Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 17 January 2024.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

17 January 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4177573

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker, for once again stepping into the Chair. I add my and my party's condolences on the passing of David Hilditch, both to his family and his DUP party colleagues. I served on the Public Accounts Committee with David. He was a gentleman and a dedicated elected representative. Today, for the sixth or seventh time, I stand to nominate Patsy McGlone for the role of Speaker. Let me say that, although we believe that Patsy is an eminently qualified candidate, so too is Mr Nesbitt, and, indeed, our priority is getting a Speaker elected. We will not be a barrier to the election of a Speaker, notwithstanding the nomination of the excellent Patsy McGlone. As I said, I think that this is now the seventh time in nearly two years that the Assembly has been recalled to attempt to elect a Speaker, nominate Ministers and allow us all to do our jobs. We all know why we have been prevented from doing so: the actions of one party.

What is our job, ultimately? It is supposed to be serving the public. As elected representatives, we ask the public, who elect us, to place their trust in us that we will argue for their interests and prioritise their needs. However, those concepts of public trust and service have been abused and damaged beyond recognition in this place and are possibly beyond repair.

Let us talk for a moment about public service and public trust. Tomorrow, true public servants — up to 170,000 of them — will forgo a day's pay that they can ill afford in order to stand in freezing temperatures not for an exorbitant pay rise but for the modest deal that was already promised to them but not delivered. The SDLP stands with them today, and we will be out standing with them tomorrow. They are real public servants. Unlike some in the Chamber and elsewhere who stand for election, they take seriously the trust that is placed in them and the service that they perform. They are the nurses and other health professionals who save lives and provide the care that we all need at some point in our life and that all of us will need in the future. They are the train and bus drivers who keep our economy and society moving and the teachers who educate our kids. Few of them do it for the money, but they have a basic right to expect to be paid a fair wage that allows them a decent quality of life, keeping pace with the cost of living. Workers here have not just been let down; they have been used as pawns in a game to apply pressure to the DUP to end its boycott. Not only is that wrong but it demeans those workers and public servants. It demeans yet again their public service. Paperwork for some goods moving across the Irish Sea is, apparently, enough to create chaos in public services and governance here for years on end, but a widening sea border in basic pay for essential workers is, apparently, fine. By the way, I know what the demands of the workers who will be striking tomorrow are. I do not know what the demands of the DUP are, and I am happy to give way to anyone in the DUP who wants to give me a clear account of why its boycott continues and what it is waiting for. On Monday, I spoke to a teaching union rep outside Hillsborough Castle. They told me about international schools, including some in the Middle East, where teachers' pay is much higher and taxes are much lower, specifically targeting new teaching graduates from Stranmillis University College and St Mary's University College with the blunt line that teachers in Northern Ireland are paid badly and treated terribly. It is not simply a question of fair pay: it is ultimately a question of the survival and sustainability of public services here. Chris Heaton-Harris and the British Government could settle the pay dispute today — now — if they wanted. The fact that they will not and are using workers for crude political purpose is yet another damning indictment of the Tory Government. Who gave them that power? Who continues to give them that power? It is, I am afraid, the DUP. The Chamber and the institutions matter only to the extent that they serve the public. They serve no one at the minute, other than the narrow self-interest and self-obsession of a few hard-line, usually online, voices. Tomorrow, true public servants will stand in the cold. They deserve so much better. I say this to the DUP: do not utter one word or one syllable of complaint when people start to talk about fundamental change in this place, whether it is ending tribal vetoes, a role for the Irish Government, if we cannot have devolution, or fundamental constitutional change. More immediately, let me say this to DUP colleagues, and I say it honestly and sincerely: you have a choice — Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has a choice — to start to do our job again, honour the people who elected us and treat decently the public servants who will stand in the cold tomorrow so that we can start finally — please, honestly —

— to rebuild trust in our public services and in our politics.

901 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.

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