Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on .
- MLA
- Mr Robbie Butler
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 7 December 2022
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Assembly Business
- Heading
- Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4178769
Read the official Assembly record
Text
It does not look like I will be speaking Irish today, Mr Frew. I was not going to speak today, but my heart is literally thumping. It is thumping with a myriad of emotions. The first is about the reason that we are here to debate, and that is the state that Northern Ireland is in, the country that I love dearly and deeply and for which I gave up the job that I did to come here to represent as a proud unionist. I put any unionist in the Chamber on warning not to challenge me on the depth of my commitment to unionism, the Union and the United Kingdom. Do not dare do that. Do not chunter and reduce any unionist's desire and passion on the constitutional issue. Yesterday, I got a message from a lady whom I know. She works, and her husband does not. This lady has quite a number of children. I will not say how many children she has because that would identify her. She has a large family. She approached me for food vouchers, and I was able to direct her to the local food bank. That, in itself, was sad enough. This lady tries to work hard to provide for her family. Shortly after that, the lady got the courage to message me to ask whether I knew anybody who could or would help with fuel because she was down to the fumes in her oil tank and would not get paid until 16 December. I directed her to some agencies that I am aware of that may or may not be able to provide help. I have listened to much of the debate. The Member for North Down spoke well. Some of the points that he made were reasonably good, but they were not fully accurate if you were to take what he was saying right to the end. He talked about the hypocrisy that has been exposed in the Chamber today. Hypocrisy has been exposed in the Chamber, particularly of the party opposite. Obviously, the Chamber was held out for three years. Some will debate the rationale and the reasons for that. I speak on mental health and suicide prevention all the time, so I know that, when you inflict trauma on anyone, the lasting effects of that trauma go on for years. In fact, some of those things do not emerge until many months or years later. I suspect that, in years to come, we will look back on those three years and will be able to pinpoint the effect that that had on people's lives in Northern Ireland, whether it was the failure to deliver Bengoa or have it running at the speed at which it should have been; whether it was the failure to deliver the transformation of business opportunities; or whether it was the failure to speak about the impact of Brexit. We did not have that. We run the risk of doing the same again. My colleagues to the right of me need to take that into consideration, as does my colleague to the left Mr Allister.
I urge unionists to hold themselves to a higher station and understand that, yes, the constitution is important, but the constitution will be won on seats in the Chamber and political representation. The political representation will come from people believing that you represent them at the moment that they are in and on the things that matter to them. I fear, at the moment, with the pressures on families, like the lady who messaged me yesterday —
I will not take any interventions, Mr Allister, and I mean that most kindly and appropriately. There are deep fissures in the Chamber, and one of them emerged today when I asked the Member from West Belfast to take an intervention. The reason given for not taking the intervention was that I was not able to ask in Irish. As someone whom many would describe as a moderate unionist and as someone who tabled an amendment to a Bill with regard to translation, I am deeply disappointed. I will not labour on it too much because it is not the most important thing today, but, on the day that the Irish language Act gets Royal Assent, to be treated like that in the Chamber makes me genuinely grieve for the future of this place. I will end with this. The decisions by the DUP and their partner in the TUV will not be made in the Chamber. To my right, there is nobody with the authority to influence the DUP in that regard. The leader is not here, and those who are speaking to him are not here. I urge you not to repeat the sins of the past, because that trauma will be measured in years to come, guys. I want you to re-evaluate for the sake of unionism.
819 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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