Opposition leaders to meet after Dail disorder
The opposition party representatives are to discuss their response to the disorder in the Dail, the Irish parliament's lower house.
There were chaotic scenes of shouting, interruptions and allegations of misogyny on Tuesday as weeks of tension over the speaking rights row boiled over during Leaders' Questions.
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy fielded interruptions and tried to continue Dail proceedings as opposition TDs took to their feet and objected to the government's proposals.
She declared the order of business and changes to the standing orders passed before adjourning the Dail until after 9am on Wednesday.
Speaking about the leaders' meeting, Green Party leader Roderic O'Gorman told The Late Debate they would discuss how the opposition would proceed, as well as the role of the Ceann Comhairle.
In a statement on Tuesday, Taoiseach Micheal Martin accused the opposition of trying to bully and intimidate Ms Murphy and said it 'marked a new low' for the opposition.
'The prolonged barracking and the disgraceful lack of respect for the mandates of elected deputies was shocking in its intensity,' he said.
He said the actions of opposition have been 'completely disproportionate over what is essentially an additional eight minutes of speaking time on two days in the Dail'.
'The opposition have not lost a single minute of their time or ability to hold government to account,' he said.
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The Herald Scotland
7 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Is Scottish Government secretly working to kill off Ardrossan harbour?
Everyone who has made travel plans will have to adjust accordingly or cancel, including visitors from far and near heading for a major Gaelic festival, Ceòlas, in South Uist. Mallaig and Oban are 87 miles apart, while accommodation tends to be at a premium in July. Just their luck – one more example of consequences which continues to be visited upon people and islands. This fresh wave of cancellations and redeployments stems from the basic fact that the CalMac fleet has been run aground in terms of numbers and maintenance, despite millions being spent, quite literally in some cases, on plugging the holes. CalMac say plaintively: 'We are doing the best we can to maintain service levels with the vessels available to us during this period'. Read more As I never tire of pointing out, CalMac are more sinned against than sinners. They are at the sharp end of delivery while the real culprits are the Scottish Government (aka Transport Scotland) and its procurement quango, CMAL, which have failed to provide the routine flow of vessels required. Ferries which are a decade and more past their natural lifespan are worked harder and harder, with predictable consequences. After three years of setting its face against any compensation for businesses, the Scottish Government noticed there is an election coming up and conceded through gritted teeth a 'resilience fund' for the worst-hit islands. Arran is included but, not being an island, Ardrossan is not. Yet there are few places that have endured more economic pain than the port which had been the gateway to Arran for 185 years. What distinguishes the case of Ardrossan is that it is, in my belief, the victim of a long-term strategy to extinguish its role and thereby, to a large extent, its raison d'etre. Other places in the CalMac network are victims of incompetence and political opportunism even if nobody set out to do them harm. The case of Ardrossan is different and those responsible should be exposed and their objective, even now, frustrated. The story goes back to 2015 when Troon – part of Associated British Ports – lost its Northern Ireland connection when P&O dropped its Larne route. Desperate to plug the gap, they offered the Scottish Government £8 million to transfer the Arran service to Troon. There is no retrospective wisdom involved here as I wrote at the time that this initiative was 'solely at the behest of Associated British Ports, which has lost its Irish services and needs a substitute. It is blatantly opportunistic'. CalMac will restart a limited and temporary service (Image: free) ABP should have been shown the door. By this time, what later became the Glen Sannox had been ordered from the Ferguson yard, specifically to operate between Ardrossan and Brodick. There should have been no room for doubt but ABP, to my certain knowledge, had friends at court. The Transport Minister, one Humza Yousaf, ordered a review, which set the hare running. A campaign was mounted in defence of Ardrossan and, ostensibly, it prevailed. But it didn't really. When the Glen Sannox was ordered, it was supposed to be operational by 2018 so obviously, it was necessary for CMAL to be in negotiation with the owners of Ardrossan, Peel Ports. Otherwise, how could it happen? Due to events at the Ferguson yard, there was then a seven year delay in delivering the Glen Sannox – but in the course of these nine years, not a finger was lifted to secure the status of Ardrossan. On the contrary, the quiet transition to Troon continued to be encouraged, supposedly to give temporary cover while awaiting Ardrossan's readiness. For good measure, in October of last year, the Transport Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, appointed Stuart Cresswell who, until 2023, had 'full operational responsibility for all of ABP's port operations in Scotland including the Port of Troon' to the board of CMAL. But like I say, there is an election coming up and my old constituency of Cunninghame North is up for grabs. The votes of Ardrossan will be significant so on February 19, Ms Hyslop 'instructed Transport Scotland and CMAL to explore a potential purchase of Ardrossan Harbour'. Little has been heard of this since. I was curious to learn how much substance there was to this 'instruction', so I lodged a Freedom of Information request with CMAL, asking to see the exchanges between them and the Scottish Government about Ardrossan in recent months. This week I got the response, with around 95 per cent of the content redacted on the catch-all grounds that 'the balance of public interest lies in withholding the information'. Read more However, one interesting line had either slipped through the net or been left in deliberately, in which the chief executive of CMAL, Kevin Hobbs, wrote, the week following Ms Hyslop's instruction: 'We do not believe and have expressly stated that resilience at Ardrossan (given the entrance through the roundheads and turn) will never be as resilient as Troon given the open sea approach'. In other words, the chief executive of CMAL could hardly have been clearer that they have no interest in pursuing what, in public, has been their obligation and the Scottish Government's aim. So the question now is whether Ms Hyslop's 'instruction' is ever intended to prevail? I make no claim to nautical expertise but that is not the issue at stake. The real question is whether, consistent with Mr Hobbs' comments, CMAL and Transport Scotland have been (and still are) working to ensure that Ardrossan never again will be the gateway port for Arran. If that is the case – as I believe it is – the people of Arran and Ardrossan have, for the past decade, been cynically and cruelly deceived. To that, I object strongly – and call for an inquiry into the full circumstances, without evasions or redactions. Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003
The Guardian
8 hours ago
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‘Forever chemicals' in school uniforms could be banned under proposed law
The volume of microplastics and potentially harmful 'forever chemicals' in school uniforms should be restricted, experts have said, as they urge peers to back two amendments to a crucial bill. The children's wellbeing and schools bill, which applies mainly to England and Wales and is at committee stage in the House of Lords, is poised to introduce new regulation on the cost of school uniform items, as well as the number of branded uniform items schools can require pupils to wear. But emerging evidence of the environmental and human health risks of synthetic fibres and Pfas 'forever chemicals', which are used as stain and water resistance agents, has led to concerns about the fabrics and chemicals used in their manufacture. Pfas, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is an umbrella term for a family of thousands of chemicals that degrade extremely slowly. 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Amendment 202B calls for action to be taken within 12 months on uniforms that could 'endanger the health or safety of persons [or] cause unreasonable public health or environmental health risk', with a specific emphasis on artificial fibres. In 2021, synthetic fibres made up 64% of the total global fibre production for the apparel industry, but clear data on the proportion of school uniforms made of polyester, nylon or other synthetic materials is not available. Anecdotal evidence suggests most uniforms are made from synthetic materials, however, with alternatives made from natural fibres marketed as exceptions. There has been longstanding concern about the impact of synthetic fibres on the environment, with those derived from petrochemicals persisting for thousands of years and shedding billions of plastic microfibres into ecosystems. But more recent research has shown these microfibres, defined as synthetic fibres of less than 5mm in length, are also infiltrating human bodies, with studies having identified them in human blood, semen, lungs, breast milk, bone marrow, placenta, testicles and brains. Scientists have found that synthetic fibres do not have to be discarded, or even subjected to the stress of a washing machine cycle, to begin shedding microfibres, with clothing shedding up to 400 fibres per gram of fabric during just 20 minutes of normal wear. 'It's obviously breathed in,' Bennett said. 'So you know, you run for the bus in your blazer, you're probably taking in great gulps of plastics, straight into your lungs and potentially into your bloodstream. And also of course, you know, you touch it and then you touch your mouth and you can also orally ingest it.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. 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Dr David Santillo, senior scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories, said: 'Most parents are probably not aware that the uniforms their children are required to wear may be treated with a mix of forever chemicals, something that is almost impossible to tell from the label. Although some Pfas are already banned in textiles, there are many more still in widespread use. Only a ban on the whole group will be effective in reducing children's exposure to these chemicals while they are at school. 'Action on school uniforms should go hand in hand with a wider ban on the use of any Pfas in any children's textiles, so that it is not a lottery of exposure based on what your child is wearing. Forever chemicals have no place in everyday consumer clothing and should be phased out in all but essential uses in specialised workwear.' Ruth Chambers, a senior fellow at the Green Alliance, said: 'Toxic chemicals in school uniforms are yet another example of why we need stronger chemicals laws. Before Brexit, the UK was parts of the world's gold standard system for regulating chemicals, which restricted or banned hundreds of substances linked to health concerns like cancer, but our protections have significantly weakened since then. 'The government should commit to catch up with EU standards in its legally binding environmental improvement plan, and it should work towards fully banning the use of these harmful chemicals to protect people and nature.'
Spectator
13 hours ago
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Tim Davie shouldn't quit over Glastonbury
There probably never has been a time when a governing party much liked its MPs. If you are on a mission, as governments imagine they are, you are always impatient when your own side raises objections. But it is only recently that governments have seemed positively affronted by the idea that their MPs should have a say. This was encapsulated by Sir Keir Starmer when he dismissed Labour's backbench revolt over welfare cuts as 'noises off'. Off what, exactly? Legislators have the sole right to legislate and that includes the right to refuse legislation. Those, like Rachael Maskell, who parade their consciences may be tiresome, but there is no way of governing this country except through parliament (though people like Lord Hermer are striving mightily to alter this). Prime ministers are oddly blind to the ultimate consequence, which is that their MPs get rid of them. Sir Keir's blindness led to his capitulation on Monday night, turning his gigantic majority into his potentially fatal problem. It is always confusing for the BBC to decide what to ban, cut or edit. In 1972, in the wake of Bloody Sunday, it banned Paul McCartney's rather tame song 'Give Ireland back to the Irish' ('Great Britain, you are tremendous/And nobody knows like me/ But really, what are you doin'/ In the land across the sea?') but allowed John Lennon's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' which attacked 'You Anglo pigs and Scotties/ Sent to colonise the North', complained about 'the concentration camps' (unspecified) in Northern Ireland and regretted that although 'the cries of 13 martyrs filled the free Derry air', 'not a soldier boy was bleeding/ When they nailed the coffin lids'. If you do not have your own moral compass, you will be guided only by levels of public outrage and will find these hard to predict. In the case of Bob Vylan, the story is about management of coverage, not endorsement, of dreadful views. It does not exhibit the monstrous anti-Israel bias daily apparent in BBC documentaries, news reports, BBC Verify, BBC Arabic, Jeremy Bowen etc. It is more a lack of due diligence. I doubt the resignation of Tim Davie would produce visible improvement. He is actually the first D-G even to admit and pursue the anti-Semitism problem. More shocking is the way the Glastonbury crowd (and therefore, unthinkingly, the BBC) rolls with this type of thing. If – unimaginable, I know – an extreme-right popstar had appeared and announced that he hated 'Zionists' and that Israeli soldiers should die, he would have been howled down. But the left has so normalised Islamist extremism that the overwhelmingly white, middle-class establishment audience has no sense of its weirdness. In a passage not widely reported, Bob Vylan announced to the Glastoholics, 'We are not pacifist punks here. We are the violent punks.' Some of them cheered. Was that a tattoo of a guillotine that I saw on his right arm? Does Glastonbury have to suffer the fate of the Manchester Arena before they understand? Ex-prime ministers are sparing in their public interventions. So far as I can see, Rishi Sunak had made only one Commons speech (as opposed to asking questions) since leaving office – on Rachel Reeves's first Budget. Last week, however, he made his second, in Westminster Hall. It began: 'I last spoke on this subject in this very place back in 2016. A lot has changed in the last nine years – notably, ten chief secretaries to the Treasury, seven chancellors and, indeed, five prime ministers – but one thing that has not changed is my view on grouse shooting.' From that good start, Mr Sunak went on to argue that the sport 'is a part of our local social fabric, and… one of the world's great conservation success stories'. He criticised the tendency of 'some conservationists… to act as though farmers and gamekeepers are somehow trespassing on Britain's landscape, but without their hands repairing our dry-stone walls or their dairy cows keeping the fields lush, the rural beauty of our countryside would soon fade. Heather moorland… is rarer than rainforest, and 75 per cent of it is found right here in Britain. It is a national treasure.' The fanatic Chris Packham, who was attending the debate, was seen to hold his head in his hands as he listened. I hope this oration marks the start of Mr Sunak's comeback. Charm is easy to recognise but notoriously hard to describe. Sandy Gall, who has just died aged 97, had it. When he and the tipsy Reggie Bosanquet co-presented ITN News in the 1970s, charm was visible nightly on the nation's screens. It had something to do with being at ease, a lack of self-importance and the sense that the pair were often repressing laughter. Sandy retained these qualities in many dangerous situations covering wars for more than half a century, and into old age. In 2010, when he was 82, we accompanied him to Afghanistan. It was supposed to be a holiday, plus a visit to the charity which he had established to give prosthetic limbs to children injured by the war when he first covered Afghanistan, hidden in Russian-occupied territory, in the 1980s. Sandy's two rules for later journeys there were that he should never have security – it just makes one a target, he said – and that he should always carry a bottle of whisky, which was illegal. It being high summer, he had advised us not to bring waterproofs, but when we flew in a light aircraft to see Bamiyan and the mountainside which held the colossal Buddhas smashed in their niches by the Taliban, we found the place flooded. The airport was on a plateau. Our hotel was visible below, surrounded by water. Undismayed, Sandy ordered ten donkeys to carry us through the inundation and breakfast to eat until these could be found. By the time we had finished the breakfast, the waters had sufficiently receded for the donkeys to be laid off. He was a dear man, neither broken by the horrors of war, nor puffed up by his courage in the face of them – a true reporter.
