Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mr Conor Murphy on 7 December 2022.

MLA

Mr Conor Murphy

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

7 December 2022

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4178593

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I had thought that the DUP was out of dead cats at this stage, but it seems that we might need to alert the RSPCA in the time ahead. Let us get away from distraction politics and get real. In challenging circumstances during COVID, the parties here worked together in the Executive to help people through that crisis. We should be working together now to help our people and businesses through the cost-of-living crisis. The DUP boycott of the Executive is preventing that, and for what? We did not choose Brexit. The majority of the people of the North rejected Brexit, but it was imposed on us by the Tories and the DUP. As with any new trading relationship, there are issues that can and should be sorted out, but the boycott of our Assembly and the Executive by the DUP is having absolutely no impact on the negotiations, which are between the EU and the British Government. Instead, the boycott is doing huge damage to our people, our businesses and our public services. When the DUP collapsed the Executive in February, the draft Budget was out for consultation. I have no doubt that a final Budget would have been agreed and would have provided the health service with an extra £1 billion. Just as importantly, it would have provided the certainty of a three-year Budget, which would have allowed the Health Department to plan services properly, recruit more doctors and nurses and give staff a pay increase. In the absence of an Executive, health and other public services went from day to day not knowing what their spending limit was. That financial chaos led Departments to overspend. During the year, the Executive received millions of pounds of additional money. That could have been used to help with departmental pressures, give public-sector workers a pay rise and help people and businesses with the cost-of-living crisis. Crucially, it would have been for the Executive to decide how to use that money. Instead, the Tories are imposing a Budget that will mean a £330 million reduction in our finances next year, and there is no Executive to set a public pay policy that could have offered a fair pay rise to nurses, teachers and other public-sector workers who stepped up during the pandemic. Because the DUP went on strike — on full pay — public-sector workers now have to resort to industrial action to get the pay rise that they deserve. As well as walking out of the Executive in the middle of a Budget consultation, the DUP downed tools in the middle of a deepening financial crisis, when we all knew that families would need our help to heat their homes and put food on their tables and that businesses would need help to keep their shutters up and their workers in a job. We had the means to help people. The first tranche of money for the energy support payment — around £160 million — came to the Executive in February. The funding was given to the Executive to deliver the scheme because it was the responsibility of the Economy Minister and his Department to do that. Energy is a devolved matter. Given the urgency —.

The fact is that the Government had agreed and decided that we were the ones to deliver an energy scheme. Just as we did on many occasions during COVID, the Executive received billions of pounds of additional payment and distributed that money quickly and directly to those most in need. Had an Executive been in place, they would have instructed you, as the Economy Minister, to get a scheme in place quickly to distribute that money. Despite the false promises, there is no ducking that issue. The fact that the DUP collapsed the Executive meant that the funding could not be allocated. To cover up its culpability for blocking the payment, the DUP made the false claim that the payment should have been delivered by the British Government, regardless of whether an Executive were in place. It kept up that fiction for months, while the money sat idle. Eventually, at a meeting in August that the Economy Minister and I attended, the British Government finally agreed to take responsibility for delivering the scheme. They did so reluctantly and only because the DUP had made it clear that it would continue to block an Executive from delivering the scheme. The British Government made it clear that the payment might not be made until after Christmas, despite the fact that people in Britain were starting to receive that money in October. I was honest with the public about that, but the DUP falsely promised people that they could expect that payment in November. Now, the British Government have confirmed only that payments will be made over the winter, whenever that may be deemed to end. That delay is unacceptable. We have been told that the IT systems needed to make the payment of the £600 discount are ready to go. If that is the case, the Executive could meet today, agree to the discount and transfer that money to the energy companies. I therefore ask the DUP to stop looking over its shoulder at those who want to live in the past and to start looking after our people, who face a really tough Christmas. While you go back to the comfort of your warm homes tonight, many of your constituents will be freezing. Let us work together to help them.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

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.

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