The letter of Westminster Law has meant that Michelle O’Neill must accede to designating a Stormont department to administrate the injured victims’ payment scheme. She had delayed doing this due to issues of eligibility to and financing of the scheme, issues which remain unresolved. Any nuance or argument were for the most part lost in…

The new Police Ombudsman is a woman of substance. In her former role as the Public Services Ombudsman she was renowned as a tough cookie, being fastidious about due process. She also held the statutory offices of Local Government Commissioner for Standards and Judicial Appointments Ombudsman. She knows about processes of accountability, and she knows…

The Covid culture has brought words into our vocabularies that this time last year we could never have imagined we would use so frequently, or easily. Some terms have grated me inside out. “New Normal” bugs the little patience a 49-year-old mother five might have clean out of me and tramples on it. Lads there…

The news that Victims Commissioner Judith Thompson will not have her contract extended caused a mild flurry of media attention when announced last week. Of course, even a cursory look at the teacup’s storm would have recognised that Ms Thompson had already had her four-year term extended and another extension was unlikely. But what’s the…

Francie Molloy MP is a long-standing Sinn Féin activist. He is not a controversial figure within Sinn Féin. The only time he was publicly out of step with the party was in 2015 when he was vocal with a worry about the new Super Councils. He was suspended from the party for two short months,…

I see our new Taoiseach thinks that the Good Friday Agreement settled the constitutional question. It’s an interesting interpretation of a compromise for peace after 800 years of conflict. Mícheál Martin’s thought process has led him to the conclusion that because of that we can all look at our relationships instead. Partitionist convenience. It is…

The past few weeks in this wonderful place we call home have been incredibly difficult for various reasons. The disappearance and then discovery of Noah Donohoe was an emotional trauma which at its heart sees a devastated mother and family but extends to a population in grief. The passing and funeral of Bobby Storey has…

There are lots of things this “peace process” has thrown up I didn’t expect but these past few months have surely surpassed them all. Did you think 22 years after the signing the Good Friday Agreement that a former prisoner in a wheelchair would have to be expressing remorse to strangers before he would be allowed access to a…

There are moments in the legacy debate when the issues at stake are lit up in lights. The past six months must be viewed as critical. We either take the soup or we take a stand, it is as simple as that. December 2014 should have been when progress was made. All parties – and…