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Newton EmersonThe Irish News |
I had a visceral reaction to news that Northern Ireland’s teaching unions want a 13.5 per cent pay rise and will strike if they do not get it. Paul...
There will be changes “within the ranks” of Sinn Féin following last week’s Irish general election, DUP leader Gavin Robinson has predicted,...
It is considered a scandal that the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen will cost the taxpayer three times more than the building is worth,...
Labour’s plan to reduce welfare spending may or may not come to pass. It has been re-announced this week, yet again, still without much detail or...
The chair and chief executive of the Commonwealth Games board in Northern Ireland want Stormont to design a new flag for the region. While that might...
Loyalist Communities Council chairman David Campbell has dipped into the Big Book of Political Cliches, claiming young people in loyalist areas become...
When regulation of parades was being coaxed into existence three decades ago, it was considered fortunate that marching is fundamental to Orangeism....
There was a daunting display of political power outside Lisburn on Monday night. Thousands of farmers gathered in a convention centre for a rally...
One month after the A5 dual carriageway apparently received the final go-ahead, the Department for Infrastructure has received notice of another...
A stark difference of opinion has been revealed by the latest LucidTalk poll. Eighty-one per cent of unionists, including 91 per cent of DUP...
The Shared Island Initiative gets its own page in Fianna Fáil’s 200-page manifesto, amid five pages on a broader “Shared Island Agenda”. This...
The world may have changed since 2016 but President Trump’s first term remains our best guide to how he might treat Northern Ireland during his...
It is a bit much to expect Stormont to take a balanced view of inheritance tax. The tax is not devolved so Stormont sees none of the money, at least...
The DUP must win over the unaligned centre ground to secure the union, leader Gavin Robinson has warned his party. The first response from much of...
Extra spending in England means more money for Stormont under the Barnett formula. This week’s Westminster budget means a lot more: £640 million...
Sinn Féin and the DUP are at pains to insist devolution is stable, despite recent scandals in Sinn Féin and ensuing acrimony between both parties....
You can almost feel the slavery reparations debate drifting balefully towards Belfast, not that slavery will be the issue once it touches our shores....
The PSNI has engaged in absurd back-pedalling over an intelligence assessment on Sinn Féin and the IRA. Asked last week by Jamie Bryson if a 2015...
In 2015, it became compulsory in England to remain in full-time education or training until the age of 18 – not a new school leaving but a new...
Four-fifths of households in Northern Ireland receive more in benefits than they pay in tax, according to a new report from the Economic & Social...
There is a growing sense that time is running out for interminable loyalist peace processing. DUP ministers are under increasing if somewhat...
Government competitions are an old idea to encourage new thinking and new technology. Many of the great achievements of Victorian engineering began...
The British government is planning to give weight-loss injections to obese people so they can be taken off sickness benefits and obliged to work. This...
In her inaugural speech as SDLP leader last Saturday, Claire Hanna cited rejoining the EU as a decisive attraction of a united Ireland. Former...
Money is the under-appreciated factor in the Sinn Féin press officer scandal. Michael McMonagle was employed at the party’s central press office...
Announcing that work on the A5 will begin, DUP Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly noted how vesting homes and farmland became a highly emotive...
Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd may be a minister in a mere regional government, as opposed to a national government, but it is still absurd that he is...
Over the next few weeks, people in Northern Ireland will notice familiar products on supermarket shelves being replaced with items from the Republic...
It seems like a small matter and that is the point. Stormont’s inability to pedestrianise a short stretch of road in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter...
In 2013, when the three smaller parties in the executive complained they were being ignored, Sinn Féin minister John O’Dowd said “so what?”...
The entire Irish nationalist political establishment, North and South, has been meeting, facilitating and funding paramilitary-linked loyalist groups...
Labour caused a week of chaos by pausing and unpausing Northern Ireland’s four city deals but at least it has brought the deals to wider attention....
In the diplomatic words of Emma Little-Pengelly, “a considerable amount of confusion has been allowed to develop” over last Friday’s ‘pause’...
If only unionists had the influence ascribed to them by their opponents. Since last Friday, when the British government withdrew a funding pledge for...
Announcing a Pat Finucane public inquiry in the Commons, Secretary of State Hilary Benn explained repeatedly and at length that this decision was made...
The housing sector has responded to the proposal by Sinn Féin infrastructure minister John O’Dowd to charge developers to modernise NI Water. The...
The reset in British-Irish relations is in danger of over-writing the Belfast Agreement. Prime minister Keir Starmer visited Taoiseach Simon Harris at...
The test of Stormont’s programme for government, expected in draft form on Monday, should be brevity. This matters more than whether it it presented...
Stormont is refusing to supply evidence for its claims that Northern Ireland benefits from UK and EU ‘dual-market access’. The Department for the...
The launch of Sinn Féin’s housing policy in the Republic has drawn some critical comparisons with the party’s performance north of the Border....
Paying tribute to Colum Eastwood on his resignation as SDLP leader, former secretary of state Julian Smith called him “an exceptional...
An extraordinary amount of unionism’s current malaise stems from the DUP panicking over a LucidTalk poll in February 2021, which showed a shock jump...
Before the last Stormont election in 2022, I interviewed Ron McDowell, deputy leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). Polls were predicting a...