Exploiting the Vacuum
Last week at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Gregory Campbell questioned Sir Hugh Orde's assertion that dissidents may be exploiting the vacuum. The Chief Constable responded by insisting he had intelligence to back up his remarks.
Today the IMC asserted that the one possible reason for the increase in Continuity IRA and Real IRA activity "may be a perception that the absence of progress on the devolution of justice and policing has created a political vacuum, or may have caused disaffection among republican supporters, which the dissidents think they may be able to exploit".
The argument has prompted another trenchant response from the DUP, in the shape of a statement from Willie McCrea, who says he wants "to nail the falsehood being peddled by some that dissident republican criminality is connected to the devolution of policing and justice. I cannot agree with anyone who suggests that dissident Republicans are rioting in the streets, shooting at the police and planting bombs because they want to see the immediate devolution of policing and justice powers to the Stormont Assembly. Such a suggestion is absurd and those who peddle such a line simply make themselves look foolish."
The IMC also tried to advance another argument about devolving justice by suggesting that it would allow for more joined-up government, by enabling, for example, maximum effort to be made to ensure criminals don't defraud industrial or agricultural subsidies or welfare benefits.
Fair enough, although given how magnificently unjoined-up our local departments generally are, one wonders whether devolution would make that much difference.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~01~RS~)
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I fear the only vacuum currently in N Ireland is the one between the ears of many of our elected MLA's.
A sad state of affairs and one I fear we are stuck with until the next assembly election or until the Secretary of State finds a way to draw the current charade called Stormont to a close. The latter is wishful think so come the election the electorate will only have themselves to blame if they vote the current batch back in.
If that happened N Ireland would have no defence against being called one large vacuum.
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That sucks ;)
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Come the next election though, I can just see people yet again voting for the hardliners, the moderates not doing so well. We can see that Sinn Fein and DUP aren't prepared to constructively work together at the highest level, happier to stand off and continually rant at each other for five months, while the economy falls in, than to lead.
Next election I sincerely hope the middle ground gets more votes but they need to do something to make the public sit up and take more notice of them again. SDLP / Alliance / UUP coalition anyone? Pause constitutional matters for stable governance?
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I think Willie McCrea is being disingenuous about the IMC wording- clearly the IMC didn't mean the dissidents were creating disorder because they want to force devolution of policing and justice but that they were taking advantage of the uncertainty which exists in relation to the stalemate to be violent. The IMC obviously believes that they are taking advantage of the current vacuum and uncertainty because their violence will have a greater effect. Not because they want devolution of policing and justice!! Even if Willie is sincere his absurd statement makes him look foolish.
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Exactly manicminer. The reason Willie McRae cannot agree with anybody who says those things is because there is nobody who has said them for him to agree with.
However, I would like to stop short of calling for him to stick to the singing. In fact I would happily take nonsense like that from him every day if he abandoned the singing.
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"defraud industrial or agricultural subsidies"
I don't know about fraud, Mark, but the mainstream media seems to be turning a blind eye to 'difficulties' within the procurement process, not least the Rathlin ferry subsidy.
http://nalil.blogspot.com/2008/11/rathlin-island-planters-and-gales.html
Other examples include court cases involving government departments and Henry Brothers and McLaughlin and Harvey.
http://www.courtsni.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3CB439E3-1A2C-4515-9BF0-396A274AADD7/0/j_j_COG7237Final.htm
http://www.courtsni.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/27E6FDA5-8B3E-442C-AAD7-AD50EA3209C4/0/j_j_DEE7249FINAL.htm
There seems to be confusion as to where final responsibility lies: the DFP's Central Procurement Directorate or its client departments.
Is it a problem with 'unjoined-up government' or is the process vulnerable to cronyism?
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Mark, here's a link to a press release from an independent member of Moyle DPP. It makes you wonder what exactly is left to be devolved:
http://nalil.blogspot.com/2008/10/kevin-independent-dpp-member-tells-it.html
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