Latest Stormont Deal.

[ashman]

There is a flags quango with a pro rata £80k salary that will no doubt be comprised of mates of SF & DUP, so that's nice.

Is this f**king satire ?

[Maguire01]

Maybe we should invade England.
What exactly do you want the " free state" Government to do?

The one thing that really disappointed me was when Dublin Government transferred NI from the Home Affairs dept to the Foreign Affairs dept. Could they have been any more insulting to northern nationalists?

When exactly did this happen? Agreed that Foreign Affairs doesn't sit right. There should be a NI dept.

[Tubberman]

Home Affairs Dept!? I don't think such a dept exists ...

[Farrandeelin]

Home Affairs Dept!? I don't think such a dept exists ...

Well the North is hardly foreign.

[T Fearon]

Whoever the freestate govt is batting for its not Northern nationalists.They seem to be there to copper fasten partition and pressurise both SDLP and SF to follow British dictat.

[armaghniac]

Whoever the freestate govt is batting for its not Northern nationalists.They seem to be there to copper fasten partition and pressurise both SDLP and SF to follow British dictat.

The Freestate govt is somewhat useless, but I think we need an example of what you mean.

[orangeman]

Thank God the crisis was averted.

[StGallsGAA]

How come there's no spotlight on the DUP's loyalist paramilitary past or the fact ex loyalist paramilitaries and their families are holding posts within the party??

[armaghniac]

How come there's no spotlight on the DUP's loyalist paramilitary past or the fact ex loyalist paramilitaries and their families are holding posts within the party??

Because it is the DUP who usually do the shouting on such matters. SF don't really want to get into a game of you have more paramilitaries than us.

[bennydorano]

Thank God the crisis was averted.

I dont think they even realise the people generally dont care anymore.

[Tubberman]

Home Affairs Dept!? I don't think such a dept exists ...

Well the North is hardly foreign.

Of course not, but I was trying to remember who had responsibility for NI before it was moved to Foreign Affairs.
It's been with Foreign Affairs as far back as I can think - David Andrews was Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Liz O'Donnell was Minister for State at Dept of Foreign Affairs in the 1997 govt, and that was the dept which was involved in the Good Friday Agreement, although given the significance, the Taoiseach was also heavily involved.

[Disillusioned]

Well the Free state taxpayer is forking out £75m to build a road in Tyrone, no doubt Marty and Peter the Punt will be making a similar contribution to a Free state road.

Not Tyrone.  The road from Strabane to Derry will be built from 2017.

Once again SF has screwed over the people in their West Tyrone stronghold.  No A5 dual carriageway on either side of Omagh. They used the movement of the hospital to Enniskillen to buy votes in Fermanagh South Tyrone and that has worked out well. Now the A5 is being used to backup Marty's recent claim in Derry that he would bring the A5 to the city. All part of its assault on the ballot box in Derry where it has not made major inroads on the SDLP vote.

SF is handing welfare reform to UK parliament.  A real Pontius Pilate moment.  It allows Adams and his SF party in the south to show that their colleagues in the UK had not implemented the cuts on the poor as it had been done by the UK government. SF just handed over their control of the situation to the British.

All the poor will now be in the hands of the Tories to allow SF 'clean hands'.  They are using tax credit relief as a fig leaf but it will be relieved by Osbourne in his Autumn statement at the end of this month.  They had £500 million to ease the affects on the poor last December, now there is only £250 million available with the rest being transferred to 'easing tax credits'. 

Will those affected still vote for SF?  Of course and SF knows that it will be largely unaffected in the ballot box.

[general_lee]

Right - explain to me what SF should do re welfare reform. Surely it was always a losing battle?

[Pub Bore]

The Shinners have a wee bit of leeway here with the fact that the Brits are introducing cuts in tax credits something that wasn't on the agenda at Stormont House last time.

[Applesisapples]

SF have compromised, they could do no other. If the deal protects the genuinely sick and the working poor whilst outing the spongers well fair play to them. The only Irish governments in the last 40 years to have anything other than a passive interest in the North were those led by Charlie and Bertie. More recently southern parties are more about fighting SF than representing nationalists.