Debate contribution: Programme for Government 2024-27

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 3 March 2025.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

3 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Programme for Government 2024-27

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4826288

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Executive constantly accuse the Opposition of lacking positivity, so, in the spirit of kindness, let me offer them a "Well done": well done for doing just about enough to fulfil the absolute minimum expectation of any Government by finally agreeing a Programme for Government. Let us be clear, however, that it has not been implemented. It is not fully funded. It does not even contain clear accountability mechanisms or targets, but, yes, the Executive have agreed a document. I will focus my remarks on the details or lack thereof of the health commitments in the Programme for Government. As we all know, Northern Ireland's health service is in a state of crisis. There have been years of neglect, inadequate transformation of public services and a failure to address growing waiting lists. The deepening problems in our system have brought us to this point. What a claim we have to make that we have the worst waiting times in all of Europe. Given that, one would have thought that health would be the defining priority for the Executive in implementing their first Programme for Government since 2011. It was certainly a strong election promise. Does anyone remember the extra £1 billion that was being promised? What does the document tell us? It gives us a vague overview of the problem. It is sprinkled with buzzwords such as "close the gap" and "reconfiguration". It has taken over three years for us to be given an overview of what is already being done. It mentions investing in primary, community and social care but with no finance, no action and no plan to help those sectors. It lays out a target for 2027, with the hope — the hope — of investing £135 million a year, treating an additional 70,000 patients a year and spending an extra £80 million annually on elective care. Seriously, is that the best that can be done? That is not a plan but a collection of empty promises and fluffy language designed to pacify the public, who are dying on waiting lists and dying while ambulances remain stuck outside emergency departments. Last year, £76 million funded 263,000 assessments, treatments and diagnostics. The document states that, this year, the Executive will invest the same money and deliver 250,000 assessments, treatments and diagnostics. With a flat-cash Budget for next year, there is no prospect of those fortunes being reversed. The £135 million target has already been significantly missed. What we are saying is that, this year, we did less than last year and will probably do less next year. Is that really the plan? Is that the ambition with which you are happy to go to your constituents and say that it is how you will sort out our health service? Is that the most exciting thing that you can go out with as you tell people here that you will address the issues for them? What about mental health? We have a mental health strategy that was costed at £1·2 billion over 10 years. This year, the Department was meant to allocate £62 million. Guess what? It has not been allocated. The agreed Programme for Government says that the Executive will work with the community and voluntary sector to address mental health. Again, are you serious? You have just slashed the core funding, and the groups that are hardest hit are those that support people with acute mental health needs. The Health Minister has repeatedly told us that he does not have enough money to achieve health outcomes or to resolve pay disputes with staff. He even voted against his own Budget, yet here we are with an agreed Programme for Government that offers no substantial financial commitments or arrangements, no plan for the staffing of the service and no vision for transforming our health service. The document, insultingly subtitled, "Doing what matters most", even has the audacity to say:

"with the pressure on public finances and the available health budget, the pace and impact of reform and access to additional capacity will continue to be negatively impacted for longer than any of us would like."

If that is truly doing what matters most, I cannot imagine what the Executive, with no ambition, no accountability and no regard for the public, would consider to be doing what matters least. This is a Government who have set the bar for health so low that they are already guaranteed to miss their targets. If this is the best that the Executive can offer, I fear that the only thing that is more broken than our health service is the Executive's ambition and that the only thing that is growing more than our waiting lists is the Executive's complete disregard for the people whom they are meant to serve.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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