News that the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland is to canvass all households this summer, for the first time since 2013 and a year later than planned, in order to update the electoral register – unlike the rest of the UK which has an annual canvass process – has the Sinn Féin MP for West Belfast, Paul Maskey, reaching for a page from the Donald Trump electioneering playbook. From the BBC report The canvass is legally required by the UK …
This morning I ventured over to a business breakfast in West Belfast hosted by local entrepreneur, Gerry Carlile.The event which had nearly 100 people in attendance was kicked off by the local MP, Paul Maskey who preached the need for more investment in West Belfast and cited success stories like the Kennedy Centre which operates at full capacity. The Sinn Fein MP also spoke of his relief that the Executive decided to retain the funding for St. Mary’s which he …
Following the announcement of recent cuts to higher education and the threat of closure for St Mary’s College, the Sinn Fein MP for West Belfast, Paul Maskey writes for Slugger about why we need to save the college from what he calls discriminatory cuts, from a disinterested minister St Mary’s College is facing closure and it has to be saved. Sinn Féin is committed to saving it. Following a meeting I had last week with minister Farry it is my …
On October 22nd 2014 Health Minister Jim Wells spoke at a meeting of the Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety and was there, as stated by Chairperson Maeve McLaughlin in her introduction, to “to give evidence on the terms of reference for the Committee’s review of the departmental approach to the Budget”. All was going swimmingly with much discussion of priorities for 2015-16, budgetary constraints, ‘Transforming Your Care’, Ebola, revenue generation, efficiencies and potential savings until THAT moment. …
As the BBC reports, Sinn Féin’s Paul Maskey, MP for west Belfast, has apologised to the Catholic Bishop of Dromore, John McAreavey, for the misrepresentation of his views on abortion in “a letter written by local party members and distributed in west Belfast”. Here’s the quoted apology in the BBC report – not yet available on the Sinn Féin website. [Mr Maskey said the literature was issued by local representatives in west Belfast on the issue of abortion in response to queries from constituents. …
As the BBC reports, local residents have continued their protest against the planned £70million redevelopment of Casement Park in west Belfast. From the UTV report Around 100 residents took part in a demonstration on Saturday afternoon. They say they are now considering taking legal action. One woman said: “The main thing is the height of it, it’s going to be about 129ft and right around the whole outskirts of the houses.” A man said: “It’s an absolute monstrosity. The residents …
Eleven people were shot dead by British soldiers in Ballymurphy in the three days following the introduction of internment without trial on 9th August 1971. Today, more than forty years later, John Larkin, the Northern Ireland Attorney General, has ordered fresh inquests into the deaths. The original inquests returned an open verdict in 1972 but there was no serious investigation into the behaviour of the paratroopers who carried out the killings. In 1998, some of the families of those that were killed began …
It was going to be hard for either of them to trip up. Paul Maskey’s coronation to continue Sinn Fein’s reign in West Belfast would have required some kind of enormous scandal to have brewed up earlier this week to spoil his chances – and even the ongoing, rumbling Mary McArdle story wasn’t enough to do that. The Electoral Office wanted a slick, faster-than-expected result to cancel out some of the bad publicity surrounding the referendum and Assembly election counts …
Slugger understands that there is growing unease amongst members of Stormont’s Public Accounts Committee with Peter Dixon’s unprecedented attack on the Committee’s line of inquiry, and the apparent silence on the matter from their own chair, Paul Maskey. This passage from Hansard is illustrative of the line which drew fire from the Phoenix Gas CEO: Ms Purvis: On the back of that, Chairperson, I raised the point with the regulator last week that Peter Dixon was to head up the independent review team. …
