19/03/2014 Stormont Today

Hello and welcome to Stormont today. Coming up in the next 30 minutes...

MLAs tread over old ground, as they debate the flying of flags over

council offices. We are in and around Belfast city Hall and all

about these amendments. Are you concerned about your rates

bill under a new council? I think it is important to protect and rate

payers. MLAs seek to lessen the impact of any change.

And I am joined by Steven McCaffery, for his take on a special sitting on

the Hill. Day two of the debate on the Local

government Bill and the most heated exchanges came late on, when MLAs

discussed amendments relating to the flying of flags on council

buildings. Four amendments were tabled - two from Alliance and two

from the Ulster Unionists. Amendment 63, from Alliance, stated that the

Union flag should be flown on designated days on all council

offices. The party's other amendment, number 65, suggested the

flying of bespoke council flags on days to be determined by individual

councils. One of the Ulster Unionist amendments called for the Union flag

to be flown every day at Belfast city Council offices. We begin with

Anna Lo setting out the Alliance stall. In the majority of the jewels

in Scotland and Wales this would represent the constitutional status

of Northern Ireland. I am disappointed that some parties have

feel the need to table a petition. As legislators, it is up to others

to have a mature and thoughtful discussions on contentious issues.

It is up to others to find the solutions. Putting forward petitions

of concerned prevents as having a full debate on this issue. These

amendments are already dead in the water, which is deeply regretful. As

the member outlines, the Belfast agreement seeing what people want,

in Belfast, 16,000 people responded to the consultation, 95% of whom

said they wanted to flank to remain every day of the year. Given that

number, should her party not have recognised the will of the people in

that? There are many people who support this. This is a compromise

agreement and that is the way to go. It is based on equality. If we

do not do it. We do not put in this compromise agreement that there will

be no flank but the council office. That would be the case if Sinn Fein

had the array. We have proved former designated days. I give way. But the

member you gave way to previously brought up this figure of 16,000,

they have to recognise that nearly 1 million people live in Belfast. It

is only a fraction of the number of people who live in the capital city.

What is most patronising is that the Alliance party not only telling is

what to do, but the are putting forward the new design of flight to

be in its place. Northern Ireland as part of Great Britain and those

people feel that should be represented. I feel the Good Friday

Agreement regulates for this. The days for British amendments being

put forward by long gone. In my own constituency, the union flag is not

flown from a council building, various mutual respect for all who

work within the building and indeed, those who visit it. The

council building is neutral and three from flanks. We should maybe

do a bus run, taking 82 of Londonderry. We will do it to and Mr

Campbell can do that, we will look at the Guildhall and see all the

symbols of British identity, of historic imperialism in our city, of

which we have not scrubbed away because I think it is important to

recognise our history, because we have a shared history. I am not

proposing we have done the walls of the city because they are a symbol

of British imperialism. We have two debate the issue of restoring the

unified in its rightful place. If the decision had not been taken back

in December 2012 to take it down, we would not be here today. A wrong

decision was taken at that time. We are having a debate around the city

Hall in Belfast and everything except talking about the amendments.

There are so many nationalities who come here and when they may continue

to identify themselves as Irish Americans, but the one thing they do

is the talk about the national flag. The thing you need to accept is that

most people do not care. They want to move on and enjoy their lives.

There are people here still talking about this issue, people have been

out on the streets for the last year, riots in the streets, we have

destroyed the Belfast city centre, so it is important to some people.

When it comes to the issue about how we deal with the particular position

on the amendment, I am surprised that they brought it. It is

mischievous. It is designed for political opportunism. When the

Alliance party may be calculated and deliberate move to empower Sinn Fein

and the SPL he too obtained a long-held objective of pulling down

the Union flag from the building. Not only did the release turmoil on

our streets, but they then sought to take refuge in something of a

catchphrase, it was a democratic decision. How critical to note that

when it comes to this house debating the issue, that this house is not to

be allowed to make a democratic decision because of the pernicious

use of the petition of concern. TUV leader Jim Allister. Journalist

Steven McCaffery, from The Detail website, is with me. Steven, after

well over a day of debate it was only when the MLAs got to that

familiar issue of flags that the temperature began to rise in the

chamber. It did rise, but maybe not even meet in the wee some people

thought it would. The Unionist members were almost going through

the emulsion, you could not escape the feeling that people see this

issue of the Union flag as being a horse that has bolted. The most

passionate contribution was Basil McCrea. Run the issue first arose,

he, unlike many unionist, argued that he designated day for it to be

flown was quite a good idea. He was referring back to that today. He was

suggesting it was an opportunity lost. We also have this spat about

the sense of Irishness, relating to the likes of the rugby team. Yes,

the Unionists accused the Nationalists of what mixing of

identity. Week to the extremes, like the courting of extracts from the

Good Friday Agreement, with relation to the likes of emblems. The

response from nationalists was that the agreement did not spell out

about flags and there should be a compromise and an even tempered

approach. Is there not some sense that this was the whole debate

because this needs cross-party support and that is never going to

happen. Yes, you need a consensus and Ludwig was possibly dead before

it even started and that maybe contributed to that slightly

lacklustre feeling about it. Do you get a sense that in some cases, they

are maybe playing to the gallery, with elections down the road? Yes,

for the Unionists to ask for Union flag the two be flying 365 days a

year was a bit of a nonstarter. ? Steven, thank you.

Well, after that very lengthy debate on just four amendments, the

Minister got to his feet to respond. As we have here today again and

again, the issue of flags is a contentious issue. It was agreed

that this bill was not appropriate for resolving that issue. I would

like in conclusion to commend members for their mature approach to

parts 1-5. I asked them to revert to that and maintain the constructive

approach as the bill progresses to sue its next stage. I would urge

them not to be tempted, and I reiterate tempted, to any major

reactions. Letters lead. Letters get through this ground-breaking piece

of legislation that will transform local government and bring power

closer to the people. These amendments to the opposite to that.

I recommend that members should reflect reject all four.

Environment Minister, Mark H Durkan. Let us return to yesterday's

late-night sitting. MLAs were in the chamber until ten o'clock, debating

yet another group of amendments. The Environment Minister expressed

strong opposition to amendments tabled by Alliance to replace the

D'Hondt System as the preferred mechanism for allocating posts in

local councils. The schedule provides that the default method

should be by that D'Hondt method unless the Council, by a qualified

majority has selected a specific method. One of the method specified

in part two of the schedule is the use of the single transferable vote

to fill the positions. The effect of these amendments would mean that

instead of D'Hondt being the default method, STV would be the default

method. The use of the D'Hondt method as the default option was

agreed by the political parties represented on the strategic

leadership board. The use of STV as a default method was discussed by

the Environment Committee and rejected. We believe that it is a

system which better reflects the cross community government that we

wish to see implemented on the new councils. It also makes sure that

bolts of independence or groups too small to make quota are not lost

when locating seats -- votes. This will ensure that all parts of the

community are able to influence positions of responsibility and

reduce the likelihood of a carve up of seats. Under the dance system, it

would currently be too easy for one section of the community to be

excluded from governments and Harry -- D'Hondt.

In the past, Sinn Fein would have been reluctant to see the

transferring of additional powers and responsibilities to local

government, not least because of incidents of misuse of powers in

certain councils and that is why safeguards are so important and in

particular, I want to note that positions of responsibility will be

allocated according to party political strength via D'Hondt as

the default position. This is real progress and throughout our analysis

of the bill, Sinn Fein has been at pains to point out that we will not

accept anything short of the D'Hondt principle. It is clear to us, when

all the parties agreed that D'Hondt would be the mechanism that we would

rely upon, as the default mechanism, and it is difficult to

hear from the Alliance Party, when they had two ministers and they do

not have a right to them, talking about proportionality, it perhaps

explains why they are not too clued up on the figures around how STV and

D'Hondt would affect the filling of positions on any given council. 68

of the Ulster Unionist Party proposal and that is clearly that

there would be a minimum three years for the rate conversion support. I

do hear other members and the minister talking that there is much

good work going on between the Department of Finance and personnel

and the DoE in respect of bringing forward the mechanism and proposals

and I have no doubt that that is happening and I hope it progresses

well. All we are trying to do is ensure that that is in place for a

minimum of three years, otherwise you could have some sort of support

to councils for one year and then it is over to you, get the money from

the ratepayer and let them pay for this change. There are huge issues

for different councils and I am not sure whether Mr Elliott is declaring

an interest between Fermanagh merging with Omagh and the problems

that would cause. It is important to protect ratepayers and that they

know that that has been thought about, debated in this Assembly and

those points made. John McCallister of NI21. So twelve years since the

launch of RPA and after two days of debate, is the Local Government Bill

shaping up to be a good piece of legislation? Will it give the 11 new

super-councils the power and guidance they need to work well?

Joining me is Derek McCallan, the Chief Executive of the Northern

Ireland Local Government Association... So what have you made

of the last two days? The last two days have been like the 12 years you

mention, it has been a marathon, there has been forensics work done

by all of the members participating in the debate and has been a lot of

preparation in the three years prior to those days and it did not

surprise me that there had been that level scrutiny of. That is what a

committee is for and that is good government. What are the key bits of

the bill for you? The key elements for ourselves by the strengthening

and the provision of new powers, because of the transfer of functions

and chapter one of the transfer of functions, because there will be

additional powers subject to review beyond the limitation on day one.

What about the issue of flags? Would you rather it was resolved here and

enshrined in legislation? Our view is a membership association on this

matter is that there is time within the period of the shadow councils

commencing and the day one of the new councils. It has to be a

combined effort, there has to be shared political leadership.

Framework could be introduced and that could be tailored by the local

implementation bodies -- a framework. You would kick the can

down the road a bit further? Let us get these things bedded in and get

them right. The extra money that's being made to new councillors, up

from just under ?10k pa to just over ?14k pa, does that make sense? It

makes sense when you consider that there has been very little

movement, there has been in a share in terms of remembering shin for

councils for five years. Some of the powers, not just a transfer of

functions, but the responsibilities, the management of issues to do with

reputation as well as services, all of these will require new

competencies and challenges -- renumeration. When one looks at that

process in comparison to our colleagues who are MLAs, it is not

something people do for the money, there is no more public spirited

area than in terms of councils. It is fair and it creates, at least an

opportunity to incentivise people who have trade, to keep those

trades, but also get a significant remuneration associated with the job

that they do in addition to their main job. Do you think it will be a

workable piece of legislation for the the new councils to work from?

The bill in itself, it gives a framework. It will be down to the

interpretation and that means interpretation not just by the

councils but by the departments. It cannot be a top-down command and

control. It cannot be 11 admin this to tune at serving all the

government departments, it has to bring the local into government --

administrations. We need to make sure there is more participative

local democracy and make the good councils great. The bill gives us a

framework. Derek McCallan, thank you. This morning the marathon

debate over the wholesale changes to local government in Northern Ireland

focused on some planning powers being transferred to the new

councils. The Alliance MLA Anna Lo, who chairs the Environment

Committee, brought a list of amendments dealing with this to the

Assembly. The inclusion of community planning in this bill is greatly

welcomed by many stakeholders. However, there are concerns that

unless the wording of the bill is strengthened, then this will be a

missed opportunity. It is important that the community is involved in

shaping health and well-being provisions, the Alliance Party has

tabled several amendments in this group on community planning and how

to ensure it is best utilised. Any society, which intimidated or

generates fear amongst some of its citizens or systematically excludes

or discriminate against them, cannot be equal. In turn, a shared society

cannot be delivered without equality. Therefore, to achieve

equality, we must insist on inclusion and to achieve inclusion,

we must insist on equality. Surely in Northern Ireland we have seen the

divisions in Northern Ireland, the bad feelings between communities,

the deep political divide, I love this country, but there are many

things that are wrong here in Northern Ireland. Good relations

being one. What we are intent on doing in ensuring we get this

right, is ensuring we do not have good relations, being used as a

reason to trump equality issues around the are slang which an social

housing and other things. We need to ensure that we do do not allow good

relations as an excuse to prevent equality. -- the Irish language. In

truth, no one knows how community planning will work out. There was

widespread concerns that were raised by many people that the legislation

was not perhaps tight enough and I think it has been put before RAS --

before RAS in an attempt to tighten that situation and ensure as best as

possible to ensure it works well -- before us. There were 335 community

groups and we have to find a way, and I do not see it yet, as to how

we get the community groups involved and the answer at the time from the

Minister and I asked who was involved in the community was the

people that live there, worked there, the people that passed

through, the people that are affected by what happens, before we

realise that we are talking about everyone. I am worried about the use

of political opinion, that people are allowed... You cannot hold a

certain opinion. In any other jurisdiction, that approach would be

considered to be non-liberal, because the whole idea about a

pluralist democracy is that you are allowed to hold differences of

opinion. The amendment adds to the clause which places a duty on

councils to deliver community banning. The purpose is to clarify

that, improving the social well-being of the district and this

will include promoting equality of opportunity and improving the

economic well-being and this will include tackling property, social

exclusion and patterns of deprivation. Mark H Durkan. Steven

McCaffery, from The Detail, has rejoined me... The complete reform

of local government has been a long time coming. Was it always going to

be difficult for him to only take charge in the last six months? Yes.

It is a massive issue. We are not only looking at downsizing, also

expanding the powers of the council. Huge logistical issues, but

on top of that, as we saw around flags, those political issues are

causing problems. When the councils are bedded in, that is when we see

them fully operating. We will see how the transfers of Paris is

working. This is about changing democracy and local accountability.

-- powers. A new breed of councillors? I would not worry about

the negative publicity. A government cost money, we want value for money.

We will know about that when the new system is up and running. The

so-called super-council model is supposed to make local government

more efficient and cost the taxpayer less, but not everyone is firmly

behind it? The argument is that at times we will see the benefit of

that. The proof of the pudding will be in NEETs and in this case, huge

organisations being formed will have an impact -- in the eating. Steven,

thank you. That's it from this special edition of Stormont Today.

There's another helping of political discussion and debate on The View

tomorrow night at 10.35pm on BBC One. Do make a point of joining me

for that. Until then, bye-bye...