Member's statement: Executive Accountability
Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 24 February 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Executive Accountability
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4813397
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I am tempted to respond to some of what Dr Aiken has said — he has said it repeatedly in the Chamber — but I will not, because I have other things to talk about. First of all, I associate myself with your remarks about Andy Allen, Mr Speaker. We should all be proud of Andy's achievements. I also mark, if I may, the anniversary, which, I think, was last week, of the passing of our constituency colleague and your predecessor in the constituency, Christopher Stalford, who is sorely missed from the Chamber. As somebody who had very different political views from Christopher Stalford, I often think of him when we have debates here. I think of his intelligence and wit. I just wanted to pause and remember him. It is just over a year since we returned to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, but we face, in this place, a crisis in accountability, a crisis in the public's trust that people here — specifically Ministers — will make decisions, be willing to take responsibility and answer for those decisions and be held accountable for them. I will give a couple of examples. Last week, the Health Minister announced a new policy on core grant funding for health bodies. That resulted in a loss of funding for a wide number of organisations, although I accept that it also meant that some bodies got core grant funding for the first time. You would think that that was the kind of thing that a Minister should bring to the Assembly to face questions on. He did not do that, but he is not the only one. There are umpteen examples. A particularly egregious example or set of examples, is that of the Finance Minister — now successive Finance Ministers — having meaningful decisions — when I say "meaningful", I am talking about large and important decisions — on spending announced by written ministerial statement on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and not bringing them to the Chamber. Tens of millions of pounds were allocated in response to storm Éowyn through the January monitoring round, but that was not brought to the Chamber. That was issued by written statement with no one — not a single MLA from the Opposition or Executive parties — being able to ask a question. Not only that, but the draft Budget was announced before Christmas. Before Santa got here, the Finance Minister announced the draft Budget, which, by the way, included a policy decision to increase rates for the people of Northern Ireland. That had already been decided. It was not brought to the Chamber. I see Members across the Chamber smiling at me as I make that point, but our job is accountability. Whether you are in the Opposition or the Executive, simply waving stuff through, pretending that we are not here to hold people to account and are simply here to act like pygmies and have meaningless debates and motions, reading things out and not scrutinising the people in power fails the people who sent us here. I am serious about accountability. I am aware that it prompts guffaws and occasionally contempt from people in the Chamber who do not like accountability. However, the rest of the official Opposition and I are serious about it. We intend to keep holding people to account, whether they like it or not.
564 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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