Debate contribution: Public-sector Pay

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 4 March 2024.

MLA

Mr Eóin Tennyson

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

4 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Public-sector Pay

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4254686

Read the official Assembly record

Text

One of the most shameful outworkings of successive periods of suspension of the House in recent years has been the degradation of public-sector pay for some of our most essential workers. Take our nurses as one example. In December 2019, the Royal College of Nursing was forced to commence strike action for the first time in its 103-year history. With the arrival of New Decade, New Approach and the restoration of these institutions just one month later, it was promised that never again would our nurses be forced on to picket lines. Not four years later, following yet another collapse, our nurses watched as pay awards were made in other parts of these islands whilst they received nothing and once again became the worst paid in the UK. Backed into a corner by our politicians, those workers, whom we applauded during the pandemic, were left with no option other than to protest over pay parity and unsafe staffing levels. I remind Members that those nurses sacrificed pay to engage in that strike action. That is a stark contrast with those in the House who were on strike from their roles for 18 months and received a healthy salary. Those same MLAs who were animated about the Northern Ireland protocol, the Windsor framework and academic arguments about the Irish Sea border made barely a whimper when it came to the very real sea border that they created for pay, conditions and living standards for some of our most essential workers. It is welcome that the Assembly and Executive have now been restored and that progress on pay is being made, but, earlier this year, I spoke to those who were on picket lines, and it is clear that this is about so much more than simply pay.

I could not agree more. I know that he has personal experience of the issue. The House is asking health workers to operate under extreme pressure and in unimaginable conditions. The numbers speak for themselves. Over 8,600 patients waited more than the recommended 12 hours in A & E in the months up to December 2023, and almost 342,000 people are on a waiting list for their first consultant-led appointment. That is against a backdrop of almost 6,000 vacancies across the health and social care system. I feel like I am participating in the debate in a parallel universe, given the vote that has just happened. While I agree that Tory austerity and underfunding have had an impact, it seems that the DUP and Sinn Féin are blind to the fact that one of the biggest impacts on our health service and public-sector pay has been stop-start government. It is all well and good for Mr Kearney to talk about working for all, but he seems to be very happy with a position where voters for the Alliance Party, People Before Profit and the Green Party are treated as second-class citizens in the House. Platitudes are one thing, but delivery in the Chamber is quite another. Frankly, I think that Members, particularly those on the Sinn Féin Benches, have brass necks, given how they voted on the previous motion, to decry a lack of stability in public finance and services. It was the now First Minister who published the Bengoa report in October 2016. A matter of months later, in January 2017, Sinn Féin pulled the institutions down. We then had government for a matter of months during a global pandemic when no transformation was possible, before the DUP decided that it was time to walk out. So, while the photo ops are all well and good and we can talk about parties working together, our public-sector workers and services need and demand the promise of stability. That stability can be delivered only through reform of the institutions. The degradation of pay and conditions for our health workers has been replicated across our public sector. Transport workers, teachers, classroom assistants and so many others have been impacted. I am conscious that our junior doctors also have action planned and that our classroom assistants and other non-teaching staff are awaiting their long-promised pay and grading review. I accept that that pay and grading review languished with the Department of Education and the Department of Finance when there were no Ministers, but I sincerely hope, now that Ministers are in place, that we will be able to make progress on it. We are in a better place, but if we are to sustain the progress that has been delivered over recent days and weeks, parties in the Chamber need to be honest with the public, who demand reform of these institutions, about their position and grasp the opportunity to ensure that the institutions endure into the future.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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