Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

The coronavirus crisis hit Northern Ireland properly just as Sir Patrick Coghlin published his report into the RHI scandal. This was an unfortunate coincidence, at a time when people were looking for the parties at Stormont to work effectively together and set aside their differences for the common good. At The Critic , I examined the problems exposed in the report in detail. A malfunctioning civil service, a lack of political expertise, but, most pervasively, a cavalier attitude to public money, so long as it was believed to be coming from Westminster. The Executive has traditionally used devolved government to extract every last penny from the Treasury, then divvy it up, rather than taking on the difficult work of reforming services. As The Dissenter argues on his blog , ministers were busy finding money for their political hobby horses, while much needed ICU units were left unfinished. The rapid spread of Covid-19 has brought a new-found seriousness to the work of most members