Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on 13 May 2022.

MLA: Mr Andrew Muir
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 13 May 2022
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Speaker's Business
Heading: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4140063

Text

I will start by paying tribute to you in your term of office as Speaker. When you were elected as Speaker back in January 2020, I knew that you were a man of good workmanship as you helped to decorate my grandparents' home and did a very good job, and they were delighted with it. You did not fail to impress in your role as Speaker. You were fair and firm. You ensured that all voices were heard in the Assembly. With private Members' business in particular, you ensured that a significant volume could be processed towards the end of the last mandate. I am particularly appreciative of that and wish you all the best in the time ahead. The Alliance Party will support both proposals for Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Both candidates are strong and extremely capable and will be able to fulfil the role well. Today is decision day. The people of Northern Ireland are watching. We must elect a Speaker. We must be allowed to do our job. If the DUP is to proceed to veto the election of Speaker, that is an appalling abuse of power. Forgive me, but I shall take no lectures from the DUP about equality in Northern Ireland.
It is not lost on me that, back in 1998 when the Assembly first sat, six MLAs were pigeonholed into the category of "other". Mr Speaker, I am many things, but I ain't just "other". Today, we have 18 "others", but when the vote for a Speaker proceeds, our votes will be cast aside. They will not be equal, and a veto will be invoked to stop the Assembly doing its job, yet again pointing to why we need to reform the institutions. It is likely that there will be a clear majority for the election of a Speaker, but it will be blocked. The DUP seems to be addicted to the politics of deadlock, division and disruption. No single party should be able to hold the Assembly or the people of Northern Ireland to ransom.
I thank the Member for his intervention. I have found it interesting of late to see the Member coming out so strongly and fervently in support of the Good Friday Agreement. How times have changed. The people of Northern Ireland consented and voted overwhelmingly for these institutions to sit and for an Executive to be formed. No single party should be able to hold this place to ransom. To use the sick and the vulnerable as leverage is shameful.

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

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