Paula Bradshaw
South Belfast · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“They were places where those who were vulnerable were concealed, young mothers were stripped of their babies and children were stripped of their identities. Let us be resolute in our remembrance of what happened behind the doors of those institutions.”
“At all stages, the Committee has set out its clear support for the legislation's overarching aims and principles, which are to establish a statutory public inquiry into the systemic failings associated with mother-and-baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses between 1922 and 1995 and to create a statutory redress scheme for t…”
“Again, I refuse to call them "mother-and-baby homes", for we now know that there was nothing homely about them. What the Bill can and must do is offer a tangible declaration that the state accepts its responsibility.”
“As Chairperson of the Committee for the Executive Office, I welcome the opportunity to speak at the Final Stage of the Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill.”
“Key points were also made in relation to redress: the need to ensure that the Executive Office introduces clear guidelines for the scheme as soon as practicable; the need for the Executive Office to widely communicate and promote the scheme to all victims and survivors, including those who live overseas; and the need for the Executive Off…”
“The First Minister and deputy First Minister tabled a number of amendments that gave effect to the Committee's intent across a number of clauses. In several instances, the Committee chose to withdraw its amendments in favour of the Ministers' wording, where that better reflected the broader book of the law.”
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“The Committee agreed to write to the Department to request a detailed breakdown of the £1 million per annum estimated costs for the establishment of the commissioner's office, including accounts for the salaries of the commissioner and their staff and infrastructure costs. The Committee also agreed to schedule the draft SR for consideration at the meeting of 26 March 2025. <BR /> <BR />At that meeting of 26 March, the Committee considered the answers received to its queries of 19 March and the report of the Examiner of Statutory Rules. The Examiner had no issues to raise. However, her report stated that the draft regulations contained typographical errors that had arisen as a result of a technical drafting issue. The Department is concerned and will correct those minor errors at its earliest opportunity.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Committee agreed to request an update on the timescales for ongoing engagement with the Climate Change Committee, as well as further information on the costs that the proposed commissioner's office would entail, the organisational structure of the new office and whether the office would remain in TEO after establishment. The response to those queries, including input from the Climate Change Committee, was received from TEO on 4 December 2024. The Committee considered the response from TEO and formally considered the SL1 for the draft regulations on 15 January 2025 and had no objection to the proposed statutory rule. <BR /> <BR />The Committee then received an oral briefing on the draft regulations, as laid before the Assembly, from the director of climate change and green growth in TEO on 19 March 2025.”
“The Committee first considered the draft regulations on 23 October 2024, and Members agreed to forward the SL1 letter and draft statutory rule to the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to seek its views before formally considering the SL1. On 20 November 2024, the Committee considered the response from the AERA Committee of 11 November. The AERA Committee indicated that it was supportive of the functions of the proposed Northern Ireland Climate Commissioner. At that meeting and having further considered the SL1, the Committee decided to withhold its consent until any amendments recommended by the Climate Change Committee had been incorporated into the regulations.”
“The independent report, along with the emerging evidence from the COVID-19 inquiry, provides fresh impetus to all parties in the Chamber and to the UK and Irish Governments to engage meaningfully in a conversation about institutional reform ahead of the next Assembly election in 2027.”
“and improve the implementation of key policy priorities. Again, that is linked to the emerging evidence in the COVID inquiry. <BR /> <BR />That independent analysis reinforces what the Alliance Party has been saying for years, even decades. Ransom politics and vetoes over government are blocking the transformation and improvement of key public services and causing damage to people and communities across Northern Ireland. Stop-start government takes a wrecking ball to the key priorities that households in every corner of Northern Ireland are, we know, relying on us to deal with.”
“Taking the key decisions to reform our health service and water infrastructure etc and, indeed, to tackle the cost of division is rendered much more difficult by the prospect of blockage via the abuse of the sectarian veto. The report assesses the options for reforming the power-sharing structures at Stormont and says:”
“That is strikingly similar to the module 1 report of the UK COVID-19 inquiry, which also noted that preparations for the pandemic had been hindered by the absence of functioning government in the months before the virus first emerged from China in late 2019. <BR /> <BR />The University College London report, authored by Conor Kelly, Alan Renwick and Alan Whysall, goes even further, blaming recent Assembly collapses for the failure to progress long-term solutions to the problems faced by Northern Ireland's finances, health service and other public-sector services. Of course, it must be said that that is to do with not just the non-operation of the institutions but the bias in our institutional set-up in favour of the status quo and against reform.”
“I rise to note a recent report from independent academics in London that has laid bare the severe damage that Assembly collapse and stop-start government is causing to communities and public services in Northern Ireland. It reinforces the need to reform the institutions so that they cannot be collapsed on a whim and the sectarian veto becomes a thing of the past. <BR /> <BR />The report, 'Reform of Stormont: Options for Discussion', from the constitution unit at University College London states that, during Assembly collapses from 2017 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2024:”
“On behalf of the Alliance Party MLA group, Alex, I say that you have been a wonderful source of information. As late as 5.30 pm last night, I ran in to ask you about Standing Order 33. We will miss you sorely, and I am sure that your colleagues in the Business Office will as well. Thank you for everything. Have a happy retirement.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was watching the debate in my office. Is it right and proper for the Minister to sit in the Chamber, not contribute to a debate related to his Department and then wait until the Chairperson of the Education Committee does not have a chance to respond to a point that he raises? That is very poor practice.”
“Minister, given your support for the process, what support can you give to principals and the leadership in those schools while that work is being undertaken?”
“Deputy First Minister, have you started conversations with the US Administration around a replacement for the special envoy? Joe Kennedy III did an amazing job of putting us on the map.”
“What we have proposed in our motion is the least that we should do to address and tackle division to enable us to reallocate the vast cost associated with it to the greater good of society as a whole. I urge support of the motion.”
“In the Assembly, we are good at demanding things of others but poor at taking our own decisive actions. I keep going back to the fact that the cost of paramilitarism, for example, runs into hundreds of millions of pounds every year, plus much more considering the long-term trauma that it causes to young people and their communities. <BR /> <BR />I am conscious of time, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have to change. It is uncomfortable — it means challenging routine and taking on vested interests — but that is what we are here to do. There is no excuse for further foot-dragging. I appreciated the language used by Colin McGrath — he is not in the Chamber any more — when he talked about our "carve-up politics". We have to move on from that, 27 years on from the Good Friday Agreement.”
“That is fair enough, but that is why we make the explicit call in our motion for the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council to include an assessment of the cost of division in its reporting. I acknowledge the Finance Minister's concerns around the independence of the Fiscal Council. He said that it had to get on with the work of looking at the current state of our public finances. That is the whole point of our motion. Our public finances are tied up with delivering public services — in many instances, through duplication — so there has to be a workaround. I appreciate that the Fiscal Council is independent, but we need to face the reality of where our public finances are going. <BR /> <BR />It is endlessly frustrating to see a lack of action across the Departments here in addressing the cost of division.”
“I have never said anything negative about cultural expression from any side of the community, apart from what I have said about paramilitary trappings. In fact, when I worked in the Village area of the Donegall Road, I organised jubilee events and Twelfth of July events etc because that is what that community wanted to have delivered. I find it insulting that the DUP likes to try to tar us as being sectarian and intolerant. We are not. We want to see the celebration of different cultures across this island, be that nationalist, unionist or any ethnicity. We want to see investment in our communities, but in a way that involves those communities and not just the community gatekeepers. <BR /> <BR />We have heard, in the debate, challenges to the costs quoted.”
“Yes. Thank you for that. That was a useful intervention. <BR /> <BR />Naturally, the figure presented as being the cost of division could not realistically be saved overnight. Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at what we could be spending our money on had we addressed the cost of division when we first raised it for public debate around two decades ago. My colleague Nuala McAllister covered a number of points in relation to the health service and some on policing. We in the Alliance Party frequently call for the reform of how we address the water crisis in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />I want to pick up on some of the comments from Diane Forsythe on our party's position on these sorts of policies.”
“Definitely. Thank you. <BR /> <BR />I want to pick up on Declan Kearney's points on racism and sectarianism. We in the Alliance Party certainly see those as two sides of the same coin. He went on to talk about the need for Irish unity and creating an integrated economy. We in the Alliance Party are up for any discussions about how we can have North/South and east-west cooperation, and the Ulster Unionist Party Member for South Antrim raised that. We are up for any way in which we can deliver public services that create the best output for the people whom we serve without duplicating on expenditure.”
“We want to create communities and neighbourhoods where there is not the demarcation of paramilitary trappings, where people can raise their children without fear of intimidation and where businesses can thrive without the threat of having to pay protection money to the local boyos. <BR /> <BR />My colleague Michelle Guy raised the issue of lost opportunity when she talked about the duplication of sectors in the education system. We heard from the DUP how a lot of schools are involved in shared schools initiatives. If our schools were properly integrated, there would not be a need for shared initiatives, and we would see our children being brought up together and finding common ground across different characteristics.”
“Thirdly, there are the economic opportunities that are lost through, for example, an ongoing insecurity about travelling to certain parts of Northern Ireland for work. Mark Durkan raised that point. <BR /> <BR />I take exception to the contributions from both the DUP Members who were called to speak. They said that the Alliance Party wants to talk down to communities and tell them what will happen to them. I spent 19 years working in the community and voluntary sector, and that is not the approach that I have ever adopted. I know that it is not the approach that any of my Alliance Party colleagues have adopted. In our communities, we are opposed to the carve-up whereby you get one and we get one.”
“I will pick up on Steve Aiken's point around making Northern Ireland work. He talked about the need for one single education system for all our children, the need for departmental reform and, most notably, the issue of the peace industry and the pandering of some to paramilitarism. I could not agree more with any of that, but we have to look at how we channel the common ground in the Chamber on how we address public service delivery. <BR /> <BR />The cost to our society is borne in three ways. First, and perhaps most obviously, it is borne through the fundamental duplication of services provided to a divided community. We can take teacher training as an obvious example. Secondly, there are the additional costs that come from administering and policing a divided society. Those costs are as much societal as financial.”
“It is also worth emphasising that the figure presented here from Ulster University Economic Policy Centre would, accounting for relevant inflation, now equate to something in the region of £1·1 billion every year.”
“Over 10 years ago, Deloitte was already putting the cost of division purely in terms of cost to our budget for public services at around £800 million per year.”
“Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I thank all the contributors to the debate. We found a lot of common ground, albeit most of the contributors spoke through the filter of their political party. Remarkably, Timothy Gaston agreed with Declan Kearney about this place's not being workable, but we in the Alliance Party believe that it is. We want to see public services delivered for everyone, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, culture or socio-economic background. <BR /> <BR />There is an old maxim in communication: it is only once you are fed up with presenting a message that the listeners begin to act on it. This is far from the first time that the Alliance Party has led a debate in the Chamber on the cost of division.”
“Thank you, Minister. Will the Minister outline any work that is ongoing to review the fines and penalties for environmental crimes?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. There is a bit of duplicity in her positioning and in some of the things that she has said. First, she said that Alliance wants to have police intervention wherever there are paramilitary trappings in communities, for example, yet she has just said that families want to set themselves up and raise children in safe communities. Those two positions do not sit well together for us in the Alliance Party.”
“Will the Minister please outline how the transformation funding will be used?”
“Thank you, Minister, for your answer. In taking forward plans for the north-south Glider route, is consideration being given to incorporating the Belvoir estate as an offshoot of that?”
“I asked the question in the context of the work of the Northern Ireland Office and the UK Government on the replacement for the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. The new commissioner, and the people with whom he or she works, will play such a pivotal role in advising on amendments to the new legislation. Is there any talk of that function being specific to the role?”
“The idea that it was entirely some place apart during the Troubles and that the Government of Ireland could play a role as an observer set aside from what was happening up the road or, indeed, in its own jurisdiction, on some occasions, is purely ridiculous. <BR /> <BR />I will leave it there, but it is important that we prioritise the needs of victims and survivors in the pursuit of truth.”
“<BR /> <BR />We have heard a lot of evidence at our Committee from victims' groups, some of them dealing with other dreadful aspects of the past, such as institutional abuse of children, while others deal directly with the Troubles. On occasion, they take different approaches to issues such as redress, acknowledgement and, indeed, what actually happened. However, what is consistent is that they say that there will never be true reconciliation on this island without full truth. The idea that Northern Ireland is a sealed unit on its own makes no sense. It is defined by its relationship with its neighbours, including the rest of Ireland, as it always will be. That is the case socially; it is the case economically; and it is the case environmentally.”
“They also need to work with all parties towards the outcome that they claim to want, namely much more active cooperation from the Government of Ireland in the quest for truth. <BR /> <BR />According to evidence provided to the Committee for the Executive Office by Kenny Donaldson from the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), it is estimated that over 550 murders during the Troubles — about 15% of the total — had a cross-border element. The Omagh bomb, which, of course, came after the agreement, was another horrific example. Mr Donaldson went on to say that the Government of Ireland see themselves as having been an "observer" of the Troubles rather than the "participant" that they were. I wonder whether anyone, on objective reflection, can disagree with that assessment.”
“<BR /> <BR />We in the Alliance Party feel that it is important to reflect that the Government of Ireland need to take more seriously their role in inquiring into and investigating their own role and that of their agencies during the Troubles. We see little merit in the political attempt to shift responsibility for the matter to another Department, as in the DUP amendment. Responsibility for external affairs and for victims and survivors rests squarely with the Executive Office. Members of the party that proposed the amendment therefore need to take the issue of demonstrating action in the interests of victims and survivors to their colleague the deputy First Minister.”
“I pay tribute to the families of those killed or injured in the Omagh bomb for their long campaign for the public inquiry. As others have mentioned, it is harrowing to listen to the testimonies. I am sure that the families are relieved that it is happening but are really reliving that tragic time. <BR /> <BR />I very much share the sentiment behind the motion, although I have some difficulty with the call that is in it. My party sought an amendment with a clearer call for action from both Governments to recognise and act in their role of addressing legacy issues, not least in the case of atrocities with a cross-border element. Further to that, we feel that a duty should be placed on the First Minister and deputy First Minister actively to seek that in the interests of victims and survivors.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I saw that he was nearly at the end of his speech and wanted to get an intervention in before he gets there. The Member has not addressed what the inquiry would achieve. If there is no ability to make the Irish state compellable, what would a public inquiry by the UK Government deliver for people?”
“I thank the Minister for her statement. Will she please explain the thinking behind the taxation reform?”
“I apologise, Deputy Speaker. I did not think that we would get to the last topical question.”
“Thank you, Minister, for your statement. You referred to the plans for an environmentally themed workshop. Who will be involved in that?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The Justice Minister is not in the Chamber to respond to this debate because it is related to the Terrorism Act, and terrorism is not a devolved matter. If it was as simple as the Justice Minister's taking this forward, do you not agree that she would have been able to do this by now?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does she agree that Naomi Long, as leader of the Alliance Party —?”
“Thank you. I will pick up on your point that you cannot believe that people voted for you and elected you to here. We have a mandate, and the people who voted for us very much stand behind us on our policy and our attitude to this. So I do not think that you should be dismissing that in the Chamber.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. What is the Member's opinion of the recently published research, commissioned by the Department of Justice, on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the impact of the existing paramilitary presence on the future of young people?”
“Today, we must all reflect on what happened in the past, but we must also commit to improving in the future.”
“There were two specific reasons for that. One was that the UK lacked resilience; there had been a slowdown in health improvement and health inequalities had worsened. In other words: the population was already simply sicker than in most comparable countries, and thus it was always likely that we would suffer worse than elsewhere. The other reason was that the UK — and others, it must be said — prepared for the wrong pandemic, basing assumptions on what would usually happen in a flu pandemic.”
“What is helpful, however, is to consider how we prepare for the next pandemic. Although the COVID pandemic came a century after the previous pandemic of a similar global scale, in a world where we are so interconnected now, we should expect the next one to happen before too long. The UK COVID inquiry notes early in its module 1 report:”
“Some of us who lost loved ones during the pandemic, whether or not it was directly as a result of the virus, feel the loss of that loved one because of our inability to even bury that person with the full dignity and proper send-off that they deserved. That sense is not just about loss during the pandemic but applies to the lost opportunities and the sense that we were severely restricted from the lives that we wanted to lead. Educational, social, economic and countless other opportunities were lost. We also know that the impact on the health of the general population was profound and troubling. Life expectancy declined, mental health worsened and we are still living with the consequences of the social breakdown that we all experienced. <BR /> <BR />It is easy to play the blame game, but it is probably unhelpful.”
“The COVID Day of Reflection is important not just because of the huge sense of loss that we all feel but because of how we should better prepare ourselves for when, inevitably, the next pandemic strikes. It is a day when we think about the families and friends of the 3,445 people who died here in Northern Ireland directly as a result of the virus. It is also a day when we reflect on the sacrifices of our health and social care staff and front-line workers and the many volunteers who made that dreadful period just a little bit less distressing for us all, particularly those who were most vulnerable and marginalised right across our society. <BR /> <BR />We will all feel the sense of loss arising from the COVID pandemic in different ways.”
“Thank you, Minister. I am not sure whether you are aware, but my party colleague, who is the Chair of the Committee for Education, is not well and has not been in the Chamber today. Just in case you were wondering why he was not in the Chamber.”
“Thank you, Minister, for the update. I was glad to see, in the Programme for Government that we are debating today, the references to the social inclusion strategies, ending violence against women and girls, gender equality and women returning to the workforce. It is important that you bring forward the gender equality strategy as soon as possible. The women's groups that are lobbying for it would probably appreciate a firmer timeline for when that will happen.”
“Will the junior Minister give us an outline of when the final draft of the review of the Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) programme will come forward, with particular reference to the refreshed approach to good relations that has been talked about?”