They Call Themselves Loyalists

On the night of Wednesday 5th December, the Bangor home of councillor Michael Bower and his wife Christine was attacked, paint was thrown and the front window smashed. Their seventeen-month-old girl was in the house at the time. What was Cllr Bower's crime? He was a member of the party, the Alliance, that had proposed the compromise deal regarding the flying of the Union Flag over City Hall in Belfast.

This was not the only attack on the Alliance Party that night, nor in the following days. Alliance Party Offices have been destroyed and death threats have been made against Alliance politicians.

The decision taken by the City Council was being assaulted with violence by a small band of thugs driven by a disdain for the democratic process.

Inflammatory leaflets and comments made by some Unionist politicians did not help. In the days and weeks that have followed, many criticised a lack of Unionist leadership.

But the actions of this small, pathetic band of trouble-makers is counter-productive in so many ways. The cause that they claim to support, union with the United Kingdom, is being undermined almost to breaking point. The rest of the UK abhors these actions; the Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers said that they were discrediting the flag they claim to support. Frankly, these so-called Loyalists are an embarrassment and a burden for the UK.

The rest of the world is watching, aghast and uncomprehending. As the vast majority of Northern Ireland struggles to heave itself out of years of trouble, a small band of hooligans are threatening to drag the province back into the cesspit of days gone by.

And while the trouble continues, tourist numbers are down. The shops and bars of Belfast's city centre are suffering at what should be a busy time of year.

Sunday's peace rally showed the disgust and contempt that the vast majority of Northern Ireland's people share for the idiocy and hooliganism of the last two weeks.

But on Monday there were further violent protests in Belfast, Lisburn, Portadown, Armagh and Carrickfergus, with roads blocked, cars hijacked and set alight, police lines attacked with bottles, bricks and stones. Shockingly, the arrests made last night included many children. Of the 16 people arrested, the average age was 18, with 9 of them between the ages of 11 and 17.

Following a protest in Carrickfergus, about five protesters entered the town hall, disrupted a meeting and threatened councillors. Police dispersed the crowd and people were able to leave the building. Alliance Party Councillor Noel Williams described it as "a full frontal attack on democracy".

As always, the continuing parlous state of the British economy undoubtedly plays its part. Unequal societies are the most unhappy societies. Many people still feel the peace process has passed them by, bringing no real benefit for themselves as individuals or for their families and this includes their own financial well-being. An ailing economy is often a factor in social unrest and the government's failure to get to grips with the country's economic plight brings with it a certain amount of blame for this latest bout of trouble.

As the year turns, Northern Ireland finds itself at a tipping point. If trouble escalates, for example with retaliation from extreme Nationalists and Republicans, the province could find itself staring into an abyss. If however, Loyalist and Unionist leaders find a way to soothe their more extreme supporters, if the economy shows signs of gradual improvement and if there is plenty of rain to keep them off the streets, there may be hope.

I wish you, more than ever, a peaceful New Year.

Green MLA says Executive must capitalise on growth of Green Tech Sector

Green MLA Steven Agnew is demanding that Executive take the maximum economic opportunities afforded by the ‘Green Economy’.

Speaking after today’s ETI Committee meeting, where a letter from the Construction Employer’s Federation expressing its member’s ‘dismay’ at the effective scrapping of the Green New Deal (GND) was presented, the North Down MLA said: “Local companies and large business federations recognise the economic benefits the Green New Deal would have provided.

“The Executive now needs to take urgent action and re-consider its ill-conceived scrapping of the Green New Deal retrofit proposals.

“By deciding to re-directed the funds set aside for the Green New Deal, DSD Minister Nelson McCausland has effectively ignored the considerable economic advantages the GND would have brought to Northern Ireland as a whole and to individual householders.

“The Construction Employers Federation represents around 1000 construction companies in Northern Ireland and it was dismayed at the scrapping of the GND as it saw it as an opportunity for quickly providing significant employment through retro-fitting insulation in old housing stock and the construction of new homes.

“It would have also reduced fuel poverty putting more money in the pockets of hard-pressed families and individuals therefore creating a multiplier effect for our local economy and stimulating broader economic growth.

“The decision to scrap the Green New was wrong and we need urgent action to reverse that decision before the opportunity to capitalise on the benefits of the GND are lost.

“The green economy is delivering more jobs in Northern Ireland than the motor trade, financial services sector and telecommunications combined.

“While the UK's general economy is predicted only to return to 2007 levels by 2014, the green economy is tipped to grow by 40% in that time.

“There is real potential for the Green Economy in Northern Ireland but not enough is being done at an Executive level to harness that and to capitalise on it.”

Greens question value of giving Orange Order Freedom of City

Following a recent Lisburn City Council motion to grant the Orange Order the freedom of the city, the Lagan Valley Greens are questioning the value of this proposal, as brought forward by Councillor Paul Givan.

The Green Party in Northern Ireland is the only party that has not been formed in response to the religious divide or the troubles. The Green Party has no agenda to promote the interests of one community over another. This means it is the only party that is able to see the motion to grant the Freedom of the City of Lisburn to the Orange Order for what it really is - a poorly timed waste of precious council money and resources at a time when most families, businesses and individuals are feeling the pinch from the more pressing concerns of the economy. It seems like pointless politics.

Serious questions must be answered. How much time and money has already been spent debating this issue? What would the cost be of staging a gala event should the bid be successful? Is this something that the Orange Order itself welcomes, given the level of controversy it has already generated?

Lisburn does not need this kind of PR for its people, and for its businesses that attract custom from all across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Lisburn should not be seen as the last bastion of the deadlocked days of the past.

Any gesture of granting the Freedom of the City should reflect the kind of city that the council has promoted in its slogans - to make Lisburn a "city for life". If the real aim is to honour an organisations that have helped the community, why not honour Lisburn’s healthcare workers, voluntary groups and charities which have done so much to enrich the community? Lisburn’s Lagan Valley also has a rich history of great and philanthropic individuals to celebrate, such as Professor Frank Pantridge.

This controversial move, timed as it was to coincide with yet more parade related unrest, seem all the more illogical. The Green Party in Northern Ireland is firmly against a return to the days of single issue politics. Everyone is welcome to peaceably express their cultural identity, but this motion does not seem to offer much to the Orange Order, or the people of Lisburn, except bad publicity. We cannot afford the costs of what seems to be a naive attempt at increasing political clout.

Bad service from the banks? Then wave goodbye.

It's been a bad week for the banks. Just when we thought the reputation of the big banks could go no lower, a series of catastrophes brought at least two of the UK's big four to a serious crisis over the last two weeks.

It started last week. RBS, which owns NatWest and Ulster Bank, suffered a software failure, meaning that customers (and you may well be one of them) found themselves unable to access funds in their own bank accounts, although direct debit and standing order payments were being processed as normal.

These issues have created huge problems for the customers of the three banks. For many, it has been only an inconvenience, but for others, the loss of access to their funds has come at a critical time, such as in the middle of a house purchase.

Currently, ten days after the problems emerged, RBS and NatWest customers are now back to a normal service, but problems with Ulster Bank accounts are expected to persist until the middle of the week.

We know that RBS suffered perhaps more than any other UK bank during the banking crisis of 2008-09. Without an 83% nationalisation, the company would no longer be in existence. Hundreds of staff were made redundant and this may have exacerbated the bank's recent troubles.

On Tuesday, Barclays Bank suffered what could become an even bigger problem, with an element of scandal thrown in. It emerged that several of its traders had been rigging the key Libor interest rates during the period 2005-2009. Libor is the rate at which banks can borrow money from each other. Barclays traders, it has been reported, rigged the rate value in two different ways: firstly they increased Libor when other banks were borrowing from Barclays to increase their own profits; secondly they reduced it at times to give the appearance that Barclays was able to borrow money at a lower rate than was really available, hence giving a false impression that the bank was considered healthier than it may have been.

There will be a colossal fine for Barclays of £300 million. The Chief Executive, Bob Diamond, has so far refused to resign. Critics would point out that he is either corrupt if he sanctioned or turned a blind eye to these practices, or negligent and incompetent if he did not know.

The Financial Services Authority's investigations are not complete and there appears to be a real possibility that traders at the other big banks were conducting the same illicit practices.

At best, these two problems of enormous proportion will remain merely hugely expensive mistakes. At worst, there is the real possibility that either, or both, could bring the very future of these two banking behemoths into peril.

On Friday, a third scandal emerged. The Financial Services Authority revealed that Barclays, HSBC, RBS and Lloyds had agreed to pay compensation to customers who were mis-sold interest rate hedging products.

The fine for Barclays is enormous, but compensation payments related to all three of these catastrophes could dwarf any fine. On the back of compensation payments for the recent Payment Protection Insurance mis-selling, the big banks appear to be developing some very bad habits and paying out very large sums when found out. If it is not impossible that the recent scandals could bring one of the banks into serious financial difficulties.

The banks have let us down very badly, everybody would agree with that. In the banking collapse a few years ago, every UK citizen stumped up several thousand pounds in taxes to bail the banks out. Since then we have had the payment protection racket, rogue traders losing billions in single transactions, rigged interest rates, loss of access to our money and now a new mis-selling scandal. If these were ordinary companies, they would have ceased trading a long time ago.

Last year, I changed my bank account for the first time. I had been with one of the UK's big four banks all of my working life. Now I am with Co-op Bank, which to the best of my knowledge, has not been involved in any scandals, is mutually owned, does not have an investment banking division and tries to conduct all of its affairs on ethical grounds.

This is not an advert for Co-op Bank. But if our big banks continue to behave in such an egregious fashion, and if regulation appears to be lax enough to allow it, then there is only one sensible course of action: the customers must vote with their money. Move it somewhere you trust, you respect and that gives you good, simple service without any huge, costly blunders.

It is often said that people change their spouse more often than their current account. Now is the time that this should change.

Social Development Minister must show leadership on fuel poverty and back the Green New Deal

Green Party leader Steven Agnew MLA has called on Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland to re-think his decision on the Green New Deal and to follow Scotland’s example with a National Retro-fit Insulation Scheme as announced by the Scottish Government today.

Last week the Minister announced that the money allocated for funding the Green New Deal home insulation retrofit scheme in Northern Ireland would be used for replacement boilers in Housing Executive properties.

Whereas, this week the Scottish Government announced a massive programme to transform Scotland’s ageing houses into energy efficient homes.

“Given that last week the Annual Report on Fuel Poverty Statistics showed that Northern Ireland had the greatest proportion of fuel poor households in the UK, the Ministers needs to urgently see the bigger picture,” Mr Agnew said.

“The Minister has tried to pass the buck regarding this decision and blame his civil servants on this short-sighted and financially inefficient decision.

“For years under direct rule we had civil servants running the country and now we have local democracy we need ministers to show strong leadership and involved engagement – something this Minister has clearly failed to do.

“The DUP committed to end Ministerial ‘solo runs’ but given that every party stated its support for the Green New Deal by giving unanimous backing to my motion in September last year for more funding for the scheme, Minister McCausland has gone on a solo run on this issue and has acted against the will of the Assembly.

“Stating that it he has taken these actions on the advice of his civil servants begs the question: ‘who is actually running the show?’

“Tackling fuel poverty needs wide ranging strategy and advance planning as it is an issue that is only going to escalate for all households as fossil fuel prices continue to soar.

“The Scottish program will offer a range of free or discounted heating and home insulation measures to people living in older homes across Scotland who struggle with fuel poverty.

“We need a similar scheme which will help tackle fuel poverty across the board in Northern Ireland.

“This will in turn benefit the wider economy as hard-pressed families will have more money in their pockets and this will then filter into the local economy.

“The Minister needs to show a leadership in this issue and bring forward a program measures to actually tackle fuel poverty for all local families and he only has to look to our Scottish neighbours to see how that can be achieved.”

No New Deal for people in fuel poverty

Green MLA Steven Agnew has expressed disappointment that £12m which had been set aside for the Green New Deal will now be used only for a boiler upgrade scheme for Housing Executive homes.

Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland made the announcement in the Assembly today when asked to outline the results of the economic appraisal carried out in relation to the £12m budget allocated for the Green New Deal.

“This is not the best use of the money earmarked for investment in the Green New Deal,” Mr Agnew said.

“The Green New Deal attracted all party support because it had the potential to tackle the triple crunch of unemployment, rising energy prices and climate change.

“It was designed to work as full package not in a piecemeal way which is simply tinkering around the edges as it also needs to incorporate retro fitting of insulation.

“18 months after the Executive first promised this money, the Minister has now chosen to support the Housing Executive’s bid and I believe that this is a wasted opportunity.

“The Green New Deal had provided the opportunity to leverage around £70 million of private investment over the next three years.

“By putting the scheme exclusively in the hands of the Housing Executive, this won’t happen now.

“I am of course glad to see any homes in Northern Ireland improve their energy efficiency as we need to urgently  tackle fuel poverty but the initial vision for Green New Deal was to provide a one-stop-shop for households offering a free energy assessment, a competitively tendered installation service and a government grant finance package.

“By awarding the £12m over the next four years to the Housing Executive, the money for the Green New Deal will be kept within one specific housing sector and denies individuals and families who live in privately-rented accommodation or own their homes the opportunity to save around £350 per year on their fuel bills.

“As this scheme is now only going to update old Housing Executive oil boilers and replace them with gas boilers, it further locks Northern Ireland into fossil fuels dependency rather than paving the way for a renewable energy future across the wider housing stock with improved thermal inefficiency through better insulation.”

DSD is failing to tackle fuel poverty in Northern Ireland

Green MLA Steven Agnew has called on the Executive to urgently re-examine its strategy on tackling fuel poverty in Northern Ireland.

The Green Party Leader’s comments came after a briefing by Lord Whitty at this morning’s ETI Committee on his report entitled Energising Northern Ireland.

The report was commissioned by the Consumer Council in 2010 to undertake an independent review of energy policy in Northern Ireland.

It concluded that the Department of Social Development is failing to tackle fuel poverty in an effective manner and makes clear that reduction in fuel poverty and decarbonisation of energy supply needs to be considered as being equally important policy objectives as cost and security of supply.

Mr Agnew asked Lord Whitty directly if it was his opinion that currently in Northern Ireland this was not the case and he stated that in his opinion that it wasn’t.

“Clearly the approach that is currently being taken is not working,” Mr Agnew said.

“Eight of the Northern Ireland Executive Departments plus the Utility Regulator influence energy-related matters and this makes energy policy overly complex given the small size of the market.

“This leads to a piecemeal approach which is not providing direct relief for hard-pressed families which are spending on average over £1000 more per year for their energy needs than households in GB.

“The current approach we have is both ineffective and inefficient as we have a disconnected system with a combination of one-off winter fuel payments and Housing Executive double-glazing window replacement schemes.

“What we need is a comprehensive energy efficiency audit of both private and social housing and then we need to address energy efficiency requirements of the housing stock area by area.

“The Department of Social Development was given a very modest budget of £4 million to pilot the Green New Deal solution which promotes an area by area approach to addressing fuel poverty and energy efficiency.

“But now the Department of Social Development is looking for other ways to spend that money rather than concentrating on an area by area approach.

“The current policy of the Warm Homes Scheme is not efficient because it is too much of a scatter-gun approach and this is not the best use of public money and not the best way to tackle fuel poverty.

“Evidence from other areas such as Kirklees clearly shows that an area by area approach is the best model to tackle fuel poverty.

“Given that Northern Ireland’s level of fuel poverty is the worst in any part of Great Britain and Ireland and there is no chance of the 2016 target for the elimination of fuel poverty being reached, a new joined strategy is urgently required.”