It's a busy day on the Caitriona Ruane front today. I'd just like to issue a quick thank you to Jim Allister for confirming that I was right when I said that Ms Ruane was talking out her arse when she said she wanted to change the law to prevent Northern Ireland schools, shockingly, giving preference to children living in Northern Ireland because it "may" breach EU equality rules (and thanks also to Nevin for mentioning it in his comment on this Slugger post).

Jim Allister has contacted the European Commission who have confirmed that this is nonsense. Allister's blog contains the long, wordy response, but in short the child from the Republic would only have a right to equal treatment in terms of admission to the school if she was residing in Northern Ireland. As I tried to explain to one commenter (hi Kensei) previously, the school is perfectly within its rights to use residency as a criterion when admitting pupils; it just can't use nationality.

Is it possible that this has something to do with the fact that Ms Ruane's own children live in County Louth, in the Republic, but attend school in Northern Ireland? Was she lying or is she just incompetent?

Minister for Education Caitriona Ruane has refused to answer a list of questions submitted to her by the Assembly's education committee. These questions were agreed by the committee and included how much her plans would cost, what provision would be made to avoid selection by post code and what methods would be used to decide who got a place in over-subscribed schools. Questions like those that are being asked by people across Northern Ireland.

Ms Ruane's Sinn Fein colleague Paul Butler defender her saying "I would like to see the committee playing a more constructive role and working with the Minister to get through this period."

Translation for those of you who don't speak Sinnerese "I would like to see the committee sitting back quietly, letting the Minister do as she pleases and blindly swallowing whatever she says."

After all, just who do the education committee think they are to scrutinise the work of the education minister?

Just stumbled across this: apparently house prices in Northern Ireland have fallen by 10% recently and there are thought to be nearly 50,000 Ulster dwellings lying empty.

Plans are now being made to charge rates on empty dwellings (long overdue if you ask me) which will hopefully have a significant impact on the number of developers holding on to empty properties in the hope they increase in value, at the same time artificially limiting supply and inflating prices.

It does make you wonder if all that headline-grabbing extra money for "social housing" wasn't a bit premature, but as someone who's hopefully going to be buying in the next couple of years I'll not complain too much. What'll have more of an impact, I wonder: 5,000 'affordable' (state-subsidised) homes or the owners of 50,000 properties facing the threat of rates?

Limavady Borough Council: redefining "offensive"

Nationalist councillors (who hold a majority) on Limavady Borough Council have ordered the removal of several items from council premises in order to create a "neutral working environment".

Unfortunately they weren't totally sure what should be removed and had to search the internet to decide whether or not they were offended by a statue of Limavady man William (Ferguson) Massey, who had been Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1912 to 1925 and founded New Zealand's Reform Party (now the conservative National Party, the largest opposition party in New Zealand at this time). As it turns out they are offended by the statue. Why? You may well ask. Apparently some hotshot detective work by nationalist councillors turned up that Massey had been a Protestant member of the Orange Order in New Zealand. Thank God for Wikipedia, eh?

Other items which had to be removed include a coffee mug celebrating Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding and a toy dragon.

The Equality Commission said it advised the council, which was seeking to adopt a "policy on neutral public space". The Commission said they prefer the objective of a "good and harmonious" environment to a neutral one.

"The Commission advised that the Fair Employment Code of Practice refers to promoting a 'good and harmonious environment' and drew attention to fact that this concept is preferred to that of a 'neutral' environment... The Commission has not provided advice regarding the removal of any specific items or emblems."
Equality Commission spokesman

But nationalist councillors would not be deterred by that, or by the anger it caused amongst their unionist colleagues. They spent a year and brought in an independent consultant to hunt out anything they might be able to take offence at. While they were doing this, one wonders where it fell on their list of priorities in relation to the loss of 900 jobs in Limavady or allegations of bullying of council staff. But what do they matter when you can protect the citizenry from the horrors of a Charles and Diana mug sitting in a council's display case that most of them will likely never see?

Apparently discussions are ongoing about the possibility of an Orange Lodge taking part in the Saint Patrick's Day parade in Downpatrick this year. The Orange Order seem to be treading with caution, but hopefully the Order and the organisers can make this work.

Can't see it happening in the Belfast parade any time soon though.

Update: According to Slugger, it's not happening. Apparently there were fears for the safety of members taking part as well as issues over what regalia the organisers would allow.

Apparently the Queen is quite partial to a bit of Wii Sports. Gamespot picked up on the story from the People, who reckon she's commandeered Prince William's Christmas present and is quite handy at the bowling.

The most eagerly anticipated football fixtures this year have been announced today. While some will be looking forward to details of another tournament taking place in the summer, the main focus is on the World Cup 2010 qualifiers kicking off in September.

Northern Ireland's fixtures in group look like this:

According to the BBC, former Northern Ireland boss Lawrie "is our leader" Sanchez is being interviewed for the Republic job. The question is, following a poor run at Fulham, did he just get lucky with Northern Ireland or is he simply more suited to international than club management?

You know your successful when you start getting hate mail. It's a shame it's so piss-poor, but baby steps and all that.

While I've had messages sent from this site before, this is the first one filled with quite such obvious (and entertaining) rage.

Hello Beano...I have to admit that you sound claver enough but your an asshole! Northern Ireland is not britain or the united kingdom or great britain or wathever other little silly names you people use, its NORTHERN IRELAND emphasis on IRELAND because it is Irish soil after all. If u dont like how OUR country is run then leave simple as....You and your cronnies need to start waking up to the fact that you live in Ireland or as i like to call it Eire and if you want to be British then do us a favour and go to Britain!!!
nikki****@yahoo.co.uk

"Go to Britain!!!" Why didn't I think of that before!?

Where do you start?

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Actually, Brian Feeney's fundamental failure might be understanding anything, but I was feeling charitable when I wrote that title. The Irish News is generally the best of a bad bunch when it comes to local news papers, which makes the fact that they give regular space to an idiot like Feeney all the more puzzling. I guess it must be a marketing decision; there are enough people out there who enjoy nothing more than reading material that reinforces their own prejudices, even if it is rubbish.

Over at 3,000 Versts Chekov does a wonderful job of tearing apart Feeney's latest diatribe against unionists, which comes disguised as a rant about Human Rights (nice to see the Irish News finally making their content freely-available online by the way. Damn this new media stuff's a bit scary).

In addition to Chekov's critique, I thought I should add my own thoughts. Firstly to correct a schoolboy error. Feeney says

"[Unionists] use the words "UK" and "Britain" inter-changeably. When they remember that the north [sic] isn't part of Britain..."

Britain and the UK are interchangeable and it's not just unionists who use the terms accordingly. Feeney may be confusing Britain, a convenient short-hand for "the United Kingdom", with Great Britain, the island consisting of England, Scotland and Wales. I'd let the mistake slide if it wasn't for the fact the arrogant shite is trying to correct other people. The first rule of being a smart-arse is to know your facts.

Feeney goes on about unionist reluctance to devolve policing and justice powers "such a mentality indicates a fear of self-reliance, a unionist unwillingness to stand on their own two feet". Actually, it is the manifestation of a fear of letting the fox run the hen-house - to give convicted criminals the ultimate (or nearly ultimate) say in running the police. Sounds like common sense to me.

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