Beware schemes that offer apparently too good to be true savings. And beware, too, schemes that so lack transparency that the consumer may even feel unaware of having joined them. A relative of mine recently contacted me to advise that she was being charged £18 a month for no obvious reason. When she looked […]
Even when Stormont is ‘functioning’, it continues to be dysfunctional. There is barely a difficult political decision that the Executive has the collective guts to take. This isn’t (just) about the people who make up the Executive, it is the structure which requires consensus – and that means deferral and avoidance of any decision that
Carefully checking bank and credit card statements is essential – but easily overlooked. Doing so has saved me several hundred pounds over recent months. In February of this year I received my monthly statement from American Express. The total was a lot higher than usual and I was shocked to see a charge of £510
When I speak with people in Dublin I’m shocked by the lack of knowledge of the scale of crisis in Northern Ireland’s health service. ‘But you have a free service in the North, so much better than the HSE.’ But a free service with inadequate capacity can be no service at all. Long waits –
What is to be done about Stormont? At present we have a crisis about the health service and a related crisis about social care. We have another about the lack of sewerage and water supply infrastructure. And then we have the failures and weaknesses in parts of our education and skills systems. Far too many
‘A New Ireland – A Five Year Review’ is a newly published book, authored by Paul Gosling, that considers what progress has been made in preparation for a potential referendum on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is governed by Stormont – except Stormont has been down for 40% of its history since
The economic inactivity rate in Northern Ireland is over 5% higher than in the UK as a whole – 26.6%, compared to 21.5%. The rates are highest – above 32% – in the Derry City/Strabane and Belfast council areas. There are various causes of economic inactivity – the long health waiting lists and higher rates
Why early school leaving is an economic as well as a social problem Read More »
A New Ireland – A New Union – Final
A New Ireland – A New Union: The five year review Read More »
Coventry Building Society has completed its £780m acquisition of The Co-operative Bank, which is again now part of the mutual sector. The Bank was never previously a mutual organisation itself, as a plc subsidiary of the Co-operative Group. It was, though, part of the mutual sector. That changed when hedge funds took it over after
Coventry brings Co-op Bank back into the mutual fold Read More »
The Co-operative Bank was central – unwittingly and unhappily – to one of the most controversial political episodes of recent decades. The so-called ‘Stalker Affair’ was established to investigate allegations of a shoot to kill policy by the police and security services in Northern Ireland. It instead led to the ending of the career of
Derry and Donegal are like conjoined twins, bound together by economic, social and cultural links. Policy-makers seeking to improve the economy and quality of life in one must do so jointly with the other. Derry was, in effect, the capital city of the North West region before partition and it remains so today, despite the
“Firms involved in global markets tend to require higher skilled workers than firms that only serve the domestic market,” according to a study from the World Trade Organisation. The implications of the WTO report (‘Skills and Export Competitiveness for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’) are that businesses, especially smaller firms, are dependent on the quality of
The skills challenge facing Northern Ireland exporters Read More »