Debate contribution: Executive Reform

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 4 March 2024.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

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 4254204

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much for that warning, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. First, I thank all the Members who have participated in the debate. It was a wide-ranging debate, and I will touch on as many key points as I can. People will not be surprised by anything they heard from any side of the Chamber. I welcome the fact that at least two parties support what we are trying to do. I am not entirely clear where Sinn Féin is on it, and I am clear where the DUP is. I will attempt to address some of the points that were raised. I am genuinely disappointed that the First Minister and deputy First Minister are not here to respond. Indeed, there is no Minister here to respond to the debate. I think that that is an insult to the Chamber, bluntly. It is suboptimal at best, and I do not think that it reflects the seriousness of the issue or the gravity with which the people of Northern Ireland view it. We are clear that the purpose of today's motion is not about assigning blame or having a fight over what happened in the past, but, since Members raised issues that happened in the past, I will touch on a couple of those, purely to draw reflections on them. Our motions today are about positive, constructive momentum behind reforming the institutions, not to remove the pluralist or power-sharing principles behind them but to allow us to simply have a Government. What is so unacceptable about that? Why is veto necessary? Why is it necessary for people to have their identity protected to abolish — to be able to take away — not just the principle of government but the operation of government? I will go through a few of the comments that were made in the debate. Deirdre Hargey seemed to be in sympathy with some of the motion but focused on the regressive austerity imposed by the Tory Government. That is exactly right, and Deirdre would know, because she was Communities Minister and had to deal with a lot of that when she was in office, but what about the three years before that when there was no Communities Minister to deal with the aggressive austerity being foisted on the people of the North by a Tory Government and an austerity-obsessed Westminster? One cannot, on the one hand, argue that aggressive austerity from Tory Ministers has left our communities in a terrible place and then, on the other hand, say that we need to retain the right to collapse government and give them the power to do what they like. The power that we have at a devolved level is limited, both because of the mandatory coalition system and because Westminster holds all the power. Deirdre, her party and I agree that we need to change that in the long term and that we need a new constitutional set-up, but, while we have the one that we have at the minute, it is not defensible for us simply to say, "Well, we should be able to collapse the institutions". Jonathan Buckley's former party leader — I do not know whether he was involved in the defenestration of that particular former party leader — famously said:

"It is good to have a bit of fun in the Assembly." — [Official Report (Hansard), Bound Volume 130, p148, col 1].

That is what Jonny was doing when he made a series of bizarre claims that John Hume and Seamus Mallon would not be in sympathy with reform of the institutions. John Hume and Seamus Mallon helped create the institutions, along with David Trimble, John Alderdice, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Yes, the SDLP was intimately and proudly involved in the creation of the institutions. It wanted the institutions to function. It wanted us to be here, to work and to spill our sweat and not our blood. I will therefore take no lessons or preposterous, pathetic slurs from DUP MLAs about what John Hume and Seamus Mallon might have thought about our changing the rules, to be quite honest with you. Jonny also said that the SDLP was forced into this position by the electorate. I have had to clarify a few times that I am not denying the outcome of the 2022 election. We did not get enough seats to qualify under d'Hondt for a Ministry. Unlike others, and this includes the Member's party, we accept the outcome of elections. We are here in opposition because that is the role that we have after the election. There is no denying that, and there is no cavilling about that from me, and we intend to do it robustly and constructively, no matter what slurs come from different sides of the Chamber. Paula Bradshaw gave a thoughtful assessment. I am a bit of a geek, although I am not quite geeky enough to have read a 20-year old document. I may pinch a copy of if afterwards, however. I will come on to touching on a couple of other comments made by other Alliance MLAs in order to give some balance. Doug Beattie is right when he talks about the fact that things were different in 1998. A lot of the institutional issues that we have were created in the context of a society that was emerging from a violent conflict. Before that violent conflict, we had a system of government that was genuinely based on excluding one entire community. Harry Harvey mentioned the principle of consent. With respect to Mr Harvey, the absurd conflation of consent with perfect consensus has been a hallmark of DUP arguments for the past lock of years, as people say in the countryside. I do not consent permanently to Northern Ireland's being in the UK, nor will you — through the Chair — if there is ever a referendum on a new Ireland, and I hope that there will be consent for its happening. That does not mean that you do not give consent to the institutions that exist to work through democracy. Nor does it mean that everything in the Chamber has to have perfect cross-community consent. It was not designed in that way, and it was never supposed to work in that way. With respect, again, there was a slightly preposterous reference to John Hume, with which I have already dealt. Kellie Armstrong talked about reform and said that the AERC is kicking the can down the road. That is one reason that we do not accept the idea that the Assembly and Executive Review Committee is the best place in which for the discussion to happen, because it has a record of being — for fans of Charles Dickens — like the famous Court of Chancery case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce, where the court sat for years and never reached a resolution. We need to have a resolution, and we need to have momentum. There are a couple of common threads through the Alliance contributions, and I will address the designation point a little bit later. The Member for North Belfast Mr Brett called the motion a "stunt". Mr Brett, as always, for a rather new MLA, is a very persuasive and passionate speaker, and, indeed, one who is able to pull off quite remarkably brazen lines like that, given some of what the DUP has pulled over the past number of years. He said that there have been electoral issues for the SDLP. I am tempted to say this: no blank, Sherlock, we know. We are doing our job in opposition, we are proud to be doing it and we are going to keep doing it no matter what slurs come from different parts of the Chamber.

The Member has been generous —

— and I think that his point has been made. Nuala McAllister and Kate Nicholl both touched on the question of designation. The motion does not mention designation because we should prioritise up front. That is why the third motion that we will debate today is focused on the establishment of an Ac Hoc Committee to get consensus and agreement on the question of the removal of the veto. It is really important that we try to keep up the momentum to take that one toxic ingredient out of the mix here. Once we do that, we can do a lot afterwards. That is why this first motion talks about the broader reform of the Programme for Government, which could certainly include designation. I understand, particularly now that there is increased Alliance representation in the Chamber, some of the frustration around voting. We are up for that debate. It is important to say that I do not agree that designation in 1998 was the root of all evil. We need to be honest about where we were in 1998, but that is not to say that we cannot look at it now. We all have rich identities. For what it is worth, I designate as a nationalist and a social democrat. My party is a proud member of the Party of European Socialists. There is a lot more to me than simply my constitutional view — proud and passionate though I am about it. Our identities are all complex, and we need to recognise that. The binary definition does not apply simply to those who designate as other, although I respect the argument that was made. I come back to the point that was made again and again, including by Mr Allister, about the SDLP talking about changing the Good Friday Agreement. From the very beginning, we have talked about improving and changing, where necessary, the Good Friday Agreement. What we have been opposed to has been the hacking at the principles of power-sharing, including the St Andrews Agreement —.

I am afraid that I do not have time to give way. I would normally, but I will not get an extra minute, so I will not give way. You will, hopefully, have time to speak in the second debate on reform. We have been opposed to hacking away at the principles of power-sharing, pluralism and partnership. Of course, Mr Allister has been delighted to hack away at that and object to it. That is fine; that is his outlook, as they say. Although he is a talented polemicist, I do not go along with the somewhat vulgar and faintly misogynistic depictions of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. That is not appropriate. We have an opportunity today to do something very important, which is to build a consensus around partnership and working together. It is ironic that the constructive Opposition have to encourage the Government to stay together and do a job for the people, but that is where we find ourselves. I very much thank everyone who participated. Let us make this place work. I commend the motion once again to the Assembly.

Aye.

1,827 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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