Debate contribution: Executive Reform

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 4 March 2024.

MLA

Ms Sinéad McLaughlin

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

4 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Executive Reform

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4254169

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Since this place has returned, we have discussed and debated several issues that are central to people's lives in every part of Northern Ireland. We have promised to work together on childcare, we have pledged to end violence against women and girls and we have called for action on the environmental catastrophe, yet, while debating each of those issues — I agree with the Member for North Belfast — there has been a huge elephant in the room, which is that, at any moment, one of the biggest parties in the Assembly could, once again, exercise a veto on the progress that they claim to support. That nuclear veto, which we are discussing today, and its repeated deployment in the past 10 years has eroded public confidence in our politics, left public services in crisis and forced workers out into the cold to demand fair pay. That is a veto that we should all resolve to remove from our politics for good. After a decade of dysfunction, it is time to change. As we debate that veto today, those of us in favour of reform should be comforted by the support for the idea of reform. A huge majority of the public get that the veto just has to go. In polling, a majority in every age group gets that it has to go, and that is no surprise. Those people can see all around them the consequences of that and the dysfunction that the veto has incentivised. They see it in the health service collapsing in front of their eyes, in the generation of young people leaving our shores, in their pay packets that have reduced further and further in real terms and in their childcare costs that are just skyrocketing.

While the Government have sat back — or, too often, not sat at all — people have seen how their lives have, in many ways, been collateral damage of the deadlock. They have seen at first hand in their communities how a constant cycle of ransom politics just does not work. They see the same people lose trust and confidence in politics, and it is little wonder. They hear us talking about multi-year budgets, but they know that we are rarely here for multi years. They hear us talk about the Programme for Government, but they know that one has not been agreed since 2011. Their trust in politics has been pushed beyond breaking point on too many occasions to count. Indeed, a member of the public could be forgiven for thinking that such dysfunction actually suits parties that would rather say no than say yes and that are content to feed off tribalism and factionalism instead of standing over a record of government in delivery. The truth is that good government is not built by historic events, and trust is not won through symbolic handshakes. Good government is a process that demands us all to commit to consensus and compromise over years of crafting peace, the same years that simply have not —.

Yes, of course.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I suppose that, really, that says it all. I understand that a veto is a really hard thing to give up, but the two biggest parties have told us that they are about delivery. The single biggest message that the First Minister and deputy First Minister could send, if they are really committed to delivering for people here, is to put down that veto and accept that no one should be able to exercise it again. That would be to act in the spirit of the agreement and our peace process. Without that, how can people believe them this time, when this place has collapsed so easily before? If they do not have that commitment to write it down in the Programme for Government, people will know what conclusion to draw. Finally, I have heard people say that entering into any process of reform runs contrary to the Good Friday Agreement. I fundamentally disagree with that. I am profoundly grateful for the success of the Good Friday Agreement. I will never take for granted that agreement or the men and women who made it happen. They are the builders and the giants whom we all follow, but the truth is that to review the agreement's outworkings is to fulfil the very spirit of that agreement and stay true to the original intention of those builders. Change was always expected and, indeed, intended. To reform and review is to believe no less strongly in the agreement and peace process. In fact, it is the same agreement as that which provides for reform and expects and demands those who carry out the responsibility of preserving it to ensure that it works for the next generation. That generation deserves stability in its Government and hope for the future. The only way in which to guarantee that hope is to recommit to that agreement and reform the institution so that no one can ever pull it down again.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:40 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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