Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on .
- MLA
- Mr Gordon Lyons
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 7 December 2022
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Assembly Business
- Heading
- Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4178470
Read the official Assembly record
Text
That has been well discussed. The Government said that they were going to deliver it. It is up to them to deliver it. We will continue to push the Government on that at Westminster, but what we will not do is say that we can deliver things that are not in our gift to deliver. We are not going to be like the SDLP, which has made people think that it is within its gift to deliver 1,000 litres of home heating oil to every home in Northern Ireland. I am not going to be like Sinn Féin and Michelle O'Neill, who repeatedly told us that there were hundreds of millions of pounds in a Stormont bank account just ready to go into people's pockets. Sinn Féin today still has not been able to accept that there are difficult choices ahead and that, if we were in an Executive right now, we too would have to make difficult decisions. There is therefore a need for people to be straightforward and honest. This sitting is a farce. Everybody knows it, but it provides us with one useful benefit: it provides us once more with the opportunity to say clearly to the Government and the European Union that the issue must be resolved. Threatening an election does not change anything and cutting salaries does not change anything. What will unlock devolution is getting the protocol sorted, restoring Northern Ireland's place in the UK internal market and removing the democratic deficit. When that happens, we will not be found wanting. We will elect a Speaker and nominate Ministers. We say to the UK and the EU, "The ball is in your court. The clock is ticking. Get on with it".
287 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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