Debate contribution: St Andrews Agreement: 20 Years On
Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 13 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- St Andrews Agreement: 20 Years On
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5789472
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I beg to move
After the division and toxicity of last night, the Opposition are doing what we have done for almost the past three years, which is getting back to the business of focusing on people's needs, on their public services, on how we work together in partnership to make this place work, on how we live up to the spirit of the 1998 agreement and on the idea that, as a people, we are better when we focus on the common good rather than on what divides us. I am disappointed but perhaps not surprised that the two main parties are so poorly represented here today when they turned up with such enthusiasm last night to sling mud at one another. We profoundly disagreed with the motives behind the motions, but we turned up to participate in those debates. The same courtesy has not been extended to the official Opposition as we come here today to do our business and hold the Executive collectively to account. We are 20 years on from the St Andrews Agreement. I do not want to focus on all the detail of the St Andrews Agreement or spend a huge amount of time re-litigating the rights and wrongs of it. I and the Opposition want to use it, however, as an opportunity to look back at some of what has happened over the past 20 years and think about how we change the way this place works, whatever our long-term aspiration. We are proudly and unashamedly a party that believes in a new Ireland, but we also believe that the best way to get there is to build a better Northern Ireland along the way and prove that we are sincere in our belief in the common good and common purpose, leading to the new Ireland that we want to live in. We respect the people who do not share that aspiration, whether they are unionist or simply do not to take a view, and do not agree with it. The St Andrews Agreement happened in 2006. For those who are interested in history, that was a year after I graduated from the university in the same place. We can have a debate about which of us has aged better. Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you would not possibly take a view, given that you are in the Chair today. It was 20 years ago. In this place, at times, it feels as though time flies, but, at other times, it feels as though time moves extremely slowly, because people, at times, want to drag us back into the past. However, we need to be focused on the future and how we build for the future. The original Good Friday Agreement was based on the principle of partnership and power-sharing, specifically consociationalism as the technical means by which we share power. St Andrews moved that forward. In some ways, it moved us backwards, but it moved us forward in that it allowed a power-sharing Government, led by Sinn Féin and the DUP, to be re-established in 2007. I acknowledge that that involved big political decisions and, indeed, courage from the leaders of both those parties at that time. It would be churlish not to acknowledge that and pretend that it did not involve real courage, trade-offs, decision-making and leadership. However, it is also true to say that the outworkings of the St Andrews Agreement led to some of what we have seen in the past few years, which is complete stasis in decision-making. Since we came back here in 2024, there has been a deep frustration among the public about the absence of meaningful delivery. First, there has been the absence of a clear, coherent Programme for Government, with a short, clear set of priorities for the public. Doing government is complicated in the 21st century — we all know that — and it is difficult when you have to share power with people with whom you do not agree on very much. It is not just about Irish unity versus the Union but about left versus right. That is not easy. What it requires is a short, clear set of priorities so that you can say to the public, "You've given us power. This is how we're going to use it on your behalf. This is what we can agree to prioritise: fixing the health service, investing in waste water infrastructure, and rescuing our environment and dealing with the crisis at Lough Neagh". Those are three obvious areas where the public have not yet seen clear prioritisation from the Executive, in all their diversity, and a clear set of targets that they are signed up to and are going to deliver on. The outworking of that has been stasis, lack of delivery, frustration and a loss of confidence in this place. That is bad for everybody, whether you are unionist, nationalist or neither. Key priorities that were supposed to be delivered have not been delivered. The Economy Minister had promised a 'good jobs' employment rights Bill, and, as a party on the left that is proudly social democratic and that believes in workers' rights, we supported it. We have not seen a 'good jobs' Bill, however, and it is now extremely unlikely — vanishingly unlikely — that we will see it. We know that the reason for that is that the DUP has refused to allow it to get out of the Executive. At the New Decade, New Approach talks nearly seven years ago, there was agreement to create an independent environmental protection agency, which is critical in a place where we have allowed our environment to decline to such a state that the biggest source of our drinking water is effectively becoming an open-air sewer. How shameful is it that our political institutions and system of government have got us into that situation? The Executive cannot agree on an independent environmental protection agency, and that is partly because of the stasis created by the St Andrews Agreement, where parties can operate a mutual veto that prevents any progress from happening. That is not good enough. We need to reform and change it. We also have the crisis that has been created by the absence of a Budget. We are more than halfway through the financial year, and we have no Budget. The official Opposition has always agreed with the Executive that we want the maximum possible funding, and that they have a clear case because of the comparisons with the funding in Scotland and Wales. We have never quibbled about that. We have said that drifting halfway into the financial year, allowing cuts to be made by the people who run technical colleges, further education colleges and hospital trusts without any accountability and drifting into chaos is no way to deliver an improved Budget settlement. The de facto position of the Executive is, effectively, to hand over the responsibility to public servants and then risk handing the British Government all the power to set a Budget, even though you say that they do not prioritise this place, and that is correct. That is shameful and absurd, but it is the position that we have arrived at barely six months from the end of the mandate. There is an extremely poor record of delivery, with no clear set of priorities for reforming the health service and investing in waste water and very limited progress on setting a Budget to deliver on those priorities. I am not saying that those things are easy, or that they would have been easy in a reformed Stormont, but it is clear that we need to reform this place. We have suggested a short, finite list of modest reforms that could be done by Christmas, starting with reforming how we elect a Speaker. Our leader, Claire Hanna, has prioritised making the argument for those reforms but also for longer-term reform after the next election when the parties have returned with a new mandate. We need fundamental reform of how this place works, and that will mean a more flexible, agile Stormont that can deliver for people's needs. I say all that because, 20 years on from the St Andrews Agreement, which was about ensuring that we had a Government, it is clear that we cannot go on like this. Simply existing is not good enough. The public does not buy it anymore. They do not think that it is good enough that we come here, throw mud at one another, refuse to take responsibility for setting a Budget and then expect them to vote for us simply on the basis of mud-slinging. That is not good enough. Whether you want a new Ireland as I do, or you believe in the Union, or you simply do not care, it is not good enough. This place should be about setting priorities, dealing with urgent problems, being honest with the public about the challenges and trade-offs, which I will come to in our next motion, and offering leadership. When there are disagreements, by all means hash them out, but what we are doing at the minute is simply not good enough. Our motion is clear that tearing this place down is not a solution either. In an article in 'The Irish News' a few months ago, when some republicans and nationalists talked about simply walking away because the DUP was blocking things, and they thought that collapsing Stormont would be a fast track to a united Ireland, I was clear that it would not be. It would be handing over all power to London. It would be abdicating the responsibility to build a new Ireland, which starts in the North, here and now. I said that in 'The Irish News' six months ago. Today, in the 'Newsletter', I said to unionists and loyalists, who are now threatening to collapse this place, that it is not a solution for them either. I do not claim to be a unionist, but it is no solution for our people, whether you are unionist, nationalist or anything else, to simply tear down the political institutions, walk away from the difficult challenges and refuse to take responsibility for delivering for your people. I believe in a new Ireland, and it starts here, in this Building. I do not love Stormont. To be honest, I do not particularly like it at all. A lot of the delivery mechanisms frustrate me, but I am here, and my colleagues are here in opposition, to do a job for all the people of the North because we believe in building our new Ireland, starting here and now by proving to people of all backgrounds that we want to make their lives and public services better. I commend the motion to the House.
1,807 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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