Colum Eastwood
Foyle · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Given the fact that the Good Friday Agreement envisages an Assembly, a power-sharing Executive, North/South Ministerial Council and other bodies, is it the case, today, that, if we do not have the nominating officer here from Sinn Féin, no Executive will be formed?”
“Mr Allister has made my point for me. The Good Friday Agreement is absolutely 100% clear. The power-sharing Executive, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the North-South Ministerial Council: at any point over the last 1,000-plus days, those institutions could have been restored. People on these Benches have tried hard.”
“That is why we are here today. We will gladly take part in those institutions but we will not be party to a stunt that is using and abusing people's emotions and sensitivities over a very difficult issue, which could have been dealt with at any point over the last 1,000 days.”
“<BR /> <BR />Is it the case, Mr Speaker, that without Members here present to my right or who should be to my right that there will not be an Executive formed today? If that is the case, we will be in no position to support a Speaker and allow for the undermining of the Good Friday Agreement through a unionist-dominated shadow Assembly.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is, of course, true that because of the DUP's despicable and disgraceful behaviour, not just around RHI, we have got to this point. It is also true that they were let do all those things. They were allowed to do all those things.”
“We put the papers in on all manner of subjects, topics and areas, but nobody wanted to negotiate back. Nobody wanted to talk to us about how we can invest in the Irish language, protect equality for LGBT people and tackle poverty and discrimination right across our society.”
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“I thank the Member for giving way. I am from a border constituency as well, so I understand the negative impact that partition has had, and I understand the negative impact that this could have. We have already stated our opposition. Earlier, I asked a question that I would like you to address: how do you stop it? I have not heard once in the debate how we can actually stop this. This is an excepted matter controlled by the British Government in Westminster; they will come in and implement the tax if we do not. Tell me how to stop that. We will do it tomorrow.”
“We need to break down all the barriers to that. However, the truth of the matter is that this is outwith our control. The Department for Transport in London will collect this levy whether we like it or not. We have heard it enough times now that we should be listening; that is the truth of it. This Assembly is powerless to change that, unfortunately. I will end with that.”
“That is a question that some of us will continue to debate for decades to come; hopefully, not too many. This is a matter of fact and of what we can do and what power we have to actually effect change. The bottom line is that we have no power to stop this legislation coming in, and we have to be honest with the people who will suffer as a result of it. We do not have authority on this issue, so people should stop pretending that we do. In the proposer's very long speech, I did not hear one answer on how we can change this, stop it or prevent the British Government from implementing the legislation and enforcing the levy. It just is not possible. <BR /> <BR />I reassert the fact, and I am sure that the Minister will do so too, that we do not believe that it is good to try to hinder cross-border activity or cross-border trade.”
“The bottom line in all this is that, for all of us who are pro-European — I am not sure where everybody is on that, because it changes quite often — or even the people who are not pro-European, the fact of the matter is that, when a member state brings in a levy like this, the European Union insists that it is enforced. It does not have to bring in the levy, but when it does bring it in and in this way, the European Union insists that it is enforced and that the levy or tax is collected. I have not yet heard how we can do this differently. <BR /> <BR />I am from Derry. I understand the impact of the border on the economic life of our city and, in particular, of north-east Donegal. I understand what the border has done for our people. It has been an economic disaster. But that is not the question today.”
“Yet, we could say that we are not going to enforce this legislation, this levy or this tax but that we will let the British Government do it. We will let the people that the British Government employ do it, and we will not take the benefit of the cash and the jobs that would come to enable us to do it. If there is any ray of sunshine in this, we should grasp it. We should grasp the couple of jobs that we will get out of it and the money that we will get for the camera equipment that will also help with other road traffic issues. <BR /> <BR />There is no choice here. The Minister fought the battle. The Minister in the South, Leo Varadkar, fought the battle. We have not been successful. The British Government are bringing this in.”
“It is about whether there will be a fixed penalty at the roadside for not paying the levy or whether you would have to go through court proceedings. That is what this debate is about; it is not about us being able to stop the levy coming in. <BR /> <BR />This Minister, the previous Minister, Minister Attwood, and any SDLP Member who has spoken on the issue has said consistently that we think that it does not make sense that the levy be introduced. However, the bottom line is that this is an excepted matter; it is a tax issue. Sinn Féin is constantly talking, and it is good to have that debate, about the need for more tax-varying powers for the North. We do not have them; we do not have control over tax issues in the North. It is not up to us, unfortunately.”
“I do not propose to speak for too long. Some people seem to want to make this a very long debate: I cannot imagine why. <BR /> <BR />It is important to bring a bit of reality to the discussion. We can all bring motions and, sometimes, we can all be accused of politicising issues and hiding the fact that there is a reality there and that, sometimes, things are not even within our control and just have to be done. So, we need to be clear for anybody who is watching — especially Donegal hauliers or people who have an interest in this — and we need to be honest with them. <BR /> <BR />This debate is not about whether we think that this levy is a good idea: from our perspective, we do not think that it is. It is not about whether this tax should be collected: the British Government are going to collect it anyway.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. I find it absolutely astonishing that, when we are talking about tens of millions of pounds of public money, an organisation like Translink is able to guesstimate the cost to the public purse, end up getting it wrong and the costs, potentially, end up being more than double the guesstimated cost. This is an important question, Minister: are any heads going to roll in Translink over this fiasco?”
“— and this Assembly gets together and stands up to them, because I have seen people around here talking about walking out of Government over far less.”
“<BR /> <BR />Let me put it on the record: the reason we oppose welfare reform, and the reason we are going to have to, as a whole and as a society, oppose what the Tory Government are planning to do if they get into power again, is because what is happening here is not cuts to just Danny Kennedy's budget. It is going to be cuts to people's very livelihood. Money is going to be taken out of the pockets of the most vulnerable in our society because the Tory Government who are here today and the one who could be here after the next election blame poor people for poverty — they blame poor people for poverty, and they give tax cuts to richer people. <BR /> <BR />That is the situation we are in and are going to be in unless everybody around this Executive —”
“We need to look at these things in the round and if a crisis does arise, then we can look at it in the best way possible. We can find efficiencies, rather that what has been happening. I am not accusing this Minister of it, but what has been happening is that because of the political debate around welfare reform, issues like the expansion of Magee have been floated as not now going to happen, even though that was never proposed in the Programme for Government. Things like that are being floated as a political tool to try to pressurise others.”
“For me, that would be a much more transparent way of looking at how we allocate our people's resources. We would like to see a zero-base budgetary process where we could look at every programme at issue and make sure that Ministers justify how they spend our resources. <BR /> <BR />We would also like to see the Public Accounts Committee working in the same way as the Public Accounts Committee at Westminster, where they are able to properly scrutinise and interrogate the work of Departments on a permanent basis. That would be a far better way of looking at the budgetary difficulties that we have. <BR /> <BR />At the end of the day, it does not make very much sense for one Minister to be told that they have to take this amount off and another Minister to be told that.”
“However, before he stands up, I agree with Mr Beggs: the problem is not just about welfare reform, although I will talk about that if you want; it is about the budgetary process that we have here, which does not make very much sense. The last time the budgetary process was debated, which was at the beginning of this mandate, we proposed that we would have a system that would look year on year at the budgetary process and interrogate the Budget on a rolling basis.”
“We are still waiting — Mr Dallat mentioned this — for the Dungiven bypass, the A5 and a proper dualling system from Derry to Belfast. Without those important pieces of work, we will never, above and beyond any current budgetary crisis, meet the needs of the people in our areas because far too many of them are not able to contribute to the economy or soften some of the blows of the cuts because the jobs just do not exist to allow them to do that. <BR /> <BR />This particular decision is understandable in a way, but it is short-sighted. What is not done today will have to be done at some point. We are looking at a false economy. Contractors are being put out of business, and people are being put out of work. We are also looking at potential road safety issues.”
“This is a very important motion in front of the House today. We brought it because we believed that the impact of the cuts were very serious in terms of the economy. We have heard about the issues around road safety and the future budgetary concerns that will arise from the fact that we have not done the work now. I am glad to support Mr Dallat and his very eloquent history of how road networks across Europe came about. He talked about the great work done by the Roman empire. Some of us here will ask, "What have the Romans ever done for us?". In some constituencies across the North, such as mine, we really understand the benefit that good roads would have for our economy, so we ask, "What have this Government ever done for us?".”
“I thank the deputy First Minister for his statement and his answers thus far. He talked about the north-west gateway initiative and mentioned the links with Letterkenny IT. Will he expand on what discussions were had around the very necessary expansion of Magee university in order to meet some of the difficulty around the unemployment crisis?”
“I thank the deputy First Minister for his answer. We all know that there is a difference between jobs promoted and jobs created and people getting paid to work in those jobs. How many actual, real jobs have been created in the financial year?”
“We need to make sure that every bright light is shone into the darkest corners of the state and the security services in order to ensure that those people who are still struggling and striving for truth and justice with regard to Kincora and other issues are allowed to see those files and to act upon them.”
“However, we understand that the issues around Kincora are outwith the abilities of the Justice Hart inquiry to get to the truth. We need to ensure that that part of the inquiry, whilst not diminishing victims' rights around the acknowledgement forum and so on, inquires properly into what the state and the security services have done. I think that, at this stage, that probably best rests with the Woolf inquiry. <BR /> <BR />As was pointed out earlier by Mr Attwood and others, we cannot take our eye off the ball. We, in this country, have had a very difficult and bad experience when it comes to what state agencies have been allowed to get away with and what they have been allowed to cover up. Victims have not been allowed to get near the truth or justice.”
“It is astonishing that this length of time has been allowed to pass without a proper investigation into what happened there being facilitated. Whatever the allegations about security services, state involvement and everything else, the bottom line is that many young people were abused and have not seen a modicum of truth or justice in all that time. <BR /> <BR />It is incumbent on us and on Westminster to ensure that we can now get to a stage where those people can have some level of truth and justice. Very good work is being done in the Justice Hart inquiry and through the acknowledgement forum, and we have to ensure that that work continues and that we get to a point where we can look at reparation and possible expansion, whether through that inquiry or a further one, into the issues around clerical abuse.”
“Most recently, we have seen very prominent and powerful people across the water being facilitated by very powerful institutions to treat our children in the most despicable way. We have seen, over the last 10 or 15 years, the state and powerful elements in the Church across this island being allowed to get away with terrible injustices on our young people. Thankfully, we are now in an era where we can talk about these issues, where we can bring them to the fore and where we can attempt to hold these people and, more particularly, these institutions to account. <BR /> <BR />Even though they are nearly 30 years old, the revelations about Kincora are no less shocking and demand nothing less from us than all our efforts in trying to bring the truth to the fore.”
“I begin by echoing the words of support and, I suppose, congratulations to all the campaigners who, over the last number of years, have made an immense impact in this place and on the search for truth and justice for all those in our society who have suffered the great injustice of child abuse. Organisations like Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA) — I know that some of them are here — have done immense work to bring that issue to the fore and to ensure that the House and the Executive make good strides to try to bring about justice for all those people. <BR /> <BR />It is kind of depressing that, almost daily, we have a new revelation about the abuse of children in our society.”
“I add my words of congratulations to the Minister. I look forward to what will, I am sure, be a fairly robust debate in the time ahead. If and when the powers are transferred, can he guarantee that each and every area will not lose budget when it comes to community development and regeneration functions?”
“What assessment is being made of the bank system to ensure that those who are qualified get full-time and permanent jobs?”
“Given that one of the key catalytic projects within the One Plan was the expansion of Magee, will the Minister or First Minister give their commitment to seeing that happen by 2020?”
“I thank the junior Minister for his answers thus far. When was this issue last raised at the Executive, and who raised it?”
“In terms of a positive ending, we are rowing behind the commitment given by the deputy First Minister and the commitments given by the Minister for Employment and Learning. I hope that the First Minister shares in those commitments, because we need to ensure that we deliver this. I do not welcome the fact that we are back here a year later.”
“Ebrington and Fort George were mentioned, as were jobs targets, but there was no specific mention of the expansion of Magee and no budget given to the Minister to make it happen.”
“As far as we are concerned, this needs to be handled at the very top. I am glad to see that the deputy First Minister said on the front of the 'Derry Journal' that he would spearhead the campaign. We are going to hold him and the Executive to that. <BR /> <BR />Ms McLaughlin and I will disagree about this, but there was no proper mention of the expansion of Magee in the Programme for Government. It said that they wanted to develop the One Plan, but, as far as I was concerned, we had already developed it. What we need to do is implement it, and we needed specifically to mention Magee and some of the other aspects of the plan in the Programme for Government. Some of them were mentioned.”
“We all know the point he was making, but people in Derry saw through it because, as I pointed out earlier, this is a 50-year old debate and not one that has just arrived as a result of welfare reform. It was insensitive, and it was a mistake, and, to be fair to him, the Minister has recognised that, and he has again committed to the expansion of Magee. <BR /> <BR />My view is that it is a much bigger issue than just the Minister. It is an issue that needs to be at the heart of our Executive and trumpeted by the First Minister and the deputy First Minister. It is shocking that there is nobody from the DUP on the opposite Benches this evening who cares enough to come into the Chamber to fight for the economic survival of our city. That, for me, is a very worrying development.”
“There was welcome news today in the opening of the science park at Fort George. That is fantastic, but if we want to properly maximise and utilise that opportunity, we need to ensure that we have high-tech graduates going from the University of Ulster at Magee into that site so that we can build another building at Fort George, employ more people and ensure that we have more people in the city earning a decent wage and contributing to the economy for the whole of the North. <BR /> <BR />I sometimes feel for the Minister, although I did not feel for him when he made that announcement on the radio in August. It was an insensitive way to make a point.”
“Census figures relating to employment were revealed in July and were revised this month. They showed that there are 15,000 more jobs in the four Belfast constituencies than there were in 2009 just after the financial crash. However, the picture in Derry is very different: in the same period, we lost nearly 2,000 jobs. Derry is supposed to be alongside Belfast and, as part of the economic strategy, one of the major places that we look at for economic expansion. <BR /> <BR />Derry's employment figures are contracting, so, for us, the issue around Magee is not just, as Pat Ramsey said, that we want more Derry people to go to university. It is a fundamental economic issue that needs to be resolved, but it just never has been resolved. We need the proper number of students doing the proper kind of high-tech courses.”
“However, it is, unfortunately, true that our city lags behind when it comes to the employment figures. We come here and argue for all sorts of different tools for economic expansion, but we all recognise that no matter how many roads we build, we need a proper university. We talk about the figure of 9,400. For us, that was a compromise, a starting point. Unless we get at least to that point, we have no chance of redressing some of the difficulties that we face.”
“We often say that a week is a long time in politics, and, given the last week that we have had, it definitely is. In Derry, half a century is an eternity. It is coming up to 50 years ago that the Lockwood report, which was basically a sectarian document, announced Coleraine as the site for the new University of Ulster. This is not just about looking back, but it is important to put it in context: that decision left a very negative legacy in our city of, amongst other things, economic deprivation. The failure to address that in the subsequent 50 years has made it much more difficult for our city to see the peace dividend that other places may have seen. It is a well-worn phrase, but we do not wear being known as "the economic and unemployment black spot of the North" as a badge of honour. We really wish that it was not the case.”
“— to try to bring about those two vital services and ensure that they stay for all the people who need them.”
“Peter Robinson spoke last week. We now have even more issues than we thought we had. However, this party and other parties will, I hope, come to the fore when it comes to dealing with those. For far too long, people and their issues have been thrown out there around these kinds of things. Sometimes we do not have due regard for the impact that announcements on 'The Nolan Show' or wherever else have on people's lives and experiences. <BR /> <BR />To sum up, I am glad to see a positive approach and response from the Minister. We offer our support —”
“It is important that we also recognise that issues like this should not be used in bigger debates, around welfare reform or financial constraints, to try to get an easy win. We know the impact that that has on people out there. Mr Robinson was able to talk about his own experience of the staff dealing with cardiac issues. I think that we should all resist the urge, on the radio or in the Chamber, to make announcements about things that have a real impact on people's lives without the issues having been worked forward. <BR /> <BR />There is a major job of work to be done to try to get over some of the issues, not least welfare reform. However, outside welfare reform, there is massive difficulty around the Health budget. The SDLP and, I am sure, other parties are committed to dealing with those issues. We have a few issues to deal with.”
“I have already spoken about somebody from north-east Donegal having to travel even further, to Dublin or Galway or somewhere, to get cancer treatment. The work being done alongside the Irish Government to ensure that there is a proper, functioning radiotherapy centre at Altnagelvin is important. Politics should never impede progress in health care outcomes. It is important that that has been recognised. <BR /> <BR />Mr Dallat made a very emotional and emotive speech about the need to put people before politics. I ended up having to scrap half of my speech because of it, but he made a very good point. An issue like this is far too important for us to use to beat each other around the Chamber.”
“Nobody wants to see front line services cut. Nobody wants to see a radiotherapy centre with all the mod cons — equipment and buildings — being held up over £1·1 million, which is a lot of money to some of us, but, in the grand scheme of things, not really a lot of money. We need to ensure that, in whatever negotiations and discussions around October monitoring — if we have an October monitoring round; there are rumours that we might not get one — that type of project is put at the very forefront of all that we do. <BR /> <BR />We have to recognise the work that was done. Ms McLaughlin talked about the Pink Ladies, and about the people of Derry coming out onto the streets to ensure that it happened. It is important to recognise that. She also said that cancer does not respect borders.”
“There has clearly been a very real problem in health. I know that some people will debate when and why that started. However, we have to commit to a new budgetary process to ensure that we can resolve that.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am glad to hear what the Minister said about the 24/7 aspect, because it should not be the case that, if you turn up at a certain time, unfortunately, you might die because the service is not there 24/7. I think that the Minister said that we are going ahead at risk. I think that that is a sensible decision. I know that he was there last Friday when it was not just quite as clear whether we were going for the 24/7 model. Maybe that is where some of the confusion came about today. We are very glad to support that and to see it come forward. <BR /> <BR />A number of Members spoke very well. I note that Mr Wells talked largely around the financial implications of this. I think that we are all aware of them. He also recognised that, when you look at the figures, you see that this is not necessarily a welfare reform issue.”
“It is important to point out that, in the 24-hour period from midnight on Thursday, the A&E department treated 160 patients within that time frame. While we are often all very good at complaining about those kinds of things, it is important that we recognise good work when we see it. <BR /> <BR />I know that Christie O'Donnell has been mentioned. I know Christie. I have been in his taxi many times. He is a very grateful recipient of very good care. He actually drove his taxi to Alnagelvin while he was having a heart attack and was treated very swiftly and well by the staff there. That is something that needs to be said. It is because of the good work around the new cardiac centre that Christie was able to avail himself of those services. Thank God for it.”
“The response from most of the Members who have spoken has been positive. I think that that is a good thing. <BR /> <BR />We also deliberately put in the motion a reference to the health workers who interface with the public every single day. I think that sometimes we do not say enough about that. I think that people need to be very mindful of the difficult circumstances. When we talk up here about budgets, it is the people on the ground at the front line who have to deal with the issues and difficulties that they face because of budget cuts. Mr Ramsey highlighted that, last weekend, in Altnagelvin's A&E department, a target was met by those workers and staff to treat every single patient within four hours.”
“<BR /> <BR />Everybody in this House will know somebody who has to travel the long distance to the fantastic cancer centre that we have in Belfast. We often complain that we have to come up here from Derry three or four times a week. Imagine trying to do that, maybe for a 10-minute appointment, if you are going through cancer treatment and all the difficulties that that presents. We have to say that we were and have been very glad that Mr Poots, in his first week as Minister, made a very positive announcement for the north-west. Think about people from Derry travelling to Belfast: even more horrendous in this day and age is that people from Malin Head maybe travel to Dublin or Galway. We come at this in a positive way. The response from the Minister today has been positive.”
“I think that one of the difficult parts of the financial debate that has been going on since the June monitoring round is that it seems to us — some people might say that we have a bit of a complex — that every time an argument is made about welfare reform or anything else, the example that is used is one that affects people in our city, whether it be Magee campus, radiotherapy or whatever else. I think that we just need to be mindful that people are very hopeful. People came out on to the streets of Derry, went to meetings, wrote letters, signed petitions and did a lot of things the last time that this issue was used to advance a political argument about budgets. We just have to be mindful that these decisions and, sometimes, these statements have an effect on people.”
“Members will note that the wording of the motion was designed to be helpful rather than critical. Most of the debate has shown that we have support right across the House for what needs to be done. There is obviously a recognition of the financial difficulties. There is obviously going to be a bit of discussion and debate around why we are in those financial difficulties and what has actually caused them, but I think that what we can take from this debate is a commitment from the House to ensure that we do not again end up in a scenario where people in the north-west and beyond hear things on a radio or television programme that make them very fearful of some of the really important projects and proposals that the Executive and Assembly have for them.”
“I thank the Minister for her answers thus far and her stated commitment to the legacy of the City of Culture. I want to ask her for some clarification though. One day on Radio Foyle, she talked about £1 million being there for the cultural legacy programme of the City of Culture, and she has made a commitment today. Is it intended that all of that £1 million will go to Derry and the legacy of the City of Culture?”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. Given the fact that your predecessor refused to consider decoupling the bypass at Dungiven from the larger project, have you any views on that? I think that the people in Dungiven are living in the most polluted town in Ireland and they are desperately seeking for that bypass to go ahead as soon as possible.”