Debate contribution: Building Political Consensus

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 13 October 2026.

MLA: Mr Colin McGrath
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 13 October 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Opposition Business
Heading: Building Political Consensus
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5789774

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I sometimes wonder whether we have forgotten what this place is for. Not why we created it — we know the history — but what it is actually for. Somewhere along the way, we appear to have confused the sharing of power with the exercise of leadership. We have become very good at dividing up responsibility, but we are less good at accepting it. We are very good at identifying the failures of government but less enthusiastic about acknowledging that those who identify the failures are often the very people who are responsible for the governing. All the while, the public watch as Ministers blame other Ministers, Executive parties attack decisions made by the Executive that they belong to, and political representatives demand solutions only to discover a hundred reasons why those solutions cannot be delivered. We have reached the point where almost everyone in government wants to behave like an opposition, except, of course, when there is a little bit of credit to be claimed. What must the public make of that? What about the woman who is waiting for surgery, the young couple who are unable to build a home because our waste water infrastructure cannot cope or the school principal who wonders whether their school has a future? Those people do not need another diagnosis of the problems; they need a Government who are prepared to do something. John Hume spent his political life challenging the belief that our differences were greater than our common humanity. He understood that politics was not about defeating the other side but about creating a society in which everyone could flourish. He understood that agreement was not the abandonment of principle but that which allowed principles to become progress. There is a difference between a political system that is designed to accommodate disagreement and a political culture that has become dependent on it. Our institutions were designed to ensure that no community could dominate another. That was necessary and historic, but we cannot allow the protections that were created to safeguard peace to become an excuse for the absence of progress. The Good Friday Agreement was never intended to be the finishing line of our political ambition. It was meant to be the starting point. Yet, nearly 30 years later, we are still debating the same problems, promising the same reforms and postponing the same decisions. That is not because we do not know what needs to change but because nobody wants to carry the political cost of changing it. Ten years ago, Bengoa told us that change was everybody's business. Ten years. How many strategies, reviews and promises of health transformation have we heard since? How many political parties have told us that health is their number-one priority? That should shame every one of us. I am not suggesting that we should all agree. Robust debate is the lifeblood of democracy. Arguments happen in every legislature in the world, and they should happen here. We should challenge decisions and disagree passionately, but there is a world of difference between challenging somebody's politics and attacking the person. We have seen extraordinary exchanges between the parties leading our Executive: the First Minister accusing her partners in government of being anti-Irish; and the deputy First Minister accusing the First Minister of following the law of the mob. What does any of that achieve? Does it get one patient off a waiting list? Does it build one additional home? Of course it does not. The problem is not disagreement but that we appear to have lost the ability to disagree well without undermining the relationships on which this entire system of government depends. The people watching are not political spectators; they are the people who are paying the price. I therefore have to ask a fundamental question: does anybody here actually want this place to work — not simply plod along until the next election, not provide a platform for constitutional arguments, but work to deliver and to improve people's lives? I ask my fellow nationalists this: does anyone seriously believe that a non-functioning North moves us one step closer to a new Ireland? Does demonstrating that we cannot govern effectively together inspire confidence in our ability to build a shared future? I ask my unionist colleagues this: will a non-functioning Executive secure Northern Ireland's place in the Union? Does political instability strengthen confidence in the institutions that you wish to preserve? We all know the answer. Whatever constitutional future we believe in, we have a responsibility to the people living here today. The child waiting for treatment cannot wait for a border poll. A family needing a home cannot wait for the constitutional question to be settled. An older person waiting for a care package does not care whether the responsible Minister is nationalist, unionist or neither. Their needs are not constitutional; they are human, and meeting those needs is our responsibility. We have to make this place work, even when it is difficult, even when it is deeply uncomfortable and even when compromise challenges positions that we have defended for years. That is leadership. We cannot demand that one Health Minister transform an entire service while Executive colleagues wait to see which decisions become unpopular or what LucidTalk says next. We cannot demand difficult choices to be made and then abandon a Minister when the results of those choices arrive on our doorsteps. The same applies to waste water infrastructure and our schools. They are shared problems demanding shared solutions. Refusing to make a decision is itself a decision, and, too often, it is the worst one. Making this place work also demands institutional reform. The Good Friday Agreement was a remarkable achievement. Protecting it does not mean pretending that how our institutions operate must remain unchanged for ever. We must examine how the Executive make decisions, how collective responsibility works and how political disagreements can be managed without paralysing government. Reforming our institutions to make them work is not a betrayal of the peace process; it is a fulfilment of its promise. There are real questions about the future of Stormont. We should not dismiss those concerns, because the greatest threat to public confidence is not that politicians disagree but that people begin to believe that it makes no difference whether this place functions at all. That should frighten every single Member of the House. We talk endlessly about restoring public trust, but trust cannot be demanded. It cannot be manufactured through press releases, slogans or photographs of Ministers standing together. Trust is earned through decisions, delivery and accepting responsibility. We cannot ask the public to believe in government if government itself appears unwilling to govern. That is why the motion calls for a new political consensus, shared priorities, a new Programme for Government and a multi-year Budget — not another document filled with aspirations but a commitment to make difficult decisions together and to stand over them together. We inherited institutions that people made extraordinary sacrifices to create, and I refuse to accept that the limit of our ambition should be simply keeping the doors of those institutions open. We are here to serve those who voted for us, those who voted against us and those who may have given up believing that politics can make any difference. John Hume helped to teach this society that our differences need not determine our destiny, and we must now prove that those differences need not prevent us from governing. We have spent almost 30 years learning how to share power. It is time that we learned how to share responsibility, because the future of this place will not be secured by the strength of our arguments about its constitutional status; it will be shaped by whether people believe that these institutions can make their lives better. That responsibility belongs to every one of us in the Chamber, and that is why the SDLP brought the motion today.

1,332 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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