MICHEÁL Martin has said he is “open” to nuclear power in Ireland, although he has questioned the cost.

The taoiseach was responding to questions about a motion at next month’s Fianna Fáil conference supporting nuclear power, intended to start a national debate on the subject.

This is bound to leak some political radiation across the border.

Sinn Féin will latch onto every protest against it, while unionists will suggest a reactor in Northern Ireland to wind up Sinn Féin.

David Adams: I’m a former loyalist who supports a ‘New Ireland’, but why won’t anyone tell me what it will be like?

Technology is also set to transform the debate. The taoiseach is correct about the economics of nuclear power in a small country, but if the push for small modular reactors is a success, their use in Ireland would become more plausible from a financial and practical perspective.

From a political perspective it remains completely implausible.

Merely building a power line across the border has provoked two decades of Nimby outrage, pandered to by almost every party, north and south.

Fianna Fáil demanded the line be halted when it was in opposition and some of its local representatives are still objecting to it to this day.

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Michelle O’Neill attended the Irish government’s Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin on Sunday, in her capacity as First Minister.

TUV leader Jim Allister has demanded to know why the DUP did not stop this being publicised on the Executive’s official X account.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill has attended the annual Easter Rising commemoration event in Dublin.

The ceremony, which was led by President Catherine Connolly, marked the 110th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. pic.twitter.com/0pOw8cFFPM

This was a jibe at the DUP, not at O’Neill, and the DUP wisely ignored it.

The first ministers can veto anything at their joint office but a truce clearly prevails: Sinn Féin did not stop the same X account promoting Emma Little-Pengelly’s visit to the White House last month, nor of course did Mr Allister mention it.

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Cliftonville Football Club has condemned disorder by some fans around their Irish Cup semi-final defeat last Friday, the second year this has occurred.

The club has also expressed alarm at comments by Assembly Speaker Edwin Poots, the DUP MLA for the area.

“I’ll make it very clear: the local community are not going to accept it any more,” he told the BBC.

“If that involves them having to come out and sit on the road in large numbers and ensure that these people will not be able to access Windsor Park, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Blocking the road is an offence, as is breaking Parades Commission conditions – the supporters had to notify their march to the commission and any residents’ counter-demonstration would have to do the same.

Nothing in Mr Poots’ remarks endorsed or advocated breaking the law. He was explaining the frustration of residents over what they consider inadequate policing.

It would be helpful to make that very clear.

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People Before Profit has launched a campaign against a planned 50,000-bird poultry shed in Moneymore due to the impact on Lough Neagh of effluent from chicken farms.

Planners at Mid Ulster council have indicated they support the development on economic grounds.

While the applicant has said slurry will be transported to Moy Park’s anaerobic digester in Ballymena and converted to electricity, that does not address pollution concerns.

Anaerobic digestion does not remove the polluting nutrients from slurry. It just changes them into forms of ammonia that pollute the air as well as the water.

They remain in the sludge coming out of the digester, which is sold to farms to as a liquid fertiliser. It is the slurry circle of life.

Northern Ireland has the worst ammonia pollution in the UK, producing an extraordinary 12% of the entire country’s emissions, effectively all from agriculture.

This is a primary driver of the crisis in Lough Neagh.

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The Education Authority says hackers failed to access pupil or teacher information during a cyber-attack on its C2K schools network.

This is fortunate, as experts have been warning for years about its vulnerability and inflexibility, most recently in an Audit Office report last July.

When C2K was set up in 2000 it was so far ahead of its time it was still considered world-leading a decade later – an aeon in computer terms.

It has been regularly updated throughout its life but this had reached its limit by 2020, when the pandemic delayed plans for a replacement.

A new system is finally being installed and should be completed next year.

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Amnesty Northern Ireland has written to UUP health minister Mike Nesbitt urging him to “block any involvement of the US software company Palantir in the local health service”.

Palantir won a seven-year, £330m contract with the NHS in England two years ago to integrate and analyse patient data and use it to reduce waiting times.

Amnesty is objecting to the firm’s links to the Trump administration and contracts with the Israeli government, but its concerns appear to be grandstanding.

There has been no indication that Northern Ireland’s health service might use Palantir, and no wonder.

For the past two years it has been rolling out its own integrated data system under a 10-year, £360 million contract with another US company, Wisconsin-based Epic.

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Lidl is building its first ever pub beside its supermarket in Dundonald, as a consequence of Northern Ireland’s absurd licensing laws.

The company was unable to acquire an off-sales licence but it did manage to obtain a pub licence, which also permits off-sales.

Readers who find this concept vaguely familiar might recall nightclubs in Belfast years ago that would open until 3am under a restaurant licence.

A pizza would occasionally be passed around to keep everything above board, not that anyone had much of an appetite.

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Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council is refusing to admit that its new kerbside recycling system is a fiasco.

Since it was introduced in December, tiny bins and chaotic collections have caused rubbish to build up across the district.

In January, the council said it was giving the collection company, Bryson House, until February to resolve staffing issues.

Residents have now launched a petition claiming nothing has improved and the council will not listen to complaints.

The adjacent Mid and East Antrim Borough Council is phasing out a similar system and returning to mixed recycling wheelie bins, after 15 years of wrestling with similar problems.

The extra rubbish in Newtownabbey is clearly visible in hedges and verges when you cross the council boundary.

It is quite an achievement to make an area noticeably more litter-strewn when you drive into it from north Belfast.

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