevents any “diminution” of human rights in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit.
This is not fixed to the moment of the UK’s departure. As EU law changes on any rights issue, Northern Ireland must keep up, as it would have done had Brexit never occurred. In January’s Safeguarding the Union deal, which coaxed the DUP back to Stormont, the Conservatives promised the rights in question only relate to trade. In fact, they apply to almost everything.
The concept of diminution assumes all changes to rights law can be easily compared on an up-down scale. This is bound to come unstuck in one of the many, many court cases in our future. Not everyone’s idea of ‘better’ rights is the same, extraordinary as that might seem to much of our rights sector.
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A regional waiting list is to be introduced for breast cancer assessments, enabling women to access the first available appointment at any hospital in Northern Ireland, rather than within their local health trust. UUP minister Mike Nesbitt has announced the move in response to missed waiting time targets.
Patients in Britain have options to choose hospitals and move between trusts but these were planned reforms. The same is happening here as a desperate measure in response to a crisis. It is becoming a familiar lesson: health reform can be done properly now or chaotically later.
However, there is a twist in this particular tale. Some Bengoa-type reforms have already been undertaken on breast cancer services. The work was not completed, which appears to have made things even worse.
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The assembly has backed a Sinn Féin motion for voting from age 16. The DUP and TUV were opposed, with all other parties in support.
Although Westminster legislation would be required to enact this in Northern Ireland, that is a realistic hope as Labour has promised votes at 16 in its manifesto. But such a change might not work out as either its supporters or its opponents are expecting.
A UK opinion poll published in July found Nigel Farage’s Reform was the second-most popular party among 16- and 17-year olds and joint first among the 16- and 17-year old boys.
Germany lowered the voting age to 16 this year for European elections, expecting this would benefit the left. Instead, it benefited the far right.