Doctor Paisley and Mister Clerk. Episode 7 – The Unravelling Part 1 – The Grand Old Duke of York…

In celebration of last month’s 25^th anniversary of powers being devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, former Clerk to the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, Paul Moore, has been sharing his recollections from the Assembly’s early days.

In this seventh (of eight) episodes, Paul returns from a day off – which involved his missing a Committee meeting – and is surprised and dismayed to discover that things have not gone well in his absence.

Audio versions of this episode (and the previous six) are available on Paul’s ‘Mister Clerk’ podcast which may be found on the Spotify, Apple and Amazon podcast platforms.

Episode 7 – The Unravelling Part 1 – The Grand Old Duke of York

I think that I have enjoyed a healthy working relationship with Dr Paisley, both from the start when I was Assistant Clerk and since I took over as Clerk.

That relationship has been entirely professional, of course. Nothing personal, although there was that one day of mild panic in June 2001, when I thought that he was going to attend my Mother’s funeral. Apparently, such a supportive gesture between Chair and Clerk wasn’t uncommon at Westminster, but ultimately the timings didn’t work for him to go.

And there was one other time, in November 2000, when the original Clerk and I were invited to the Paisley home on Cyprus Avenue to brief him on the Committee’s second Inquiry. We met Mrs. Paisley – addressed by Dr P as both “Eileen”, and “Mummy” – and I sampled more of her home-baked goodies that day than was probably appropriate.

My most abiding memory of that visit was the amount of security (both apparatus and personnel) present in the grounds of the house, and I remember thinking it was a credit to the Paisleys for being able to conduct any sort of family life at all in such a disruptive environment.

So, if you were to ask me about how I feel about the man himself, I could genuinely describe him as a witty, friendly, family man, and a professional and experienced public representative. I’ve seen him be a fair and inclusive advocate for his Committee’s members, and I mean all of them. And I have definitely seen signs of the statesman I think he aspires to be.

I can also respect his political longevity, his leadership skills and his utter lack of self-doubt.

But now – as we’re heading towards the Summer of 2002 – I feel that my relationship with him has been damaged – possibly beyond repair.

There has been no spectacular falling out – no one major dispute between us – but there has been a series of events that together have taken their toll and made me question whether I can continue working for this Committee with him as Chair.

One of the most significant of these events actually started with me missing a Committee meeting by taking the day off.

*

It’s the 11^th of February 2002, and I’m back after a great weekend which included a very rare Friday off. I’d cleared my absence with Dr Paisley and arranged that the day’s Committee meeting would be covered by a Clerking colleague called Damien.

The day’s agenda had been entirely innocuous, and I had anticipated that all would go smoothly for Damien. From what I’m hearing, it seems it did not.

My Assistant Clerk has just told me that there was a members’ meltdown, prompted by allegations made by fisheries representatives about the behaviour of two DARD officials. This has, apparently, resulted in a demand that a letter be sent to the department requiring the officials to come before the Committee to answer the allegations.

I seek out Damien first, and he is still a bit shell shocked by his experience and not really able to explain it. I need to know exactly what has gone down, so I ask the Assembly IT team to lend me the tape recording of the meeting. Very few people know this, but all meetings are taped as they happen – the recordings are for internal use only, however.

I start the tape, and I can hear several pieces of regular business being conducted without incident. All was going perfectly well, but then it was the turn of the two Fish Producers Organisations to update the Committee on how things are going in that industry.

The first presentation goes as I’d expected. The second (from the ANIFPO team) does not. They launch into a list of complaints about the proposed fishing vessels decommissioning scheme and about two DARD officials in particular – Jim and Peter, who are no strangers to the Committee.

Alan, the ANIFPO CEO, says that he has no confidence in these officials and alleges that they have been unhelpful to the fishermen, and to the Committee. More specifically he states that the officials have misled the Committee about the scheme. Worse still, he alleges that the officials have bragged about misleading the Committee, scoffing that members would not, in any event, be able to understand what they were being told!

Even through the hiss of the less-than-clear tape recording I can sense members’ hackles rising in the room as this went on. Poor Damien, I think, particularly since he knew nothing about the fishermen, the under-fire officials or the scheme they were talking about!

What I hear next on the tape is a master class in rabble-rousing from Dr Paisley. In a very short space of time, he has every one of the members (Republican, Unionist and Nationalist) up to (as my Mother used to say) ‘high doe’.

He reinforces their initial surprise and annoyance with loud articulation of his own shock and outrage, encouraging them to be angry, inflaming their emotions. This goes on until the Committee, to a man, is filled with fury and (metaphorically, I hope) demanding the heads of the two officials. The only thing missing in the room, it seems, is a supply of pitchforks and torches.

Dr Paisley has, in less than five minutes, truly marched them all to the ‘top of the hill’. I can see how he has garnered so many followers and successfully opposed so many things. He is extremely good at this: I realise that I’m listening to a master at work.

*

Such is the power of the man, I can’t say for sure that I would have been able to head off this ‘group hysteria’ had I been in the room last Friday. But I would certainly have tried.

I reckon it is possible that the officials might well have privately made disparaging remarks about the Committee’s members – if I’m honest, I may even have made a few myself – but I just can’t envisage them doing so in front of key stakeholders. Nor, frankly, do I think they would set out to deliberately mislead a Statutory Committee.

I get straight on to the DALO (the department’s Assembly liaison officer), to warn him about what is about to come the Department’s way. We quickly organize a meeting between the Chair and Deputy Chair and the Minister and her senior officials for the following day.

Unfortunately, this meeting doesn’t help, after the DARD folk admit that there had been a mistake in the guidance issued to fishermen about the decommissioning scheme. This part-confirmation of the fishermen’s allegations serves only to fire up the Chairman even further.

*

I know I really have to get to the bottom of this, and over the next few days I go through (in forensic detail) all of the correspondence about this scheme. I can’t see any evidence of the Committee being misled, although I do establish that one page of an important fax is missing (but not whose fault that was).

Importantly, though, I also identify a possible reason why the fishermen’s representatives have ‘lashed out’. It seems that ANIFPO may be trying to ‘game’ the decommissioning scheme, They want a change made to the scheme to remove the requirement that the recipient of a decommissioning grant must not purchase another vessel within ten years of the grant. And they’re now asking for the Committee’s help to get that change made.

It seems the DARD officials are refusing to play ball, and I can see why that’s the case. The scheme has the stated aim of reducing fleet numbers and mitigating the issue of over-fishing. Yet these fishermen seemingly want to be paid (handsomely, and with public money) to leave the fishing industry – an industry in which they constantly argue they can’t make any money – but are now insisting that they should, in the near future, be able to buy another boat and return to the industry?

What a cheek! My advice to the Committee today is, I’ll admit, influenced by my personal views and members accept my (somewhat biased, but factually accurate) suggestion that they should reply to ANIFPO stating that the Committee is not empowered to make or amend subordinate legislation to effect the change they seek.

Although members are still being ‘egged on’ by the Chairman, they aren’t quite as excitable today, and they also agree my draft letter to the Department, which has a much-softened tone to that being demanded by members on Friday.

I am acutely aware that I am not strictly following members’ original ‘orders’, but I feel it is part of my role to protect them from doing something they might later regret.

*

I’m by no means out of the woods, though. Dr Paisley seems to be itching to exercise the Committee’s statutory power to (as the law states) ‘call for persons and papers’. Under that power, a refusal to attend (or provide papers to) the Committee could result in a formal notice being given to that person by the Assembly Speaker. Ultimately, such a formal notice can be legally enforced.

Dr P clearly thinks that these allegations present his chance to flex this particular Committee ‘muscle’ (as another trailblazing first). I didn’t think the allegations are nearly serious enough to go down the formal statutory route, and I make my views clear to the Chairman, and to the members.

Furthermore, the department has conducted its own investigation into the behaviour of the two officials in question and has found no wrong-doing on their part. A copy of their findings was provided to the Committee. However, with the Chairman’s encouragement, some of the members still feel they should be allowed to reach their own conclusions about the two officials.

So, threats of issuing a statutory notice have been made but have been ignored by the Minister, and the Speaker has now been approached (against my advice) to issue a formal notice. I cannot believe it has come to this.

*

Some politicians have sensitive political antennae. They can feel which way the wind is blowing, and they avoid situations that might reflect badly on them.

Dr Paisley wasn’t available to attend the next two Committee meetings – one before and one following the Easter recess – at which the Committee’s formal call for fisheries officials to attend a meeting fell apart. George Savage was left to chair both of these meetings.

You might think there is a connection between those two statements. I couldn’t possibly comment.

*

It’s the 22^nd of March, and the Assembly’s legal adviser, Claire, has just briefed members that the Speaker is reluctant to issue the formal notice in relation to the officials appearing before the Committee, not least because it is considered likely that the Department will seek a judicial review of his use of this Statutory power.

Furthermore, the advice is that such a review is unlikely to find that the subject matter is sufficiently serious to warrant the use of that power: there has been no ‘smoking gun’ found to suggest that the Committee has been misled. Yep, I think. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them.

With the chief pot-stirrer not attending today’s meeting, and his son staying surprisingly quiet, members meekly agree that exercise of the statutory power is not, after all, the way to go and that proposals to end the dispute – hastily drafted by me – should be put to the Minister.

George has to sign the agreed letter to the Minister, in which it is obvious that the Committee is backing down.

After the next meeting (on the 12^th of April) he also has to write to the Speaker to officially ‘call him off’ from giving formal notice. George is not best pleased about having to do either.

*

The final episode of this saga is due to take place at today’s meeting. It’s the 19^th of April meeting, and Dr Paisley is back in the Chair. Dear me. This is beyond awkward!

The Chairman moves the meeting into private session, and the Gallery is cleared. DARD’s delegation troops in, with Peter (the most junior official) surrounded by three of his most senior management, like a cub under the Pride’s protection. There is no sign of Jim, and his absence is not explained.

Dr Paisley is noticeably subdued. Members half-heartedly ask a number of questions which were sent to DARD in advance. Peter answers them quietly and succinctly, then leaves the room. This takes less than 20 minutes. The DARD Senior managers stay on, and my minutes of proceedings will need to report that a “full and frank discussion” is taking place between them and the Committee members.

It is indeed a very feisty exchange. Members are clearly not happy at the alleged sleight, and their subsequent humiliation, while the senior officials aren’t happy with what they see as the Committee’s attempted interference in the Department’s internal staffing matters.

As the meeting is brought to an end, I let out a massive sigh of relief. This issue has taken a full ten weeks to resolve, with masses of correspondence to-and-fro, legal advice, heated meetings and, frankly, a lot of unnecessary heartache for me and for my team.

The Committee’s relationship with the department has also been damaged. And all as a result of the petulance and questionable agenda of some fishermen’s representatives, combined with the Chairman’s predilection to the incitement of fury in others, and then his subsequent stubbornness in the face of the actual evidence (or, rather, the lack of any).

This has not been Dr Paisley’s ‘finest hour’ as Chairman, and I am quite sure that members will not be as quick to march up the hill behind him in future.

*

To add insult to injury, this whole debacle has created some direct friction between the Chairman and me.

I happen to know one of the two Fisheries officials embroiled in this dispute (Jim) reasonably well from my time in the Department. We wouldn’t regard ourselves as friends, but we get on well whenever our paths cross.

A week or so ago, I popped into Jim’s office in the ‘Annex’, close to Castle Buildings. It was Jim’s birthday and I’d heard there was a ‘bun worry’ in his office. Fond of a bun (or two) I spent about 20 minutes having a cup of tea with him and other colleagues and wishing him ‘many happy returns’. Standard civil service stuff.

But I have just arrived at Dr Paisley’s office to discuss upcoming Committee business, and he says to me: “Would it be true, Mister Clerk, that you went to see one of the DARD fisheries officials that’s in trouble with us?”

I am shocked, and a bit annoyed, at his inference (as I see it) that I might, somehow, have been ‘fraternizing with the enemy’, and therefore acting against his and the Committee’s interests.

I am also taken aback that Dr Paisley’s ‘sphere of influence’ extends, apparently, to having spies in the fisheries Annex, but that, I suppose, is just me being naïve. He probably has spies everywhere.

I explain that I had simply been wishing a happy birthday to a former colleague and assure him that there was no mention made of the dispute or of Jim’s part in it. In short, I have nothing to hide. Dr Paisley seems to accept my explanation, but his demeanour also suggests that he is taking pleasure in letting me know what he knows.

I have been feeling less and less comfortable in my relationship with Dr Paisley, and this whole episode makes me feel that my integrity, and my loyalty to the Committee, are being questioned.

I am concerned that this could become a major problem between us, but what on earth can I do about it?

Next time: In the final episode of this Mister Clerk series, Paul reviews the events that have affected his opinion of, and respect for, the Chairman and the other Committee members. It’s time to consider the future: should he stay as the Committee’s Clerk? Does he even have a say in the matter?

This is a guest slot to give a platform for new writers either as a one off, or a prelude to becoming part of the regular Slugger team.