Options for reform of Stormont

I veer towards the view, even if it is relatively unpopular around “commentators”, that at this stage the much bigger “risk” for the DUP is not going back into Stormont.

This would entail the party having to admit it achieved nothing in the nearly year-long negotiations over the Protocol after the Windsor Framework and then literally hanging around doing nothing while being held responsible for ongoing failures to ensure adequate pay and conditions in the public sector and at the same time for 15% rates rises in the private sector (and significant rises in household rates too) as well as for ongoing rises in waiting lists. Since that means a financial hit during a cost of living crisis for the entire working and retired population (public sector, private sector, homeowner and [disproportionately] pensioner), the result would be an inevitable electoral savaging in November resulting in fewer MPs and even less sway over an incoming Labour Government even if it felt such sway could be put to good use (which, in this scenario, it would be evident that it couldn’t).

I am unsure why commentators cannot see this, but it is not really the point of this post because, regardless of whether there is restoration, Stormont obviously needs to be reformed anyway.

Context

We are full of doom and gloom about politics in Northern Ireland, but we should not be full of doom and gloom about Northern Ireland itself.

There have been significant recent advances, notably in the strength of its private sector, in the level of wealth retained (at least by a segment of the population) and in the security context. Northern Ireland ranks fourth of the 12 UK regions for “prosperity”, fifth for median income, sixth for life expectancy and seventh even for the notoriously awkward GVA/capita (given in practice so much GVA is assigned to London); this is up from bottom three or four for all of those not that long ago and bottom for the last one. In fact, Northern Ireland has the lowest official poverty rates of any UK region. None of this is an excuse for inaction and none of it suggests that life is perfect for everyone here, but it does reinforce that things are not all bad and many trends are really quite good.

In 1972 there were 482 “security-related” deaths associated with Northern Ireland, more than one a day; admittedly, that was the worst year but even as recently as 1988 this was still 104 (two a week); in 2023 there were none at all. Meanwhile workplaces, households and neighbourhoods have never been so “mixed” and indeed there is now once unthought of immigration – over one in ten of Belfast residents was born outside the UK and Ireland, a comparatively low figure versus cities of similar sizes elsewhere but much higher than even ten years ago (and certainly than twenty). Universities are expanding, areas such as film production have been developed from nowhere, and there are continuing sporting accomplishment (in fact results this weekend confirmed that both the Team GB men’s hockey team and the Ireland men’s hockey team will participate at the Olympics, in each case captained by someone from Northern Ireland; this was in addition to Rory McIlroy securing yet another Tour win, Conor Bradley starring for Premier League leaders Liverpool, and so on…)

It could still be argued we are all mad and, given that Thursday’s strikes were barely covered at all by either BBC or RTE news, perhaps that is the conclusion reached by our neighbours. However, given the scale of the trauma during the Troubles and the nature of the division in our society, it could equally well be argued we are remarkably peaceful and civilised.

Current Assembly

The fundamental issue at Stormont is that the Assembly (i.e. the legislature) requires, in effect, the approval of not one but two parties just to sit at all.

This is highly unusual. Even in countries where it can take months to form a government (what, in Northern Ireland’s devolved system, is called an “Executive”), the legislature sits immediately after an election regardless.

So the obvious first intervention would be to enable the election of a Speaker by a simpler method that this “double majority”.

Current Executive

The Executive is then formed by a rather odd three-stage process, only one of which technically requires the approval of the legislature (which is very odd; even in Westminster systems with a monarch, in effect the government cannot proceed without such approval) but it does again require the approval of not one but two parties who may wield a veto at any stage.

Firstly, the First and deputy First Minister are appointed automatically – and this is frequently misunderstood – by the Designating Officer of the largest party and the Designating Officer of the largest party which is in the largest designation not represented by the largest party respectively.

Then the Justice Minister is appointed by a “cross-community vote”; this again essentially gives both the largest parties a veto.

Then the remaining Ministries are filled by d’Hondt, i.e. in alignment with each party’s seat share in the Assembly, though the Justice Ministry counts against that party’s allocation (where the First and deputy First Minister do not – another curious advantage for the two largest parties). This is not wholly unusual – Switzerland’s Federal Council is formed similarly, as is the “government” of the Austrian province of Lower Austria. Additionally, some countries may opt for this, particularly during emergencies.

It bears emphasising also that the Executive sits officially as a Committee of the Assembly rather than as a separate body, and that it is “Departments” rather than “Government” which wield legal authority; this is unlike Scotland and Wales, which have established “Governments” are are in themselves entities wielding legal authority and to which “Departments” are subordinate.

Entitlement

The easiest reform which would remove the outright veto over operation of the whole thing would be to say that although entitlement to office would remain as is, any party refusing to take up a position would simply cede it to the next largest party. In practice, this would mean a party refusing to take a seat in government despite being entitled to one would go into opposition, as is quite normal everywhere else.

This would need to be accompanied by a mechanism for blocking a veto on the election of a Speaker; one option would be to abolish the so-called “cross-community vote” (which is in practice an opportunity to veto) with a straight majority vote which would still be subject to a “Petition of Concern” (i.e. if 30 members oppose, the election would be deemed subject to the petition).

In practice, these two simple reforms would remove the veto from any party with fewer than 30 seats though, of course, not from a party with more than 30 seats. That brings us to another point.

Designation/Petition of Concern

The original purpose of “designation” and the “Petition of Concern” was to enable either of the big groups (“Unionist” or “Nationalist”) to block things which went against the interests of their “community”. This is in itself not unreasonable, but it creates a practical problem because in practice it favours conservatism – a “Petition of Concern” may block something changing, but may not be used against the status quo (even if that is against the interests of a “community”).

A more radical but still fundamentally necessary reform, therefore, but one which would more accurately reflect Northern Ireland a generation on from the Agreement, would be to abolish “designation” altogether, and maintain the “Petition of Concern” for its original purpose – those signing would have to state a specific reason that a particular piece of legislation or the election to an office of a particular person (it should probably only be either of these – there is no need for it regarding motions of opinion) runs against the interests of a particular minority in society (noting that we are all minorities now). The effect of such a Petition, however, should be as a reconsidering mechanism not a blocking one; it should give a period of time to ensure that a proposed law or appointment is in line with good practice (including promoting good relations, improving equality and maintaining human rights), but not just to block changes a particular party does not like.

Direct Rule

Direct Rule – the appointment of Ministers by the UK Government subject to scrutiny in the House of Commons – is not an option after the St Andrew’s Agreement, which expressly ruled it out.

There is good reason for this. Direct Rule means essentially unaccountable government, and even effectively government by one “side” when we are supposed to have power-sharing – an entirely “Conservative and Unionist” ministerial team currently, for example, would mean that the non-Unionist majority would have no say in the government of their own jurisdiction, which is plainly a democratic outrage.

One awkward reality is that this applies regardless of who holds sovereignty over Northern Ireland. Some need to think that one through…

“Commission Executive”

I have written before about how countries such as Italy, Austria and Czechia have in the past resolved difficulties in government formation by appointing a technocratic government – essentially “government by quango”.

A lot of people, particularly those at the more professional end of the spectrum, toy with this idea – and I have been among them. You could appoint people based on expertise and background, as you would to any public board, who would take decisions as interim ministers (and be subject to Assembly scrutiny) pending agreement on forming an Executive.

It should be noted, however, that this is not a particularly good idea. In most of the above examples, it led to the subsequent election of more populist governments, essentially on the subconscious grounds that they did not have to govern particularly well because, if things went particularly badly, they could just restore the technocrats for a while to sort it out.

Fundamentally, in Northern Ireland, this is tempting because it is kind of what we are used to; we have a curious determination to avoid being governed by the people we elect!

However, for all its flaws, democracy (with those we elect accountable for government and legislation) is still the best option – the point is, we must be allowed to try it!

Lack of “Health Economics” key to NI’s failings

I have written before on these pages that the solutions to any complex problem are never simple. One of the great difficulties of democracy in our era is the insistence that they are.

I have also written before about an obvious example of this, namely Northern Ireland’s Health Service.

Unfortunately, the crisis is such that even the media are well behind on it. They reported two weeks ago, for example, that a particular service had been withdrawn. However, any service with a waiting time measured in years has, in effect, been withdrawn. Nobody can, or should, wait that long for

Such a strategy would need to be wide-ranging, naturally drawing on experiences from elsewhere. One of the most notable strategies to tackle drug addiction was the sweeping reform in Portugal from 2001, which included limited decriminalisation and so-called ‘dissuasion commissions’. It may be noted that other proposals, such as ‘substance misuse courts’, have demonstrated rather less benefit. There is no question, however, that a core and beneficial component of the Portuguese response, and also the more successful responses in the United States and Canada, has been the introduction of so-called ‘safe injecting’ or (more commonly on this side of the Atlantic) ‘drug consumption’ rooms.

So, although we cannot turn a blind eye to others issues which impact on drug abuse in Northern Ireland, we can be relatively sure based on the evidence from elsewhere that ‘drug consumption rooms’ will be part of the mix. In parts of Europe and North America they have already proven effective in reducing the rates of addiction, the scale of harm caused, and then in enabling people to get on the path to rehabilitation.

Fundamentally, as with any such interventions, we need to be moving swiftly towards tacking the root causes of drug addiction and abuse. We also need to be doing more to tackle the problem at source, by stopping producers and traffickers. However, for those who are already dependent, we also need to be taking action. We need to be using devolved government to deliver new, more effective, evidence-based policies and plans which will tackle addiction and help people at most risk.

“End of days” goes broader than NI

You can tell Sam McBride is a fine journalist because even the more abusive responses to his articles demonstrate the discomfort that comes with the truth. So it was last week with his article on the “end of days” feel to Northern Ireland, which was uncomfortable reading in large part because nothing about it was wrong.

There are two aspects of this which require investigation, however.

Firstly, there is the natural human instinct to seek comfort amid the discomfort by simplifying complex points and pushing for easy solutions: apparently all of Northern Ireland’s problems, so of which I also listed here, would be magicked away if we just had a “United Ireland” or if we just “got rid of the Protocol”. As a matter of fact, seismic though such options at first appear to be, they would in fact make almost no difference – on the day after any “United Ireland” or any “full reintegration into the UK”, Northern Ireland would have the same civil service, the same police force, the same need to reform its health system, the same sectarian divide, the same over-reliance on public funding, the same paramilitarism, the same skills gaps, and so on. Those are complex problems and they require detailed, thought-through solutions regardless of the constitutional set-up. Of course, it is much easier to write a quick tweet about how we need change and here’s a change therefore that change will solve everything than it is really to investigate problems, work out the challenge in each of them and implement a series of practical solutions.

Secondly, there is a tendency in Northern Ireland to believe we are the centre of the universe and that everything that happens here – be they successes, problems or failures – is unique. If I were to offer any criticism of Sam McBride’s contention that there is an “end of days feel” to Northern Ireland is would simply be that this “feel” is not unique. In fact, we are witnessing the decay of democracy everywhere – a point which is perhaps at once both comforting and even more discomforting.

In the United States, a misogynistic narcissist who sympathises with Russia’s genocidal war in Ukraine and who in any case should be in jail for an act of sedition in which five people were killed is ten points clear in the polls to become the next President. In France, riots are breaking out as discontent broadens. In England, the government is scattering for relevance as its role in trashing both the economy and basic public governance standards is becoming obvious (and if I refer to a devolved government with record health service waiting lists, crumbling schools, huge spending on inquiries after bureaucratic incompetence and recent pumping of sewage into rivers I could just as easily be talking about Scotland as NI). In Germany, the Foreign Minister had to abandon a trip to Australia because the official jet broke down (the second time this year) while the populist-right “AfD” challenges for top spot in the polls. Hungary should long ago have been thrown out of the European Union for its range of sins against democratic norms; neighbouring Slovakia is about to elect a Russia sympathiser; Italy continues to trend populist in response to a stalled yet unreformable economy and huge immigration arising in large part from war in the Middle East; Spain has to have constant elections since the voters are clear only about what they do not want. Generally, when you look around the Western World, many of the problems are similar – the scale and details may be different, but the strain on liberal democracy and on the collective ability to maintain cohesive societies with functioning welfare systems and economies based at least to some degree on the common good is familiar everywhere.

There are reasons for this. The end of the Cold War shifted the global economy fundamentally, so that much manufacturing ended up taking place on the cheap, often in the Far East; the consequent loss of manufacturing in the West led not just to economic change but also social change, with a real sense of left-behind communities (which, politically, have often switched from centre-left to populist right as a result). There has also been the reality, particularly in Europe and Japan, that society is ageing – it is harder to provide universal welfare and healthcare when, simply because of demographics, more people rely on it and fewer people pay into it; yet actually doing anything about the demographic time bomb will invariably be unpopular, so systems creep towards the cliff edge with everyone knowing what happens when they get there but with no one feeling able to apply the brakes. We have also seen the collapse in the emphasis on social cohesion, as both “right” and “left” have emphasised the individual – one may emphasise “freedom” and the other “rights”, but both do so with reference to the individual rather than to society as a whole and often with reference to the pursuit of relatively peripheral interests for their own sake rather than building consensus for the sake of the common good. There has also, perhaps aided by social media, been a marked shift away from detail and long-term thinking, towards making a huge fuss of whatever issue we have all chosen to comment on from behind our tribal trenches this week. To re-emphasise: this is true in Northern Ireland but it is also true pretty much everywhere else in the West too.

My contention would be that the “end of days” applies to liberal democracy, not to Northern Ireland. Liberal democracy remains the worst form of government apart from all the other ones we have tried, but without a basic sense of cohesion and fair play, it too will fall into decay. I do not know what the next steps should be, but I do know they will not be simple; so the first thing is to beware those offering simple solutions to complex problems.

Absolute Irish Sea border a non-starter

It is absolutely clear that an absolute border – complete with customs checks – within the island of Ireland is a non-starter. It is a non-starter practically, for the simple reason that it is easier to carry out checks at limited locations where vehicles are already stopped (i.e. ports) than at multiple locations on free-flowing roads. It is also a non-starter politically, because the Agreement is premised on the ability to live all-island lives if we so choose. Whether they particularly like it or not, most practical people immediately understand the former point, and non-Unionists immediately grasp the latter too.

It is odd, therefore, that Irish Nationalists who will immediately point out, justifiably, that a land border on the island of Ireland is a non-starter also then appear to believe that a United Ireland should be sold as the “fastest way back into the EU”. The practical outcome of that would be an absolute, hard Irish Sea Border between in-EU Ireland and ex-EU Great Britain. To be clear, there is no negotiation about this – that is the simple, practical reality of what happens if you move to a United Ireland inside the EU tomorrow.

The problems with such a border do not bear thinking about. It is a non-starter practically not because of geographical realities but rather because of economic ones – by any reasonable measurement, Northern Ireland does more than three times more trade with Great Britain (in both directions) than it does with the whole of the EU; this was demonstrated by the Windsor Framework which, for example, recognised that simply shifting the supply of medicines into Northern Ireland was not practical, but it goes well beyond this – entire industries in Northern Ireland (e.g. quarrying) rely on customers in Great Britain. It is also, of course, a political non-starter – many people in Northern Ireland value their connections with Great Britain and perfectly legitimately regard it as (part of) home; suddenly turning it into a completely foreign country is clearly well beyond the spirit of the Agreement – the very same Agreement legitimately quoted in favour of keeping the land border within the island of Ireland friction-free.

The idea, therefore, that you could simply transfer Northern Ireland from the ex-EU United Kingdom into an in-EU United Ireland is a non-starter. It would not work economically as it would crush much of what remains of an already vulnerable private sector in the north east, and politically it would fall every bit as far outside the terms of the Agreement as any land border would currently.

The fact that the “conversation” around “unity” has not even begun to grasp this shows that it isn’t really happening. Beyond this, there is the practical nonsense of taking territory out of NATO in the context of the Ukraine War and of taking the British population on the island out of the Commonwealth; the first is not remotely viable geopolitically, and the second is not remotely viable if we are serious about reconciliation.

This brings us to the real point of course – we are not serious about reconciliation. Jarlath Kearney recently warned about people seeking victory (or, as he put it quoting the late Inez McCormick, seeking an outcome whereby it is “our turn now”). On one side we have Unionists seriously trying to argue that full customs checks on the land border are viable (that is the inevitable consequence of their position, even if they deny it); but on the other we have Nationalists assuming that an absolute Irish Sea border is viable (which is again the inevitable consequence of their position, even if they deny it).

The fact is Northern Ireland only works when we get serious about reconciliation, when we are respectful and generous of others’ identities and experiences, and when there is minimal friction in all directions. The fact is that neither Unionists nor Nationalists are offering that. That may be one reason that people are increasingly turn away from either of them…

Department honest about roads projects

If there is one advantage to Northern Ireland’s current status as bureaucracy rather than democracy, it is that occasionally there can be a bit of honesty about priorities (whereas Ministers never like to accept they are deprioritising anything, for obvious reasons). A fortnight ago, we saw this time of honesty concerning roads projects.

Other than the now essentially complete A6 upgrades between Randalstown-Castledawson and Dungiven-Drumahoe, the following are listed as priority (in one way or another):

• A1 junctions upgrade (Hillsborough-Banbridge)
• A2 relief road (south of Newry)
• A4 bypass (south of Enniskillen)
• A5 expressway (Newbuildings-Aughnacloy)
• A6 bypass (Drumahoe-Maydown)
• A12 interchange upgrade (York Street)
• A29 bypass (east of Cookstown)
• A32 improvements (Omagh-Enniskillen)
• BRT2 north-south Glider
• Lagan Pedestrian/Cycle bridge

It should be noted that even the A32 improvements are partial (other proposed improvements on the same route appear to have been deprioritised) and the reference to the York Street Interchange suggests limited progress is likely.

This leaves a range of omissions (or deprioritisations), perhaps the most notable being the proposed A24 bypass of Ballynahinch. All the others noted for no work currently were long-term anyway, though they include the long proposed A2 Sydenham Bypass upgrade (a project which was supposedly fundamental to full access to Titanic Quarter but which surely now needs to be redesigned); I have written before about how a failure at least to remove the Dee Street lights on this stretch also render the whole York Street Interchange project less beneficial, so it is surely now also in doubt.

Politically, it is dubious that any Minister would overtly have presented such a list – perhaps this is a problem with the way politics is at the moment. However, it is also unlikely that any Minister would significantly dispute this list privately. I myself would probably have gone further, removing the A6 Drumahoe-Maydown project as it is stalled anyway because of an illegal dump on the route and because the cost has now become truly eye-watering. Officials will not have wanted to do this as it is part of a theoretically ongoing project; however, Northern Ireland’s road network is littered with theoretically ongoing projects!

The maintenance of the A29 Cookstown bypass on the list is significant because the A29/A31 route provides another north/south spine and Cookstown (particularly on market day) is a notable hold-up to it. However, to the south there is still no easy connection to the M1/A4 expressway around Dungannon and no specific proposal for one; were a Cookstown bypass to be completed, it is likely this would become an even more obvious issue. A bypass connection from around Carland north of Dungannon to M1/J14 would surely be a contender for an important new route, connecting Mid Ulster to Armagh and on to the south and west Belfast area in a similar way to the A31 Magherafelt bypass to the north.

The A2 Newry Relief Road would probably come in as the most expensive per mile on the list, which means it may too fall into a discussion around cross-border funding (like the A5). It is also important that this is not done “on the cheap” as currently planned; Northern Ireland’s road network is also littered with projects done on the cheap only then to be subsequently redone, not least Newry’s own A1 bypass!

It is good to see that “road projects” now include active travel and public transport projects too. There is an issue with BRT2, however: to work, it really needs to operate along Royal Avenue, but there is pressure to disallow all vehicles from that location. Doing so would likely lead to too much difficult circuiting the area for the project to be viable (both in terms of likely user numbers and in terms of buses backing up and thus arriving at greater gaps, rendering the whole system much less user-friendly). Furthermore, lessons will need to be learned to ensure Glider really does have priority at junctions; from Lanyon Place, a train will get you all the way to Carrickfergus faster than the Glider will get you to Stormont – that is really not supposed to happen.

For all that, it is important not to discount the necessity of some key roads improvement projects. A phrase used on the radio earlier this month is very helpful to this: “We have to think about how we move people about, not cars”. That is very well put – the answer to moving people about, particularly in urban areas, will often involve public transport and active travel; but there are areas where cars and coaches will still be the inevitable solution – Denmark, where only 20% of commutes into the capital city are made by car and where private vehicle taxes are extremely high by any standards, still actually has the same car ownership per head as Ireland. Mixing the freedom of the car with the sense of public transport and active travel is what is meant by truly multi-modal travel.

“Full public” inquiries not always the right thing

The appalling events at a hospital in Chester do not bear repeating here, but they have led to calls for a “full public” inquiry, i.e. a statutory inquiry under the Inquiries Act. It is not remotely for me to determine whether or not this would be the right thing to do, but it is perhaps fair to caution against too much pressure being applied in any particular direction here, because a “full public” inquiry has disadvantages as well as advantages.

The evident advantages, often reported, are that it takes place under a statutory footing and thus both witnesses and documents may be provided compulsorily. For many, this is a decisive argument in favour and, on occasions, this may well be justified. It is not always, however.

Unfortunately the media rarely provide the case against the “full public” (i.e. statutory) inquiry, and such a case does exist. Firstly, full public inquiries are invariably more legal, and thus get bogged down with legal teams right from the start. Second, the rules around them are a lot stricter (by definition, they appear in legislation) and therefore they take longer – even on top of the time taken up with the legal aspects. Third, the supposed “advantage” of being able to compel witnesses is limited where witnesses may themselves be prosecuted, because they are excused from saying anything potentially incriminating of themselves. All of this can make non-statutory independent inquiries considerably faster, potentially without losing much in the way of statements or information.

It is also not necessarily an “either/or”. What you can do is start out with a non-statutory independent inquiry enabling considerable information to be accrued swiftly, and then shift to a full public inquiry if you find witnesses or documents hard to come by (in other words, if the benefit of so doing becomes evident).

In many ways, “debate” around such things is another marker of how public discussion of complex issues is failing us. We should be aware of all the varying considerations, rather than being driven by emotion towards one particular outcome.

Worse still, it is extremely rare for anyone fully to consider what kind of outcome they are seeking from such investigations. There is an alarming tendency, in the UK anyway, for such inquiries to be long and drawn out, but for the final result to be essentially a statement of dismay at what occurred and a series of recommendations which wither on the vine while the news cycle moves on. There are in fact times when the announcement of a “full public” inquiry should be greeted with cynicism, as a way to kick complex issues into the long grass for another government to deal with; there are also times when an issue is so rare that the value of committing vast resources to an independent investigation, particularly when there are legal investigations ongoing, is objectively dubious.

To re-emphasise, I am not well placed to judge when a full public inquiry, a non-statutory inquiry or no inquiry is the best option after any particular incident; that would require qualifications and experience I do not have. However, I would be concerned that the tendency is always to go for the option which is most headline grabbing rather than the option which actually works best. I am alarmed that our public debate is not better informed about such things, because in the end the objective must be to deliver action to fix what went wrong, not to delay the truth until acting on it is rendered pointless.

Progress, or bashing people over the head?

As I have written recently on this blog, we live in curious times in Northern Ireland. It is the only place in the UK where house prices are rising, the only of the four countries where life expectancy is increasing, and post-housing costs incomes are now above the UK average; yet it also suffers from outdated planning and housing policy, the worst waiting lists and chronically poor productivity. Small wonder that it manages to combine the happiest population in the UK with the most dissatisfied electorate!

“Both sides start to look at the other as somehow irretrievably deranged. And when you pathologise the other side, there’s no point in reaching out to them“. So says Prof Brian Hughes, a psychology expert – he is describing the “debate” around Brexit, but he could equally well be describing Northern Ireland’s divide.

As I have also written before, this sort of polarisation does tend to lead us to a point of “Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)“. It is easy, of course, to demand the “other side” accept the error of their ways; it is much harder to see if we ourselves need to change.

As I wrote some weeks ago, this may be seen to apply right now in Northern Ireland to the DUP, a minority hold-out against the restoration of devolved government. We all know that the DUP was in part responsible for the shambles of Hard Brexit and the inevitable Protocol which it now professes not to like; we all know that the real prime reason hardliners in the DUP do not want to restore devolution is that it would deliver a Sinn Fein First Minister (thanks again to an arrangement negotiated by the DUP); we all know that the DUP’s period in the sun as it held the balance of power at Westminster was frittered away (though at least we have faster broadband with which to publish our thoughts on that topic). The issue with polarisation, of course, is that the more we point that out in the expectation that the “other side” will one day see the “error of its ways” and begin to act “rationally”, the less likely it actually is to do so. This is known as cognitive dissonance but the thing about this, as with Dunning-Kruger and others, is that it afflicts all of us.

It may be awkward and it may sound like hard work, but by way of trying to make progress rather than just batter someone else over the head, should we ask ourselves some difficult questions? Firstly, for example, Remainers consistently state that a hard border on the island of Ireland is inconsistent with the Agreement; but does that not also make a hard border in the Irish Sea inconsistent with it and should we not consider that, just like the former, the latter has emotional ramifications for a large segment of our population? Secondly, what do we collectively have to say about a context where the playing, for example, of “Up The ‘Ra” is increasingly seen as a “bit of fun” or where even the President of Ireland can make a mocking comment about someone specifically because of a British honour she accepted? Thirdly, are we happy to tell Unionists that they are not wanted in the UK because someone calls them “paddies” but not to tell Nationalists they are not wanted in Ireland because a Southerner said they weren’t “really Irish”? Here is the key point here: we are immediately rushing to dispose of all these points quickly because they’re not really the same, but is that not the very same cognitive dissonance?

Two things do unquestionably apply here. Firstly, Unionists are insecure about their future and it does not really matter whose actions led to that being the case (or, at least, that should not be our first thought when dealing with the issue); what matters is that it is the case – and that they are our fellow citizens and they need and deserve the same security as everyone else. Secondly, there is a consistent hint that, to some degree at least, treating Unionists poorly can be excused because they once treated others poorly; given that you cannot undo the past no matter what your view of it, how are Unionists supposed to respond to that?

If we were to reframe the debate and to accept, at least to some degree, that there has been ignorance on all sides of some legitimately held insecurities and fears held by those who may be opposed to us politically but who are our fellow citizens, would it help reframe the debate around our common future and thus enable some progress to be made?

We are understandably exasperated when we see the same old debates going on about the same old nonsense (often, it has to be said, by the same old egotists). However, note again Professor Hughes’ quote above. Progress is never guaranteed and sometimes it is a hard slog. But it is what we want, isn’t it?

How to *think* through public policy challenges

With apologies to one correspondent, I am about to make a point I have made before on this blog. Let us take a diversion first, however.

You go into a toy shop and you see a car and a pennant you would like to buy for a relative. Together, they cost £11. The car costs £10 more than the pennant. How much does the pennant cost?

Our intuition gives us an immediate answer to that straightforward question; an immediate answer, but the wrong one.

You’ve got it now…

Fundamentally, we humans don’t like to expend too much time thinking. It is tiring, literally. So we spend most of our time going with the flow. Never more so than when someone points out how daft it is there isn’t a railway link to Belfast International Airport.

Sure, there’s even a railway that goes straight past it!

But think again. Remember, it wasn’t £1…

This very morning there is a flight from Belfast International to London Gatwick at 7.55am – the classic “red eye” popular for business and pleasure alike. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a rail link?

Well. Remember, it was 50p…

Let’s say I want to make that flight from Jordanstown. We’ll work it backwards. I need to get there, really, for a little before 6.30. At that time in the morning, I can do that by car – either my own or, better still, via a lift – leaving at 6am.

To get there via a train via Antrim would take just over half an hour – but from Lanyon Place, east of Belfast City Centre. I would need, therefore, to be leaving there before 6am – and there we run into the first problem. The system does not turn on until 6am and Lanyon Place is not the starting station even when it does.

Are we really turning the whole system on earlier just so people can get to the airport by rail rather than road?

Let’s say we are. In practice, however, trains don’t leave a particular station in a particular direction every minute. Currently, the first train to leave Lanyon Place to Antrim leaves at 6.15 and arrives at 6.42. Let’s say we had one leaving for the airport half an hour earlier. It would leave at 5.45, reach Antrim at 6.12, and be at the airport perhaps around 6.18. That’ll have to do.

Of course, the problem is I have to get to Lanyon Place first. Generally, through the day, trains leave Jordanstown at every half hour from 9.06; so let’s say under this new earlier dispensation one is added at 5.06 and 5.36, though quite where most of its passengers are going is a mystery. The journey time of 14 minutes renders the 5.36 no good to me in order to catch the 5.45 out to the airport (and even if both stop at York Street the connection is awfully tight, and it isn’t exactly one I can risk missing) so really to be sure I’ll need to take the 5.06.By the way, that 5.06 will have commenced in Carrickfergus before 5am, meaning the whole system will have needed to be turned on more than an hour before it currently is, with all the staffing, energy and administrative costs that come with that.

But then it also takes about a quarter of an hour to walk to the station, making my departure time around 4.50am. This means leaving more than three hours before the flight, and operating off over an hour’s less sleep for the whole day than I would have had if I had gone by road. And, by the way, I’m never making any of the earlier flights by rail (to places like Glasgow and Manchester) even then.

In practice, offering people this choice comes at the huge cost of opening the entire system over an hour earlier for no purpose other than serving the airport, when the truth is the journey will probably take over an hour longer than it would by car (and probably longer than it would by bus).

Do we really want our rates and taxes diverted from health and education just to give people an option to get to the airport by rail which is impractical for the vast majority anyway?

Anyone who reads his blog will know I am a fan of the train. Use use it regularly and enjoy doing so. However, unfortunately this is where rail reviews come unstuck – rail can only get you from a specific point to a specific point. They are good for city centre to city centre and they are good for suburban connections. They are vastly less effective elsewhere, however – even to relatively small airports in relatively rural locations. This is why, contrary to widespread misinformation on social media, a whole host of airports across the UK, from Bristol to Luton (just to name two which are considerably busier than both Belfast airports combined), do not have rail links.

This is why it is important not just to go with the flow or with immediate intuition, but rather to think about public policy choices. It is also why it is important not to come up with pre-determined solutions before defining the actual problem.

Establishment, Entanglement and Embarrassment

In William MacAskill’s book What We Owe the Future, a key point is that sometimes little happens in years and sometimes years happen in days. If we look geopolitically, we can see the truth of this – for example 1918/19, 1945 and 1989/90 were the formative periods of the 20th century when an old dispensation was replaced by a dramatically new one, but in other much broader periods life just went on with comparatively little change in the world order.

I have written before about just how dramatic 1989/90 was, even though we did not notice all of it at the time. Not only did it lead to other social change immediately afterwards, such as the collapse of Apartheid, but it also heralded the emergence of the Internet as a public good (having previously been restricted to Cold War defence) and of an entirely new economy based on cheap goods from the Far East (previously unavailable as they were on the far side of the Iron Curtain) and thus on the dominance of the service economy in the West (and of a consequent credit boom which ended in 2007/8).

Typically (and these are not MacAskill’s words) what happens in response to such change is that people cling to the new establishment for too long, until well after it becomes entangled to the point of becoming an embarrassment. In fact, very often it is the success of a new dispensation which leads to new circumstances which then need reform, but those who cling to the initial establishment fail to recognise the entanglement that has emerged from it. Ultimately, as they seek to avoid embarrassment and so resist (managed) reform, until a dramatic (and unmanaged) change supersedes it. In other words, typically, the embarrassment lies not in accepting the need for reform once things become entangled, but in not accepting it…

Of course, in wee Northern Ireland, we may wonder what this has to do with us. Well, quite a lot, because a lot of this has to do with the concept of “Establishment, Entanglement and Embarrassment” – one which is now holding up the operation of democracy itself here.

Establishment, Entanglement and Embarrassment

“Establishment, Entanglement and Embarrassment” as a concept is perhaps primarily associated with healthcare systems. The concept is fairly obvious – a procedure or process becomes established, but once it becomes established it does not quite work as planned and the whole thing becomes entangled; yet it is retained in its initial form for longer than it should be because it would be an embarrassment to sort it out (or, if you prefer, until it becomes an outright embarrassment and thus has to be changed).

This has a lot to do with human psychology and, particularly, confirmation biases. We don’t like to give up something which is established in our mind; we try to simplify and even deny entanglement when it happens; and of course we seek to avoid embarrassment.

Sometimes, this is because the establishment was based on false or limited evidence. We saw this, for example, at the outset of the Pandemic in the West. It was initially established, with some justification based on initial planning, that the virus was not airborne but rather spread by being in the immediate vicinity of droplets or by touch. Hence, we found ourselves washing our groceries and maintaining two metres distance, but we were relatively unconcerned about whether we were indoors or outdoors or even whether we should wear face coverings. In fact, it was apparent as early as April 2020 that the rest of the world had it right and the West had it wrong – there was then an entanglement as the political and scientific leaders we had relied upon became disputed and had to be changed in a way which was not embarrassing (otherwise those leaders would have lost any validity or influence they had acquired quite legitimately based on their qualifications and experience). It took a while to turn that ship around and it was not really until into 2021 that much of the English-speaking world had really come to terms with the fact the virus was airborne and what exactly that meant in terms of public response.

We notice this across healthcare as certain procedures, once taken for granted, quietly slip away when new evidence or technology emerges. Remember getting your tonsils out? Turns out, that probably wasn’t necessary…

This is of course not unique to health systems. Arguably, we are seeing the same thing unfold with HS2, a high-speed railway line from London to the English Midlands. Fundamentally, it can be easily established from elsewhere in Europe and the Far East that connecting places by high-speed rail is a good idea – it is environmentally sound and economically advantageous. However, once the financial costs mount and the social costs become apparent of doing it in such a densely populated area where land is at a premium, the whole thing becomes rather entangled. The embarrassment of cancelling the project has not yet been fully confronted and may yet never be (embarrassment does not need to mean outright cancellation but always requires some sort of major reform), but it has already been cut back. It is unclear at this stage whether the embarrassment now lies in cancelling the whole thing or ploughing on with the limited version now planned.

To be clear, typically what is established is sound based on the evidence at the time. It is simply that more evidence or information emerges subsequently, often as a result of the established system itself, which then causes entanglement and ultimately the outcome will always risk embarrassment – either of changing a plan from an original which was once seen as definitive, or of not changing it and paying the cost for maintaining something now seen as defective. In fact, this is to be expected in healthcare systems and in almost any area of public service or complex operation.

Devolution

One moment within the modern history of the UK when years passed in days was the establishment of devolution under “New Labour” in the late 1990s. Here again, a process was planned (and had been argued about over decades beforehand) and then established with very significant public support in both Scotland and Northern Ireland (less so, at the time, in Wales). Inevitably, however, it became somewhat entangled; Scotland moved dramatically in just fifteen years towards an independence referendum but, most of all, a fundamental issue arose about how to fund devolution given that, ultimately, the money for public services (whether devolved or otherwise) still comes from the UK Treasury via a formula designed for short-term use (albeit based on one from the Victorian Era) in the mid-1970s. This problem does not mean that devolution is not a good idea (indeed it probably has more support than ever), but the embarrassment with devolution overall is that the funding settlement does not really satisfy anyone. This is partly because the money is not generally raised at the level it is spent – this is a constant cause of debate in Scotland and is certainly part of the discussion about the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland (as well as having been amended already for Wales). People in the “devolved countries” vote in one election for who will raise the money and in another for who will spend it – something which is, at best, a serious entanglement. To be clear again, the embarrassment lies not in addressing the financial issue, but rather in not addressing it.

Northern Ireland

This brings us to Northern Ireland, which is now very entangled to say the least. Part of the reason for this is that its initial funding settlement, for reasons we need not discuss in detail here, was quite generous, which meant that it became established that the role of local ministers was, essentially, to give money away. Hence prescription charges were abolished (as they were, not uncoincidentally, in Scotland and Wales), public transport concessions were extended, industrial derating was maintained, and so on. Unfortunately, the Northern Ireland budget no longer contains the extra money to pay for such giveaways, but it remains established that local ministers like spending money rather than saving it. This entanglement, frankly, is one reason that one party does not want to go back into government and actually that one or two others are not doing much to push it back.

Unfortunately also, in Northern Ireland’s case, the entanglement also includes the institutions themselves, which are seen by many as essentially hallowed ground not to be tampered with under any circumstances. The institutions were established, rather cleverly, as a means of sharing power among divided people so that everyone could buy into the government of the place, even if they could not agree on much else. The system, known as “consociationalism”, whereby representatives of two “communities” automatically attained office and there was no opposition, is the established one and therefore it is hard to change no matter how entangled it becomes. Yet it is now so entangled that no one seriously would set it up the same way now – the only reason it is maintained is that it was established that way in the first place and it would be embarrassing to change it. After all, change would mean (it is believed) an admission that actually the institutions as established were not quite all they were cracked up to be. Since they are held up not just by the UK and Ireland, but even by the US and the EU, as a prime example of peace-making, accepting the entanglement is difficult even when it is utterly obvious – to accept it would, after all, surely be somewhat embarrassing. This is exactly what we are seeing now.

Managing Entanglement

Yet leaders are the very people who will accept that if something is not working, it needs to change; or, put another way, if circumstances change so must the structures that manage those circumstances. There need not, in fact, be embarrassment in accepting the obvious point that the institutions as established have: a) already changed several times; b) helped create the very circumstances in which change has become necessary; and c) were never meant to be permanent anyway. In other words, they were always going to become entangled and the actual embarrassment lies in denying that obvious reality.

Firstly, the idea that the “Agreement” is somehow a sacred document is rather countered by the fact it has already been reformed many times – most obviously at St Andrews in 2006/7, but also on other occasions (including the devolution of justice, the implementation of opposition legislation, amendments to Assembly operations and Departmental numbers, and so on). There is a distinction between the principles of the Agreement on one hand and the practical operation of the institutions which flow from it on the other (leaving quite aside that some of the those institutions, such as the Civic Forum, have been quietly left to wither).

Secondly, the very purpose of the “Agreement” was to herald a society which would move on from conflict. To an imperfect but significant extent, it has. In the second Assembly election of 2003, just 5% of seats were won by parties which refused to designate (and even they had had to a couple of years previously to keep the institutions operating); in the most recent, in 2022, that figure was 20%. Figures for the number of “mixed marriages” or the number of people identifying principally as “Northern Irish” show a similar trend – in other words, society here has changed. It is surely a nonsense to try to maintain institutions for society as it was a generation ago when the very purpose of them was to create a new society.

Thirdly, no one in 1998 thought that rigid “consociationalism” would last. After all, if it were such a good idea, everywhere would try it! It was always meant to be a temporary provision, noting also that the principles of the Agreement still require some means of assurance that each identity in Northern Ireland will be fairly represented and protected over time.

Embarrassment

The embarrassment 25 years on, therefore, would be not to respond to this obvious entanglement. It is already well established (ahem) that institutions can be changed, including without all-party buy-in (for example, the very system whereby the First Minister comes specifically from the largest party was not part of the agreement at St Andrew’s, but a side deal between one government and one party). It is already obvious that society has changed, hence the re-alignment in social attitudes and in electoral outcomes. And it was always evident that, while the principles of the Agreement would need to be maintained, the specific structures were always going to be temporary precisely because people’s attitudes have changed.

Ultimately the very success of the Agreement, nearly to quote Stephen Grimason (who reported on the Agreement in 1998 and subsequently became head of the Executive Information Service at Stormont), is that the people of Northern Ireland will no longer merely accept those they elect going into government; they expect them to go into a good government.

Reform

One of the main challenges for anyone governing Northern Ireland now is the implementation of a report on healthcare reform called “Systems Not Structures”. The very point is that it is no longer good enough to have a structure called a “health service free at point of access” if in many instances you cannot actually access it; instead, you need a reformed health system which people can access safely and appropriately to meet increasingly complex and specialist needs. The point here is that the need for reform to a new system is inherent in the success of the old system – it is precisely because people are living longer that those needs are becoming more complex and interventions required are more specialist. The need for reform does not arise because the old system failed, rather because it succeeded. The principles endure, but the system itself must change.

You could say the exact same now about our political institutions. We need a functioning democracy not designed just as a structure to provide a form of administration, but as a system which actually responds to the needs of the people who elect those responsible for it. Just as with healthcare, such a system needs to be reformed not because the Agreement failed, but rather because it succeeded. The principles endure, but the system itself must change.

In healthcare as in politics, there is no embarrassment in recognising the entanglement. In fact, the embarrassment lies in not recognising it…

Perils of Dunning-Kruger in health reform

A commentator recently decided to write an article in a regional newspaper about Northern Ireland’s Health Transformation. The article, unfortunately, was demonstrative of two fundamentally problematic aspects of human psychology – firstly, the huge bias towards existing systems even when they are clearly no longer functioning properly; and secondly, the now oft cited but itself frequently misunderstood “Dunning-Kruger” syndrome.

Let us start with the second. The article referred to stroke services, and specifically to the commonly advertised warning factors outlined as “FAST” – face, arm, speech, time. The article focused on “time”, complaining that someone who has had a stroke, under Northern Ireland’s proposals for reshaping stroke services, might have to travel further – thus losing precious “time”.

This, unfortunately, was a classic case of “Dunning-Kruger” as it actually is. Dunning-Kruger is not about ignorance, nor about stupidity; it is quite specifically about people who know something about a subject but, precisely because they do know something, they think they know more than they do.

In this case, the “time” referred to in “FAST” refers to the symptoms for any one of us to look for before calling the emergency services and declaring a suspected stroke – the “time” refers to calling 999 (or the relevant emergency number) immediately upon identifying them. It does not, however, refer to the time taken transferring a patient to a hospital from the site of the stroke; in fact, the evidence has been clear since 2006 (and was reinforced by a consultation document published in Northern Ireland in 2019) that what is important is initial stabilisation followed by a transfer to the right hospital, i.e. one with a highly specialist stroke unit.

The problem at the moment is that those highly specialised units do not exist in Northern Ireland; furthermore, the key specialist treatment which can overcome almost absolutely the impact of any stroke (known as “thrombectomy”) is available only during work hours five days a week. I know a little about this, because a year ago my own mother had a severe stroke – and its impact was made more severe by the fact she had the misfortune to have it late on a Friday, the worst possible time to have one as there were no specialists available anywhere until the Monday. This, self-evidently, is complete nonsense – the system should obviously be replaced by hyperacute units with specialist staff operating 24/7, and that is the proposal in the reconfiguration put forward in 2019. Yet, in 2023, it is still not agreed – precisely because too many politicians (and commentators) cannot get their heads around it because they think they understand modern stroke treatment better than they do. Precisely, because of Dunning-Kruger, in other words.

This brings us to the first point, which is perhaps linked. Let us disappear back in time and across the Atlantic to understand it. In 2000, Blockbuster Video stores were everywhere – the logo was as evident in high streets as Starbuck’s (anywhere) or Greggs (in the northern UK) now. That year, the all-conquering chain had the opportunity to buy a fledging competitor for just $50m. Seeing no benefit from doing so given that any competition would surely be crushed anyway, the option was declined. That fledging competitor nobody had ever heard of was Netflix.

In 2023, Netflix actually does the precise same thing Blockbuster did a quarter of a century ago; it enables you to watch things you want to watch when you want to watch them in your own living room. However, it does it in a completely different way. Blockbuster’s determination to stick not only to the same outcome but to the same process proved to be its undoing, so that a competitor that was once so small it was not worth buying ended up not just overhauling it but taking over its once dominant market position. The same will happen to Netflix in due course.

We have the same fundamental issue with health services. Increasingly, in the 21st century, “health” will be provided at home – via telemedicine (essentially technology), domiciliary care (with carers gradually trained up to be front-line medics), district nursing and so on. Artificial Intelligence will replace (actually, is replacing) scanners meaning that health professionals visiting your home – or even you yourself – will be able to take scans and, for example, identify clots or tumours immediately before you have even travelled to any sort of clinic or treatment centre. This is not some distant future, by the way – it is already happening. When asked at a recent conference why Denmark had shown the best improvement for cancer survival of 17 comparative countries since 1995 (Northern Ireland was bottom of the list), the Danish delegate said that his country had been the quickest to embrace healthcare in the home (and it is fair to add that Northern Ireland has been the least quick, with far too many people in hospital for far too long even compared to neighbouring jurisdictions). Healthcare in the home with “hospitals” providing regional specialist services is not just the future, it is in any successful system already the present. The thing is that those of us brought up an an era where “health” meant “hospitals” cannot quite get our heads around it – in the same way Blockbuster executives couldn’t get their heads around the point of Netflix.

This comfort with the status quo even when it is plainly outdated is itself, perhaps, a form of Dunning-Kruger – that notion that knowing something about a subject means knowing more or less everything about it. We should beware, however, that asking a commentator to write about health systems is as likely to lead to sensible commentary as, for example, asking me to carry out a Polish translation because I wrote a book about Western European languages. Polish may be a language, but it is not Western European and, in any case, translation is a specialised skill so I could not actually do it even in a language I speak relatively well.

By maintaining our health services as they were more or less in the 20th century, we are causing serious harm. Reshaping stoke services is just one example of the huge transformation ahead – perhaps we should use the word “modernisation” rather than “transformation” to help communicate this. Most of all, however, beware Dunning-Kruger…