Mícheál Martin’s allocation of resources to a Shared Island programme of work and establishing its offices in Dublin Castle drives forward the constitutional conversation on this island. Mícheál Martin Martin’s repeated outreach to unionism at its launch makes this a project which is governmental recognition that the constitutional question is being debated up and down…

The political response to the latest rise in incidences of Covid-19 on this island has been ill received and lacking in coherence. Edwin Poots MLA Two weeks ago, south of the border the once venerated Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan returned from a leave of absence to care for his ill wife to recommend that…

When George Floyd’s murder was captured on camera and broadcast across the world the reaction was not only to his own torturous suffocation under the knee of a police officer and the other officers who were complicit. The reaction was a global shudder that reached across 300 years of slavery and its consequences. We witnessed…

On 12th December 2012 British Prime Minister David Cameron stood up in the House of Commons and apologised to the family of Patrick Finucane for “shocking levels of collusion”. The statement was prompted by the report into the killing by Desmond De Silva QC. Raymond White While the review was heavily criticised by the Finucane…

If this was Paris the place would be in flames. I can’t get over the patience and resilience of our young people, especially those going to college or university. Criminalising students who have been treated shabbily during the pandemic is not the answer Do you remember in the run up to St Patrick’s Day when…

In January there was a huge push for the parties to form a local government in the wake of pressure from health workers. It seemed that the issues keeping the parties apart were reduced as pressures to have a locally accountable health minister became urgent. In rode then Secretary of State Julien Smith and the…

The British government’s contempt for law in their treatment of the bereaved should have been a portent for their treatment of international law when engaging with the Brexit Withdrawal Treaty. When Theresa and Hugh Jordan walked into Relatives for Justice offices on May 4th 2001, they knew that they had made history. They’d challenged the…

The statement by British Secretary of State Brandon Lewis that the British government’s intentions are to break international law as part of their reneging on the EU Withdrawal Agreement is a Rubicon crossed. A Rubicon that divides Britain from a place of law, scrutiny and accountability to Pariah state. A state where no rules any…

Office workers are being told to go back to offices, irrespective of workers’ or organisational remote working efficiency or productivity. All in order to keep the city centre alive. It’s like dismissing the diesel train because steam trains need men to shovel coal. This long out of date thinking ignores a modern population’s realities and…

The 20th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement seems a long time ago now. While it was a jovial affair there was also concern regarding institutions which been down a year and there was advice from the older men of local politics to the younger women of local politics to get Stormont…