Gerry Carroll
West Belfast · People Before Profit Alliance · Northern Ireland
“Yesterday morning, as others did, I stood alongside our resident doctors as they commenced a 24-hour period of industrial action. We often praise our healthcare workers in the House and more generally, saying things such as that they are invaluable and that we wish them well.”
“If we have learnt anything from the political events of the past week, it is that powerful people — powerful men, in particular — and institutions should always be held to maximum account when it comes to abuse, neglect and victims, and that victims and survivors should be believed and supported on every occasion.”
“Agency spend has, again, gone through the roof and is sky-high; locum spend has gone up and continues to go up — it has gone up by in the region of £0·5 billion over the past few years; and, almost every single year out of the past five to 10 years, hundreds of millions of pounds of public money have been pumped into the for-profit privat…”
“With bills increasing month-on-month and year-on-year, that is true, and those workers need a proper settlement that meets their needs and the ever-increasing cost of living. One striking doctor put it to me starkly yesterday. They said that they left Scotland and took a more senior position in the health sector in Belfast.”
“I commend Stephen and his colleagues in the Bill Office and the Executive Office officials, who worked closely with me to try to support, amend or help along my amendments — whatever way you want to look at it. I also want to commend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone who spoke out during the last few stages.”
“I commend people for speaking out on the issue, especially Sharon Burke. I think that she might be in the Gallery. She has been emailing Members on that issue.”
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“I will wait for the next statement as well.”
“<BR /> <BR />The outsourcing of maintenance work by the Housing Executive has been an unmitigated disaster for residents and workers alike. There is a simple solution: the Housing Executive should meaningfully engage with leaseholders before any works take place, and all maintenance work should be brought back in-house in order to give workers well-paid and secure jobs that they can take pride in and to stop the gravy train for private contractors that profit from our communities while ordinary people are left with bills that they cannot afford to pay.”
“That is not engagement or consultation; that is a dictatorship by any definition. There are huge questions here about why there is such a cloak of secrecy. <BR /> <BR />For the avoidance of doubt, many of the buildings are old and genuinely need essential maintenance and servicing. Some of the work, however, is completely unnecessary, including replacing perfectly functional railings with rusted railings; replacing stone steps with steel steps that are slippery every time it rains; and painting homes in really bright colours when people have not requested that. People suspect that the contractors are raking it in for work that is not needed and is, in some cases, of highly questionable quality. That, essentially, is what privatisation looks like.”
“I call on the Minister for Communities to intervene in the issue. <BR /> <BR />Many people had no idea what they were signing up for, nor was it explained to them, when they purchased their homes from the Housing Executive. They pay a monthly service charge for their homes, with little in return. Still, they are being landed with bills for thousands of pounds that working-class families cannot afford. They do not have that money lying about for work that they did not agree to or sign off on. <BR /> <BR />When leaseholders try to engage with the Housing Executive to raise objections, what happens? They are offered a payment plan. They are told, effectively, to pay up and shut up. The Housing Executive has admitted in writing that there is no opportunity for residents to influence works to their own homes.”
“For the past few months, I have been contacted by people across the North, as well as a large number of people in my constituency of West Belfast, about Housing Executive maintenance fees. Leaseholders who bought their flats or maisonettes from the Housing Executive feel utterly let down by that organisation, to put it mildly. They thought that their new homes would give them security and stability, but they have had anything but that; instead, they are being hit with bills of £4,000 or £5,000 and, in some cases, higher. Residents in Rathcoole have been handed an eye-watering bill of almost £50,000 for remedial works to their building. They have been locked out of their homes for three years while that work takes place. The lack of transparency and engagement has been absolutely shocking and disgraceful.”
“The focus is on productivity, meeting targets and ticking boxes rather than on looking at the complexities of people's lives, at why workers are depressed and at why they are sick and off work. I have already done so in the Finance Committee, but I warn against taking that kind of approach. Mr Frew compared the number of days taken off in the private sector with the number in the public sector. Part of the problem is that people in the private sector generally have fewer rights. There is less union recognition. People are therefore scared to take time off. We should not be encouraging people to go into work if they are sick. We should warn against any idea that the private sector is a panacea. It has huge problems. As I said, people are frightened to take days off.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, please check the Member's previous comments for accuracy. I believe that they were very inaccurate. <BR /> <BR />We also need to address the over-focus — I level this at the party to my right and to others, including the Committee for Finance — on leave of absence and sick days for civil servants. That is not driven by concern for workers or their health. There is very little focus on why people are sick for longer periods. I am not a doctor, but I guess that it is because of increased anxiety and depression, the mental health crisis, the housing crisis and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are on health waiting lists.”
“That is a colossal waste of money, as it is funnelled to the private sector. Moreover, agency workers are denied their rights. The Minister should therefore end the policy.”
“I will also mention the fact that many civil servants have second jobs at weekends or in the evenings, working as taxi drivers or delivery drivers for fast-food companies, because their wages are not high enough. That is not talked about enough. Some at the top end of the Civil Service are paid excessively and too much, but the vast majority of people in the Civil Service — a huge chunk of them at least — can be described as the working poor. <BR /> <BR />If the Members to my right are talking about reducing the spend on agency staff as a way to reduce inefficiency, I would agree with them on that. That was referred to by some in supporting the motion. We are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds being spent by the Department of Finance on agency staff despite platitudes about reducing that spend.”
“Therefore, I warn against adopting a strategy that sees everything in the private sector as wonderful and glorious, and refrain from a neo-Thatcherite policy that, I would argue, does not meet the needs of our communities more generally or public-sector workers specifically. <BR /> <BR />The word "efficiency" is used in the motion. I am opposed to an approach that uses that word to justify more job losses in the Civil Service or in the public sector more generally. Every job loss, compulsory or not, means extra pressure on Civil Service workers. Many whom you talk to following the redundancy programme of a few years ago talk about having to do two or three jobs because of direct lay-offs and redundancy packages or because people were not replaced when they retired. What impact does that have on people's health?”
“<BR /> <BR />It is often repeated in this place and elsewhere that the public sector is too big and bloated. I invite Members to consider how much worse the COVID pandemic would have been — it was a bad pandemic; it was a terrible pandemic — had we not had a publicly funded healthcare system. It did not get everything right, of course, but it responded, for the most part, to lots of people's needs and the healthcare demand that was in place because of the pandemic. The Civil Service or the public sector more generally cannot decide to pick itself up and move to another part of the world to get further or bigger government grants or to further exploit workers in the Global South or wherever else. Quite often, though, private companies do that here.”
“You are getting ahead of yourself, Mr Brett. <BR /> <BR />I am concerned about the agenda behind the motion and the politics towards the Civil Service, having listened to him — through the Chair — and other DUP members on the Finance Committee and throughout the Building generally. It starts from the position that the public sector is bloated, is too big and needs to be reduced. We should reject that argument, confront it and challenge it head on. We have a gap of several thousand healthcare workers across the system, and we need to plug that gap and employ more nurses, porters, care workers and every type of healthcare worker, if we are to meet the needs of all communities across the North. The best way to meet the challenges is to fund and increase staff numbers in the public sector more generally and in the Civil Service.”
“No problem. <BR /> <BR />On the face of it, there does not seem to be much wrong with the motion, but I am —.”
“, a very good programme based on the Julia Donaldson book, are available constantly in the South on TG4 but disappear intermittently in the North if you are watching using the app. Has the Minister come across that issue? Will he raise it at the next meeting? Will he outline any steps that he can take to ensure that children in the North who are raised through the medium of Irish are not disadvantaged and have access to the same programmes and literacy development as kids of a similar age in the South?”
“Minister, we have an unacceptable situation in which children in the North who are raised through the medium of Irish, including my children, are disadvantaged compared with children in the South. One concrete example is that a lot of the programmes that are available for children on TG4, including 'Francach an Bhóthair'”
“that gives every child the opportunity to "reach their full potential". Our children deserve better, and, for that reason, I support the motion. <BR /> <BR />Does anybody else want to come in? Go ahead. There are two of you. Take your pick.”
“I will come back to that in a second. <BR /> <BR />The Minister may claim, as he did in a previous debate, that there is no public consensus on ending selection, despite growing calls to actually end it. I can tell you what there is consensus on: working-class communities across the North, from all communities, from all backgrounds, on both sides of the divide or from all sorts of corners, are sick of seeing their children being written off at 11 years of age. It is time that we put aside the tired defence of, quite often, middle-class privilege and build an education system that serves all our children, not just the fortunate few. <BR /> <BR />The motion calls for exactly that. It calls for:”
“Do you want to come in? OK, fair enough. <BR /> <BR />The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for an end to academic selection. The OECD and others have criticised it. The Equality Commission has highlighted how it deepens educational inequalities. International evidence is clear. Even if the Member to my right will not listen to me, he should note that international evidence is clear that education systems that segregate pupils by ability at an early age exacerbate inequality rather than reduce it. The Minister may claim that —”
“Thank you. I would say this to the Member: you do not really listen to the people who have been through that system and who feel like a failure because society has branded them as such. You need to reach out to those people and listen to them a bit more and not make it about yourself. Many children who do not make it to grammar school carry that stigma for life. We have heard that today, so the Member needs to listen to other Members and other points of view in the debate. I do not know what he is chuntering —. I will give way again. Do you want to come in?”
“It perpetuates the myth that, if you have not passed a test by the age of 10 or 11, you are somehow a failure and your future is predetermined. How can anybody stand over that system?”
“It also means that working-class parents, who do not have the money, spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on private tutors, getting money from family, a credit union or, in some cases, other nefarious ways. <BR /> <BR />I speak as somebody who went to a Catholic grammar school, but grammar schools, in many cases, have become the preserve of the middle classes, while our children are funnelled into under-resourced, non-selective schools. I do not know how anybody can support that system. The facts speak for themselves: only 11% of children attending grammar schools are entitled to free school meals compared with 32% in non-selective schools. That is a huge indicator of poverty and class. The system does not identify talent; it identifies wealth.”
“I support the SDLP amendment that rightly notes that any programme to address educational disadvantage will be extremely limited without an end to academic selection. <BR /> <BR />The evidence is damning: research consistently shows that transfer tests do cause unnecessary stress and anxiety for young people, regardless of whether one or two or five children did not feel stressed or anxious. The transfer tests disproportionately disadvantage children from lower-income and working-class backgrounds. Academic selection in communities such as mine and that of my colleague from West Belfast opposite means that children can be branded as failures — I do not think that they are failures — at 10 or 11 years old, when they have barely started their education. I do not know how anybody can defend that system.”
“We are constantly told that the North has a world-class education system. In my view, that is only true if you ignore the tens of thousands of working-class children who constantly get left behind every single year. The teachers, education workers, classroom assistants and the people who work in the canteens are all working in a Trojan manner, but the system is clearly broken, failing pupils every single year. <BR /> <BR />The 11-plus, as it is being referred to, was abolished in 2002, with the last government-run test taking place in 2008. Since then, private companies have ensured that academic selection continues, and it is totally unregulated. <BR /> <BR />Today's motion recognises what countless studies have proven: academic selection is a tool of social division that entrenches educational inequality. That cannot be disputed.”
“Minister, revising the core syllabus is welcome, but many will be concerned that Christianity will remain central to our education system. There should be the right to religious freedom for everybody, but, in my view and that of many others, we should have separation of Church and state. <BR /> <BR />Minister, your proposals do not take into account falling church numbers and the fact that people are generally moving away from religious ideas and Churches for a range of reasons. Will your Department monitor the number of pupils who opt out? If a large number of pupils want to opt out of collective worship, does he agree that that would indicate that a more radical rethink of the role of religion in education would be required?”
“Maybe he should take action against his party colleagues who regularly retweet, endorse and regurgitate the lines of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) if he has any concerns about violence.”
“<BR /> <BR />If we allow the sanction to stand without challenge, we are saying that the robust, persistent and maybe even annoying questioning of Ministers — the kind that makes them uncomfortable — can be punished with exclusion. That is wrong, and it is a dangerous path to take. We must defend the right to challenge power vigorously, even when we fundamentally disagree with the politics of those doing the challenging; otherwise, we are building a system where only polite, deferential scrutiny is tolerated. That serves nobody except those who benefit from the status quo. My party and I will not endorse that strategy today. <BR /> <BR />I know that the Member for North Antrim is new to the job as party leader.”
“Executive parties and even the so-called official Opposition, who are frequently aligned with the Executive on fundamental questions, may be tempted to exclude smaller parties from the Assembly for challenging powerful witnesses in the future; I could obviously be subjected to that. That will have an unacceptably chilling effect on holding the Executive to account. I have sat in Committee meetings where working-class communities' concerns about healthcare, privatisation or unethical investment have been dismissed as "out of scope" or "inappropriate". That is the wrong approach for any Chair of any Committee to take.”
“<BR /> <BR />So-called improper behaviour towards Committee Chairs and Ministers is a different matter. The comments that Mr Gaston made were condescending and patronising without a doubt. He called them "ill-judged". I agree with, I think, the Member for North Antrim that Mr Gaston should publicly apologise to the Chair of the Committee for his comments. However, when it comes to further sanctions, I have serious concerns that the standards are being weaponised to silence dissent and criticism of those in power from somebody whom I have more disagreements with than anybody else in the House. <BR /> <BR />Challenging a Committee Chair is not unreasonable or excessive. It is part of our democratic duty, especially as opposition MLAs, and kicking MLAs out of the Assembly for so-called improper conduct sets a dangerous precedent.”
“There are many things that Timothy Gaston and many Members across the Chamber should be sanctioned for in my view and, no doubt, that of many other people. The Member for North Antrim stands up regularly and blames migrants for pressures on housing, healthcare and schools, while ignoring decades of austerity and obscene inequality; indeed, he regularly attacks trans people and talks about "transgender madness". That is a relentless undermining of trans people's right to dignity and safety, and I say that those are "unreasonable" and "excessive" comments, to use the language of the standards commissioner. Those attacks on marginalised groups deserve condemnation. MLAs and, indeed, Ministers in the House should absolutely face consequences for stoking up division and hate against oppressed people. Unfortunately, all too often, they do not.”
“Deputy First Minister, we have heard a lot about the benefits of AI, but I do not know how aware Ministers are of its dangers and those of artificial superintelligence, which, people who have worked in the sector say, could threaten the whole of humanity. The use of AI will have an impact on energy supplies and on job losses. Data shows that, in Britain, AI has led to a huge loss of jobs in the past year. At the very least, the sector needs to be regulated and brought under control. Will you indicate how that is being done?”
“Thank you, Minister. It is clear from the backtracking that your economic strategy is in free fall. You have withdrawn the increase for hospitality. You talk about supporting workers and families, but your proposals in the Budget will see households paying 15% extra on their rates. When will you withdraw that proposal? You talked about being transparent about ideas. The top 100 businesses here have seen their pre-tax profits rise by 26% to £1·86 billion: why can you not increase those companies' rates?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I was not taking issue with people who are religious. It is about a form of religious ideology driving policy, which is a bad move. On a point of clarification, I was talking about driving services — not human trafficking — underground. Human trafficking is abhorrent. My issue with the motion is about how it is conflating trafficking with adult services. That is an important clarification. I thank the Member for giving way.”
“There needs to be a bit more nuance in the debate. I really oppose the way in which adult services and human trafficking have purposely been conflated.”
“because it allows people to have choice. She also states:”
“That means listening to sex workers, respecting their choices and refusing to criminalise women out of existence while claiming to save them. <BR /> <BR />I refer Members to today's 'The Irish News', in which Aoife Moore has a good column that deals with some of the issues. She says:”
“I do not know what the Member to my right is saying, but I will move on. <BR /> <BR />Adult services websites are already regulated under the Online Safety Act 2023, which is supposed to protect users from trafficking. Those websites are regulated by Ofcom. If we want to stop the exploitation of women, we should consider more effective ways of regulating websites in order to stop trafficking. Everybody wants to do that, but I and many others have a problem with the conflation of it and adult services. It could help to identify red flags such as the one phone number being used, as Members mentioned. It is possible and necessary to support the full decriminalisation of sex work and the self-organisation of sex workers while being critical of exploitation and fundamentally opposed to trafficking.”
“Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />I do not know whether the Member has been listening, but the Nordic model is problematic. However, I note that the DUP led the way in that regard. <BR /> <BR />The DUP often talk about women's safety, but, usually, it is a pretext for an attack on migrants, trans people or other people. It is worth challenging that point.”
“<BR /> <BR />We should also be suspicious of any demands relating to women's bodies coming from evangelical Christian lobby groups and the DUP in particular. Policies should be evidence-based, not driven by religious or aggressive political ideology. If the DUP really cared about the safety of women and girls, it would support women who are engaged in sex work to be as safe as possible. Further criminalisation will have the opposite effect.”
“<BR /> <BR />The term "adult services" is generic and wide-ranging. I am concerned that the likes of OnlyFans and other websites that, quite often, adults and younger adults use are included in the motion. That is very problematic, to put it mildly. We need to decriminalise and regulate sex work, not criminalise websites that actively reduce harm out of existence. Prohibition will not stifle demand; it will only drive sex work underground, where there is a far greater risk of exploitation and violence against women. The creation of a black market is not good for anyone except human traffickers. It is worth nothing that, in the South of Ireland, violence against sex workers increased by 77% in the year following partial criminalisation. That is not protection; it is state-sanctioned harm.”
“That partial criminalisation — neo-abolitionism, if you will — has clearly not succeeded in its aims. The demand is still there, and people continue to buy services online. <BR /> <BR />We need to listen to the voice of sex workers — that has not been mentioned in the debate — who tell us that they want to feel safe in their job, regardless of how people in here feel about the nature of that work. NHS drop-in support services for sex workers in the North have been shut down, leaving people isolated and vulnerable. The state is actively failing those sex workers. Sex workers tell people that adult services give them more control over their work, which is something that everybody wants across society. They can potentially screen clients before they meet them and set limits on what they will and will not offer.”
“Of course, human trafficking is a disgusting, exploitative and rotten practice that must end. One of the quickest ways to do that would be to ensure that there is support and safe access routes for migrants and asylum seekers, which the party to my right usually opposes. There is no doubt that some sex traffickers try to use adult services websites to coerce, prey on and bring harm to vulnerable women. However, it is dangerous to conflate sex work and human trafficking, which is what the motion does. That is precisely why we should challenge the call to further criminalise sex work under the guise of protecting women and girls from trafficking, which is what the motion does. It is currently illegal to purchase sex, but it is not illegal to sell it.”
“<BR /> <BR />I raised some other detailed points that I hope that officials can respond to for my benefit and that of constituents. I think that there is an overwhelming feeling that there should not be any secrecy. Has TEO done any mapping exercises on what documents may exist? I appreciate that those documents may be stored away secretly in attics, but I presume that there is some knowledge, somewhere, of what exists and where. If that is the case, maybe that can be communicated to Members in the safest possible way. <BR /> <BR />I commend the amendment to the House and thank Members for their contributions.”
“Tony Gribben also stated that requests to meet the First Minister and deputy First Minister have been ignored. That is glaring stuff that can be resolved quite easily. <BR /> <BR />In conclusion, the Member for North Belfast raised important points. I commend her for her work on her Bill, which, hopefully, will proceed through the House. I also commend her for speaking out on Milltown and other issues. In a similar vein to me, she asked what communication TEO has had with the diocese of Down and Connor. I thank the junior Minister for her remarks. She stated that some documents have been submitted to PRONI. It is important that that is communicated in the most sensitive and secure way. I would like to hear her expand on that.”
“He is asking, as I am sure that others are, when the Executive Office can complete its own action plan and provide a calendar of events. I think that that is a reasonable request from him. He has also asked what meetings have taken place with TEO and the Finance Minister to make sure that a budget is available for a public inquiry, if that is the desired option. <BR /> <BR />I say, again, before anybody would get offended, that these are his words and not mine. He says that there is a "crisis of confidence" in the Executive Office about how slow things are moving. Those are quite moderate statements; people may not like them, but it is important that people's concerns are raised. It is a well-resourced Department — so much so that it can spend £8 million on agency staff.”
“Research shows that children who have been abused have a shorter lifespan due to the PTSD caused by that abuse and the physical effect that that has on them. I am aware that at least one survivor, who was abused in a Church of Ireland setting, has passed away. <BR /> <BR />I want to thank Tony Gribben, who has been in touch with me and, I presume, others, for his bravery in speaking out for himself and other people. I am going to read his words into the record, because it is important that victims and survivors' voices are heard. Like many others, he has said that dragging out decisions on the recommendations that were submitted by the interdepartmental working group adds further "pain, angst and strain". Those are his words, not mine.”
“Religious institutions and other institutions more generally were also involved. I note the bravery of Nikella Holmes, who spoke out recently about the abuse that she suffered. She is seeking justice as well. In my view, that shines a light on smaller religious institutions, which evangelical institutions tend to be. I do not claim to be an expert, but I understand that there are quite a lot of family-run institutions. It is important and welcome that questions are being asked about such institutions and that a light is being shone on them. <BR /> <BR />He is not in the Chamber at the moment, but it is worth emphasising Mr McNulty's point that many victims and survivors who have engaged with the Executive Office and other Ministers are in poor health.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank Members for their contributions to the debate and their support for the amendment and the motion. Members mentioned the need to be victim-centred and focused on survivors. There is, obviously, agreement on that across the House. Various people and groups have been mentioned, and I pay tribute to everybody who has been mentioned. Thankfully, there is support across the House on the matter. <BR /> <BR />Members spoke about the need for the Catholic Church in particular to be held to account, and I fully concur with that. Robbie Butler, however, said that it is not just about the Catholic Church, and I agree with that. He paid tribute to Margaret McGuckian, who is a constituent of mine, and I agree with him on that. Alongside others, she has done Trojan work.”
“I will. It was allowed by the state and those who ran institutions. To claim that we cannot design a system in which compensation is paid out fairly is simply untrue. I urge Members to back the amendment and the motion.”
“<BR /> <BR />We also need to have a conversation about and a focus on Church assets. Churches are wealthy organisations. Archbishop Eamon Martin has tried to claim that seizing Church assets is opportunism. You would think that he would have a bit more humility. That is nothing more than an attempt at deflection. Church and state have collective responsibility. If they did not act appropriately, which they did not, there need to be consequences. An immoral, legal scheme was created whereby women were incarcerated and abused for decades and tens of thousands of children died — were killed — or were taken from their mothers and trafficked across the world. That was completely disgusting and horrible, but it was legal.”
“However, my fear about all things cross-departmental is that they move at a snail's pace. Victims need and deserve a public inquiry, an action plan and a multi-annual budget commitment. Time is of the essence. As I understand it, there may also be another issue — I am keen to hear the Minister's response to this — which is that, when people die and are buried in council cemeteries, the council registrar issues a funeral card and documentation that is kept in council archives, but the state, certainly historically, allowed the Catholic Church to have its own records. My understanding is that the paperwork that gives the authority to bury a body is called a "green form". Again, what work has TEO done to secure that paperwork? That needs to be focused on as well.”