08/12/2011 Hearts and Minds

Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up this week:

The Anglo-Irish Treaty is the first of a string of anniversaries coming

up. But could we ever agree how to mark these memorable dates?

Is Belfast's Dome of Delight reverting to the bad old days of

sectarian strife? The MLA who rejected the priesthood

in favour of politics. And where the Human Rights

Commissioner believes the Programme for Government has got it wrong.

On an island renowned for its long memories, the next few years will

be throwing up a long line of anniversaries for both sides of our

divided society. In a Westminster debate tabled by the Alliance's

Naomi Long, the NIO Minister Hugo Swire said the challenge is to

ensure nobody is able to hijack history for a narrow, biased agenda.

But is there any prospect that these memorable dates could create

better relationships or are they likely to lead, as Mrs Long warns,

to fractious and deepening antagonism? Alex Maskey, let's

start with you. I suppose the next anniversary will be the signing of

the Covenant. Can you look at that with a degree of excitement and

anticipation? These events are normally a rematch so I think it is

important that we look at all of these commemorations and historic

events with immaturity and reflection. Obviously, we all have

a different perspective butter think we can do it in a

commemorative wave. It can certainly be done in a way that

allows for a greater understanding between the various communities.

There are so many which are due in the next few years and I think we

can do ourselves, as a whole community, a good service and

within the context of the time. What do you mean by a "in the

context of the time? We have to look at people's reaction to these

things so there is no point in dealing with the covenant on his

own. I have no reason to fear any examination of history, far from it.

I think it is what we do learn from it. I want to listen to other

people's views on it. I don't expect to change a Unionist

perspective, for example and I want to listen to their views as they

should listen to mind. Some Unionists are a bit afraid of what

it might bring? I do not know if there were afraid. I think there is

a concern, for example, of the government would want to go ahead

because of where it took place and that is fine. It is whether then an

importation of a replica of that for a new generation comes about. I

think if sensitivities are dull with we can get these

commemorations going and deal with it. -- are dealt with. The event

took place in Dublin and us suppose that is where it should be to be

most memorably commemorated. You would not expect the Battle of the

Boyne to be commemorated in France. In Belfast, may be? We have done

and whenever other battles and other events are commemorated, they

are done so on those occasions. But you don't transported to another

country. But when sensibilities are used in terms of these

commemorations, I think we can get through them and in a way people

can understand what it is is being commemorated and not trying to

rewrite history. Chris Little, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was passed off

this week with any great mention at all. Certainly no great fuss. It

was the treaty that gave birth to the new Ireland. Do you think that

would be something you would like to see happen on every anniversary

or almost ignored? I think there are some key centenaries coming up

in the next decade. I would congratulate the MPs to put this on

the agenda at Westminster. This is an opportunity to commemorate these

events in a way that will help us build a shared future in Northern

Ireland. I have seen the Queen's visit to Northern Ireland recently

and it was hand -- handled in a very conciliatory way. I think we

can do the same. There is a clear danger that it could be hijacked.

That is still a danger, isn't it? There is no need for scaremongering

around these issues. I think the governments can work together. I

think it is about approaching this in a positive fashion to make sure

we work together to commemorate these events in a positive way.

Alex Maskey, there is a commemorative committee and a

working group with the city council. What sorts of issues will come up?

Could it be a return to the old days of sectarian rivalry and

bitterness? We have got a lot of work involving all the parties and

the city council. There's tremendous work being done so it is

not anywhere near as bad as it was a few years ago. First of all, I

would like to make the point that the comments from Hugo Swire were

very unhelpful and very unnecessary. But surely realistic? There are

people that he tried to translate it into terms of violence. We all

have different views on prospects - - aspects of Arab history. Ireland

was not a participant in 1960 or 1912. We have to look at these

things in the round. I do believe there are very his commemoration

committee is now starting to be formed and people are grasping the

nettle of, how do we do this in a way which is reflective and can add

to our nation and our national reconciliation. I do not think

anybody should be afraid of history. We do need to learn from it. All

these events are very important part of our collective history.

important would it be, Gregory Campbell, that you would go to

whichever commemoration, 1916, for example, and the covenant

commemoration? It would not be important at all. It would be

important that others understand that they would want to go to

events that they commemorate. Why would I want to go? To show an

understanding of history. And I can't understand it by not being

there? No... But Unionists want Sinn Fein Lord Mayor has to go to

various services for Remembrance Sunday and wear poppies.

Remembrance Day is not our commemoration. It is a

commemoration for everybody - Protestants, Catholics, everybody.

There should not be any problem there. Some people might say in

1916 is the same thing. The problem has been that in the past, some did

not know what happened 100 years ago. Now, Protestants and Catholics

served in the Great War and some have even discovered their

grandfathers and great uncles, their names are on the Cenotaph,

the send-off to which they can go to pay tribute. -- the Cenotaph to

which they can go. Hopefully that helps them commemorate. When we

come to a day where others understand what we want, then that

is good. What Hugo Swire said was quite helpful and the Commons from

everybody on all sites were held for. How important is it, do you

think, Chris Little, is it to find a common nature in these things?

The 10th Irish division was involved as well. I think there is

more of a shared history than we care to realise. It is not about

specific individuals and how they attend specific events. Those will

mean different things to different people. But I think it is about

working with people in different ways. One commemoration committee

has identified specific era's where different events which mean

different things to different people can be respected and

commemorated in a shed weight. And I do not think we can forget that

there are specific economic and tourist opportunities. People in

Northern Ireland should feel welcome to attend any of these

events and we want to make sure others can come and attend the

events and share the historical nature. Maybe we should think about

the mess and commemorate less? think maybe that is a head in the

sand, and. It is important that we take pre-emptive action and plan

and prepare in a way people are comfortable with so that whoever

wants to go to events like that are allowed to go, to commemorate

events they feel strongly about and events which they cherish and

Aachen -- important in their community. As long as there is not

an attempt to stop those who do want to commemorate, that they are

allowed to do that. And if people do that sensitively, we will get

through the next 10 years. The 100th anniversary of Northern

Ireland, we should be looking forward not only to that 100 years

but the next. And a politician might object to that? Had become

100 years on, we might have started... -- hope for leave.

think leaders need to look at history in the round. We are not

about people's opinions of 1916. But I hear a lot of people saying

and talking about the Battle of the Somme and Irishmen of all

persuasions lost their lives there, but there are those who lost their

lives and came back to Ireland and fought with the Republic forces

against Northern Ireland. People from a broader community would

understand that. They are prepared, on the one hand, to put a halo on

the Battle of the Somme but they are not acknowledging that they

came back and fought against the British. It is part of its history.

But we need a greater understanding of everything? The problem is, it

is a bit odd to go out and fight for freedom and then come back and

fight against it. Some people were fighting for freedom in recent

years and paid the ultimate prize when the IRA's campaigns were on.

But I think we are preparing well in advance of a series of

government -- commemorations. If we do it in a quiet, respectable way

and we are sensibly using our heads about how to get through the next

10 years, we can turn it into a plus rather than a minus. But this

is Ireland, and the danger will always remained that fractiousness

will rule the day? There is a consensus about how we approach

this issue and the Westminster debate showed there was consensus

as well. So I am confident that parties and ministers can work

together. Thank you very much indeed, gentlemen.

It must be a rare treat for Stormont Assembly Members to feel

grand, dignified and superior. But they got ample opportunity this

week, with the ridiculous protracted row at Belfast City

Council over Lord Mayor Niall O'Donnghaile's refusal to present

an award to a teenage Army Cadet. It was obviously a complete

horlicks from the start, with the young and inexperienced

O'Donnghaile caught on the hop by the unexpected appearance of an

adolescent British army volunteer. Martin McGuinness eventually struck

the right note by admitting that the Lord Mayor's failure to present

the award was undoubtedly a mistake. Undoubtedly it was. But after

O'Donnghaile had choked out an early, qualified apology, and

afterwards a more sincere-sounding, expansive one, it was clearly time

to move on. Or at least it would be in any normal democratic set-up.

Instead, we had the farcical situation of an angry Loyalist

crowd hurling abuse and attacking cars out the back of City Hall,

while Christmas shoppers munched roast chestnuts and sipped mulled

wine at the continental market out the front. Inside the Dome of

Delight, the mood wasn't much better. And how fortuitous that

this was the very week that City Council meetings went live on the

internet. It meant we could see every snarl, frown and pout as it

happened. I don't know who was operating the webcam, but it

created a dizzying effect as it whizzed from speaker to speaker.

Motion sickness soon set in. But it was worth watching just to see the

inadvertent cameos of councillors caught in repose. The DUP's

Christopher Stalford seemed to be lost in secret fantasy, a half-

smile playing around his lips, and Ulster Unionist Jim Rodgers

appeared to be chewing a wasp. Various issues were discussed at

length, not least the row over whether to erect an Irish language

Christmas sign at the side of City Hall. Festive spirit and all that.

But of course, the big topic was the first citizen's misdemeanour.

Young DUP councillors Guy Spence and Gavin Robinson passionately

berated the equally youthful O'Donnghaile for his failings. It

was like showdown at the Junior Debating Society. But it was left

to Deputy Lord Mayor Ruth Patterson, in full finger-waving school matron

mode, to fully apprise O'Donnghaile of how very, very naughty he had

been, and how he must never, ever do it again. "You do not disrespect

anyone!" she rapped out, as the Mayor lolled in his massive throne

like a recalcitrant schoolboy. I half-expected him to mutter, "I

will if I want to". Belfast City Council has form with these voluble

and nonsensical spats, including the row over O'Donnghaile sticking

the official portraits of the Queen and Prince Philip behind the door

of his parlour. In fact, the fresh intake of younger members at the

last election seems to have inflamed hostilities rather than

calmed them. Whatever their ages, when they start making Stormont

look like a Swiss charm school for young ladies, it's clearly time for

And now we return to our occasional series introducing some of the new

generation of MLAs. Julia Paul's been to Fermanagh to meet a Sinn

Fein representative who originally I grew up in a rural area in County

Fermanagh. I am from a family of six children. I come from a non-

political family, politics was never discussed in our house. When

I was young, I wanted be a priest. That was my calling but I grew out

of that and got an interest in current affairs and later politics.

I joined Sinn Fein at university and they gave me a flavour about

political life and what was involved in politics and the

difference you can make to people's lives. A position came up to beat a

councillor and I put my name forward. I have no regrets about

that. I am the youngest MLA in the Assembly. It is difficult to get

young people involved and there is a disconnect between young people

and elected representatives and politics. I do not think

politicians need to be men in grey suits. They should represent the

people. We need a greater number of young people and women involved in

politics and I encourage people to get involved because up the minutes

the system is dominated by men and young people are not represented in

any political arena. One key issue in the constituency is the growing

rate of emigration of young people. We need to take a handle on this

and address it. One reason people are leaving his there is a lack of

jobs but also lack of hope. We need an approach to create jobs and give

I am very committed to the unifying Ireland. Is the only way forward

for political, economic and social reasons. It is for the good of all

the people. It is not an ideological reason. It is a

commonsense approach that services need to be organised, we need to

come together as a people of the island to work together. I am

active in the community and engage with people. I get out and about

and see the issues affecting the. Unless the people elected to know

what the issues are, you never can make a difference. I am involved in

listening and finding out what the problems are and dealing with them

accordingly. I do not agree with just tea and sympathy. I am in

favour of taking a problem, finding out about the issue and brilliant

for. Small issues, you can ring the Housing Executive and sorted out.

If you come across a problem affecting 5,000 people, and you can

change policy so it effects people, it is a good thing to do. It's what

politicians should be doing. It took a long time to produce the

latest programme for Government, and of course it has its critics in

and outside Stormont. The latest volley comes from the Human Rights

Commission, which is unhappy that the programme makes but passing

allusion to the human rights which the Commissioner believes should

underpin the whole edifice. Michael O'Flaherty is with me. This is a

comprehensive document covering every element of the assembly's

efforts. You have picked out a lack of commitment to victims of sexual

crime and travellers as major criticisms. In the sense of a whole

doctrine, is it not nit-picking? Good evening, it's a pleasure to be

here and we welcome the programme for government. It's an important

initiative and we welcome much of the contents. There's a lot of good

stuff which will make a real change for human rights of people in

Northern Ireland. We are concerned, not about the individual document,

it's the lack of a global framework which goes deeper into what it

means to promote equality and human rights and to take care of what the

ministers talk about as being the most vulnerable and disadvantaged

in Northern Ireland. You say that but the chapter headings are

creating opportunities, improving health and well-being, protecting

the people, environment and creating safer communities. They

are great chapter headings. What we need is a human rights based

approach to implementing that. For example, the situation of poverty

is the very serious in Northern Ireland. 22% of the people are

deemed to be poor, the highest rate in the UK. 50% of households are

fuel for, the choice between food and fuel. We are pressing

government the extent to which its obligations under it the

international treaties require it to put combating poverty not just

as an element in this or that chapter but an overarching

framework. As you say, the document could say it universal... It

underpins what is said. We want to make sure that happens, the

quotation from the declaration is welcome. We need to see the

provisions of the declaration carried through. How would the

document that different if you're writing it? We would not write it.

Our job as human rights commissions is to provide advice on standards.

We do not supplant government. How it might be different would-be an

acknowledgement of who the most vulnerable are at the outset and

then up spelling out chapter by chapter how the programme for

government will deliver for them, how will it deliver for the poorest,

how will it deliver for those living at the interface and for old

folks in nursing homes and so on? It does that by implication.

sufficiently. We need it explicitly at the heart of policy-making. A

far more explicit demonstration of how the rights holders, the people

of Northern Ireland, will be involved in the business of

implementing the programme for government. The last page sets up

the implementation same work. This ministry does that, that department

does the other. It has to mention the communities for whom the

programme is intended. They should be built in full consultation and

as partners in the choices of high income and the programmes and how

you evaluate it. If the programme said we will lift everyone out of

poverty by 2015, but it's an impossible thing for any government

to promise at any time. We are not asking for the government to make

any unreal statements be carried a basis in reality. We are asking the

great crisis of the state's... Everyone has the right to decent

housing, decent education, to those sorts of things. You could not find

a way of guaranteeing that. commission calls for only what the

UK has already declared and none of them establish a deal is life for

everyone. It is about the bare minimum for human dignity to allow

people to have human dignity to live and survive. That is all they

are asking for. The commission is reminds me executive to pay

attention. You talk about the lack commitment to transitional justice,

the aspect of dealing with the past. You know that we cannot even agree

here what a victim is when we talk about a conflict, how could a

programme for government possibly set out at this stage what it would

do in terms of what she called transitional justice? Firstly, the

programme of government declares itself to be the global vision of

governments for this part of the world the next few years. It has to

deal the big issues. One of the big issues, the unavoidable issue for

Northern Ireland, is dealing with the past. We use different terms,

transitional justice is technical. We are missing a global vision of

how to deal with the past across all its dimensions. The traditional,

criminal, inquest, truth-telling, memorial, honouring. If they could

do that, they would have done it. No one can agree on it. The fact

the problem has to be acknowledged and processes -- crisis towards

acknowledging it. We are asking the executive takes leadership in a

proper process which will lead us towards a possible answer, we are

not asking for miracles. We're asking for a commitment and

acknowledgement that this is a fundamental issue facing Northern

Ireland. What would you say to people and politicians, the

programme for government is not -- is the business of democratically

elected governments not appointed human rights commissioners. It is

the business of government and we are supporting government in its

work. I applaud the many commitments to human rights icy in

departments, I have met many ministers and unimpressed by the

way many are determined to get it right in terms of human rights. We

are here to support that, no more, no less. On the basis of the human

rights treaties to provide space -- advice, we give advice not because

we think it is right but we give advice on the basis the treaties of

the UK, many it is the primary author of. The Bill of Rights for

Northern Ireland. You have a new commissioner, are you ready to

accept defeat? The government has set itself against it. The

government has said -- set up its own commission to investigate. Do

you think a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland is dead? Not at

all. There is nothing to accept defeat on. A few days ago in the

Assembly the First Minister came back to speak about the Bill of

Rights again. They did not speak about it being dead. This began on

ongoing process which has to take... That is one way in Northern Ireland

of saying it is dead! I take it on its face value. The commission

stands by the advice which was for a Bill of Rights to be based on the

UK's international human rights standards. Well beyond his brief.

am not aware of the statement. What I am aware of is a good document

which we stand over which commits the States to not an ounce more

than it has signed up to three treaties which were not a magic

bullet,... We needed because it brings a human rights more locally,

it is easy to hold states to account against the measurement of

a national, local Bill of Rights and allows matters to be explored

more comprehensibly. It does undoubtedly strengthened human

rights protection even though it is not absolutely necessary. Thank you.

And that's where we must leave it this time round. We'll be back next

week at the usual times. I hope I need a good discussion about

politics! Some Carry On This Week, an old-fashioned Christmas. Open

fires, snow and sectarian rows about signs in Irish and flags. The

pantomime season has begun as people run-up to Man United fans