Tied down by devolution
We had been given a heads up. Gerry Adams was about to threaten that the Stormont institutions' survival was in peril. His logic being that unionists were engaging in "irrational hostility" to Irish language schools. This came during a DUP sponsored debate alleging that Caitriona Ruane had been giving favourable treatment to an Irish language primary school in Derry. The Sinn Fein President was about to argue that if the parties failed to work together in the common good we could "march back into meltdown and failure".
Then, as Gerry was about to get to his killer quote, Peter Weir jumped to his feet. Was the DUP member going to fight fire with fire? Well not quite. What the North Down MLA wanted to check with the Speaker was whether Gerry should be wearing a tie.
Puzzled looks all around. The Speaker Willie Hay confirmed that the Sinn Fein President, wearing a jacket but no tie, was not breaking any dress code.
Mr Adams tried to pick up his thread, and delivered his warning about "meltdown" but somehow Mr Weir's bizarre intervention took the stuffing out of him. Memo to SF: next time you threaten to bring down Stormont, remember to wear a tie.
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