A Grilling At Westminster
I flew over to London today for a mixture of two stories. Denis Bradley and Lord Eames were facing a grilling from MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Although Shuan Woodward's intervention, ruling out the £12,000 "recognition payment" looked likely to take some heat out of the occasion, the hearing hadn't been going long before there were some pointed exchanges between the two witnesses and both the Committee chair, Sir Patrick Cormack, and the DUP MP Iris Robinson, who invoked memories of the La Mon bombing.
Mrs Robinson's colleague David Simpson called the payment proposal "obnoxious". He expressed disappointment that the fingerprints of Lord Eames, who had officiated at the MP's relatives' funerals, were on the recommendation and accused Denis Bradley of pushing an agenda. At this point the SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell got up from his committee seat in protest and Sir Patrick Cormack had to calm proceedings. Later Mr Bradley hit back by criticising politicians who had responded to their report "obnoxiously".
When I talked to Lord Eames and Denis Bradley this morning they wouldn't admit the proposed payment had been a mistake, and predicted that society would have to return to the need for some kind of "recognition" in the future. At the same time they didn't seem at all surprised about the Secretary of State's decision and looked forward to some of their other recommendations being implemented.
My colleague Vincent Kearney will have more on these exchanges on Evening Extra and BBC Newsline.
I then headed towards the Commons to hear how discussions between Gordon Brown and the heads of the three devolved administrations had been going. Their meeting had been scheduled to deal with financial matters, and in the run up to the encounter the Scottish First Minister has been warning that London imposed efficiency savings could lead to thousands of job losses in Scotland. The SNP took heart from the opposition of the Finance Minister Nigel Dodds to the proposed £5 billion proposed efficiency savings.
During the meeting Gordon Brown repeated London's position that all the devolved administrations should play their part in making efficiencies. Messrs Robinson and McGuinness countered that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had made financial promises at the time devolution was restored which should be honoured.
Today's encounter doesn't appear to have led to any conclusion. The details are going to be chewed over in a meeting of Finance Ministers in mid March.
On the margins of the meeting, the First and Deputy First Ministers again raised the plight of the savers at the Presbyterian Mutual Society. Martin McGuinness says they have a promise from Gordon Brown of another meeting on this subject, but again there's no sign as yet of any real movement from London on this score.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~24~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Mark,
As I mentioned here on Monday night I don't believe that Nigel Dodd's or any of the Executive are fit to lead the Government of Northern Ireland. This issue of efficiency savings will be watched by the ordinary person in Northern Ireland. Why? The ordinary people are suffering with job losses while our MLA's and MP's are having one big jolly. Why don't the Government make their own efficiency savings by cutting the number of MP's in half, close the House of Lords and end all regional Assembly's? It would mean that there is less bureaucracy.
Even the BBC could cut down on expenses. On nearly every news story BBC have reporters on scene. 1 reporter does TV the other does Radio. Maybe 1 reporter could do 2 jobs. On the Radio the morning presenters could be reduced to 1 with instead of our MLA's talking rubbish we could have songs playing summing up their thoughts!!
What about Spinal Tap -
Stop wasting my time
You know what I want
You know what I need
Or maybe you don't
Do I have to come right
Flat out and tell you everything?
Gimme some money
Gimme some money
Or what about this from the Wallflowers -
We can buy that mansion on the hill,
We'll fill it up until it's filled.
We'll buy a big black Cadillac
And we'll keep an extra one in the back.
We'll sit home just listening
To the sounds of the winds when they're breaking
And we can buy that diamond ring
And just about any other thing
With somebody else's money.
Stormontspy
PS The Government will pay out over the PMS. All Peter Robinson has to do is mention 42 days. Simple as that...
Complain about this comment
Mark
WESTMINSTER GRILLING REDUCES BRADLEY TO ASHES
A bad tempered affair that showed, in its way, the sectarianism that is rife in this community. The noticeable imprint of Ash Wednesday ashes in the sign of the cross on Bradley's forehead clearly wound up the DUP representatives. [I suspect Bradley is clever enough to know that this would have been the case.]
Of course Simpson fell for it, resorting to poorly articulated insinuation that simply diverted attention from the many flaws in the Eames/Bradley Report.
It beats me why anyone is getting in a paddy over this report because it's going nowhere.
SusieFlood
Carryduff
Complain about this comment
You may wish to watch your phrasing there Susie:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/1323.html
"In a Paddy"
"Paddy" relating, derogatively, to an Irish person.
"Paddy" here means "tantrum" or "bad mood" or "rage", the concept being that an Irish person has a shorter temper than an British person.
No offence taken though :)
Complain about this comment
Surely the pertinent part of this is the state of our public finances. How are we going to develop as a nation if we are always standing with our hand out at the doors of Westminster? It would now appear that we are now going to have to manage with some £140 to £180 million less in our coffers from the treasury. And when this is taken into account along with the fact that the revenue that was to be raised from the sale of assets is not going to happen, one has to ask what state our finances are in and how are we going to address / manage the shortfall. Yet the Assembly still appear to be throwing money around………
Complain about this comment
Mark
TROUBLES' LEGACY IS NICE LITTLE FOR EAMES/BRADLEY
Yesterday's Newsletter published some details of the sums earned by the members of the Eames/Bradley Group. Extrapolating the Newsletter's figures I estimate that Eames and Bradley each received about 100,000 pounds while the other members earned about 50,000 each. [The Group worked on a part-time basis at 680 per day each for Eames & Bradley and 350 pounds daily each for the other members. The Group as a whole claimed 16,000pounds in expenses.]
Not bad reward for part-time work. The generous remuneration might explain why the Report, which was due to be ready for summer, 2008, was not published until January, 2009. Who would want to leave a part-time job that pays that sort of money?
To sum up: The Eames/Bradley Report was not only rubbish, it was also costly rubbish.
Susie
Carryduff
Complain about this comment
Susie
You say -
"To sum up: The Eames/Bradley Report was not only rubbish, it was also costly rubbish."
I completely agree. This was just a knee's up for Bradley and Eames to do what the MLA's do. Top up their bank accounts and to hell with the rest of us.
Stormontspy
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS