SAOIRSE32

IAIS
11/20/08 15:11 EST

A £900 million (USD $1.36 billion) financial deal has been struck to kick-start Northern Ireland’s devolved government.

The deal was sealed after talks between British prime minister Gordon Brown and senior Stormont ministers at Downing Street.

The settlement will allow the deferment of water charging in the region for another year and additional money will be used to alleviate the effects of the credit crunch.

The measures were agreed during the first meeting of the Northern Ireland executive since the five month political stalemate at the heart of the powersharing administration was lifted.

First Minister Peter Robinson said the package would help householders cope with the financial downturn.

‘We have had probably the longest meeting of the Executive,’ he said.

All of the ministers were fully engaged and there was support from all of the ministers for the work that we had done in securing the arrangements with the prime minister and Treasury which perhaps takes some of the pressure off the finance minister [Nigel Dodds] as we move onto the next stage of the credit crunch.

A potential funding pressure of £400m (USD$605 million) per year for the next two years due to anticipated changes to Treasury rules on funding for water supplies in the region has been avoided after weeks of negotiations with the prime minister and Treasury officials.

The deal with Downing Street has also created extra flexibility to enable ministers to access an additional £100m for issues such as fuel poverty.

Ministers attending today’s marathon meeting at Stormont Castle also agreed to ratify Health Minister Michael McGimpsey’s promise to abolish prescription charges by April 2010; the establishment of a centralised education and skills authority to replace the region’s five existing education board and a new planning policy for sustainable development in the countryside.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness also welcomed the resumption of Executive work programme.

‘It is important that these institutions work in the interests of the people that we represent,’ he said.

‘Ourselves and the DUP, the UUP and the SDLP are all absolutely dedicated and committed. I don’t have any doubt whatsoever about Peter Robinson as First Minister. This is the work of Government, this is what we are charged to do by the people and that is what we intend to do.’

The first cabinet meeting since June came after the end of the long-running dispute between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin over the transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont.

Both parties have agreed a process by which devolution will take place. However, no timetable has been set for devolution of those powers.

Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 21 November 2008

A DUP assembly member has told Senator Cecilia Keaveney to drop any plans for an interpretive centre at a British Army base in his constituency.

Ballykinlar, County Down, is the site of a post-Easter Rising internment camp - where former Taoiseach Sean Lemass and Senator Keaveney’s grandfather, James, were both interned.

Speaking in the Seanad, Donegal Senator Keaveney said a small interpretive centre at Ballykinlar, perhaps in a reconstructed hut, could help teach young people about Irish history and how to learn from the past.

She has asked the Republic’s minister for arts, sport and tourism, Martin Cullen, to explore the Ballykinlar possibility with his British counterpart.

But DUP assembly member, Jim Wells, said Senator Keaveney could commemorate all she liked in the Republic but should not try and dictate to the British authorities.

The British government had always treated prisoners with humanity, he said. *cough*

By William Graham Political Correspondent
Irish News
**Via Newshound
20/11/2008

An SDLP language bill would establish English and Irish as “the official languages” in Northern Ireland – including the right of every employee to use either language in the workplace.

Newry and Armagh Assembly member Dominic Bradley, who has drawn up the bill, said it would give Irish speakers the right to have their language recognised in the courts, education and employment.

Mr Bradley could not give a costing to the taxpayer of the extensive Irish language provisions, but pointed to a figure of £5 million per annum for five years across eleven departments that had been included in a previous Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure paper.

The SDLP’s ‘Official Languages Bill NI’ would provide for the following:

- Personal and place names in the Irish language would have the same status and validity as those in the English language.

- Use of either or both languages in any debates of the assembly and local authorities.

- Official reports of debates or other proceedings to be published in both languages.

- Every local authority or its agencies to encourage employees to work in the official language of their choice.

- Either or both languages to be used in the courts.

- English and Irish as the languages of work in all public institutions. Any signs inside these buildings to be in both languages and websites of public bodies to be bilingual.

- The establishment of a Northern Ireland Official Languages Board to promote the use and understanding of the Irish language.

- Employees would have the right to use either or both official languages in his or her workplace.

- All parents would have the right to have their children receive pre-school, primary and post-primary education in the official language or languages of their choice.

- The Assembly would provide financial support to ensure the publication in the north of at least one daily Irish-language newspaper.

- The appointment of an official Languages Commissioner.

Earlier this year the then DUP culture minister Edwin Poots said he would not be proceeding with an act, citing cost as a prohibitive factor.

He instead outlined plans for a language strategy and a paper is being prepared for the executive by the current minister Gregory Campbell on Ulster Scots and the Irish language.

The SDLP’s Mr Bradley said: “I believe there’s a very strong demand for legislation among the Irish-speaking community in Northern Ireland.”

Sinn Fein has said that they are still working towards the delivery of an Irish language act as set out in the St Andrews Agreement.

The umbrella body representing Irish language groups has called on the DUP and Sinn Fein to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“It is a matter of concern to us that nothing specific in relation to the legislation

has been announced to date even though it is now back to business as usual in the Assembly,’ Janet Muller from Pobal said.

Belfast telegraph
Friday, 21 November 2008

A 14-year-old schoolboy suffering at the hands of school bullies blasted himself in the face with his father’s shotgun in a suicide attempt.

The young teen had crept to an outhouse at home in the north east of the country to take his life, but flinched as he pulled the trigger and received horrific head injuries.

The alarm was raised at around 2am last Sunday when the boy was spotted through a back window of the house and he staggered back home with his jaw mutilated.

He was rushed to St James’s Hospital where he is now in a stable condition but expected to be scarred for life.

“Things are very raw with us at the moment,” said the boy’s mother, who is now demanding to know what was being done in school to protect him and other students.

“He is a big lad for his age, but quiet. He only recently took up boxing but to my mind there are two gangs in the school — one for the quiet boys and then you have the rough crowd,” said another relative.

“He was with the quiet crowd, but we don’t know what happened,” they added.

It is understood the boy used his father’s legally held shotgun to try and end his life on the family farm.

His family now hope that the lad can be moved to a hospital nearer home, but they are still angry that he was left to suffer at the hands of bullies despite a series of complaints to the school principal.

School authorities have declined to comment.