From Unity, 16 January 2010

Look behind the headlines

by Pearse McKenna

The week of politics in the North has been dominated by revelations of the affair between Iris Robinson and a teenage boy and allegations of financial impropriety.
     This story has overshadowed all other political events. The assassination attempt on a police officer was timed to deflect from Sinn Féin’s and the DUP’s efforts to break the deadlock over the devolution of justice and policing powers.
     In relation to this, Peter Robinson indicated that there could yet be a resolution of the stand-off between the DUP and Sinn Féin on this issue.
     Now that the UDA have put their weapons beyond use, the reinforcement of power-sharing and cross-community support for law and order is needed. The DUP leader and the First Minster have a major role to play in this regard.
     There are difficult decisions to be made by the DUP. Iris Robinson achieved what Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson couldn’t do when she helped the DUP win four seats in the Strangford six-seat constituency. Would the DUP want an election after the turmoil of the last week?

Other political stories overshadowed were the death of Norman Badger and the North’s ombudsman pressurising for reform.
     Norman Badger was an Ulster Unionist councillor who worked for all his constituents during his sixteen years on Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council.
     He worked closely with the Independent Nationalist councillor Jim Canning. Of his colleague Mr Canning said: “It didn’t matter: Norman went everywhere.”
     He was a council representative on a project to commemorate the Dungannon man Charlie Donnelly who fought in the ranks of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Charlie Donnelly was killed when fighting on the Republican side at Jarama in February 1937.
     It was a measure of the respect in which Norman Badger was held that two Sinn Féin councillors travelled fifty miles to attend his wake.
     The Ombudsman, Tom Frawley, said the fortieth anniversary of his office must provide a platform for change. This office was established in 1969 to deal with a swathe of complaints of bias and discrimination in housing and jobs, as marchers demanding civil rights took to the streets.

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