Some people think that politicians here have a cushy number, lolling around all day pretending to be working. A recent article in thedetail.ie makes it clear that is not the case. It seems that the Department of Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland and North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds have been working their proverbial butts off on an old problem: housing.
What form have their labours taken,according to the detail.ie? Well it seems they’ve got very excited over plans which would provide housing that falls outside the North Belfast parliamentary constituency. They don’t like that. Not at all. And they haven’t just complained to the press – they’ve gone straight to the heart of things. As the detail.ie reports, “internal memos, emails and minutes, written by officials from the Department of Social Development (DSD) and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) show ten months of unpublicised meetings.” They also show the DUP getting quite hot in their leather about housing waiting list figures for Catholics and Protestants in North Belfast. One memo, for example,has allegations of gerrymandering being made by Dodds, who is reported as getting “very concerned/angry” that NIHE officials are “pushing people out of Belfast”. That’s what provision of much-needed housing outside the North Belfast constituency amounts to, it seems: “pushing people outside of Belfast”. No, Virginia, as far as I know nobody was asked if they’d rather be pushed and have a decent house or not be pushed and remain in sub-standard living conditions.
It seems NIHE officials were called to not one, not six but twelve meetings by Nelson and DUP politicians so they could be quizzed about North Belfast housing. Surprisingly the NIHE Board wasn’t informed of these meetings. Housing Executive officials then asked for but weren’t given minutes of DSD/NIHE meetings. It’s alleged that NIHE officials were asked by Nelson for the religious breakdown of North Belfast housing waiting applicants, and that Nigel Dodds told NIHE officials the system of identifying housing waiting list figures was resulting in “perverse outcomes” and that the “system is broken”.
Not everybody sees it that way. Dessie Donnelly, the director of Participation and Practice of Rights, whose group I’ve blogged about before and which published a report on inequality in housing in North Belfast last year, said this was just part of a “long line of political and statutory failings” in North Belfast. “The appropriateness of interventions of this nature in housing issues must be scrutinised – particularly given the sectarians history of housing and the principle of no political interference in housing issues…The losers here are families in dire need of decent housing in north Belfast….What is required is a time-bound and resourced strategy to address religious inequality in north Belfast housing”.
So – what does all that mean in lay person’s language, Virginia? Well it seems that dear old Nelson is of the belief, or said he was of the belief in February of this year that “the need for social housing in both communities in the North Belfast constituency is roughly the same”. See? Nice and balanced. He was on the radio this morning saying the same thing. But when the Detail asked NIHE for the official waiting list figures, it stated that there were 1,327 Catholic and 506 Protestant applications on the waiting list by district for social housing in North Belfast.
Of course as the canine residents of the Queen’s highway know, there’s no connection between religious background and voting patterns in North Belfast. Never has been, never will be. And the DUP’s keen interest in presenting North Belfast housing needs as “roughly the same” rather than near to three times as great for Catholics as for Protestants has nothing, repeat nothing to do with their concerns over the narrowing lead at the polls of Nigel Dodds over Gerry Kelly. Besides, dear old Minister for Social Development Nelson is well-known as an honourable man who, from the moment he gets out of his tartan pyjamas in the morning until he crawls back into his bed, works tirelessly against bigotry or sectarianism in all areas of life. Including housing.
I wonder what Michelle Gildernew makes of all this. You know, given that her family was part of the protest in Caledon, Co Tyrone over housing discrimination. That was ‘way back in 1968. Nearly fifty years ago. Plus ca change, eh?
Here’s the Detail article itself: http://www.thedetail.tv/issues/316/mccausland-dsd-nihe-story/documents-reveal-dup-lobbying-over-north-belfast-housing-and-allegations-of-gerrymandering
Jude, ill just throw an example of the DSD’s concern for much needed social housing in North Belfast in recent times. The highest social housing spend in North Belfast in 2012 was on Thompson House, a probation hostel run by the Presbyterian Board of Social Witness located on the Antrim Road. The hostel’s intake includes some of the most dangerous sex offenders and it is conveniently located beside the highest concentration of Catholic schools and crèches in the North of Ireland, 0.2 miles from the nearest catholic school and 60ft away from a vulnerable children’s home. Hundreds of unaccompanied Catholic children walk by its front doors every day. The local schools are alarmed and concerned. Many headmasters from leading schools sent letters of objection. Total cost signed off by the DSD was £2,113,376. No other project that would have addressed housing need in North Belfast during this period comes even close to half of this cost. Major questions still need to be raised. Inequality is an understatement.
Given that bad old habits appear to die hard within unionism, should we not be asking why SF & the SDLP are letting the NIHE be abolished ?
Cal
Good point you make there. If you go back to Jude’s piece on 15th Feb you’ll see that during the conversation between Mr A and Mr b it was revealed that both the SDLP and SF were up to their necks in it and aiding and abetting this housing policy. In fact Mr B used the PPR figures to illustrate this point to Mr A. Now maybe Jude has some information on the bedroom attire of the two parties you’re wondering about, but I haven’t the foggiest. I didn’t even know Nelson McCausland wore tartan jammies.
Tough titty messrs McCausland & Dodds.
You’ve known for decades that there would be a Catholic majority.
That’s decades wasted on idiotic old school unionist policies instead of embracing ideas for the 21st century.
As much as I have no time for SF it could be worth seeing them take N Belfast if it meant that the DUP would realise that the levee has broke.
The Orange Order can’t help you now, but helping out thousands of young and impoverished Catholics could.(in theory at least, the damage of your insular antics might be irreversible).
Reap what you sow.
Am Ghobsmact don’t be a silly if you look at the figures you will see that Protestants in Ballymena Bangor and Ards have to wait on average 6 months longer than nationalists in North Belfast to get placed so what about their human rights?
Lets see if Jude writes anything about this?
Fair enough Neill
If it is wrong in the context of N Belfast then I’ll withdraw my remark.
However, is it wrong in a pan-Northern irish context?
That’s an interesting statistic, Neill. Give me more detail and I’ll happily write about it. Source, numbers, years etc.
I will dig them out for you
Neil, Jude will have no problem researching statistics on perceived nationalist injustices, he is not interested in unionism other than to throw the dirt.
Neill
What about Catholics in Ballymena, Bangor and Ards, how long do they have to wait? Or indeed non – Nationalists (Capital N please) in North Belfast, how do they compare to Catholics in B., B., and A.?
As is almost invariably the case (though you are probably unaware of it) your posts betray a Protestant sectarian mindset.
The point I was making and it was far from sectarian is this why should one group get better treatment than others?
Shouldn’t we trying to improve the system where people get homes far more quickly?
” why should one group get better treatment than others?”
Niall –
Housing provision and allocation should be on the basis of need, not allegiance to a religious or political group, real or imagined. And should certainly not be based on political expediency.
I have no problem with that
‘The point I was making and it was far from sectarian is this why should one group get better treatment than others?’
Neill
That is the entire point of Jude’s article. A consensus has been reached between Jude & Neill, a monumental moment
Don’t be daft Jude is a raging ying to my cooling yang….
Lenny, you are being selective, ok, what about Protestants in Derry, Omagh, etc, we could go all day at this.
“what about Protestants in Derry?”
Liam A Chara
That is a very good question. Have they been gettting ‘a fair crack of the whip’* since the Gerrymandering had to stop and the hated and feared Catholics/Nationalists/Republicans/Fenians took over, or are their worst fears being realised?
*Idiomatic expression not to be taken literally.
The evidence, past and present illustrates that housing should not be in the control of politicians. There is an urgent need for a regional housing strategy and an independent body which would ensure rigorous assessment, procurement and governance procedures and access to shared space. A radical step that needs to be taken, is to promote and facilitate integrated education in order to ensure the viability of integrated housing. It is time to start removing the psychological and physical barriers.
Obviously this needs a woman’s logic, and approach.
We cannot afford this two tier system, plain and straight.
Sign up, commit, take an oath, that you will live together mixed in harmony.
If you forfeit or break the rules, out you go! Simple. Social housing has to be sociable.
This way there is no winners and no losers, no discrimination, and every one is happy.
Or even better buy your own house, and be king of your own castle.
Norma
” This way there is no winners and no losers,
no discrimination, and every one is happy.”
Normawilson
“O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!”
William Shakespeare
You get more sensible suggestions below the line here in a single day than in a month of Sundays up on the hill.
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:—feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love….
Nelson and Nigel are not interested in the welfare of Catholics, they do not give a hoot about them, they never did and they never will. It is funny how the people who are so keen on 50/50 in housing allocation are the same people screaming in anguish about the PSNI recruiting on a 50/50 basis. Wonder why that is??? The word Catholic should provide a clue.
Memphis Minnie wrote and sang back in the 1927 :
“If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break.
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break.
And all these people no place to stay.”….
As Am Ghob has said ,the levee has finally broken and no number of little boys with their fingers in the many bleeding holes of this particular dyke is going to stem the flow. The DUP and the UUP have for so long neglected the facts staring them in the face that if an increasing Nationalist leaning population , that usually for historical reasons ,is going to continue voting for parties with an emotional United Ireland on their agenda and given that that same tide appears to be rising ,it would have been a good idea to start tackling social issues and problems such as racism , bigotry and lack of housing and in particular, education across the board in an effort to woo a percentage of those same emotional nationalists to vote for their alternative…a possible secular unionism… .
Unfortunately, at every turn they have sought to stymie any kind of social progress or forward thinking . They never explain to those possibly potential unionist voters who may exist on the “Nationalist” fringes why they have such a fear of the country being united {another unionism}…the pros and cons of their case. The unionist community is currently fielding an entire lucky bag of candidates which are anything but united in their ideas of being unionists.
In the DUP’s eyes their only opposition is an almost monolithic Nationalist vote which has no interest in an alternative vision like unionism. It’s not surprising that all they can say is “If you don’t vote for the DUP you’ll split the vote and the nationalists will win . That’s a selling point?!!
Well…isn’t it already split? what are all those other parties selling anyway, that the DUP isn’t?
Unionism comes across to most nationalist thinkers as a very old-fashioned conservative form …either sort of county tory or thuggishly boorish ,which has serious problems with modern thinking. Everything they do seems to consolidate that. Alliance and NI 21 are the only saving graces with plain social secular ideas which keep old tyme religion out of the mix.
With Sinn Fein and the SDLP you know exactly what you get. As far as they are concerned the para-militaries are a thing of the distant past and they have distanced themselves from that past in no uncertain terms.That’s why the middle class SDLP are losing to this new Sinn Fein. If Sinn Fein hadn’t made that break away from it’s combative origins, those same voters would still be keeping the SDLP at the top instead of reducing them to playing second fiddle. Sdlp did all the spadework but Sinn Fein got their voters in the end. They must have played a better game or more likely did more work on the ground between elections..
As Jude points out, the last past chapter of an ongoing “Troubles”, was set in motion against the very same sort of gerrymandering and housing skullduggery that is currently being discussed .That was the focal point for the Civil Rights Movement in 1968. It wasn’t about republicanism for most people. It was about social justice for all. A very simple and direct protest concerning unionism’s fiddling with the housing deck to maintain their voting strength. Martin Luther King was the inspiration …not anybody like Gerry Adams or Marty. The British Establishment and the Unionist power block hadn’t yet made heroes and martyrs of them yet.
For unionism it was another exercise in fear…the fear of a loss of control which they wanted to manage at all costs. This fear was gradually allowed to be parlayed into out and out interference with the right to protest about the housing manipulation . Well , we know what happened and as was foretold , Nationalism just kept getting stronger as the years rolled by because unionism sat on their hands and never developed any social{ or socialist} strategies for anyone …not even their own voting followers. Young protestant youths were encouraged to build bonfires and join marching bands while the industries they expected to inherit were quietly floundering…..
Nationalists, in the meantime, were always promoting education and building local surgeries to address local social ills . There was a telling story that nationalist and Loyalist inmateds in Long Kesh differed in only one real way . The nationalists educated themselves and studied while the loyalists spent their time body-building.
Education is everything .Most especially in working class areas .Unionism obviously neglected that entirely and are playing catch-up thirty years too late.The problem is that they don’t appear to have learnt anything from the process from 1968.
They still can’t see how and why this whole bloody thing kicked off right there on the streets before their eyes….
Wonderful stuff there paddykool. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
paddy, what a rant, have you come up for air yet, keep rewriting history, you’re doing well.
Jude,
I think you have hit the nail on the head that North Belfast has been designated as some type of ‘last stand Alamo’ by a fairly wide spectrum within Belfast unionism, loyalism and the orange order (as seen in the Twatdel standoff). It is different only in its method than the more crude version of Protestants only (sorry locals only) daubed on the broken frontages of homes of Eastern Europeans living in East Belfast!
RJC: The sun’s not yellow, …it’s chicken…..
William : Give me a little detail to chew on ….Which parts have I re-written .help me to correct my vision of things. You’ve given me nothing to go with.