Clare Bailey
South Belfast · Green Party · Northern Ireland
“It is a great relief to finally be able to move my Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill at Final Stage. When I was first elected, I pledged to the people of South Belfast that I would work hard on equality issues, for human rights-compliant legislation and, particularly, for women. Today is the last sitting day of the mandate.”
“Yet, despite "Stay at home" messaging and regulations to prevent public gatherings, the concerted campaign of harassment and intimidation against women and staff continued unabated, and all authorities — the Health Department, the Department of Justice, the PSNI — claimed that they could do nothing to stop it.”
“The efficacy of the Bill is achieved without being unnecessarily heavy-handed or putting significant additional pressures on any criminal justice system. I hope that we can move on from those debates. <BR /> <BR />This is absolutely a landmark moment for the Assembly. I have seen many Bills passed today that I am incredibly proud of.”
“I thank the Member for that. It is worth noting that, comparatively, this Bill takes a light touch in respect of offences being committed, because the punishment for breaching safe access zones around the world, in almost all cases where they are operational, can result in imprisonment and wildly higher fines than what is being proposed i…”
“I am also aware that the Minister, who, Mr Butler, is your party colleague, has also confirmed that he will produce a policy paper setting out how his Department intends to implement the requirements for safe access zones, including guidance to operators of health and social care premises.”
“None of that is what I have experienced with abortion services. <BR /> <BR />I went out to consultation on the Bill in 2017, just as the Executive was collapsing yet again, and the three-year hiatus meant that I could not progress the Bill any further.”
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“Thank you, Speaker. Thank you for your answer, Minister. That being the case, can you let us know how the Department evaluates the education that happens in our schools?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. Would you recognise, if it was a European-driven policy, that many other European countries have removed a lot of the economic barriers for women — something that the UK, particularly Northern Ireland, has failed to do? Targeting them at the end of their working life, rather than removing barriers during their working life, is still a failure.”
“They were forced to leave certain jobs in the workforce if they got married. They were actively refused access to some other career paths, and they had no childcare provision. Actually, even today, we still have no childcare provision, and we do not have equal access to maternity and paternity leave in wider society. All those things impact on women's economic autonomy and choices. For a Government to then target them and leave them with little or no notice to make the required changes is absolutely shameful treatment. I do not believe that this is an implementation matter, although that was disgraceful on its own. It is absolutely about the equal treatment of all citizens throughout Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.”
“Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. I will keep it brief. I have heard most Members state that they understand exactly the implications and impacts that this issue is having on women. Naomi Long said that our Executive have no control over these changes, but having the debate in the House can highlight the fact that we as a society need to embed urgently a gendered impact study on economic decisions that are being made in the wider economy because this is an absolutely shameful treatment of women. I believe that it is targeted welfare reform from the Tory Government on women in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />If a woman was born in 1953, she will be 63 this year. I am sure that that is no surprise to any women born in 1953, but these women have already suffered many economic disadvantages in their lives.”
“— but what other initiatives will she be addressing as a matter of absolute urgency for domestic violence victims?”
“A recent briefing paper given to me by the Assembly's research team shows that, although the total number of homicides in Northern Ireland has fallen over the past few years, those with a domestic abuse motivation have remained relatively constant, to the point that, whereas in 2008 16·7% of homicide cases were female victims, in 2014 that proportion had risen to just over 41%. It is good to hear the plans to take the issue seriously and to extend the implementation of the courts —”
“It is great to hear, Minister, that you are touching base with all the agencies. Are you doing any work with housing providers on this issue? As far as I am aware, there is absolutely no onus on housing providers to move victims who are being terrorised in their own homes, although we have provision for harassment and intimidation. Our cultural understanding really limits that to issues of orange and green or political intimidation, but for domestic violence and stalking there is really no onus on housing providers. Are they included in the agencies?”
“In Northern Ireland, people can face letting fees of anything from £30 to £120 a time, and then they have to pay a month's rent in advance. On top of the deposit, that is a huge cost, little of which ever comes back to the tenant. There is a huge body of work to do in bringing the tenancy deposit scheme, the letting fees and the regulation of landlords together into one piece that we can all use to help tenants, who make up, I repeat, one fifth of the population in Northern Ireland.”
“We have a lot to do to acknowledge what happens in the private rental sector in Northern Ireland. The latest figures show that 21% — just over a fifth — of our population live in private rental accommodation. While the landlord registration scheme was, absolutely, a good first step, it was a first step that we need to move far from. The tenancy deposit scheme still does not give adequate protections. It contains a time bar loophole: after six months, tenants can no longer apply to get their deposit back. In my experience of living in the private rental sector, I never got my full deposit back. <BR /> <BR />We highly recommend that the Minister, in looking at what we need by way of tighter regulation of letting fees, consider following in the footsteps of Scotland, where letting fees were made illegal in 2012.”
“My children and I ended up in a hostel through no fault of our own; it was simply because the landlord wanted to change the contract. I did not know my rights at the time. I was given notice to quit, and I thought that I had to quit, so I did. I left myself homeless through not knowing my rights. I spent four months with my children in a hostel on the Ormeau Road, not because I was a bad tenant but because I did not know my rights. There was no single point of contact to find out what my rights or options were. When I put that in a letter to the then Social Development Minister, her response was that she was glad to see that the system was working properly.”
“For most of my life, I have lived as a tenant in the private rented sector. I want to make sure that the House is aware that regulation is so badly needed in that sector. There is no standard for tenants: the heating, insulation, conditions and decor that come with a house is very haphazard. I have lived with my two children as a single mother — we have heard an example given today — in the private rented sector. I have paid extortionately high rents. I have paid letting fees just to apply for houses. I have lived with more than half my income going on trying to heat through electric bar heating in the private rented sector, as well. I have lived with damp and in very bad conditions. <BR /> <BR />I have also been made homeless.”
“We, in Northern Ireland, are no strangers to such actions and intimidation, and I am glad that so many people are standing up in sympathy with Jo's family and expressing condolence along with everyone in Westminster. There has been talk about the reasons why this has happened, but we should all be aware and, for today, take a lead from Jo's family and focus on that which unites us and not that which divides us.”
“Like others in the Chamber, I did not have the privilege of knowing Jo Cox, but I have listened over the past few days and heard about her legacy and the work she carried out. I feel inspired that people such as Jo Cox put themselves forward for public life and that they can come forward and see value in every human being. I extend the deepest condolences of the Green Party to Jo's family, particularly to her husband Brendan and her two young children, who have shown tremendous strength and bravery in the face of such horror. <BR /> <BR />Jo was brutally murdered in her constituency while carrying out her duties on Thursday, and it was a direct attack on democracy.”
“I have watched, over the past several years, as consultation after consultation is responded to and those responses are ignored. I have seen strategies such as the childcare strategy being written and put forward after a lot of work, time, effort and money has been spent to produce them and then being shelved. I feel that this Programme for Government ignores the role of women in Northern Ireland and makes no commitment to us. Given the work undertaken in the previous mandate, particularly our previous Speaker's commitment to good works and the creation of a women's caucus in the Assembly, I hope that, in this mandate, we can begin to address gender inequality in Northern Ireland with the urgency that it deserves.”
“Indicator 7, for example, states that we wish to "Improve health in pregnancy", yet it is concerned only with a baby's birth weight; it does not address a pregnant woman's health outcomes. If we are to wait for wider society to fill in the blanks in the document, I call for wider society to take a very gendered view of what this Programme for Government should deliver over the next couple of years.”
“Unlike many of my new colleagues in the Assembly, I will not take the opportunity today to make my maiden speech. I will do that another time. I will just make my comments brief. <BR /> <BR />Throughout the document, there is much mention of improving health, housing, respect, poverty, economic inequality and education. It mentions various targeted demographics, such as children, the disabled and youth. Identity and even paramilitaries are mentioned, as I have heard in the discussion in the Chamber several times. Those noble sentiments are all to be applauded, but, for me, the glaring omission from the document is women. Women are over half the population in Northern Ireland, yet they remain untargeted by commitments to improve the inequalities levied on them.”