Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Ms Michelle O'Neill on 13 May 2022.

MLA: Ms Michelle O'Neill
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 13 May 2022
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Speaker's Business
Heading: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4139952

Text

First, I congratulate all colleagues across the Chamber on their successful election results, and I welcome everybody to this Assembly. We look forward to working together in the time ahead. It is truly a special honour for any of us who holds elected office to represent the communities from which we come. We carry the hopes and expectations of workers, families and businesses. They are relying on us to work together in a spirit of cooperation and to deliver real change. The public will, rightly, be watching on today as they juggle their work and family responsibilities. They are struggling to manage their household budgets, and they are watching on in the hope that the parties in the Chamber have the maturity and the courage to shoulder our responsibilities, get down to business and act in the common good. There is absolutely no reason that we should be in a rolling crisis, even for one second. Over the past two years, the Assembly and the Executive have delivered, and we have proved that politics and power-sharing here can work when we give leadership, deliver good public services, champion difference and inclusion and oppose division. Those are my values also. The democratic outcome of the election must now be respected. Today, we stand ready to elect a Speaker and form an Executive, and I stand ready to take on the leadership of the Northern Ireland Executive as a First Minister for all in a Government who work for all the people. It is the job of our heroic doctors, nurses and NHS staff to treat and care for patients, but it is our job as politicians to fund that service properly. It is time to agree a three-year Budget and to invest an extra £1 billion in our health service immediately. Workers and families are facing really hard times because of the cost-of-living crisis, and that demands our immediate action, not protest. Mr Speaker, this is our hour of decision. Not tomorrow and not for a moment longer can the DUP deny democracy, punish the public, boycott this Assembly and the Executive and prevent us from putting money into people's pockets. Every party in the Chamber told the electorate that they would turn up on day 1. The DUP has failed on day 1. The people and businesses here want to have confidence and hope for the future, so it is now time to look forwards, not backwards. We in Sinn Féin will continue to turn up and work in partnership with willing partners to deliver for people today and every day.
Finally, I will say a few words to you, Mr Speaker, as this is your last sitting of the Assembly. Thank you for encouraging us all to exercise civility and restraint throughout your tenure as Speaker. It has helped to achieve better community relations inside the Chamber and, also importantly, outside in our wider community. Your four decades of dedicated public service leave a legacy of which many politicians would, rightly, be proud. We thank you for that. I also acknowledge your good wife, Liz, who is in the Gallery. As we all know, elected life can be very challenging. We all very much recognise that we need our family's support. Thank you for everything that you have done.

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

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