U turn if U want to
There were a couple of good examples of apparent U turns during Committee hearings today.
This morning the SDLP's Declan O'Loan took Sammy Wilson to task about how much he was really saving by cutting back on bonuses for senior civil servants. Sammy protested that his policy would save taxpayers more than £1 million. Declan responded that this was small beer within the context of an overall budget for the bonuses of £530 million.
After a quick bit of mental arithmetic, Sammy responded that there were around 250 civil servants concerned and if Declan's figures were accurate they would be getting bonuses of around £2 million each, which was impossible.
Mr O'Loan replied that he was relying on the minister's own information and started reading from a document, only to get half way through before admitting "I'm sorry, I was misquoting the minister".
Laughter all around, followed by Mr O'Loan's admission that "if you're ina hole you've got to know when to stop digging".
Then this afternoon there was another screech of brakes. This time the OFMDFM Chair Danny Kennedy appeared to have his seat belt on and be taxi-ing towards the runway as he noted his Committee's plan to fly out to the USA. However Sinn Fein's Martina Anderson quickly cut across him with an announcement that she wouldn't be going on any transatlantic trip.
At the end of the Committee meeting Mr Kennedy explained that the US trip had been envisaged as part of the Committee's brief for looking after international affairs. They would be able to examine the work of the Executive's Northern Ireland Bureau in Washington.
But Martina Anderson, Jimmy Spratt and Naomi Long all sounded far from convinced. In the light of the current economic conditions and the heavy workload envisaged this autumn, they weren't happy about Committee members jetting off for a trip.
The Chair and any members who might have been looking forward to the US trip quickly got the message and agreed to "long finger" the outing, although it seems another journey, maybe to Europe, could still be in the offing.
I'm 
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