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“Clearly, however, the regulatory and enforcement regime for all those watercourses and marine environments is way out of date ecologically and, indeed, economically.”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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“I welcome our year 11 students from Methody, as Kate said. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the upgrading of any cycle lane, and the one on the Stranmillis embankment is well used. However, it is an existing embankment that is well used, and we are spending scarce resources closing it down, when there are other active travel opportunities in South Belfast. I think about additional cycle lanes on the Ravenhill Road or the Carryduff greenway. Is it the best use of half a million pounds to update what is already a very well-used and popular cycle and running track when there could be other demands in the constituency?”
“I appreciate the Member's giving way; he is always generous in giving way. If the protocol and the Windsor framework are so bad for the Northern Ireland economy, why have we generally outperformed the UK economy consistently since Brexit?”
“Minister, it is welcome that we have clarity on the public-sector transformation board after more than a year. The purpose of this ring-fenced money, however, which is a one-off, was to make interventions that are genuinely transformational and cost-saving. On reading the allocations, as legitimate and clearly welcome as many of them are, there is no clarity on exactly what the cost saving will be. Given the widespread agreement that Health is clearly the most crisis-hit part of our public services, would it have been better to simply ring-fence all or most of that money for the health service to say, "Let's make an intervention that is genuinely transformative to waiting lists, rather than divvying it out between Departments"?”
“I appreciate the deputy First Minister's giving way; I enjoy a bit of banter with her. It is up to her and the First Minister if they want to put my photograph in the document. They have used the same photograph of Donegall Quay in Belfast three times, so they may want to find another one, but that is fair enough. <BR /> <BR />I will ask about the Budget — it is a genuine question — because there is not much in the document by way of a table of indicative Budgets. Will you commit to working with the Finance Minister and coming back to us with a multi-year horizon? Even if it is not a legally signed-off multi-year Budget, it would be something to show us how this thing could be paid for. I genuinely think that that would be helpful for us all.”
“I appreciate the Member's giving way in the spirit of our being constructive. She is right about the silo thing, which is one of the most pernicious things in our politics. A couple of years ago, there was a recommendation to change the ministerial code or introduce a law — a duty of obligation for Departments to work together. Would she be interested in looking at that?”
“Like Mary Lou McDonald? Like the Opposition in Dáil Éireann?”
“I asked that question, First Minister, because, from the look of the Programme for Government document, which shows zero progress on Casement — it has exactly the same language as in the draft Programme for Government — zero progress on the Irish language, DUP/Tory bodies such as the East-West Council and Intertrade UK being placed on the same footing as Good Friday Agreement bodies such as InterTradeIreland and the North/South Ministerial Council and much less ambition than the Irish Government's Programme for Government on shared island or cross-border services, people will conclude that the DUP is running rings around you and your party. Tell us this: who is taking whom for a fool? Is the DUP taking your party for fools, or is your party taking the rest of us for fools?”
“I am pleased, junior Minister, that there will be a refugee integration strategy. I acknowledge that as progress. The Programme for Government, however, contains, by my count, seven or eight words on tackling racism. After not just the violence that we saw last summer in Belfast but the attack at the weekend, people of colour deserve better than warm words. They deserve clarity and focus, a stand-alone hate crime Bill, the Order being updated — finally, after years — and a racial equality strategy. Why is the issue so absent from the Programme for Government?”
“We will insist on the Executive parties taking responsibility rather than simply shifting blame. Our people deserve so much better. We will speak up for them every day and demand better than this late, limp, listless Programme for Government.”
“<BR /> <BR />Our job is to speak for the people and to demand better. They have been failed too often. They deserve delivery, not empty words. They need to be confident that they can access healthcare when they need it. They need to know that their children will be supported to achieve their potential and that there will finally be some attempt to restore our degraded environment. This document does not deliver for them. It is not just a day late and a dollar short; it is a thousand days late, and there is no Budget at all. Every day, in the Chamber and outside it, the SDLP will speak for the people who have been let down for too long, even if it makes others in the Chamber uncomfortable. We will hold others to account for the power that they have sought and received.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Alliance Party also won an historic endorsement at the last election, campaigning heavily on the need to reform Stormont and prevent repeated collapse — there is a lot of agreement between our parties; that is a vital subject — but it appears to have made absolutely no progress on getting the issue into the Programme for Government. Perhaps it made no attempt. <BR /> <BR />Earning power and taking office have to mean taking responsibility and being held accountable for it. We make no apology for being a constructive but robust Opposition. Given that the First Minister's party is fighting a battle over the rights of the Opposition in the Oireachtas, she will surely agree that opposition matters. If the Irish people deserve constructive opposition on one side of the border, they deserve it on this side of the border.”
“Page 85, the prosperity section of the document, appears to put two entities that emerged from a secret DUP/Tory deal — the East-West Council and Intertrade UK — on the same footing as the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC), the British-Irish Council (BIC) and InterTradeIreland. Those are bodies that were agreed at multiparty talks and enshrined in treaty. Just as Van Morrison is back playing the blues in Belfast, the DUP appears to be back playing its old tunes and not just in relation to international politics. It is blocking Executive papers and stalling progress on Casement Park and the Irish language. The deputy First Minister shakes her head: perhaps she can clarify that for me in her remarks later.”
“It goes without saying that we have a 10-year rates review cycle that appears never to be ready to report. <BR /> <BR />Critically, the document contains shockingly little on cross-border public service delivery, despite lots of words about that. When you compare it with the Southern Programme for Government, as some have done, including in this Chamber, you see that there is barely any reference to the transformative potential of greater cross-border provision; indeed, one of the most significant mentions of the Shared Island Fund comes from a DUP Minister's Department.”
“Sinn Féin sought and received an historic mandate to lead an Executive, but now there is precious little to show for that beyond symbolism. Having had the Finance Ministry for half a decade, it has made zero progress on devolving fiscal powers, despite constant complaints about our current funding model. <BR /> <BR />The Budget section in the document is one page. I will hold it up for those who want to see it. There is one page, without a single table or chart and no clarity on whether any of the promises, such as they are, will be funded. There are no promises or pledges on fiscal powers in the PFG, despite our being told repeatedly by Finance Ministers that they want to devolve more fiscal power and that too much power was in London.”
“Most frustratingly, the promises on the reform and transformation of public services have utterly lost momentum. The document completely fails to set out any clarity or ambition as to how public services are to be reformed or how the associated bodies, including the public-sector transformation board, will work. By the way, it is still an interim board. <BR /> <BR />Each of the parties in the Executive sought power and now have it. Yes, they are constrained by coalition. Yes, they are limited by finances. However, those things are true of virtually every democratic government in Europe. The test of Governments is not how well they describe the problems but how they use the power that they have to improve people's lives.”
“How will waiting lists and waiting times reduce when the number of people being seen is flatlining or even decreasing? <BR /> <BR />All too often, in lieu of an actual target, the PFG promises another plan or strategy to follow at some point. For the backlog in special educational needs, they will produce a plan. Perhaps that plan will have a target. Too often, the target is not a target or even a policy or a law to be passed but a post-dated promise for a further plan at some point in the future. Too often, the document is a Russian doll of more documents and more verbiage and more plans. The PFG, for example, promises to implement the Lough Neagh action plan, but that plan was mostly not action but, rather, scoping exercises and reviews.”
“The key theme of our approach as a constructive Opposition has been asking those with power to take responsibility rather than shift blame. On the economy, the PFG says that it prioritises low productivity but does little to address it, delaying and curtailing phase 2 of Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT) and having no plan, despite what the First Minister said, to increase investment in waste water infrastructure. On improving the quality and conditions of work, the Executive are already backsliding. Despite big talk on good jobs, the target for 2027 is simply to have considered the introduction of an employment rights Bill. On the collapsing health service, it is remarkably vague. It promises at least 250,000 assessments or diagnoses this year but then says, a few paragraphs later, that there were 260,000 last year.”
“We also welcome the commitment to create a delivery unit. We will, of course, need to see delivery from the delivery unit.”
“I say this to the First and deputy First Minister and, indeed, to all Ministers: is this it? <BR /> <BR />As I said, I acknowledge the areas in which the PFG offers more clarity in its final version than the draft. On social housing, it promises to start work on at least 5,800 new homes. That may be modest and far short of the kind of trajectory needed to deliver the 100,000 new homes promised by previous Sinn Féin Communities Ministers, but it is at least time-bound and measurable.”
“On days such as this, we need to keep sight of who and what matters and of how we work to make life better for the 1·9 million people whom we serve. <BR /> <BR />After the PFG fiasco last week, someone got in touch on social media to say that they had been red-flagged for referral to a consultant gynaecologist a year ago. When she phoned recently to ask how long the waiting list was, she was told that it could be years. She and the other hundreds of thousands on waiting lists are not obsessed with the mechanics of politics or process, but they deserve a clear sense of how those who sought and achieved power intend to use it to improve their lives and the services that they rely on. <BR /> <BR />The programme is better than nothing. It is a modest improvement on the draft, but it is a missed opportunity. It is nowhere near good enough.”
“In agreeing on the PFG, therefore, the Executive have made progress on the shamefully low bar that was set. <BR /> <BR />When we in the SDLP entered Opposition, we were determined to be constructive. We have fulfilled that pledge to the extent that the final PFG contains slightly more clarity on certain interventions and targets. It is clear that the presence of an official Opposition has been a force for accountability. However, despite the Executive's desire to be garlanded for simply existing, you do not get a passing grade for showing up to the exam hall. The document contains aspirations that we share, but it is far short of the clear targeted plan that the people of Northern Ireland deserve after so many years of failure. In the First Minister's remarks, warm though they were, I did not hear a single clear target.”
“I associate myself with the welcome to the Ceann Comhairle, Verona Murphy. <BR /> <BR />More than 1,000 days since the election and nearly 400 days after the Executive were formed, we have the first Programme for Government since 2011. I was in my 20s then: I am in my 40s now, so that gives a sense of how long we have been waiting. For too long, our politics has been defined by either absence or improvisation. When the institutions were not collapsed, they were cobbled together and then held together by the coincidence of passing party political interest rather than the common good. For half a decade, there was no devolved government, and for none of that decade was there an agreed Programme for Government. The absence of a Programme for Government was both a symptom and a cause of dysfunctionality.”
“While my party will not cause the House to divide on the Budget Bill today, we will certainly look forward to debating the actual Budget and its allocations and, hopefully, a plan that goes alongside it for rescuing public services and finally dealing with the problems that face this place.”
“We expected to see a strategic plan flowing from that, but we did not get one. If we are going to have further negotiations about relative need and getting funded above the 124% level, it would be helpful to have an update from the Minister on when we will hear more on that. It would also be helpful to have an update on when the other measures in the Budget sustainability plan will be confirmed. I hope that we have all that before we debate and vote on the draft Budget. <BR /> <BR />Finally, it would be helpful to understand from the Minister when the actual draft Budget — the document that he has there — will be agreed by the Executive and when it will be brought back to the Chamber for the Assembly to vote on it.”
“I look forward to debating the draft Budget statement, because that, not the legal authorisation of spending, is where the real action is . I hope that the Minister can update us on that today. <BR /> <BR />I also hope that he will be able to give us a specific update on where the Budget sustainability plan is and on his discussions with the Treasury about the independent calculation of relative need, which we have heard a lot about. There has been a lot of talk in the Chamber about us not being funded according to need, and we all supported the efforts to maximise the funding that flows to this place. Last year, however, was a record year for Barnett consequentials. That was put on the record by the Minister's Department. In real terms, not just in cash terms, it got more money in 2024-25 than in any year since 1998.”
“There will be a debate eventually, because we will be asked to vote on it. However, I, and, by extension, the world found out that that decision had been made only because the Finance Minister responded to a question for written answer that I tabled, telling me that the Executive had decided that there would be about a 3% increase to the non-domestic regional rate and an increase of more than 5% to the domestic rate; that is, an above-inflation increase for ordinary households. Clarity and scrutiny are needed on all of those points, because we cannot come to the Chamber and debate Budget Bills without being clear with the public about the strategic plan behind them. That is the most important thing. We do not have that yet.”
“I see that the Minister has a copy in front of him, so he has an advantage over us. I would be disappointed if he did not have a copy. He is quite right to have one. The Minister's predecessor released the draft Budget in December 2024. There was then a January monitoring round and a subsequent mini-monitoring round in response to storm Éowyn. We have not had the opportunity to debate or ask questions on any of those subjects. I was glad to hear the Speaker drawing attention earlier to the importance of Ministers, including the Finance Minister, coming to the Chamber to answer questions on specific allocations. <BR /> <BR />It is also the case that a decision has now been made by the Executive on the regional rate for 2025-26. There has not been any debate in the Chamber on that.”
“When I went to my pigeonhole upstairs earlier today, I saw that I had received a document, as, I am sure, did all Members. That document was the 2025-26 draft Budget. I was pleased to get a hard copy, and it is now up in my room. I had, obviously, already seen the draft Budget allocations, because they were in a written ministerial statement, but, all of a sudden, the document was in my pigeonhole. I am perfectly pleased to receive it, but that speaks to the strange, haphazard way in which we do strategic budget-making in this place. <BR /> <BR />While we have been in this place for days on end, debating the spring Supplementary Estimates and the Budget Bill, we have had precious little debate on the major strategic decisions in the draft Budget, which is the main statement.”
“<BR /> <BR />Mr Speaker — Mr Principal Deputy Speaker — sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker — I have a few options in front of me, and I did not read out the right one. The Committee hopes that, by the time we look at the Budget (No. 2) Bill later this year, we will have received the Fiscal Council Bill and the financial provisions Bill, which will go some way to removing items from the sole authority of the Budget Act. That is the black box, which is the favourite topic of many Members past and present. The Minister indicated to the Committee that he will progress those Bills with all haste. I take him at his word on that. Perhaps he will give us a further update on that in his closing remarks. <BR /> <BR />I will now speak in my capacity as leader of the Opposition.”
“The Budget process is complex and is littered with technical terms and accounting principles. It is not easy to understand, which is a barrier to good scrutiny. The Committee is grateful to the Finance Minister and his officials for undertaking to work to simplify the process and how it is presented. Finance Committee members are keen to support and advise on those efforts. Additionally, the Committee will work with the Minister to make the Estimates and monitoring processes that the Bill authorises much more accessible. <BR /> <BR />Today, we will complete the process to grant legal authority to Departments to draw down cash and use resources. The Budget Bill signals that we are coming to the end of the 2024-25 financial year, with departmental accountants comparing their audited out-turns against the limits voted for by the Assembly.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I reflected at Second Stage, the commencement of the Financial Reporting (Departments and Public Bodies) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 has brought benefits to how financial information is presented in the Estimates and Budget Bill. The Committee is keen to build on that work in order to equip other Committees with the necessary tools to make the debates much more forensic. This point is critical, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you may agree with it as a Finance Committee member and a former Chair of the Finance Committee: there is a job to do to make what we debate more comprehensible not only to the public but to other Members in their capacity as Committee members and Chairs so that they are able to better scrutinise the relevant Department's budget. Budget scrutiny is not simply a job for the Finance Committee.”
“We should look at the strategic policy direction rather than the specific legalities of the Budget Bill, which are pretty much the same every year — or multiple times a year, because there are multiple Budget Bills. <BR /> <BR />I repeat the warning that was given to the Committee by departmental officials that the bumper Barnett consequentials of the financial year that we are about to end — 2024-25 — will not be repeated in 2025-26. Therefore, 2024-25 has been anything but a normal year. Going forward, the Committee is conscious that every Budget decision made by the Executive will be even more crucial than it has been this year. We must live within our means and move beyond the culture of having overcommitted Budgets in the hope that Westminster Estimates will come to the rescue and provide for the shortfall.”
“They also made it clear that multi-annual Budgets would provide much greater security for them to plan, invest and reform. As I highlighted at Second Stage, the Committee has been briefed on work flowing from the Budget sustainability plan and the Budget improvement road map that the Department has been doing, which should take us towards Budgets linked to the PFG and multi-annual Budget plans. That work is of considerable interest to the Committee and has the potential to provide all Statutory Committees with a much better basis for the scrutiny of Departments' budgets. The Minister may be able to give us an update on both of those pieces of work in his winding-up speech, because they are, in a sense, more interesting than some of the literal text of the Budget Bill.”
“I should say that it is not just the current Committee's position; they are considering whether it oversells the position at which any Finance Committee can feel comfortable arriving. <BR /> <BR />We heard from a number of Members during the Second Stage debate. It was a thorough debate overall, and it was the first more normal Budget Bill debate since we returned last year, but there is much more to discuss on the Budget process. I will come on to talk about that in my political remarks. <BR /> <BR />Today's debate provides me with a final opportunity to reflect the Committee's position and the views that various stakeholders expressed to members. They told us that our Budgets would be much more strategic and better applied if they were directly linked to the Programme for Government (PFG).”
“Perhaps we will get to a point in debates in the Finance Committee and the Chamber when we can avoid lamenting the use of accelerated passage and move on to more rigorous scrutiny of the actual Budget Bill and the Budget process more broadly. In agreeing to accelerated passage, the Committee is conscious that many of the time frames that the Minister and the Department work to are dictated by what goes on at Westminster. Going forward, the Committee will consult on the phrase "appropriate consultation". That phrase is used in Standing Order 42(2) to characterise the basis for the Committee's agreement to accelerated passage. Finance Committee members are considering whether that oversells the Committee's position.”
“I made it just in time. Today's business has moved a little more quickly than people expected it to. I am pleased to be able to speak on the Final Stage of the Budget Bill on behalf of the Finance Committee. I am afraid that the Minister will have to get used to long debates on Supplementary Estimates, Votes on Account and Budget Bills, because that is one of the core parts of the job of Finance Minister. I will make a few points on behalf of the Committee and then make a couple of brief comments in my capacity as leader of the Opposition. <BR /> <BR />As the Committee has often commented, it is not ideal that the Bill has proceeded in such a condensed time frame. Accelerated passage is not a vehicle that people want to use, but accelerated passage is the vehicle that has always been used.”
“Uncharacteristically, I will endeavour to fulfil that request, Mr Speaker. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the Minister's bringing the statement to the House. It is, however, a deeply disappointing day for people in north and south Belfast, and it is perhaps unsurprising that not a single North Belfast or South Belfast Sinn Féin MLA is in the Chamber. People in Carryduff and Glengormley were made promises by Executive parties, including the Minister's, and they have been let down. There are thousands of people in those areas, where new houses are being built. Minister, you said that Belfast Rapid Transit — the Glider — phase 2 will continue, but you did not say when. Will you confirm when the outline business case will be published and, specifically, when Glider phase 2, which was due to be transformative, will be delivered?”
“I ask that your office investigates not only the question of when Ministers do and do not bring oral statements to the House but the use, or misuse, of embargoes for no obvious reason. We have been asked to embargo that information, most of which seems to be in the public domain, until 4.30 pm, and I have no idea why.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. My apologies for indulging in points of order and dosing you on them twice in one day. In the past hour and a half, the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has issued, under embargo, a written ministerial statement. Further to what I raised with you earlier, not only has he not brought that written ministerial statement to the House to allow Members to ask questions about the vital subject of avian influenza, he has put an embargo — or his Department has — on the written ministerial statement for reasons that are completely inexplicable to me, having read the statement. He talks about issues that Keith Buchanan raised on the record on the Floor of the Assembly earlier.”
“Minister, energy efficiency is indeed hugely important and, along with other types of decarbonisation, is one of your four priorities. In your Department's business plan, however, next to baseline — how you measure progress — there is a range of measures for other policy interventions, but, for energy efficiency, the baseline is "TBC". That is from more than six months ago. Can you confirm what the baseline is to measure progress on energy efficiency?”
“The Minister is keen to defend his officials, which is fine. Our job is to ensure the accountability of officials and Ministers, and we should make no apology for that. He mentioned the past three or four years of, apparently, looking at the legalities, but have his officials looked at any potential legal liability that is created by the legal anomaly that has arisen over the past three or four years? Are there any exposures there?”
“I appreciate the Member giving way. He said that the protocol — or Windsor framework, if he prefers — had nothing to do with Brexit. Would there have been a protocol or Windsor framework if Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK had still been in the EU?”
“Ultimately, it is about backing our farmers and our food producers and giving them the legal certainty that they need to sell their brilliant products. It is not about engaging in the, frankly, pathetic stunts of the parties opposite, which, as with others who supported Brexit, created all these issues in the first place.”
“Part of the reason why we have the protocol or Windsor framework is to give absolute certainty to our brilliant food producers so that they can continue to produce food to the highest possible standards; produce and process dairy products on both sides of the border; and export those products across this continent of half a billion consumers. The Department should do its job and make sure that we have the legal framework to protect all of that and give absolute certainty not just to the European Commission but to the farmers, food producers and industries that rely on it. <BR /> <BR />We robustly oppose the prayer of annulment, but we are concerned about some of the incompetence that seems to have been revealed in the Department. I hope that the Minister can provide some certainty and reassurance for us.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am glad that we at least have had the opportunity to debate the issue in the Assembly. We have been debating plenty of Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck stuff in the Chamber; at least we are debating a proper problem. It is concerning to hear that there was an attempt to close off the issue in a Committee and not expose it to the proper sunlight of public scrutiny. My colleague Patsy McGlone and I have no difficulty with debating the issues properly in the open, whether that is in a Committee or in an Assembly plenary sitting: that is where we should debate them. That is where you can tackle issues and confront arguments, such as the absurd ones that have been made by the DUP today around the prayer of annulment. <BR /> <BR />Let us be absolutely clear: we should not have been in this legal situation in the first place.”
“All the while, the great Donald Trump is thinking about imposing tariffs on produce from outside the US, so the grand plan to replace the European market with Trump's America is going nowhere fast for food producers here. <BR /> <BR />I talked not just about those in denial, such as the DUP, but about the incompetent. It is clear that we have had a slightly concerning — to put it mildly — situation in which there has been a legal anomaly for the past three or four years because of the Department. That is why the DUP has been able to table the prayer of annulment in the first place. It did not lick it off the ground — to use an expression from this part of the world — it was able to bring it forward because the Department clearly did not copper-bottom the legalities around all of this.”
“Back a comprehensive veterinary agreement so that the differences are not required. In the meantime, let us keep confidence in our food product. I cannot believe that I have to make those obvious points to DUP Members from agricultural constituencies. Back it, but, in the meantime, do not do stupid things that would jeopardise confidence in and undermine our brilliant food production and the product that our farmers export across the EU. <BR /> <BR />That is another point: we have a vast opportunity to export. We already do that, and we should grow the export of our amazing products all over the European continent. How does the motion help that project?”
“I am happy that I gave way to my colleague Patsy McGlone to make that point. That is exactly right. Minister Muir, I am sure, would agree with that and agree that, if you want traceability and confidence in the brilliant produce that comes from this part of the world — lots of it is produced, by the way, on both sides of the border, collectively; most famously, lots of our milk — you cannot simply disapply the rules. It is absurd, and it is not serious. It is about promulgating the, frankly, ridiculous version of events that the Irish Sea border, as it is called, is the root of all evil. Of course, the root of all evil in all these issues is, I am afraid, Brexit, in the first place, and the hard Brexit. <BR /> <BR />If you want to solve the issues, back greater alignment between the UK Government and the EU.”
“The sector wants all-Ireland grass-fed beef certification. It wants our great beef and dairy products to be acknowledged for their high-quality and traceable nature.”
“If they were serious about this stuff, they would be using the pressure and the leverage that they have to press the British Government for a comprehensive veterinary agreement to deal with the issues. <BR /> <BR />The prayer of annulment is, frankly, nonsense. It is a distraction. Not only that, but it is not serious. If it were serious, it would damage the agriculture sector. I would love food businesses to come here and say that they want the annulment to happen, but they will not, because, if it were to happen, it would jeopardise trust in our product. One of the big priorities in promoting Northern Ireland's brilliant beef industry over the last while has been securing the all-island grass-fed beef certification. Am I wrong? Any member of the DUP or anyone else can correct me on that.”