Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 7 December 2022.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

7 December 2022

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4178549

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I have to admit that today's political circus might be amusing if the cost-of-living crisis were not so deep or the outcome of the proceedings today were not so predictable. Although the sitting might carry some intrigue for the press, workers on the picket lines, patients lying in hospital corridors and everyone who is struggling may ask, "What's the point?". This morning, I met Kids Together and Sólás. They, who are being denied access to Youth Service funding, effectively because they work with and support children with disabilities, may also ask, "What's the point?". The DUP's impervious attitude to people's plight is obvious, so there is some justification in asking what the point is of pleading with a party that has allowed people to go hungry, whole households to freeze and whole communities to suffer for its own ends. Just as everyone knows that the DUP will not vote for a Speaker, they know that the DUP's outrage about the protocol is manufactured. Edwin Poots's embarrassing attempt to change the protocol Bill proves that point. The DUP's political credibility and vote are plummeting, so it has reverted to the familiar tactic of stoking inter-communal tensions to shore up its base. While the DUP refuses to govern, its one-time allies in the Tory party have decided to inflict more misery on people in the North. That same party indulged the DUP's boycott of the Assembly from the outset, first with the protocol Bill and then by re-entering negotiations with the European Union. After failing with the carrot, the Secretary of State is now trying the stick. We have had election threats, budget cuts and, finally, a threat to introduce water charges and to punish ordinary people for the intransigence of the DUP. Make no mistake: the Tories also want us to pick up the bill for their September Budget that promised handouts for the wealthy and misery for the rest. They are a Government of the rich and for the rich who have always been about making ordinary people pay for their mistakes, but those threats against working-class communities could be the last resort of an Administration that have no plan whatsoever to deal with the crisis that exists here. Stormont is fundamentally broken, and neither the Tories nor the political establishment here has the desire to fix it. Besides exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis, the DUP is simply exercising the sectarian veto on power-sharing that is enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. These political institutions, built and run on the basis of communal divisions and designations, have failed Catholic, Protestant and neither. After 25 years of failure, serious questions loom about whether this place could, or should, be resurrected at all.

People are all too aware of how these sectarian structures were used to deny same-sex marriage, reproductive rights, Irish language rights and the broad democratic desires of the public, and, unfortunately, the communal carve-up has been no barrier to things like welfare reforms, public-sector pay cuts and corrupt schemes like RHI and Red Sky.

Maybe later. People Before Profit will support the election of a Speaker today as a stopgap measure. However, we recognise that resurrecting Stormont will not itself solve the cost-of-living crisis or deliver on the long-term hopes and aspirations of the majority here. As in the past, it will be for the public to pressure any new Executive to act in their interests. If the Assembly is not restored, that denial of democracy should be met with democracy and a border poll should be called within two years. People should be given a say in reshaping this island for the benefit of the many, not for the benefit of the DUP or the economic elites on this island. Illusions of Stormont are waning, and, whether the Assembly is restored or not, working-class people who have been crushed by this crisis will not wait for politicians to get their house in order. We have only to look at the example of our health workers, who are striking in the coming days to defend our NHS. They will remember that the previous Executive were content to offer them a pay cut in real terms. Our postal workers, Housing Executive workers, BT workers, university workers and countless others are also forging ahead without Stormont. They are fighting to ensure that their demands for a better future are heard, wherever they need to be heard. To be clear, I believe that, if Stormont is restored in its current guise, further crises will come. The sectarianism at the heart of the state guarantees it. We are fast approaching the point where, given the choice, people may call time on this farce, because you cannot paper over the cracks of an Assembly that is crumbling at its foundations. All things considered, people may still ask what the point is in taking a seat in this broken Assembly or speaking here today. For me, the point is simple: as long as I and other socialists have a voice in the Chamber, we will use it to amplify the voices of workers and social movements, and we will hold parties like the DUP and the Tories to account. Whether the DUP votes for a Speaker today or not, it is important that it hears the disastrous consequences of its actions.

Finally, in solidarity with every worker who is out on strike in the coming weeks, we say this: today may be about the DUP, but tomorrow is about you.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification