As the dust settled on the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in May, the BBC reported Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said that he wanted to see “more realism” from the UUP and SDLP. “I would like to see those parties as well as the Alliance Party working in the spirit of co-operation,” he said. “If Peter Robinson and I can work together, then surely all of those parties can work with us.” If “those parties as well as the Alliance Party” …
THE decision to freeze student fees here seems to be going down well, but it won’t come without cost. And that cost – half of it – will be borne by the Department of Employment and Learning. It would be difficult to argue that learning should come at the expense of employment services in the middle of a recession when the jobless total is almost twice what the department is budgeted to deal with. As the Minister said in June, …
So devolution looks like producing four different solutions to the problems of student funding, at least in the short term. The latest from Scotland is to charge strangers from the rest of UK so that young Scots can continue to enjoy a no fees regime in their native land. The money follows Welsh students anywhere in the UK, as Dewi celebrates and recommends NI follow. Iain McWhirter may be right, that the SNP may take a political trick with this …
