There has been a good deal of controversy about the proposal, leaked this week, to use the Maze as a prison again, this time to house what one paper referred to as 'foreign' prisoners. Leaving aside the fact that many Unionists believed that was what the Maze was for all along it initially seems like a fairly opportunist notion. One can imagine the discussion at the Home Office: we need somewhere to house the overflow of prisoners that we have but we can't take away visiting rights from the British families so why not just dump foreign criminals who are not going to get visitors anyway on that God forsaken outpost we have been trying to resolve for the last 30 years. It's payback time! And so what if for many in Northern Ireland, Unionist and Nationalist, this is a powerfully charged place – it'll teach them to behave in future!
However, with a little bit of judicious tweaking I have decided this might not be such a bad idea after all. The tweaking concerns swapping a couple of venues. We need a new soccer stadium for a start somewhere that is not too far from the city but not intimidating for those who have no deep felt affinity for Windsor Park. I know the Maze was in the running for this but how about Hillsborough Castle? There will be no need for this relic of an imperialist past once we kick out, sorry, replace those who are now in charge of direct rule. And if our experience of castle grounds are anything to go by then there is bound to be a bit of greenery big enough to accommodate an international size playing field. We could even turn the castle into a hotel for visiting teams and hire reception committees from the various parts of Belfast to give them a warm Norn Iron welcome. Warm being the operative word.
So having resolved the issue of a new sports stadium we can rethink the Maze. Hence the second part of this swap shop deal. We could send all the Assembly politicians to the Maze and use Stormont for the criminals. Now before you start that is not fair. There is no truth in the comment that Stormont is already full of gangsters happy to take tax payers money while not actually doing any work. Shame on you!
I merely suggest that it would be a useful proposition to put all the politicians in confined spaces from which they can have no escape until they agree to move forward with the rest of the population. We are already in the 21st century and if it takes two or three years in solitary confinement for our elected representatives to get there, so be it. We could even let them work, pretending we have no idea this is happening, on escape tunnels which can then be used as the basis of the underground transport system we will need now that lorries have taken to constantly shedding their loads on the motorway and closing Belfast down for a day at a time.
And look at the benefits of having all the criminals shacked up at Stormont. For a start a few forced marches up that mile hill will soon put the nonsense out of their heads. Secondly they have no idea what Stormont is and it will therefore be possible to tell them they are now in Ireland and by a swift slight of hand let the southern government pick up the bill from their mother countries.
The government, we are told, is keen on the idea of floating prisons to solve the prison crisis. Well we could flood the Maze site in the hope that the huts would float and them combine it with a Titanic Museum so that everyone feels they are getting what they wanted out of the old prison.
Personally I reckon the whole crazy plan is an attempt to suggest something so outrageous that it will achieve the impossible and bring the Northern Irish politicians together against a common enemy. The local MP for the area who bears an uncanny resemblance to Daniel O'Donnell even said that he was aghast at the idea because we need "to draw a line under the Troubles."
If any suggestion can make those public representatives who inhabit a kind of political Jurassic Park (another fine option for the Maze!) unite with their sworn enemies then I am all for it. Because maybe then we can sit across a table and decide for ourselves what we want to do with the sad, but profound, relics of a time when our daily lives constituted one horrific maze which, it seemed, no one had the courage to break out of.
