Acting O'Loan
It's been another busy day what with the Scottish and Welsh First Ministers up at Stormont and the Finance Department chewing over the £128 million of savings they are required to make either this year or next.
So maybe that's why I didn't immediately spot Declan O'Loan's ground breaking call for a It also didn't help that I don't seem to be on his e-mail list.
According to the rumours around Stormont the screams could be heard down the corridors from angry SDLP MLAs of the view that Mr O'Loan's initiative drove a horse and coaches through all their criticism of first the unionist pact in Fermanagh and then Sinn Fein's calls for a nationalist response.
Instead of deepening Mr O'Loan's embarrassment by welcoming his one man initiative, Sinn Fein stuck in the boot by accusing him of partitionism as he had talked about a single nationalist party in Northern Ireland. Both unionist parties waded in chortling about the SDLP's "flagrant hypocrisy".
Mr O'Loan's initiative lasted about three hours when he issued a statement withdrawing his original call. Strangely he wasn't available for further explanation.
As the news broke of Mr O'Loan acting O'Loan, Alex Attwood was preparing for his first question time as Social Development Minister. Mr Attwood acknowledged that Belfast's Royal Exchange regeneration project, which had been expected to cost £360 million and to create 2000 construction jobs and 1000 retail jobs would not now go ahead. The DSD will have to soon surrender £110 million which had been earmarked for the scheme - Mr Attwood is hoping to claw back some of that cash for urban regeneration elsewhere. But coming on a day when the Treasury has just imposed £128 million of cuts and the Finance Minister Sammy Wilson has talked about not redistributing any money which departments can't spend putting a lot of that Royal Exchange money towards deficit reduction may look like an attractive option.
I'm 
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