Matthew O'Toole
South Belfast · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“I appreciate my colleague's giving way. Unfortunately, I was not here for all of the Minister's remarks — like her, I have been in the Chamber for a lot of today, so I had to pop out and attend to some other business. I presume that the Member will agree that these provisions could be more properly included in the Sentencing Bill.”
“Clearly, however, the regulatory and enforcement regime for all those watercourses and marine environments is way out of date ecologically and, indeed, economically.”
“We learned about the antics of Jeffrey Donaldson that were not criminal — so far — only after his conviction. Reporters have been able to go and find that information and people have been able to speak — felt able to speak — because Mr Donaldson has been sent to prison, convicted of appalling crimes, and is therefore less likely to seek r…”
“We are pleased, in broad terms, to support it at Second Stage. We welcome the move towards an approach to fisheries management that is ecosystem-based rather than narrowly species-based.”
“We were robust in opposing those who were not willing to deal with the nutrients action plan, for example, which should have been a core part of dealing with Lough Neagh. Of course, the farming industry needed to be engaged, and the Minister has been doing a lot of that work recently.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In just a few hours' time, the House will go into recess for more than two months. There are two outstanding and grave matters that the public in Northern Ireland want us to deal with, but we are walking away, so I want your advice on Standing Orders.”
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“It is important, first, to say that our thoughts are with anybody who has been affected. It is very difficult for the victims and witnesses. It is also important to say that you, Minister, have managed this relationship for most of the past half decade. Your party has effectively had a monopoly on the Department for a decade and a half, so a breakdown of the relationship with the Criminal Bar Association is on you as well as on it. <BR /> <BR />I genuinely struggle to see what the difficulty is with mediation. You said that it would be a slight on Judge Burgess to enter into mediation, as the Criminal Bar Association has asked. Why, then, is it not a slight on the Lady Chief Justice, Siobhan Keegan, to not enter into mediation, despite it being her recommendation?”
“Minister, I have called this a ghost Budget. You have given us more detail today, so, in fairness, I probably have to upgrade that a bit. It will be more like a phantom or a zombie until we get Executive agreement, but there is detail in here. <BR /> <BR />One of my biggest concerns is about something that you said in the statement, which was that the overspends on pay that are planned in the Department of Education and the Department of Health in particular — it is right that we pay public-sector workers — are not factored into the plans. That worries me. It feels as though there will be a £500 million black hole before we even get started next year. What happens, particularly if we do not get the multi-year Budget agreed, if we go into next year carrying a huge debt from this year? How will we deal with it?”
“My broader question is in relation to the sharing of documents by Departments. It is clear that the statement was ready earlier today. It is not a document that has been prepared at short notice. I ask whether it is defensible for it to be shared at such short notice.”
“Further to that point of order, I do not think that an extra three minutes of reading time is sufficient, but I appreciate the point that has been made.”
“What will be done to ensure that Members are treated with respect by the Department of Finance?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker, according to my computer, I received the ministerial statement on the draft Budget at 3.03 pm. Standing Order 18A makes it clear that Members are supposed to receive statements at least 30 minutes before Ministers make their statements in the House. Assuming that the Minister makes his statement at 3.30 pm, that is a prima facie breach of Standing Order 18A. The Minister and his Department are past masters, I am afraid, when it comes to that. It is hard to imagine a more important, detailed document than a multi-year Budget, but Members have had just minutes to look at it. I presume that it was ready for publication and sharing earlier today. Can the Speaker advise what action I can take to ensure that there is an investigation of that apparent breach of Standing Orders?”
“On that basis, Minister, can you confirm that you cannot make the allocations that you have stated in that document that you want to make until there is Executive agreement? Is it the case that they have no standing until there is Executive agreement? Last week, lots of organisations appeared to be under the impression that those allocations had been made, but they have not yet. Will he be clear that, unless and until those multi-year allocations are agreed by the whole Executive, they do not stand?”
“Minister, you are at pains to describe the December monitoring round as a document of profound strategy and genius interventions here, there and everywhere as if it was planned. The truth is, Minister, that 10% of the entire Executive capital budget was underspent with three months left of the financial year. That is an extraordinary position for any Executive and Finance Minister to find themselves in. Can you guarantee that every penny of capital expenditure will be spent properly before the end of this financial year, 2025-26?”
“However, from your previous answers, it sounds as if you think that the integrated ethos, which is more than simply a mixing of the numbers of pupils, is somehow a bit of a put-up job — a bit of a con job — or that there is something a bit fraudulent about it. In your strategy, you have said that you want to develop and protect the integrated ethos. What do you think it is? Do you think it is a real thing? Do you understand why it is distinct from other sectors?”
“Minister, one of the strategic aims set out in the strategy that you published last year is about the:”
“I appreciate you taking the point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, and the advice that you gave earlier. Further to that, I want to understand whether the vote that we have just had has any point at all, given that the law was changed in 2022 to prevent votes like the one that we have just had taking place. If the vote took place under unreformed law, is the Assembly in breach of the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 because we have not updated our Standing Orders? Further to that, are we not, if that is the case, creating a farce for the public by getting Ministers down here to vote on a petition of concern vote that should not have happened under the law as it stands?”
“On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.”
“Thank you for that clarification. Can the Speaker's Office clarify whether, had Standing Orders been updated, as I think most people would have expected them to be, given that the Act was passed several years ago, would the petition of concern have been legally allowed?”
“I appreciate that. It is a new point of order, but it is further to the —.”
“That provision in 'New Decade, New Approach' was then supposed to be transcribed into the Standing Orders of the Assembly. That was provided for in the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022. Therefore, I would like to understand why the motion, which, as far as I am aware, does not have any express legal or procedural effect, is eligible for a petition of concern.”
“On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I have a point of order on the vote that is about to take place now. In 'New Decade, New Approach', at point 2.2.4 of annex B, it states that a petition of concern would not be applicable for a motion that had:”
“— about the consequences of what is happening in the world today.”
“<BR /> <BR />Yes, by all means, I am happy to call out Sinn Féin's position on Maduro as being unacceptable, but I was astonished to hear unionist politician after unionist politician stand up today and pay tribute to the Trump regime and what it is doing in Venezuela. They are not listening to what is being said in the Chamber. Frankly, they do not care about the UK, Europe or anyone else other than their own interests, their own authoritarianism, their own pockets and their own desire to bend the world to their will. I caution people in the Chamber to think more carefully —”
“<BR /> <BR />The United States' going in and abducting Maduro, however objectionable or authoritarian he was, is deeply troubling because the consequences and precedent are unbelievably serious. What is now to stop Putin from saying, "My action in Ukraine is entirely justified", as obnoxious, illegal and hateful as it is? What is to stop Xi Jinping saying, "I now want to go in and launch some kind of action in Taiwan", just as Trump did with Venezuela, because he said that it was in his neighbourhood in the Western hemisphere. What is to stop them from doing that and saying, "The United States is doing that in Venezuela, so why can we not do it in our neighbourhoods?" Let us think through the consequences.”
“Both things can be bad. It is not the case that by the simple fact of Maduro being an objectionable authoritarian that the United States was justified in going in and illegally abducting him. It was not. <BR /> <BR />We are living in a deeply destabilising era of international law. Even if, as some people say, there has always been a significant degree of hypocrisy in the upholding of international law, lots of which we have seen, such as the appalling actions of Israel and the lack of consequences for that, the fact that the states that created the international order after the Second World War, including the United States, were willing to acknowledge the presence of international law was, at least, some form of guard rail mitigation. We do not have any of that now.”
“We have rather drifted from the main topic of the action in Venezuela, so let me bring it back to that. When talking about politics and international affairs, there is a truth that, unfortunately, is undermined or sometimes obviated by social media, which is that two things can be true at the same time. It can be true that Nicolás Maduro and his Government were illegitimate, authoritarian and profoundly objectionable. It is not just that they were but that they are, because the Maduro regime is still in place at the behest of Donald Trump and his Government. It can, however, also be true that launching an illegal operation inside sovereign territory to remove, abduct and kidnap a political leader, even if you find them objectionable and they are authoritarian and acting profoundly against the interests of their own people, is a bad thing.”
“More broadly, they represented an outlook that we should all aspire to in public service: the people whom we serve are what matters. They were a constant reminder that what matters is not clicks on social media or controversy in the Chamber but doing right by the people who send us here and devoting every waking hour to improving their lives. I pay tribute to Joe and Mary. Rest in peace.”
“She was only ever a partisan and tribal figure in her support for those teams. <BR /> <BR />Both of those extraordinary individuals — Joe Byrne and Mary Bradley — embodied something that, we think, is special about our party. Their colleagues and friends in the SDLP and, particularly, the communities that they served in West Tyrone and Derry will mourn and remember them.”
“She was deeply connected to the community in Derry that she served and loved. She worked for them and championed them at the council and the Assembly, and, right up to her passing, she was known as a community champion. She embodied the connection that our party has historically had with the city of Derry and the community there. Mary's warmth, generosity and kindness were remarked on by everybody who knew her. She was an astonishingly open-hearted person, which was appreciated by those from all parties who served with her in the Assembly. Our former leader, Mark Durkan senior, said of her generosity of spirit that she was bitter and partisan in only one respect, and that was in relation to football teams, because she was a passionate supporter of both Manchester United and Derry City.”
“Mr Speaker, we have had words from you, and there have been tributes to Joe Byrne as a giant of public service from across the community in West Tyrone and, indeed, the whole of the North and all of Ireland. <BR /> <BR />On behalf of his colleagues, friends and comrades in the SDLP, I say that we will miss him. I went to his funeral in Killyclogher, which is just outside Omagh, on a wintry day, and the turnout was extraordinary. It was a testament to him. Our thoughts are with Ursula, Aoife, Emer, Eoin and his wider family circle. His values remain with us. <BR /> <BR />Mary Bradley was another extraordinary person who embodied the values of the SDLP. Mary was born in Derry on the Foyle Road, but she made Carnhill her home. She represented Shantallow on Derry City Council not just for years but for an entire generation.”
“Our party worked hard to establish a new start for policing that could command the respect and trust of the whole community in Northern Ireland, and people such as Joe Byrne did the hard yards to make that happen. <BR /> <BR />Joe went on to be the chairperson of the SDLP between 2009 and 2012. He had two different stints in the Assembly: from 1998 in the first Assembly through to 2003, and he was elected again in 2011. That is dedication. Some might call it gluttony for punishment, but it showed his dedication to his community and the people of West Tyrone — all the people of West Tyrone. The extent of Joe's service and the respect in which he was held across the community is a testament to that.”
“He was born in Aghyaran, a townland outside Strabane; a place about which he was passionate and to which he was always connected. He was a passionate member of the GAA, and, indeed, my father was involved in the Queen's University GAA club with him in the mid-1970s. Joe was a stalwart of the team, and his passion for the GAA was something that he carried throughout his life. He sponsored and organised the first GAA event in Parliament Buildings in 2001. <BR /> <BR />Joe became a member of Omagh District Council in 1993, having been a long-standing SDLP member and activist in Tyrone. He was part of the SDLP's negotiating team that led to the Good Friday Agreement, and he was a key member of the nascent Policing Board.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your kind words and for offering Members the opportunity to pay their respects to two giants of public service; people who embodied the heart of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the values that created and still animate our party and movement today. As you said, Mr Speaker, Joe and Mary died at the same time over the Christmas break. They served together in the Assembly. In a sense, they came from different traditions in the SDLP in that one represented an urban community and the other was a passionate rural champion, but collectively they represented the soul of our party: public service through commitment to the common good, cross-community politics, dialogue and serving the people who elected you. <BR /> <BR />Joe Byrne was an extraordinary public servant.”
“Minister, I am slightly at a loss. Your colleague the Finance Minister and you were not impressed by my asking about mismanagement of the capital budget. However, you have just said that there is not enough money for NI Water. You have just handed back £140 million in unspent capital to the centre in this monitoring round. That is remarkable mismanagement. Given that, when will we see a comprehensive, multi-year plan for investment in NI Water? You have talked about a developer levy and about seeking more money from your colleagues: when will that convert into a plan for us to rescue Belfast lough and our water system more generally?”
“Members may laugh, but this is important. The Minister accused me of something that I did not do. Underspending capital by a quarter of a billion pounds is shocking and deplorable.”
“Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I will be brief. Earlier, during the debate, I described the underspend of a quarter of a billion pounds as "criminal". The Minister implied that I said that a criminal act had literally taken place; I did not. Just to be clear, the Oxford English Dictionary is clear that, in addition to the formal legal meaning, there is the meaning that something can be criminal if it is "shocking and deplorable" —”
“On the point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.”
“Thank you, Minister. Many of the allocations will, of course, be welcome — they always are — but surely you must acknowledge that this monitoring round is an example of criminal financial mismanagement. We are three months from the end of the financial year. Despite everything that you say about not getting enough money from London — you are right about that in many cases — the Executive are underspending their capital budget by £0·25 billion three months from the end of the financial year. There is mismanagement of the A5, Casement Park and the maternity and children's hospitals, and £0·25 million will have to be handed back. We need a multi-year Budget to fix those problems. When will a multi-year Budget be delivered to help us move away from this monitoring round chaos?”
“We hold every party here to account. Mr Frew talked about "a zombie Assembly" during COVID, but his party then collapsed the Assembly for two years after that. How much more "zombie" can you get?”
“— and let us take responsibility for our actions.”
“We must use all the means that are available to us. Let us go back to being honest. All of us in the Chamber must acknowledge that trust in politics is at an all-time low. We simply cannot go on like this. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee is doing some important work, but it is a relatively obscure Stormont Committee. Let us agree today in the Chamber with the Alliance Party motion that we need to make progress on this. Let us do it; let us not simply write to Santa Claus, Hilary Benn, asking him to do it for us. Let us start the work here, and let us take responsibility. People do not trust us; they have contempt for those of us who are in the Chamber. Let us reform this place —”
“Saying that your participation is conditional not on getting everything that you want but on at least making progress on one thing, even if it involves saying, "We will enter an Executive for a period of time, subject to its being included in a Programme for Government", would have been the entirely responsible thing to do. It is hugely regrettable to me that that did not happen, because I want to see reform. It is also true to say that many people who voted for a party that does not traditionally designate as unionist or nationalist and who wanted to see reform have not seen progress on that. I do not say that to be rude or unkind — it is pre-Christmas — and I want to work with the Alliance Party to deliver reform, but it did not use the mandate that it received in 2022 to deliver on that. <BR /> <BR />Where do we go from here?”
“I do not have time, but I am happy to engage. If I have time at the end, I will give way. <BR /> <BR />That party did not hold faith with its mandate. I am not saying that that would have been easy, nor am I saying that it would have led to institutional reform, because the two big parties may well have blocked it. However, it is true to say that it would have been an entirely reasonable and, in fact, obvious thing to do, because the upshot of some of the Alliance Party's proposals for reform is that it wants a more voluntary or more flexible form of coalition.”
“The Alliance Party does not designate as First Minister or deputy First Minister, so it could not have blocked Sinn Féin or the DUP from forming an Executive. It would simply have been keeping true to the mandate that it received in 2022, but I am afraid that it did not do that.”
“Unfortunately, however, the people who voted for the Alliance Party on that day have not seen a clear, meaningful return on that investment. That is not just the fault of the DUP and Sinn Féin — they cannot simply be blamed for that. <BR /> <BR />This is a really important point: when discussions were had about restoring the Executive last year, a lot of people would have felt that it would be entirely reasonable for the Alliance Party, with a more than doubled representation in the Executive, to say to the other parties, "As a condition of our participation in this Executive, we insist upon a commitment to make progress on institutional reform". That would not have been, as it is sometimes described, ransom politics. It could not have been ransom politics.”
“I am not going to give way; I have been asked to give way multiple times. I am happy to do so in a second, if I have time, but I need to make some progress. I think that I am one of the most generous Members when it comes to taking interventions in the Chamber. <BR /> <BR />I want to say this, however: we know that all parties in the Chamber, including the Alliance Party, have a long-standing commitment to reform. I do not say this to be gratuitous — it is pre-Christmas, and I say it in a spirit of goodwill — but it is important to say that the Alliance Party won an extraordinary mandate in 2022. I know that it was extraordinary, because we lost a third of our seats thanks to the Alliance Party. The Alliance Party is right when it says that that was an historic mandate.”
“blah-blah-blah. <BR /> <BR />Those words are not from the Alliance Party or the Ulster Unionist Party's manifesto; they are, in fact, from the DUP's manifesto in 2011. When a Programme for Government was agreed, we did not see any of that. When it comes to accountability, we are —.”
“It keeps talking about how any change to the way in which Stormont works would be a profound offence. I will very briefly read out some words:”
“Literally every party in the Chamber has said at one point that it wants to fundamentally reform how the institutions work. It is a much more recent move for Sinn Féin, but it now says — rhetorically at least — that it wants the Assembly and Executive Review Committee to investigate that. I welcome that. To be honest, I do not think that that would have happened without political pressure from other quarters, including from us as the official Opposition. I do not think that that is an unreasonable position for Sinn Féin to take; it is a welcome development, and I hope that it keeps that up and is serious about delivering on it. <BR /> <BR />I will come on to the Alliance Party, but we know that the Ulster Unionist Party has acknowledged that there needs to be reform. The DUP, however, now seems to be implacably opposed.”
“It should not just be about their being here and our showing up and debating motions that have no legal effect but about our Government's being more effective at dealing with the issues that face people in their lives. It is about recognising that there are different aspirations and traditions in this society, having a clear list of priorities, ideally in a Programme for Government that is matched to a Budget, and saying to the public, "This is what we are delivering for you". That is what reform should be about, and that is what we are about. That is why we have championed reform, and I acknowledge that others in the Chamber want to do that too. <BR /> <BR />That brings me on to the thrust of our amendment, which is about accounting for all the parties in the Chamber.”
“Our politics has become about negative vetoes, stalemate, divvying up power and sharing it out when it suits one another. We have already seen that this week, with the failure to agree a multi-year Budget in time for the end of the year and the beginning of the financial year. There are multiple examples of that every day. <BR /> <BR />The case is proven for the need to reform how this place works. The word "reform" is often bandied about without precision about what it means, and it can mean a multiplicity of things. It is understood most definitively as meaning "institutional reform", but what we have to mean by that is making it harder to collapse the institutions, so that they are more sustainable.”
“I will give way in a few minutes, not just yet. <BR /> <BR />That is not what those vetoes are for. As we know from yesterday, the DUP is trying to use those vetoes again. At least, in the case of yesterday, the use of the veto is totally futile, because it is being used in relation to a non-binding motion, but it comes back to how, unfortunately, the DUP occasionally sees politics. <BR /> <BR />The COVID-19 inquiry exposed why we need to change how we do politics here. As a party that was an architect of the Good Friday Agreement, we remain profoundly morally, politically and intellectually committed to the idea of sharing power, but, as Paula Bradshaw said, it has to be about sharing. In order to share power, you have to have a vision of the common good that respects different identities and aspirations for the future.”
“<BR /> <BR />The inquiry made it clear that the situation was worse for families and the public in Northern Ireland because of decisions that were made by the two big parties. Sinn Féin facilitated and attended a funeral in the middle of Belfast in clear violation either of the restrictions themselves or of the spirit of them, which undermined people's confidence in leadership at a time when others' loved ones either died alone or were buried effectively in private. That was immensely hurtful, and it took years for an apology. <BR /> <BR />The DUP used cross-community vetoes to block public health measures. That was an extraordinarily inappropriate thing to do.”
“I will come on to the Executive parties — all of them — and their failure to make progress on a Programme for Government, because that is important, but, first, I will reflect on the core thrust of the motion: the findings of module 2 of the COVID inquiry. They are shocking. Let us remember not only the awfulness of the years of COVID-19 and the difficult position in which every individual and family across the world was put but the immense pressure that healthcare workers, educationalists, teachers, families and, indeed, policymakers were under. For those of us who had to legislate and make decisions for people, it was extraordinarily difficult. All those things were made worse by the two major parties in our Executive. The inquiry is scathing about that and about how our system of government let down the public, who lost loved ones.”
“Like everybody else, we deserve to be held to account through robust debate in the Chamber, and robust debate in the Chamber is necessary so long as it is focused on policy and outcomes for the public, not personalities.”