IRT
NI Water: “How did PwC get it so wrong?”
On Friday, Diana Rusk had an interesting take on the NI Water issue. She highlights a memo from last April in which the Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, responds to a request for an explanation for why Price-Waterhouse Coopers awarded Northern Ireland Water exemplar status on its procurement practice, when the same organisation has just sacked [...] more »
Ni Water: Questions for the Minister…
Interesting to hear Paul Maskey push the line that his Minister took swift and decisive action on members of the NI Water Board. But if his Permanent Secretary’s position is now untenable, so too must be the report on foot of which the Minister sacked the Board. You might have thought. As Jamie Delargy noted [...] more »
NI Water: Board prevented from acting on contents of Internal Audit?
The Coalition government at Westminster clearly attach great public importance to Non Executive Directors on Departmental Boards. On his appointment as lead Non Executive Director to the Government, Lord Browne of Madingley laid out this description of the role of NEDs to departmental boards: “This is a role within Government but also independent of it. [...] more »
NI Water: When is a *final* report not a final report?
First, a detail from the Hansard record of the PAC. It comes from Mr Priestly’s opening remarks, so there is no question of his misspeaking under pressure. The review team delivered its final report to me on 18 February. Once I became aware of the problem, swift action was taken. But here’s the problem. Looking [...] more »
NI Water: What was Dixon’s competence to adjudicate on a GoCo/NDPB?
Gerry Loughran’s letter to John Dallat re NI Water makes for interesting reading (Update: the BBC covered the letter story this evening). Loughran is Peter Dixon’s Chair at Phoenix Gas, and a former head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. In his response leaves both John Dallat, and Paul Maskey, the chair of the PAC [...] more »
NI Water Timeline: “Administrative procedures are the responsibility of management…”
I’ve been working on a timeline of the NI Water story just to try and put some of the material we have into some kind of objective order… I’ve gone for completion rather than trying to hone in on any one aspect… However a number of things jump out… One is how long Priestly is in [...] more »
NI Water: Were the IRT’s Terms of Reference ‘Gerrymandered’?
The latest we hear is that DRD/NIW are having problems getting anyone to take on the role of chairman of NI Water. Slugger understands that a number of individuals have declined an approach. It is not difficult to see why. As a careful reading of the final report makes clear the IRT itself did not [...] more »
Advertise
-
Books
-
A New Vision for the Catholic Church – Book Review
The oft-quoted verse from the book of Proverbs, ‘where there is no vision, the people perish,’ (chapter 29, verse 18) opens a new book by Gerry O’Hanlon, A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland (Columba Press, 2011). That verse could be considered an apt summary of the current state of the [...] read our review »
-
Voices from the Grave
Coming up to the Halloween holiday, some people might be frightened of the idea of Voices from the Grave – but for others, the chance to hear an oral history of the Troubles from the mouths of two (in)famous protagonists, PUP leader and former UVF member David Ervine, and Brendan “The Dark” Hughes, is not [...] read our review »
-
Of the Old North and other Vanished Kingdoms..
I’m currently trawling through Norman Davies’s fabulous new tome – “Vanished Kingdoms” – Five stars in the (London) Telegraph’s review from Ben Wilson: All the nations that have ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand,” writes Norman Davies. “The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human [...] read our review »
-
