Colin McGrath
South Down · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“Minister, regardless of where people stand on the exact figure, surely we can all agree that a health service cannot function without the doctors whom it trains.”
“Minister, climate change is happening, and extreme weather events are taking place. We saw that in Downpatrick a number of years ago when the town centre was ravaged by flooding, and it has taken the businesses affected many years to try to get over that flooding.”
“Minister, given that capital funding is, generally, being decimated, the extent of which may increase as a result of the Executive's not agreeing a Budget, what impact will that have on any final road maintenance strategy, and are any contingencies being put in place to manage that?”
“<BR /> <BR />Since March 2025, the parliamentary excellence programme has delivered dedicated sessions with the Executive Office on the strategic framework and its delivery plan, enhancing Members’ understanding of the cross-government approach and their role in scrutiny, legislation and constituency engagement.”
“<BR /> <BR />More broadly, the Assembly Commission supports Members and Committees in carrying out their scrutiny functions, including in relation to the Executive Office’s work on that framework.”
“As the Member mentioned, one example is the Assembly's Women's Caucus, which has a particular focus on supporting women in public life and highlighting the increasing challenges that women face in the digital sphere, including online abuse.”
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“Before we hear any excuses, the Tories fund them as much as they fund us. Let us therefore not trot out the old lines so quickly but, rather, have a look at our own actions. <BR /> <BR />More than anything else, it is political inability to solve the problem that is causing and feeding the waiting lists. Stop-go politics is the major harm of our health service. Having a health service that is crippled and unable to take decisions because there is no Minister is causing the real problem. <BR /> <BR />Solving the waiting list crisis will require a two-pronged approach. One side will deal with those who are on a waiting list now, who need to be seen and sorted. The other will make sure that we never again end up with lists as long as they are and have been. I will come back to that shortly.”
“I will not, because you will have your chance, and I will not get any extra time. <BR /> <BR />How bad is the problem? Last September, 116,000 people were waiting for an in-patient or day-case appointment and 429,000 were waiting for a first consultant appointment. That is 545,000 people out of a population of 1·8 million — nearly one in three — who were waiting to see a doctor. The Sinn Féin-DUP duopoly of power-sharing, with stop-start government, began when they took over in 2007; since then, waiting lists have become five times longer. That is not a success but an abject failure in government. It is an embarrassment. In Scotland, the figure is 627,000; Scotland's population is three times that of here. In Wales, the figure is 734,000; there are a million and a half more people there.”
“It is in that room that we would find many announcements about reorganising our health service, and it is in that room that we would find plans that would have reorganised and helped, had they been enacted. It is the inactivity of Health Minister after Health Minister and Executive after Executive that has led us to where we are today, with some of the longest waiting lists in Europe.”
“No greater issue has highlighted how sick our health service more than that of the waiting list debacle. The fact that we are raising this issue and discussing it so early after the Assembly's return is therefore welcome. <BR /> <BR />People have been languishing on waiting lists for too long. It is probably too simple to point to COVID and say that that was the cause of any of those lengthy lists; it certainly did not help, but the genesis of the problem goes back much further than that. To find the real answer, we need to delve into the strategy storage room in Castle Buildings, for it is there that we will find the real cause of the problem. It is in that room that we will find many undelivered strategies. Many of those strategies would have helped the waiting lists, had they been implemented.”
“I call on the Minister to review the allocations and ensure that, in a £28 billion Budget, we are not damaging thousands and thousands of vulnerable lives in our community to save two million quid.”
“We have already seen the disproportionate loss of funding for the most vulnerable in our society: the disabled. It needs to stop. We need to help everybody, and we need to work together. Will you, like your colleague, suggest that we should help everybody, including the vulnerable and the disabled in our society? <BR /> <BR />The Budget underscores the cut, copper-fastens the cut and delivers that cut. The Budget gives grounding for a 25% cut followed by a further 50% cut to the most vulnerable in our society. Mencap, MindWise, the Stroke Association and the Samaritans: cut, cut, cut. Is this Budget really the best start for the Executive? In places, it certainly is not.”
“Finance Minister, your colleague, the chair of the all-party group on children, who invited the permanent secretary to the meeting, said in that video:”
“Minister, those were your words to the media just a few months ago. Will you, after publicly calling for the money to be made available, now make sure that that funding is available? <BR /> <BR />What about when we got representatives of 62 organisations together in the Senate Chamber a few months ago and challenged the permanent secretary about those cuts? All the political parties contributed to the video that marked that day.”
“This Budget will lock in those cuts — cuts to organisations such as Action Mental Health, Age NI, Cara-Friend, Children in NI, the Down's Syndrome Association, the Eating Disorders Association NI, Home-Start and Include Youth, to name just a few. <BR /> <BR />We need to ask the Minister why, for example, the Women's Aid Federation has had its funding slashed. The funding was cut by the Department of Health, and that cut is now locked in by the Budget. I quote from the media:”
“I thank the Member for the intervention. As a former youth worker, I absolutely understand that, if we do not invest in our young people and give them the best possible start and opportunities, they will be impacted as they grow older, so I agree with everything that she has said. <BR /> <BR />One cut that seemed very cruel was the removal of the core grant scheme for the community and voluntary sector. The scheme had a budget of over £4·5 million that was made available to 62 groups. That was cut by 25%, so that only £3·6 million was made available. That was further cut by 50%, so that only £1·8 million was made available. That is not a cut; that is a decimation of our public funding for organisations that deliver on behalf of the most vulnerable in society.”
“It is about being able to get a hot drink at 3.00 am when you are in the middle of a 12-hour shift. It is about when they realise that they are one of the few medics who are on duty in a large hospital filled with very sick people. For some of them, it is just about having somewhere to store their coat or handbag safely and knowing that, when they are at work, their property will not be stolen. I hope that that can be addressed. I seek assurances from the Minister that finances will be made available to stop that junior doctors strike. <BR /> <BR />As a member of the Health Committee previously and again now and having been the party's health spokesperson for a number of years, I am concerned about many elements of the budget for the Department of Health. It will underscore a number of key cuts that will dive deeply into our communities.”
“It is because, for five of the past seven years, this place has been collapsed and we have been left without an Executive or an Assembly. Yet, we are back again and cannot even get a straightforward answer or commitment from our First Minister and deputy First Minister that they will not collapse the institutions again any time soon. <BR /> <BR />It would be remiss of me not to also mention that we have heard today that junior doctors have voted for strike action. I am taken by how torn they were about taking that decision. They did not sign up to be medics to strike. They did not become lifesavers to withhold that service. However, they have been pushed and pushed, and they are now beyond the brink. I met them recently, and they told me that it is about more than just pay; it is about the conditions.”
“Today we are being asked to support a Budget. It is a complicated Budget that covers all areas of finance relating to many Departments and agencies. There are decisions, though, that need to be taken and people who need to be rewarded, not least our hard-working public-sector workers, who have waited too long for their pay awards. We are led to believe that the Budget might address the key issue of public-sector pay. We wait with bated breath to see whether all the pay awards that are outstanding and that have been allowed to grow and fester over the last 10 or more years will be sorted soon. As ever, I will make a brief reference to why those hard-working public-sector workers — the doctors, nurses, teachers, classroom assistants, civil servants and others — have had to wait.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. Does he agree that — this is significant — it is not merely about the pay that staff get, in the sense that it is easy to say, "Well, we need more money", but that when you compare their pay with that for other jobs, you see that there are jobs where they would not be out of pocket, may get a few pounds more across a shift and would have fewer responsibilities? We may need to do some sort of scoping exercise that benchmarks the job of caring and allows us to value those carers and pay them appropriately. That might attract more staff into the sector.”
“We must see this Assembly term as being about rebuilding trust with the public and providing them with the hope that we will deliver on strategies. This is a very important strategy that should be up there to be delivered quickly.”
“<BR /> <BR />In the time during which this place was not sitting, we attended many conferences, and I regularly made the comment that the biggest room in Castle Buildings must be the one in which they put all the strategies, because that is all that we seem to do. We launch a strategy, we get all the attention for that, but we do not actually deliver it. We need to see a change in that. I want to see action plans that sit alongside strategies. I want to see costings and timescales alongside those action plans, so that we know that we will see delivery and action on the strategies that are being put forward. Too often, we build up people's hopes by saying that there will be a strategy, but that lack of delivery simply lets them down.”
“There is the potential for all parties to work together to deliver these things. <BR /> <BR />A question has to be asked, however, about why we do not have one now. Why have we not had a strategy previously? We are also without a violence against women and girls strategy, an anti-poverty strategy and an anti-conversion therapy strategy. There are many strategies that we do not have, and we know that it is because of the stop-go politics that we have in this place. I echo the remarks of the leader of the Opposition, my colleague Matthew O'Toole, in asking the First Minister and deputy First Minister to commit to not collapsing the institutions again and to giving us the opportunity to do the work that we need to do to deliver those strategies.”
“There were hundreds of responses, 90% of which said that service provision was inadequate for the biggest healthcare issues that affected women. It is not acceptable that that is the perception. When discussing essential healthcare matters such as menstrual health, the menopause or other issues, as mentioned in the motion, we must listen to women. I echo the remarks of my colleague about the fact that there is a Women's Health Ambassador in other parts and that we could and should replicate that here. <BR /> <BR />The motion gives us the opportunity to set the tone of what the new Assembly term can be about. We are, after all, debating a motion that was proposed by the Alliance Party, with an amendment tabled by Sinn Féin and that calls on the Health Minister from the UUP to bring forward that strategy.”
“I remember well, in my early 20s, making a phone call to the local hospital. I did not know how to get the words out and eventually asked to be put through to the "female gynae ward", at which point the operator said, "I would hardly put you through to the male gynae ward". That was just the way things were back in the day. I am glad that we have the opportunity to discuss matters and reduce those taboos and, as a result, contribute to addressing the facts that women are 50% more likely to receive the wrong diagnosis when it comes to heart attack, that women here have the worst ovarian cancer survival rates and that gynaecological waiting times are much longer here than anywhere else in the UK. <BR /> <BR />Last year, my colleague Sinéad McLaughlin conducted a survey of women's health.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on assuming your role. Our normal contact is through the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly (BIPA) and pints, and, if there is latitude to be given, I want you to know that I always paid my way. I also congratulate Sian on her maiden speech. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the opportunity to speak today, as it is timely to discuss such matters. It has long been acknowledged that there is a significant need for a women's health strategy. We are, after all, the only region of these islands that is without such a strategy. <BR /> <BR />For too long, women's health has been the subject of taboo and stigma across our society. When it has been talked about, it has often been in whispers. I am not embarrassed to say that I am part of the generation that was brought up not really talking about those things.”
“We were told by the Department that we could not have it because there was no Minister, but I am hopeful, now that we have a Minister for Infrastructure, that we might at least see a pilot project taking place to see whether we can evaluate the benefits. I advocate for that to happen in Edward Street in Downpatrick. I wrote to the Minister on that this morning, and I hope that it is something that we will see. If it takes place and is successful, it should be available in other constituencies. Then, we can allow our children to get to and from school safely.”
“<BR /> <BR />There is a solution. I met last year with representatives of Sustrans and brought them down to witness what was taking place. The solution is a school street scheme. Such schemes exists in the South, in England and in other places. Effectively, where there is an identified problem, a restriction is put on traffic flow outside the school during the periods when children are arriving and departing. That is enough to make that space safe. It reduces the pollution in those confined spaces that we are forcing our children and young people to consume, and it means that they can get in and out of school freely. <BR /> <BR />We do not have that scheme in place.”
“I welcome the opportunity to make a statement about the education of our children, which we all know is exceptionally important, and the ability of parents, at times, to get to schools. <BR /> <BR />I am sure that we all have schools in our constituencies where there is often serious congestion outside the school gates that causes significant problems. In my constituency, there is a problem outside Our Lady and St Patrick Primary School on Edward Street, which causes much annoyance to those parents who are trying to get to the school and to the residents who live in the area. We have witnessed large lorries and large vehicles making their way down that street, mounting the footpath to get past, forcing children as young as P1 age to be pinned up against a wall. That puts the absolute fear into them as they make their way to school.”
“I appreciate all that the Minister has done to replenish the funding so far, but does he agree that there needs to be some form of legislative protection for palliative care? Currently, there is not, but there is in other parts of these islands. It would enable people and organisations to have a surety as they provide the services for people at that very key stage in their lives.”
“I thank the Minister for coming along to answer the question. I congratulate you on being reappointed as Health Minister, and I wish you well in that. I know that there are many competing issues throughout the whole health arena, and I look forward to being able to work with you as a constructive Opposition Health spokesperson on those matters. <BR /> <BR />I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this question for urgent oral answer today —.”
“Does the Member agree that, in some areas, planners are under more pressure than in others, owing to the number of applications? There are not the same number of applications in each council area, yet, at the very beginning, when planning was devolved, each council area was given the same number of planning officers. Councils in border areas are having difficulty, because staff can get jobs that involve less stress, less pressure and more money and are being drained away to work for councils in the South.”
“I congratulate the Minister on his appointment and wish him well as the Minister of Education and youth services. On Friday, I visited a school in my constituency, Knockevin Special School. It has to operate across three separate sites because it has outgrown its accommodation. Will the Minister agree that such sites should be prioritised, given that they are operating across multiple sites? Given that the Down High School site is about to become available, will he agree that that might be a good location for a new school?”
“We propose another break, of 30 minutes, to allow discussions to continue.”
“Last year, we saw politics at its best. What will we see today? We have the power to act. We could elect a Speaker, lay the necessary motion, finish the legislation and help to save Dáithí's life and the lives of the other 133 people. What in the name of humanity is stopping us?”
“He has done all of that while, at six years of age, having had to wait four years on a heart.”
“If legislation can be enacted, it should be enacted here, and that legislation can be enacted here this week. There is an urgency to doing so, because up to 15 people on the organ transplant waiting list die each year needlessly. Today, 134 people are waiting on an organ transplant. For those people, every minute counts, and every day that we delay the legislation does not help their odds of getting a proper organ match. <BR /> <BR />I hasten to add that one of those people, and who is very near and very dear to many of us, is in the Public Gallery today. I am, of course, referring to Dáithí. In the past few years, Dáithí has taught each of us a valuable lesson in strength, resilience and superhuman will to overcome obstacles previously thought impossible to scale. He and his family have campaigned tirelessly to get this legislation.”
“We have lost a year of this Assembly to try to complete the process. How many more times does this place have to say no when it should be saying yes? <BR /> <BR />SDLP MPs are working with other parties to explore every possible route to get the necessary legislation passed at Westminster, but the truth is that we are all here today and could therefore get this done today. We could set aside our differences and, for once, use the power and potential of this place to be able to help the people whom we represent. <BR /> <BR />Waiting for Westminster is the second-best option. Everyone who is on the transplant list deserves so much more than the second-best option. We can and should do better than that, because we understand the value of this place.”
“Rather, it is about the 134 families whose loved ones are watching us today while waiting on an urgent organ transplant and who have placed their faith in us to be able to make that possible. <BR /> <BR />A little over a year ago, I stood in this place and was proud to speak in support of the then Organ and Tissue Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill. It was a good day for this place. In putting aside our differences and acting in the best interests of all the people, we saw politics — the art of the possible — at its best, yet that legislative journey is incomplete. We have statutory rules and instruments that need commencement, and, without a Speaker, we have no Assembly and are thus unable to do that work. <BR /> <BR />We lost three years of the previous Assembly, when it was vital to get this really important legislation across the line.”
“On behalf of the SDLP, I associate myself with the earlier remarks to Alex and his family at this dreadful time for them. <BR /> <BR />I thank you, Mr Acting Speaker, for presiding over today's proceedings, but, respectfully, it should not be you in the Chair temporarily. By this stage, we should have our Speaker, elected by all of us to be able to conduct the business that we need to conduct in this place. The mandate for undertaking that business was granted to each and every one of us last May, and the fact that so many of us are being prevented from carrying out the most basic democratic process, that of electing a Speaker, is an absolute embarrassment. <BR /> <BR />The business that we are here to address today is not about party politics. It is not about me, the SDLP, Sinn Féin or the DUP. It is not about any of us.”
“I propose my colleague Mr Patsy McGlone MLA.”
“Will the Member agree with me and many in the healthcare sector that it is undeniable that the lack of any real reform being instituted is costing people their lives? The fact that some will not allow us to have an Executive and a Health Minister means that, out there, people are dying. They should reflect on their actions in this place and on the impact that those have on people in real terms in their homes.”
“You should be ashamed to look those constituents in the eye, because you are causing the problems that they face, and you are doing nothing to help them. Whilst you might shake your heads, that is the reality of your decisions. <BR /> <BR />Let the many thousands of our constituents on all sides have what they want. They want to see an Assembly, they want to see an Executive, they want to see us doing the job that we are being paid to do and they want to see a resolution to the problems that they face in their lives. That is why I want to see a Speaker elected today.”
“I am sure that we will find out at some stage what some Ministers have been up to, but we are not able to ask questions in the Chamber and hold them to account. <BR /> <BR />We know that the health service has been in a perilous state for some time, and it is the DUP that is preventing us from helping to sort it out today. The work is not being hindered by the professionals, the patients or the Minister; it is being hindered by the DUP. The DUP is preventing us from adequately reforming the health service. You should be ashamed to look your constituents in the eye: constituents who are in need; those who deserve to have a few quid left over at the end of the month; and those who will potentially die because they cannot get the right diagnosis or treatment.”
“It needs major financial investment, but it also needs political investment so that we can reduce waiting times, ensure appropriate diagnoses for people and try to save lives and help people to lead healthier lives. Currently, a forum of party representatives meets occasionally to discuss major health issues, but who keeps the minutes? Who takes the decisions? Who follows up on those decisions? Who is able to ask about those decisions? The Minister might be able to do his work, but we cannot hold him to account in order to find out exactly what he is doing. It is the same for every Minister: they may be doing the work, but we cannot hold them to account. Lord knows what they are doing.”
“We know that the protocol is an important matter. We know that Jeffrey Donaldson seems to think that we do not understand or appreciate that there is unionist frustration with it, but the protocol is here because of Brexit. The protocol is here because the DUP trusted a Tory Government, courted Boris Johnson and was supportive of his negotiated protocol as far back as October 2019. However, as with many times in history, the DUP's downfall is that it just cannot sell it. <BR /> <BR />I am the health spokesperson for the SDLP. Our health service is in a dangerous state. I commend the work of my fellow MLA Robin Swann. He has done good work in difficult circumstances, but our health service needs reform.”
“We know that they are battling with rising food costs in an effort to put meals on the table and that they are trying to save money as we get towards the winter so that they will be able to heat their homes and survive. That is what the people whom we represent face. It is an issue of survival, and we can do very little to mitigate it or to help them. It affects everybody in our community: families who work hard to provide for their loved ones but whose wages simply do not stretch far enough.”
“We know what we can do to mitigate it and to provide support and help for families in their moment of need.”
“I support the nomination of my colleague Patsy McGlone for the role of Speaker. He would take that role seriously, provide great expertise and be a great person to shepherd the House in the work that it does. <BR /> <BR />We meet today on the second anniversary of the passing of John Hume and in the week that we have buried David Trimble, and I wonder what those architects of the Good Friday Agreement would think of the actions of the party opposite. Politics is supposed to be the art of the possible. It is supposed to be about a willingness to trust one another and to work together for the common good, yet we have a society that is falling apart at the seams. We have all been told about this for a long time, and we know what is coming down the tracks with the cost-of-living emergency.”
“Sometimes, whenever everybody else is doing something and people suggest to us that we do not do it, we should give that some consideration. I implore those DUP Members who, I know, hold that humanitarian will very close to their heart to see the bigger picture. Their actions will have a ripple effect on our capacity to respond to the virus and other issues, not excluding the crippling cost-of-living emergency that we are also facing. The SDLP will be supporting the motion.”
“It has drawn its own red lines ahead of an Assembly election, which may mean that, after 5 May, who knows what our capacity to form an Executive once again will be? As a result, should these powers expire on Thursday and should there be no Executive following the election, there will be no final point of accountability and decision-making. As is quite often the case in these matters, people complain to us that they do not want these decisions to be taken. Perhaps we can ask the Health Minister to explain to us what the alternative is if we do not have the capacity to take them. What is the alternative if there is a need to do so? <BR /> <BR />From his experience, does the Minister know of any other place that has been left without the capacity to take these decisions?”
“<BR /> <BR />Should we fail to extend these powers today, they will expire on Thursday, and we will not have the ability to respond quickly or effectively to the virus, which, as I can attest to, is still very much alive in our community. In our fight against the virus, there must be accountability in government. Although our response to the virus has been made collectively, it is to the Health Minister whom MLAs have gone when we have had questions. It is the Health Minister who has been accountable for the decisions taken, and that has not been an easy task. <BR /> <BR />Disgracefully, one party in the House has collapsed our Executive. It refuses to nominate a First Minister.”
“I am glad to be participating in the debate. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, we have had a number of tools at our disposal to try to combat the virus. One of those tools has been the trust that we have been able to place in the Health Minister, through these powers, to respond quickly and effectively to the ever-changing nature of the virus as it spread so rapidly through our communities. The powers that were given to the Health Minister were achieved through our collective humanitarian and political will. Although I believe that the humanitarian will is still very strong across the House, the political will has regrettably diminished in some sections.”
“However, I would like to know when the Department first became aware of the problems that were being faced and how much intervention there was from the RQIA prior to the decision to deregister the home? Surely the staffing issue did not occur overnight.”
“I thank the Minister for his response. We have spent months and years in this place talking about the impact of inadequate care in mother-and-baby units and other institutions that the state places children in the care of, and we have always referred to that in the past tense. Yet here we are in 2022 discussing a children's care home in which the situation has deteriorated such that the trust has had to step in and take over. The root of the problem appears to have been staff shortages and staff inadequacies. There is an inference from the RQIA's statement that a result of those difficulties is that they impact upon the care of some of the most vulnerable in our community. <BR /> <BR />I appreciate that we have difficulties in many areas of the health service because of workforce challenges.”
“I thank the Member for the answer. It is a bit disappointing to hear, given that we have such expansive lawns to the front and side of the Building, that we could not use even a small portion of them for some sort of biodiversity and rewilding project. We could set a good example by having such a facility. That might be something that the Commission could consider, and maybe the Member could take that back to the Commission to see whether that is possible. <BR /> <BR />The Member referred to some of the other facilities on the Stormont estate. Could there be some sort of formal partnership between the Department of Finance and the Commission, given that most people see the estate as one, for some projects to be done jointly?”