UNIONISTS have secured a victory at Belfast City Council, against determined nationalist opposition, by signing the council up to the armed forces covenant.

This hopefully ends a pointless two-year argument.

Like most public bodies, the council is already required by UK-wide legislation to have due regard to the covenant, which requires that service personnel, veterans and their families face no disadvantage in accessing public services.

However, unlike in the rest of the UK, councils here provide none of the services the covenant covers.

Its key mandatory services are health, education and housing, provided by Stormont departments that are also already required by law to observe the covenant.

The three departments in question have unionist ministers. The two DUP ministers, responsible for education and housing, have issued guidance and appointed officials to ensure the covenant is delivered.

In short, if anyone is still having trouble accessing services, it is unionism’s fault – and has been for as long as Belfast City Council has been arguing over it.

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Not only is Northern Ireland’s population projected to fall; projections of the fall are themselves on a downward trajectory.

Last year, Stormont’s statistics agency projected the population peaking at 1.95 million in 2033. This year it has projected a peak of 1.94 million in 2031. The figures include expected immigration.

A shrinking population will have a profound impact on society and the economy but it will not deliver one of upsides commonly assumed – solving the housing shortage.

Although the peak is getting closer, the decline afterwards remains gentle, dropping by around 1,600 people a year until mid-century, which is as far as the prediction runs.

The main change in the population will be that it gets significantly older, reducing the average household size. This increases the demand for housing........

© The Irish News