SAOIRSE32

News Letter

FORMER First Minister Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness met formally on average almost three times a week during their year in office.

Figures released through a News Letter Freedom of Information request reveal that the former DUP leader and Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister met in an official capacity on 146 occasions since the return of devolution in May 2007.

Personal meetings between the two men have not been officially recorded.
Mr Paisley stepped down from office last month and was succeeded by Peter Robinson, who also took over the helm of the DUP.

The political double act of Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness confounded many critics who believed the partnership was doomed from the outset. Such was the public perception of their apparently jovial relationship, both men were famously dubbed ‘the chuckle brothers’.

The figure – which does not include one-to-one meetings between the two men – comprises a total of 29 Executive meetings jointly chaired by Mr Paisley in his role as First Minister with Mr McGuinness.

Both men were involved in 17 regular departmental update meetings during their 13 months in office.

On 19 occasions, they were involved in meetings with visiting dignitaries to the Province. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, current premier Gordon Brown and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern have all been hosted at Stormont by both men as well as heads of the other regional assemblies.

According to the statistics, Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness took part in 11 public engagements and three overseas visits encompassing several meetings. The most high profile foreign trip was to the United States last December ahead of the spring US investment conference, when the then Stormont heads met President Bush at the White House.

A total of 67 joint meetings have been broadly categorised under the heading of ‘other business meetings’.

During Mr Paisley’s tenure, the Executive made over 130 policy decisions including setting the budget allocation for each department and agreeing a Programme for Government.

An OFMDFM spokesman said one-to-one meetings between the First Minister and his deputy since 8 May 2007 were arranged on an “impromptu basis” and were therefore “not recorded”.

Reacting to the figures, MEP and former DUP member Jim Allister criticised his former DUP leader.

“Now I understand better why in his year in office Ian Paisley never found time to meet me as an MEP to discuss EU issues, despite a written request from August 6, 2007. He was clearly too busy chuckling and chatting with Marty,” he said.

“No doubt, Mr Robinson in fulfilling this joint office will end up doing the same. Maybe, he’ll find time to discuss with McGuinness the catalogue of crimes which he alleged against him in the Assembly on 8 May 2001, at a time when he rightly thought him unfit for office.”

A DUP spokesman said there was nothing surprising about the figures given that Mr Paisley was First Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive.

He said: “The MEPs of Northern Ireland, including Jim Allister, had several opportunities to meet Ian Paisley while he was First Minister. This half-baked criticism is nonsense.”

BBC

Two of the men being sued over the Omagh bomb atrocity have lost their appeal against exceptional legal aid being granted to victims’ relatives.

Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly accused the Lord Chancellor of bias.

They said a public pledge of financial assistance to the families ahead of any legal authorisation was predetermining the outcome of the legal aid process.

The Court of Appeal ruled it could not be assumed the government had abandoned its fair and independent judgement.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr said: “It is perfectly possible for the government to give a firm pledge in respect of funding and to redeem that pledge by the creation of a statutory framework within which funding may be applied for but whose grant is not guaranteed.

‘Scrutiny’

“There is no reason to reject the unequivocal statements made on behalf of the Lord Chancellor that this application was subjected to the scrutiny that had been presaged by his guidance.”

The ruling came during a summer recess in the civil trial, which resumes hearing evidence in Belfast and Dublin in September.

While no-one has been convicted of the atrocity, some families are suing the men they believe were involved in the attack for more than £10m.

Funding of more than £800,000 was made available to allow the civil action to proceed.

Alleging bias, legal representatives for the two men also argued that the Lord Chancellor had become so closely associated with attempts to secure legal financing that he should have been automatically disqualified from the decision-making process.

Rejecting the claims, Sir Brian stated: “Put simply, there is no reason to suppose that, just because he had previously supported the view that the families should be assisted in this way, he would fail to examine the application scrupulously as he had said in his guidance it would be.”