Policy In Northern Ireland Research Articles

From Troubles to Triumph: The Role of Design Culture in Establishing a Design Policy in Northern Ireland

From Troubles to Triumph: The Role of Design Culture in Establishing a Design Policy in Northern Ireland

Knowledge and Skills for Life: School Libraries in Disadvantaged Areas of Northern Ireland

This study involved data collection and analysis from four distinct phases of research to establish the features of current provision of post-primary school library services in Northern Ireland; and how these services are being implemented in disadvantaged areas. The research also considers the challenges for school library provision, explores examples of good practice, and sets out recommendations for the future for both provision within schools and at a Northern Ireland policy level.

British ‘Guilt’ Concerning Anglo-New Zealand Relations and the Migration of Former IRA Detainees, 1970-1977

This article examines how Britain’s deteriorating relations with New Zealand in the early 1970s rendered the London government to accommodate the Wellington administration’s foreign policy decisions at the risk of exposing Britain’s contentious internal policy arrangements to the wider world. Britain’s decision in the late 1960s and early 1970s to withdraw her troops from Southeast Asia and to join the European Economic Community had a negative impact on her diplomatic relations with various Commonwealth partners, including her traditionally strong bond with New Zealand. This was evident in the increasing anti-British sentiment amongst the people of New Zealand and in the introduction of anti-British policies by the Wellington government in the early 1970s. Consequently, Britain actively sought to placate New Zealand’s feelings and to improve Anglo-New Zealand relations by agreeing to accommodate New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s policy of allowing former IRA detainees in Northern Ireland to emigrate to New Zealand, even though this meant that Britain’s controversial detention policy in Northern Ireland could be laid bare to global scrutiny. London’s high-risk decision to give unofficial advice to Wellington on the suitability of candidates for emigration had to be concealed in order to give the impression that the British government was not in any way involved in New Zealand’s decisions. Therefore, when questions were raised in the British Parliament over the question of London’s involvement in Muldoon’s scheme, the British government went so far as to mislead the Commons on the issue.

The UK government’s Northern Ireland policy after Brexit: a retreat to unilateralism and muscular unionism

ABSTRACT Brexit has significantly altered the trajectory of UK government policy towards Northern Ireland. The peace process was implicitly built on a presumption of continued joint EU membership by the UK and Ireland. The EU model of interdependence and cooperation was explicitly stated to be an inspiration by its key architect John Hume. However, the history of British–Irish cooperation over Northern Ireland is long and complex and cannot solely be understood through the lens of Europeanisation. Despite this, the aftermath of the 2016 referendum has seen a retreat by the UK government from a bilateral and consensual approach towards Northern Ireland to unilateralism and a ‘muscular’ unionist ideology. This has affected their governance there, hampering their relationship with local parties and undermining the agreed role of the Irish government. The impact of Brexit on UK government policy towards Northern Ireland has undoubtedly contributed to the destabilisation of the political settlement.

‘Devout, profane and hard’, – chasing integration policy in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This paper considers the experience of asylum seekers and refugees in Northern Ireland against the background of different periods of non-governance, arguing that consociationalism is hindering the implementation of an integration strategy. Northern Ireland is one of the only regions in the UK without a dedicated refugee integration strategy, in spite of one existing in draft form. As a devolved region, it sits outside the UK policy of asylum dispersal, but has to adhere to UK immigration legal policy. Northern Ireland has, however, the power to create and embed refugee integration policies and strategies as a devolved region. We seek to problematize the notion of refugee ‘integration’ within the context of a divided society, thereby questioning what it is asylum seekers and refugees are being asked to do within this discourse of integration. In a context where sectarianism continues to shape the spatial and social infrastructures, this is even more complex an aspiration.

"This is not censorship": The BBC and the Broadcasting Ban (1988-1994)

The broadcasting ban was in force between 1988 and 1994 in the United Kingdom. It is an example of direct censorship that affected the television and radio coverage of the situation in Northern Ireland. It was introduced when violence was escalating in Northern Ireland and when the broadcasting industry sought to assert its independence from the State by protecting its sources and giving a voice to those identified as the enemies. The notices issued on 19 October 1988 aimed both at calming the violence and at impeding directly the communication operated by the Republicans, in particular by Sinn Féin and the IRA. Thus, the Government used broadcasting, and TV in particular, in an attempt to stifle the voice of its enemies and to legitimise the government’s policy in Northern Ireland in the eyes of the public.While these measures did not radically change the representation of the IRA on TV, they did, however, have the effect of reinforcing the journalists, and the BBC’s self-censorship. They also had the unintended consequence of diverting media attention to other issues such as the links between loyalist paramilitaries and British security forces, or the daily lives of people in Northern Ireland.

The role of blended learning for community cohesion: lessons from Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This article presents research from teachers in Northern Ireland who completed a course on ‘blended learning’ to link schools involved in Shared Education. This is the Northern Ireland policy to bring pupils from different schools together to work collaboratively. Important findings showed that prior to 2017, when teachers received training in blended learning, nearly all contact between their schools was face to face. After the training, teachers stated that the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE) was used as much as face-to-face contact. The VLE had the greatest impact on pupils’ knowledge and attitudes towards each other. Teachers reported that this approach made a positive impact on friendship development, the capacity of children to work together, respect for difference and normalising relations between their pupils. Two thirds of the teachers agreed that equal importance be given to online learning and face-to-face contact in future planning.

Examining the legacy of the Warnock Report in Northern Ireland: A Foucauldian genealogical approach

Over 40 years after the publication of the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People, commonly referred to as the Warnock Report, this article uniquely considers its legacy in the context of Northern Ireland. The article adopts a Foucauldian genealogical approach to consider first the specific context of the ‘emergence’ or ‘origins’ of the Warnock Report in the 1970s, highlighting competing political forces and the positioning of the report at the very end of the age of post‐war welfarism. The approach details the key elements of the Warnock Report itself, and then charts the resulting development of SEN policy in Northern Ireland, culminating in the faltering process of reform which began in 2006 and has been partially completed but which has recently been halted by the collapse of the power‐sharing Executive and the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly in January 2017. The legacy of the Warnock Report is critically examined, identifying the main positive contributions of the report but also acknowledging the enduring challenges set against a complex current financial and political context. Finally, rather than leaving Warnock completely behind, a case is made for a fresh, detailed, context‐specific reading of this seminal report.

Gendering the institutional legacies of the Northern Ireland senior civil service

Abstract The adverse gender outcomes associated with post-conflict power-sharing arrangements contrast starkly with the socially transformative promise of the framework peace agreements which produce them. Scholarship that has sought to analyse the adverse gender outcomes which occur on imple - mentation has largely focused on the complexities of power-sharing institutional architecture and the role of elite political actors within it. This article makes the case for a new research direction. Parallel research in the field of post-conflict public administration indicates that the complexity of power-sharing institutional arrangements may provide increased opportunity structures for the use of bureaucratic discretion. While use of bureaucratic discretion among elite bureaucrats in Northern Ireland was found to be grounded in core public service values (O’Connor, 2015), feminist institutional analysis exposes those ostensibly benign values (neutrality, objectivity and impartiality) as distinctly gendered phenomena when mediated through the prism of gendered organisational culture (Chappell, 2002, 2006). This article considers the history and specificity of the Northern Ireland civil service and in particular its elite cohort of decision-makers - the senior civil service (SCS) - with a view to excavating the particular institutional legacies which may imbue SCS values and culture. In doing so it asks whether gendered institutional legacies have the potential to function as structural inhibitors to formal provisions for gender equality and socially transformative policy in Northern Ireland’s post-conflict dispensation.

The effect of area based urban regeneration policies on fuel poverty: Evidence from a natural experiment in Northern Ireland

This paper studies the effect of the most extensive area based regeneration policy in Northern Ireland – Neighbourhood Renewal (NR) – on fuel poverty using a natural experiment approach. NR was launched in 2003 in Northern Ireland as a holistic area-based regeneration policy to improve the lives, prospects and environments of residents living in thirty-six of the nation's most deprived areas over a seven- to ten-year roll-out. Using data from the Northern Ireland Household Panel Survey and from the Understanding Society survey, the effect on fuel poverty during a twelve year period is investigated. Difference-in-difference regression modelling of the impact of NR on fuel poverty provides evidence of a 3.0% reduction in fuel poverty comparing respondents in NR areas with the rest of Northern Ireland and a 4.7% decline relative to a similarly deprived control group. When the effect on heterogeneous characteristics of the sample is explored, the analysis reveals that NR has been particularly effective in relieving fuel poverty among groups with lower qualifications, the retired and those receiving benefits, and has therefore contributed to a reduction in inequalities within the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland.

‘No textbook solutions to the problems in Northern Ireland’: Airey Neave and the Conservative Party's Northern Ireland Policy, 1975–1979

This article examines Airey Neave's contribution to the Conservative Party's Northern Ireland policy from 1975 to 1979, a hitherto neglected subject related to the Conservative Party, the Northern Ireland Troubles and more generally contemporary British history. It challenges the widely held misconception that Neave was simply a militarist when it came to Northern Ireland; that as shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland his sole objective was to defeat Republican terrorists. On the contrary, while he sought ‘complete victory’ over Republican paramilitaries, Neave remained committed to finding a workable solution amongst the political parties in Northern Ireland in the hope of ending direct rule. The article re-evaluates Neave's attitude to devolution in Northern Ireland. Specifically, whether he championed the restoration of devolved government, based on a power-sharing executive, or if he favoured a return to majority-rule in Northern Ireland. It refutes the argument that Neave was a committed integrationist, that he supported integrating Northern Ireland fully within the United Kingdom. Rather, it is argued that he can be most adequately described as a champion of so-called ‘compromise integration’, which advocated reform of local government in Northern Ireland, with the establishment of one or more Regional Councils.

‘No textbook solutions to the problems in Northern Ireland’: Airey Neave and the Conservative Party's Northern Ireland Policy, 1975–1979

‘No textbook solutions to the problems in Northern Ireland’: Airey Neave and the Conservative Party's Northern Ireland Policy, 1975–1979

Prized Landscapes and Recreation Policy in Northern Ireland: the Mournes Exemplar

Prized Landscapes and Recreation Policy in Northern Ireland: the Mournes Exemplar

Partition, postal services and Ulster unionist politics 1921–27

This article examines the origins and development of the notion of an “all-red” mail route policy in Northern Ireland in the years 1921–27 and what it reveals about the fractious nature of Ulster Unionism, its attitude to partition, and the construction of a separate Ulster identity. It explores the effects of partition on the notions of space and identity in Ireland, as well as how it affected the notion of a state under siege. Drawing on the largely untapped material in the British Postal Museum Archives, cabinet papers, parliamentary debates and local and national newspapers, it aims to contribute to current historiography of Northern Ireland and Ulster unionism in the 1920s by looking at the ways local and sectional interests affected official policy, its attitudes to the Irish Free State and partition, and the more tangential debate concerning both unionist and nationalist perceptions of Northern Ireland's identity. Finally, it examines the role of post and communications in and its relation to state building in Ireland during this transitional period which has hitherto largely been ignored in Irish history.

A history of bovine tuberculosis eradication policy in Northern Ireland.

Despite many years of state-sponsored efforts to eradicate the disease from cattle through testing and slaughter, bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is still regarded as the most important and complex of animal health challenges facing the British livestock agricultural industry. This paper provides a historical analysis of the ongoing bTB statutory eradication programme in one part of the UK - Northern Ireland (NI) - which began in 1949 as a voluntary scheme, but between 1959 and 1960 became compulsory for all cattle herd-owners. Tracing bTB back through time sets the eradication efforts of the present day within a deeper context, and provides signposts for what developed in subsequent decades. The findings are based primarily on empirical research using historical published reports of the Ministry of Agriculture and state documents held in the public archives in NI, and they emphasize the need to consider the economic, social and political contexts of disease eradication efforts and their influences on both the past and the present.

Translating for linguistic minorities in Northern Ireland: a look at translation policy in the judiciary, healthcare, and local government

Europe as a multilingual continent hosts three main types of languages: dominant languages, autochthonous minority languages, and new minority languages. From a policy standpoint, planning for speakers of these languages and their needs become a complex matter in which many actors with different interests are involved. Of the many issues which policy-makers must deal with, the role of translation is often unexplored. However, in any multilingual territory, the adoption of a language policy implies decisions whether to translate or not. With that understanding, this paper explores the role of translation in language policy in Northern Ireland. By doing so, we highlight the translation implications of policy decisions. This helps to illustrate the complexity of language and translation policy. In detail, the paper explores the complexities of language policy as seen in translation policies for speakers of Irish, Ulster Scots, and new minority languages. Specifically, it considers translation policies in the judicial system, in the healthcare system, and in local governments.

The Dynamics of Policy-Making under UK Devolution: Social Housing in Northern Ireland

Housing policy formation under the United Kingdom's devolution settlement is currently under-researched and insufficiently understood. This article uses the example of social housing policy-making in Northern Ireland to reflect on its impact. Five factors with the potential to influence post-devolution policy-making are identified: common UK citizenship and ideology, policy networks, the political process, the mechanics of devolution and membership of the European Union. A post-devolution review of social housing policy in Northern Ireland is followed by a discussion of three key issues from the 2007 to 2011 administration: governance, procurement of new social housing, and ‘shared space’ and a shared future. Interviews with policy-makers indicate that 2007–2011 marked the beginnings of a trend away from the technocratic domination of officials towards greater intervention and policy ownership by politicians, but that the significance of this should not be overstated. The implications for multi-level and multi-jurisdictional policy-making in devolved and federal states are considered.

Evaluating fuel poverty policy in Northern Ireland using a geographic approach

Recent audits have shown that anti-fuel poverty policies in the UK depend on loosely defined targeting and cannot accurately identify fuel poor households. New methods of targeting are necessary to improve fuel poverty policy. This paper uses Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques to evaluate the targeting of a home energy efficiency scheme small area level in Northern Ireland, based on the level of need. The concept of need is modelled using an area-based, multi-dimensional fuel poverty risk index. The characteristics and spatial distribution of household retrofits are explored. Policy activity and expenditure are compared with the level of need in an area. Results indicate that policy activity is only weakly associated with the level of need in an area, although policy appears to be well targeted in a few areas. Contrary to existing evidence, rural areas appear to be well served by policy, receiving above average numbers of retrofits and expenditure. There are typically two types of retrofit (major and minor). Most retrofits are minor and may not reduce fuel poverty. These results evidence the limitations of the current targeting system and suggest that there may be scope for improved policy implemented via a more proactive, area-based approach.

Critiquing recent abortion law and policy in Northern Ireland

The lack of a clear and accessible law specifically outlining when abortion is legal in Northern Ireland has led to confusion and misinformation among the public, health professionals, politicians, lobby groups and the media. Hard won Departmental Guidance and legal challenges to it provide evidence of religious and cultural bias at an institutional level against abortion in any circumstances. The introduction of Northern Ireland’s first private abortion clinic in 2012 has brought the debate into sharper focus. This commentary explores recent developments in abortion regulation and the failings of the two legislatures in Belfast and Westminster to live up to both domestic legal standards and international human rights law on reproductive health.

GRP-006 A Policy Review of the Application of the Integrated Medicines Management Service Model in Northern Ireland

BackgroundSince 2002, the Integrated Medicines Management Service (IMM) has strategically re-engineered clinical pharmacy services in the five acute Health and Social Care Trusts (HSCTs) in Northern Ireland. The Department of...