Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 27 October 2022.

MLA: Mr Nick Mathison
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 27 October 2022
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Assembly Business
Heading: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4178262

Text

I rise to confirm my support for the nomination of a Speaker today. In the context that we find ourselves in, I would support either, or indeed any, nomination for a Speaker that would bring us closer to seeing an Executive formed and enable us to get on with the jobs that we were elected to do. As a newly elected MLA, this is very far from the position that I wanted to be in — making my first contribution in this place in what is nothing more than a last chance saloon, staring at the potential collapse of the institutions. They have been held to ransom by one party since May's election, but here we are. We all sat in the Chamber back in May, most of us ready to get to work on behalf of our constituents, but we then observed the spectacle of DUP Members refusing to elect a Speaker and preventing any business taking place in the Assembly. That refusal has left Northern Ireland utterly rudderless, without a Budget, without the scrutiny of Ministers or their Departments, with unspent funds held in limbo and without any democratic accountability in Northern Ireland. Now, even the caretaker Ministers will be vacating their posts and leaving Northern Ireland under the direction of a Tory Government who are in utter chaos, and we will be under the direction —.
I will not give way, as no other Members seem to have shown that courtesy to my party in our contributions. We are going to be looking at unelected civil servants providing the only leadership in Northern Ireland in the coming weeks, and all that while we face a cost-of-living emergency and huge pressures on our public finances. Those challenges and pressures have been set out again and again since May. We have all received the emails from the doctors and nurses and from our business community. We have all met our constituents, sadly, in our food banks and community centres, hearing about just how much pressure our communities are under at the moment. However, it seems that, for one party in this place, those messages are simply not getting through. Our health service is in crisis, our waiting lists are spiralling and strategies to help to deliver change on issues such as cancer services and mental health are unfunded and gathering dust without an Executive. We have hospital emergency departments unable to meet demand in the summer let alone with the winter approaching. There is no Executive pay policy set, leaving key workers in limbo over wage increases as inflation rises.
Yes, I will give way.
Yes, I absolutely agree. Anybody who heard the contributions from the parent this morning could not fail to be aware of the crisis that is affecting paediatric waiting lists. That is another issue to be added to the list of pressures facing this place. Essentially, we have Departments with no budget spending with risk in order to keep public services functioning and a cost-of-living crisis receiving essentially no local response from this place. We are left entirely at the mercy of a dysfunctional Tory Government, who seem to think that offering our people here a paltry £100 towards their oil bills is a sufficient intervention to help them, while the DUP says, "We just need Westminster. That is all that is required to deal with the crisis". All this deadlock, this abject failure to provide stable government at a time of crisis is precipitated by one party's protest over the protocol, about which this place can do nothing. We could keep the Assembly in suspension indefinitely and not one line of the protocol would be altered. We all know, if we are being honest, that the only outcome that will resolve any of the issues with the protocol will arise from negotiations between the UK Government and the EU. We need to get on with our jobs. We are not here to renegotiate international treaties. We are here to govern the people of Northern Ireland and to provide leadership, and we need to get on with that job. There is anger and frustration in the Chamber today, and quite rightly. We heard the DUP Members refer to their party being treated with contempt. In my view, it is the people of Northern Ireland who are being treated with contempt. We know that an Executive being reformed is not a magic wand — it will not make our problems go away — but I, for one, got elected to try to do something, not to stand on the sidelines wringing my hands and protesting over an issue about which we can do nothing in this place.
I sincerely hope that we can do the right thing today. I do not believe that we will. I think that one party will continue to stand in the way of progress. We urgently need to restore faith in the institutions and in the democratic process in this place.

830 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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