Debate contribution: Exclusion of the First Minister from Office under Section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998
Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 12 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Assembly Business
- Heading
- Exclusion of the First Minister from Office under Section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5786758
Read the official Assembly record
Text
For the sake of clarity up front, we will not support the various motions of no confidence in Ministers before the Assembly today. They are a distraction from what we actually need to do in this place. Let me say first of all that I and my party welcome the Secretary of State's decision to ban the parade. We should never have got into this situation in the first place. It has opened up deep wounds that did not need to be reopened. Rather than spend all my time today relitigating the difficult and depressing events of recent weeks, I will reflect on how we got here and, most importantly, where we go next. I will not trivialise questions about the rule of law, nor will I do what some have done and simply minimise the very real shock that reopening the Drumcree dispute after three relatively peaceful decades was for the ordinary, decent people of the Garvaghy Road and the shock of many in our society, from all backgrounds and all perspectives. To understand the past two weeks in their fullest context, you have to understand the shock that there was at a parade dispute being reopened three decades after it had been closed. That dispute had cost lives, including those of three young children who were burnt to death in their home. Then, all of a sudden, at 2.30 am, after 30 years of closure, a parade was to proceed in just a few hours' time. The decision by the Portadown Orange lodge, encouraged by a section of hard-line unionism, including one particular self-appointed and self-published Svengali, to reopen that tragic and dark chapter created an extraordinary situation in which elected representatives felt that they had to provide solidarity and leadership at extremely short notice to an anxious community that did not want that parade to proceed. To be clear, I am not diminishing or trivialising the rule of law. It is reasonable and to be expected that lawful authorities investigate potential breaches of the law should they occur, and, as I said earlier, that has not yet been established. Members of my party, including our leader, have said that we will cooperate in any way that is appropriate, because we do accept the rule of law and the need for the PSNI and the courts to do their job. However, the SDLP was also founded in the tradition of peaceful protest. That is in our DNA, and that right is sacrosanct. Sometimes, such action is unavoidable. As well as being a party of civil rights, we are, in our DNA, a party of anti-sectarianism, and our vision of Northern Ireland now and the new Ireland that we want to build is fired by the urgent moral task of ending the divisions that have scarred us, including in Portadown. No one who cares about bringing our people together could be anything but depressed at the wounds that have been reopened. Some people, of course, are gleeful. They thrive on division. They are defined by it. They are obsessed by it. They glory in it, and they want everyone else to be that way too, but here is the thing: most of us are not — not any more. For, while the Garvaghy Road saw one deep wound reopened in order to tear people apart, just two months ago this city saw, at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, an extraordinary coming together and a city and a region able to celebrate our difference. The Ulster-British tradition was on proud display at the heart of the largest ever festival of Irish traditional music and culture. I want to say this clearly to people from loyalist and unionist traditions, including those bands that inspired people at the fleadh, some of which were from my constituency: my party does not want to cancel you. I — we — genuinely want to celebrate the unique contribution of your tradition to this island now and in the new Ireland that we want to build, despite the rhetoric of some voices, but that does not and cannot mean reopening any and every provocation and dark wound from the past. The Orange tradition is an intrinsic part of this island. It is in the flag of the Republic, though it is fair to say that the Orange Order has never been without controversy. I grew up a short distance from the house of a certain William Johnston of Ballykilbeg, a man who, like me, was from Downpatrick and went on to represent Belfast South. His entire career was founded in opposition to a law passed at Westminster — the Party Processions Act — that banned all Orange marches. Famously, he led an unlawful march from Bangor to Ards and is commemorated on banners and Lambeg drums to this day. I am sure that many Members will have heard of him. Indeed, back in the 19th century, such was the Orange anger at the Party Processions Act that some Orangemen wanted to repeal the Act of Union. That is true, if anybody who wants to go and look at the history. I mention that because our history is full of ironies, and it is full of tragedy too. It is full of dark tragedy such as that of, as I mentioned earlier, the three Quinn brothers. Rather than spending all of our time reflecting on the darkness and trying to reimagine or recapture the darkness at the behest of people who care only about division, we need to be building the future. I want that future to be in a new Ireland. Others do not, and that is fine, but we need to be focused on the future, not on the darkest parts of our past. That has to involve focusing on the common good and seeing one another as human beings. PossibIy, it could start with our setting a Budget, paying our workers and improving our public services, but what it cannot involve is glorying in division and dragging us backwards rather than facing the future.
1,010 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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