Minister’s straight answers were a tonic

I have been sort of housebound this past while with the result that I have been re-introduced to the wonders of the radio. There are, as I have mentioned previously, programmes where Alexa is called into action to switch off the nonsense.

But, on the other hand, there are programmes where you sit up and take notice. I was listening the other day (March 7) to RTÉ 1 and the Claire Byrne Show came on. She introduced the Minister for Community and Rural Development and Minister for Social Welfare, Heather Humphries.

I was tempted to switch off but decided to give it a chance and over the course of about 20 minutes I was spellbound (now that’s probably putting it a bit strong, but…) and thoroughly amused as well as being enlightened on a variety of topics.

Normally when politicians and particularly Ministers are interviewed, their ambition seems to be to give as little information as possible and to take a guarded approach to any question, no matter how innocuous, posed by the interviewer.

But not Heather Humphries. I don’t know where she has been hiding all this time but she proved to be a tonic. Without using a single cliché or resorting to any sort of political chicanery or backsliding, she answered the questions put to her by Claire Byrne (perhaps not to Claire’s liking!) and enlightened any listeners who wished to be enlightened.

There was no attempt to disguise her strong Monaghan accent as she rattled off her responses on a variety of subjects. She used simple words and plenty of them to deal with the auto enrolment pension scheme which some employers have difficulty with, as Claire Byrne alluded to, but the Minister was not nonplussed, and pointed to the benefits for “750,000 people, mainly women” who would enjoy a pension top-up in retirement. She was not to be put off by objections but would listen to those employers who had difficulties.

This was all rapid-fire stuff from the Minister who went to explain, very clearly, for Claire (and Mattie McGrath) the reason for the planned change in social welfare payments to Ukrainians living here and who were provided with accommodation by the state. She shot down, very quickly, any suggestion that Ukrainians were not welcome and referred to the fact that there were now 18,000 of them working in the country and contributing to the Irish economy.

Then she was brought on to dogs, or more particularly, XL Bully dogs. Were they going to be banned? The Minister quickly got on the right side of the country’s dog owners by declaring that she was a dog owner herself and loved her dog and fairly and squarely placed the onus on dog owners to control their animals.

But would the XL Bully dogs be banned? The XL Bully presently is a restricted breed and must be on a leash and muzzled when out in public. We don’t ban dogs here but, careful to bring everyone with her, she explained that she had set up a group of stakeholders to consider the issue of dog control and if they recommended a ban on any breed of dog she would have no problem going along with that (memo to XL Bully dog owners: prepare for a ban).

What was impressive about the Minister was the rapid and sure-fire delivery. There was no humming and hawing, no hedging her bets. She was a woman in total control of her brief and a few extra briefs as well. Coming to the end of her allotted time, Claire Byrne had to cut the Minister off while she was still in full flow. I suspect that Claire was happy to be out of time. She hadn’t landed a punch on the Minister.

What’s happening in NI?

I’m beginning to think I may have to apologise to our Unionist brethren. Regular readers will recall that I expressed doubts about the approach that would be taken by the DUP, in particular, in relation to the running of the Stormont Executive. I suggested that the Second Minister Ms Emma Little-Pengelly would take the first chance she could get to trip up First Minister Michelle O’Neill and create a row in the Executive.

It’s early days yet, but my innate prejudice, would seem to have been misplaced. The Irish Times front page photo last week of Ms Little-Pengelly trying her hand with a hurley as she paid a visit to a Belfast GAA club was ground-breaking. It can and will, in some quarters, be dismissed as a political stunt. But it was more than that. It showed a willingness by Unionist politicians to engage and seek to understand the culture of the nationalist community.

Michelle O’Neill had taken the first step by attending the Northern Ireland v Montenegro Ladies game in Windsor Park and, of course, she stood, as etiquette required, for the pre-match rendition of the UK national anthem God Save the King. There will be those in the nationalist community who will find fault with this capitulation by Sinn Féin but there were ten if not twenty thousand Irish rugby fans in Twickenham on Saturday who had no problem (why should they?) in recognising the UK anthem and no questions asked.

And more recently, there was the NI Minister for Transport and Education, Paul Givan, attending Gaelscoil Aodan Rua in Dungannon and greeting the children with the words “maidin mhaith” and asserting that the Irish language “belongs to us all”. The Minister then took the school principal, Mona Ui Dochertaig, for a céilí dance with the scholars, though I suspect, it being a leap year, Ms Ui Dochartaigh took the lead in taking the Minister onto the floor. The Minister’s attempts at the dance were hardly the most eloquent you could see but, I’ll give him a pass. I wasn’t that great myself when first I tried to learn the “one, two, three and one, two three”.

These are little things and might be dismissed as photo opportunity gestures but they are important steps along the way to a more understanding and integrated community in the North. They will, hopefully, also make political discourse more open and amicable.

That openness and amiability will be required down the road when bigger obstacles arise. The GAA President, Jarlath Burns, also attended that ladies football game in Windsor Park. Obviously, he was there as an invited guest of the Irish Football Association (IFA), but not everybody in the higher echelons of the Association welcomed his presence.

Jarlath Burns was put on notice, not in so many words, that the development of Casement Park will not enjoy universal support in the North.