Seven Deadly Sins

While I am overall very happy with my decision to move to Northern Ireland, I sometimes succumb to a sense of dread that I have done the wrong thing. Then I remember who is president in America.

Why the dread? Brexit is part of it. The product of xenophobic, inward looking, backward-looking romanticism. But, specific to Northern Ireland are these sins, ripped from recent headlines:

1. Diesel car emissions are not tested as part of the annual motor vehicle test. They are tested elsewhere in the UK, but the equipment was never installed to do it here. I think of this when I run in the mornings along a line of idling cars.
2. The DUP, unchecked by a real opposition party or the civil service, put in place a renewable heating scheme that wasted hundreds of millions of pounds. The “ash for cash” scandal was so poorly designed that the more you burned, the more you earned. The wood pellets being burnt aren’t entirely from sustainable forests. I hate to think of the full environmental cost of this cycle of felling forests, transporting lumber, chopping into pellets, and burning it. Moy Park, the massive chicken processor, was the chief beneficiary of this scheme. Some of its suppliers heated empty sheds 24/7 to increase their subsidy payments.
3. The DUP, unchecked by a real opposition party or the civil service, masterminded another daft scheme on which hundreds of millions have been wasted, this one involving anaerobic digesters. Much of NI’s land and water as saturated in nitrates, exceeding European limits. This is as a result of spreading slurry from chicken, pig, dairy farms. Some wizard said, hey, lets burn the slurry, produce methane gas to generate electricity (what emissions does this cause?) and spread the remaining concentrate. Somehow this got around EU nitrates limits, yet the product of the digesters is no less toxic in ammonia levels. As if the environmental implications of these 89 high volume plants wasn’t enough, London investment firms have figured out how to tap the generous subsidies for the digesters via phantom plants.
4. A Social Investment Fund of 90 million pounds meant to help the most disadvantaged projects was treated like a piggy bank by the DUP and Sinn Fein, which awarded the money to pet projects. No transparency on the decision-making process and no accountability for how the funds were spent. Because that is how we roll in Northern Ireland. A former paramilitary leader is one of the recipients.
5. A nursing home is being built in Rostrevor on land that was occupied by an ancient forest. Homes are being built in Derry on similar land--ancient forests are rare in Northern Ireland but apparently not considered of any value.
6. No one can seem to stop illegal sand mining in Lough Neagh--home to a long list of rare or unique species that are disappearing. Apparently the government is one of the customers for the sand.
7. Europe’s largest illegal dump is in Derry along the banks of the lovely--and “protected”--Faughan River.

What I’m trying to say is the consociational form of government has failed in Northern Ireland, with the unionist and nationalist parties forced into government together adhering to a spoils system. I won't rat you out for the corrupt projects you are running if you don’t rat me out for my financial indiscretions. It is no way to run a country. The London government won’t save us from ourselves because the Tories need the DUP to maintain a majority. The EU hasn’t ridden in on a white horse, maybe because it sees us as having one foot out the door. I know activists bringing cases at the EU level and at the UK level. The RHI inquiry (ash for cash) has opened some eyes about the lack of transparency and accountability here in Northern Ireland. The anaerobic digester scandal will lead to another inquiry. Maybe something will come of it. I hope for a complete rethink of the Good Friday Agreement that won't turn the aspirations of people for peace and prosperity into absolute corruption hiding behind tribal feuds.
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