Michelle O’Neill has said it is “disgraceful” that the UK-wide puberty blocker trial for children with gender dysphoria has been paused in Northern Ireland by UUP health minister Mike Nesbitt.

The good news for the first minister is that her party can overturn the decision. Sinn Féin has the Executive numbers to call in and veto anything considered significant, controversial or affecting more than one department – the trial would certainly meet the first two of those criteria.

There is no sign as yet of Sinn Féin doing so, suggesting its objection is more of a posture than a policy.

Separately at the assembly, Mr Nesbitt has announced his department has opened negotiations on next year’s GP contracts with the GP Committee of the British Medical Association in Northern Ireland – effectively, the GPs’ trade union.

Linzi McLaren: We may have peace, but have mindsets really changed?

The minister said he was “delighted” with the news, and no wonder. The BMA rejected last year’s contract, assuming this would get it a better deal. Instead, Mr Nesbitt called its bluff and told GPs to take it or leave it.

One year on, it is clear he won this confrontation hands down and fairly clear he could do the same again.

**

Northern Ireland’s Sunday trading laws were liberalised three decades ago because large retailers, led by UK supermarkets, forced the issue by opening unlawfully and accepting the consequences.

It must be asked if a similar point of frustration will be reached with our hapless planning system.

Lidl wants to invest £500 million in 16 new stores across the region, creating 2,400 jobs and adding £475 million to the local economy.

But everything has been held up in planning for years – six years in Derry, for example.

While there is no suggestion Lidl would bypass the system, others have already done so.

Building without permission is not an offence, nor does it prevent obtaining permission later. It is only an offence to ignore a notice to stop or undo work, issued by council or Stormont planners.

Elected representatives generally cannot intervene in these notices. However, notices are suspended if appealed, another absurdly protracted process.

Such an appeal has enabled sand-dredging in Lough Neagh for the past 11 years.

Ironically, planners are increasingly forced to bend the rules themselves due to one of the state failures killing Lough Neagh.

NI Water routinely objects to all planning applications over sewage capacity and this is almost as routinely dismissed, otherwise nothing could be built across much of Northern Ireland.

**

Stormont has rejected a TUV proposal to reclaim a proportion of revenue from non-GAA events at Casement Park.

During a largely predictable debate at the assembly, Sinn Féin complained this was discrimination, the TUV insisted it would propose the same if any extra was spent on football or rugby, the DUP agreed with the concept that taxpayers should get a return on their investment, and People Before Profit said this should apply to all publicly-funded stadiums.

Nobody clarified that some of the extra money pledged for Casement is a very particular type of public funding.

The £50m announced by the government in June last year is Financial Transactions Capital (FTC), a loan Westminster gives to Stormont on condition it is used to buy a stake in something, then repaid with the profits.

The government has said Casement’s FTC does not have to be repaid but the other conditions apparently stand: the Executive should own a £50m stake in the redeveloped stadium, whether it takes a cut of the revenue or not.

**

An Alliance MLA has called for a better understanding of the increase in home-schooling, which has risen by 50% in the past three years.

Michelle Guy said she has no issue with home schooling in principle but is concerned some families may feel forced into it due to failures in the education system around bullying, special needs or other support.

These are valid concerns but perspective is needed: the officially-reported total is still tiny, at 1,220 children, or 0.3% of the school-age population.

Ms Guy says the true total could be “much higher” as reporting is not mandatory. Even so, it may be a few thousand at most.

The likeliest explanation for an increase on this scale is simply more awareness of the option since the pandemic.

**

In January, DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley claimed US firm Cantor Fitzgerald may have scrapped 300 jobs in Belfast due to Sinn Féin’s position on Gaza, and that this happened at a meeting in Washington with Sinn Féin economy minister Caoimhe Archibald.

Mr Buckley made a mess of a subsequent interview on BBC’s The View, letting Sinn Féin escape in the confusion.

Yet it is a fact that the meeting took place and the jobs were cancelled after a discussion of “current geopolitical issues” – a fact everyone involved is still refusing to explain.

Invest NI has asked for more time to answer a freedom of information request from the News Letter, while it considers the risk to UK economic interests, commercial sensitivity and the health and safety of individuals.

What can be said for certain at this stage is that the DUP should have given someone else the job of appearing on the BBC.

**

Another cost is about to be added to the sea border, although for once the Windsor Framework cannot be blamed.

The UK is introducing an emissions tax for ferries from July to align with a similar tax planned by the EU. However, the EU is phasing its tax in over three years, so routes to the EU will have theirs phased in to match.

The government has decided to phase Northern Ireland’s tax in as well, starting at 50%, so it is not disadvantaged compared to routes to the Republic.

The shipping industry says this will still add 6% to delivery costs here and it has already done all it can to reduce emissions. As we have seen with electric cars, once government gets used to revenue, it keeps taxing anyway.

But the real victim in all of this is the Isle of Wight, the only internal UK route that will pay the full tax from the start.

Scottish islands have been permanently exempted under a condition copied from the EU for remote islands with fewer than 200,000 people. The Isle of Wight has fewer than 200,000 people but has been told it is not sufficiently remote.

**

Last week, Sinn Féin finance minister John O’Dowd secured a £400 million emergency advance from the Treasury to meet pay rises in his draft budget.

No sooner had he done so than next year’s pay demands came in.

There is an argument that Stormont does not need to keep matching public sector pay in Britain, as our cost of living is lower. But if this is the political choice it wants to make, there is no reason it cannot be affordable: the Executive gets its own annual pay rise via the block grant.

Money keeps running out because Stormont also chooses to maintain a higher level of public sector employment than in Britain, most of it concentrated in administrative and management roles.

Ministers should be able to tell unions that pay parity with Britain is linked to employment parity and the reforms necessary to bring staffing levels down.

Of course, that would involve showing some backbone.

If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click here.

Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.

© The Irish News