Debate contribution: Enhancing Accountability and Trust in Government

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 3 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

3 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Enhancing Accountability and Trust in Government

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4773907

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. What a difference a year makes — or not, if you are one of the people of Northern Ireland who is on a waiting list, if your child is waiting for a special educational needs (SEN) referral or if you are waiting to get a housing development built but cannot get a waste water connection. In all those areas, a year of the Executive having returned has not meant the kind of progress that people were led to believe that they would see. We have been here for a year. The Executive have been in office for a year. Rather than making progress, they have largely been marking time. As the official Opposition throughout that year, we have done our best to provide real and robust accountability. We said that we would be a constructive Opposition, and, at every turn, we have been. We have brought practical proposals to the Chamber. Sometimes Ministers turned up to hear our proposals. Sadly, however, as my colleague said, neither the First Minister nor the deputy First Minister nor even a junior Minister has done us the courtesy of turning up today. I am sure that there is a really important photo opportunity somewhere around the Stormont estate that is detaining them. We have done our job of providing accountability throughout that year. We have acknowledged where Ministers have made progress and there have been positive steps. For example, there was an intervention on childcare: we have acknowledged that and other specific areas. The truth is that we have failed. Specifically, the Executive have failed. They have failed to start the work of rebuilding trust in our politics. People deserve better than a Government who simply demand credit and demand a birthday card and bunting for simply turning up and saying, "We're here. We've done our job". Leading is about more than turning up. Some of our constituents will be preparing for their end-of-year assessments or appraisals with their managers. Their managers will ask them, "What have you achieved in the past year?". If they say, "Well, boss, I turned up. I've been here. I didn't resign", the boss is hardly likely to say, "Well done. That's great. Same again next year". We need to get serious and real about what we have and have not delivered in this place. Our motion is about rebuilding trust and accountability in our politics, returning to a theme that we discussed on our first Opposition day, last year, when the question that I posed to the First Minister and deputy First Minister, moments after they took office, was whether they would pledge not to resign their seats and to stay in their jobs until the end of the mandate. They did not do it then, and they have still not done it. We need deeper reform of our institutions to ensure that no party can collapse the institutions and collapse government on a political whim because it suits their interests at any given moment. We need deeper, further reform that looks at how we do government here and at changes to the ministerial code, which is what our motion talks about. When we came here last year, the First Minister and deputy First Minister said that the discussion on reform should properly be done in the Assembly Executive and Review Committee (AERC). Sadly, that Committee has met just once or twice, and, when a Member from the Alliance Party and I attempted to ensure that the issue of reform was on the agenda, it was batted back by Sinn Féin and the DUP. We need to get real. We need to endorse it at the Assembly, and we need to practically deliver it. I turn to the question of delivery over the past year. Reform and accountability are so important, ultimately, because all of us who seek a mandate to this place have to be honest with the public about what we will use that mandate for. We are treading water. Waiting lists are going up, not down, and the Health Minister has not brought forward a plan. His colleagues in the Executive, despite having the largest-ever financial settlement, have not worked with him to produce a meaningful plan to reform our health service and get waiting lists down. Our waste water infrastructure is crumbling. There is no plan from the Infrastructure Minister — there is a new Minister today — for how we will deal with that. What we get instead is vague waffle and aspiration. Last week, a court in Belfast heard that the failure by the Executive, one year on, to produce an anti-poverty strategy is "appalling". I am not here simply to whine, moan and list grievances; I am here to hold the Executive to account for what they deliver or do not deliver for the people of Northern Ireland. The Programme for Government (PFG) is shockingly vague. It has not even been signed off yet. Last week, in Dáil Éireann, Pearse Doherty TD said that the Irish Programme for Government contains "very little that is new", is "lacking specific commitments" and is a "continuation of existing policies". Well, Pearse, you ain't seen nothing yet, compared with what is happening north of the border. We have a job to do in this place. We need to get real. We need to rebuild trust among the people who send us here. We simply cannot mark time and expect the public to cheerlead us.

It is time for actual delivery and reform of the institutions.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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