Two long running sagas
There's no real comparison between the Bloody Sunday inquiry and the Review of Public Administration. However the two long running sagas appear to be winding towards the same week for a conclusion of sorts.
The Saville Inquiry has been running for 12 years, and after £190 million of expenditure, its report is due out next Tuesday, with the Guardian predicting today that it will conclude that a number of civilians shot dead by the army were unlawfully killed.
The RPA is, thankfully, more prosaic stuff, although the talk of streamlining bureaucracy here stretches back almost as long, to at least 2001. The projected cost of cutting 26 councils down to 11 is £118 million (with net savings predicted in the future). Executive ministers couldn't make a decision on the issue last night, after one of the longest meetings to be held in Stormont Castle concluded at about 7.30 pm. Instead they are holding more discussions over the weekend with the intention of holding a special meeting to make a final decision on Monday.
How many councils we have is of course nothing to do with the truth about Bloody Sunday. But the housekeeping involved next week dictates that the publication of Tuesday's report will almost certainly interrupt "normal" politics for a few days, which means that Monday really does feel like the last chance for Executive ministers to sort out their council mess.
Last night DUP and Sinn Fein ministers frequently adjourned the Executive to go off into huddles to try to make progress on local government. The fact that discussions are due to continue over the weekend points to a determined effort to breathe new life into "Plan A" - the move towards 11 councils. But we won't know until Tuesday whether that's succeeded.
On Tuesday the Deputy First Minister will have to concentrate entirely on Bloody Sunday. There will be considerable interest not only in what the 5500 page report says about the activities of the Paras, and whether any soldiers might face prosecution, but also how it deals with the allegations surrounding Martin McGuinness himself.
According to the Inquiry Counsel the Tribunal will have to decide:
"a. whether there is a period of about 20 minutes for which Mr McGuinness cannot account; and, if so
b. whether this is innocenetly explained by Mr McGuinness' inability, after more than 30 years, to provide a precise account of his movements; or
c. whether Mr McGuinness was in fact involved in paramilitary activity during that time.
The Tribunal will also wish to consider whether Mr McGuinness was ivolved in any attack on the security forces at any time during the day, other than the shooting towards the Walls at 5.30 - 6pm which he admits having ordered."
The day after the Inquiry publishes its report Mr McGuinness is due to travel to Liverpool, where the team behind the Derry-Londonderry City of Culture bid for 2013 are due to make their final bid to the judging team. Perhaps the First Minister will go too, or perhaps that will depend on what the Saville report says.
I'm aware as I write that mixing together Bloody Sunday, the local councils and the City of Culture feels slightly odd. But it's also a fair representation of how far we've come in the last 38 years and the strange competing realities which govern Northern Ireland in 2010.
P.S. Preparing for next Tuesday I read through the section of the Bloody Sunday Counsel's report which dealt with Martin McGuinness and the claim from a Security Service agent, codenamed Infliction, that the Deputy First Minister had told him he had fired the shot which started the whole episode. Mr McGuinness has flatly denied this claim.
Amongst the witnesses the Inquiry spoke to on this point is the former Security Service employee David Shayler who said his colleagues gave him the opinion that Infliction was (if you can pardon my English this is a direct quote) a "bulls**tter". This may very well turn out to be the truth, but I wonder if Lord Saville will also take into account subsequent newspaper claims from Mr Shayler that he (Mr Shayler) is in fact the Messiah?
I'm 
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