There might be no money in the piggy bank up at Stormont, and no prospect of any more coming through from the beleaguered Sir Keir Starmer, he of the lavish penthouse apartments, freebie suits and eye-wateringly expensive specs.
But it doesn’t stop our Ministers spreading the love. It was Conor Murphy’s turn this week when he launched a £45 million plan to ‘rebalance the economy’ around these parts. Business leaders, to be fair, aren’t going to be wetting themselves in anticipation about this piece of news. But they won’t be too hard on it either. Any investment is good news.
Murphy’s Plan (shame we can’t call it Murphy’s Law) will bring local councils into the mix, calling on them to set up new local economic partnerships involving business, universities, colleges and community organisations. Might be a bit woolly, but local councils can be a better at delivering on the ground than Stormont departments.
It doesn’t stop at local councils, though. There are two other key elements, one the long-awaited restructuring of Invest NI and the other a bit of navel-gazing at Murphy’s own domain, the Department for the Economy itself. Both of those are built around a much strong regional focus, in other words a shift away from being Belfast-centric.
It could get a bit interesting. In particular, plenty in the business community will be watching what’s happening at Invest NI towers. A couple of senior people have already taken their leave, or are about to do so. But it’s certainly not a case of shedding numbers across the board. In fact, the agency will be getting a 40% hike in its staff numbers at regional level.
Kieran Donoghue seems to be making the right kind of waves since he took over in the CEO’s seat, and Invest NI’s efforts and approach certainly won’t be harmed by having John Healy in the chairman’s role. Pragmatists are always welcome in key roles.
Ask most business people what they want to see from Invest, and they’ll mention an energetic approach, effective management structures, a strong board and a focus on indigenous businesses here alongside FDI opportunities.
Is that the way we’re headed? We’ll see.
Go South, Young Man
While the UK’s new Prime Minister continues his Mr. Glum tour of speaking engagements warning us all of the pain and penury that is coming our way on his watch, a few miles down the road past Newry, there is abundant sunshine, happiness and birds singing in the air.
Jack Chambers, the Republic’s much jollier version of the dour Rachel Reeves, stood up this week with much cheerier news than either Starmer or Reeves could muster.
Now he isn’t going to spend the €25 billion budget surplus which the Irish Government has ended up with, largely courtesy of Apple’s big tax bill, promising that it will be used for infrastructure investment. What we would do for a slice of that windfall up here in the grim North?
But he is going for €8.3 billion worth of tax cuts, and increases to cost of living support worth a further €2.2 billion. Oh, and while he was at it, he quoted forecasts saying that Ireland’s domestic economy will grow by 2.5% this year and 3.0% next year.
Whilst we can only dream of tax cuts up here, the economic growth numbers just aren’t as frightening as they once would have been. Successive economic reports, don’t forget, have been upbeat about Northern Ireland’s very own growth prospecrts. Maybe not quite as upbeat, to be fair, but let’s take the good news where we can.
Maybe we should tell Stephen Nolan and he could do a Biggest Show In The Country splash about how well business is doing around these parts, with input, naturally, from Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson. Then again, maybe not…..
Pass The Sick Bag, Alice
A major report into the future of healthcare in Northern Ireland has recommended retaining all five area hospitals and investing in regional centres of excellence for specific medical treatments. So no controversial hospital closures or really tough decisions then.
Who commissioned the report, blandly entitled Hospitals – Creating A Network For Better Outcomes? None other than the Department of Health. It’s all a bit predictable and less than radical. Yet surely the Health Service problems here are so bad that something ultra radical is called for.
For a real glimpse into the future of healthcare, take a trip to any of Kingsbridge Private Healthcare’s sites, especially the impressive new Diagnostic & Treatment Centre on the King’s Hall complex, which is home to Kingsbridge’s increasingly busy Private GP Centre.
Pleasant surroundings, efficient and prompt service, friendly and helpful staff….a competely new healthcare experience, in other words, for those who haven’t yet experienced it.
Easy to do, the critics and NHS defenders will say, when patients are paying good money for their treatment, whether its a visit to the GP or a life-changing procedure. But, for most of us, it’s going to be the way ahead unless someone can come up with a panacea for all of the health system’s ills.
Spending public money on yet another bland and imagination-free report is not the way ahead.
We Are Sailing…Or Are We?
The saga of the Odyssey, the round the world cruise ship marooned in often rainy Belfast, has produced acres of copy for the local media as well as various UK tabloids. Some international media even got in on the act.
You’ll all have read the stories. A motley band of oddballs (mostly American, inevitably) who think it’s a wonderful idea to live on a cruise ship for months on end have been stuck here for months on end while the ship’s owners sorted out various technical issues.
And, whilst we all love Belfast, it’s probably a bit on the cloudy, wet and chilly side if you’ve just upped and left from your condo in Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach. Some of the poor suckers have even been swallowing Vitamin D tablets to make up for the lack of sunshine.
This week, at last, they all trooped on board, returning to their floating mini apartments, and the Odyssey edged its way up Belfast Lough in the pissing rain late on Monday night. According to one media source, some of the cruisers partied right through the night. God bless ’em.
On Tuesday morning, though, whilst exercising the Business Eye border collie, we couldn’t help but notice the big white cruise ship anchored off Groomsport. Hope it didn’t get choppy in the night or some of that champagne might have made a re-appearance.
By later afternoon, the ship was still there…with reports in the media that it was due back into port (Belfast, that is) to sort out some paperwork issues. By Wednesday, the time of writing, it still hadn’t moved. So far then, the luxury world cruise, had taken the poor sods from Belfast to Bangor.
We reckon we’d have given up by now and booked a business class trip back to Florida. Any cruise ship is fine for a week or so, but in the long term, we’d either so stir crazy or turn to drink. Or both.
From Holywood To Hollywood
From the tidy cul-de-sacs of Bangor, Paul Tweed has done pretty well for himself. He didn’t just make it as a leading lawyer, he made it as a world-leading international libel lawyer….which will explain why we’re wording this part of the weekly blog with meticulous care and attention.
Here’s a man, after all, who has acted for Britney Spears, Sylvester Stallone, Liam Neeson, Johnny Depp, the Kardashians and Justin Timberlake, to name but a few.
We’ve just finished Paul’s new book, From Holywood To Hollywood (Merrion Press), and it’s a first class read. Well written, entertaining, alarming at times (at least for those of us who write for a living) and packed full of anecdotes and celebrity insights. And we learnt more than a thing or two about libel and defamation along the way, which won’t do any harm.
In the book, Paul charts his own story, from his early days in law to his first big libel cases, described in a chapter entitled Buns And Boxing. The first the famous cream bun case involving top lawyers Bob McCartney and Des Boal and the second the legal barney between BJ ‘Barney’ Eastwood and his former protege Barry McGuigan.
Fascinating stuff & highly recommended.
Come Dine With Me
No one was more disappointed than our lovely wife to miss the opening jolly at The Ivy in Belfast the other week and the chance to mingle once again with the great and good…..as well as Belfast’s resident bunch of freeloaders.
But we did make it to the city’s newest restaurant on Friday evening for our first meal there, and we weren’t disappointed. Plenty of cocktails, if you like that sort of thing. Guinness on draught if you don’t. Lashings of champagne on the go.
We’ll leave the foodie review stuff to Joris Minne and the younger wannabee Joris Minnes at the Belfast Telegraph. Suffice to say that we had really good food, well executed, washed down by some good choices from a decent wine list. What more could you want?
The staff are brilliant, and perhaps that’s what makes the place. Smartly uniformed, from the girls on the front desk to the table waiter, knowledgeable and good at what they do. Which is probably not surprising as rumour has it that The Ivy has poached some of the best people from other resturants around the city.
The best thing about The Ivy for Belfast? It has to be its location. In the old Robinson & Cleaver building bang in the centre of Donegall Place. Our very own Night Time Czar, Michael Stewart, must be delighted to see its lights glowing late into the evening.
Give Us A Break
Look, we really hate to bang on about Eamonn Holmes. Honestly, we do. But we continue to be fascinated by the Belfast Telegraph’s fascination with the bloody man. They seem to have a reporter charged with watching GB News every morning to see if a tortured story can be squeezed out of what the big lad says.
Journalism used to be a glamourous profession. Big criminal court cases, political rough and tumble, major sporting events, hard-hitting interviews. But watching the GB News breakfast show every bloody morning in case Holmesy says something of interest. No, thanks.
This week’s gem, though, wasn’t that Holmesy regaled us all with any lurid details of his love life (God forbid). Instead, according to the Telegraph’s intrepid reporter, he became visibly frustrated (….and this is nothing to do with his love life either) when discussing the fallout from former buddy Philip Schofield’s return to our screens.
And, er, that’s it. Still, whatever tickles your fancy.