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“Clearly, however, the regulatory and enforcement regime for all those watercourses and marine environments is way out of date ecologically and, indeed, economically.”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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“Emma Sheerin spoke with immense insight and passion, as she has done many times in the Chamber. Joanne Bunting, Connie Egan and Diana Armstrong gave passionate speeches. Diana spoke about the most recent victim of the horrendous epidemic of femicide on this island in Ballyconnell in County Cavan, which is near where she represents. <BR /> <BR />It is important that male politicians and men in general also speak about the subject, because, in many ways, men and male behaviour are at the root of many of the problems. It is important that we speak sincerely and honestly about the seriousness of the challenges and what we need to do to overcome them. Today's motions are about tackling the range of policy interventions that we can make, some of which are covered in the violence against women and girls strategy and others are not.”
“I thank all those who participated in the first of today's Opposition day motions on violence against women and girls. It has been said repeatedly during the debate that we face a crisis in this society: that is true. I thank all those who participated in the debate and commend colleagues for the seriousness and depth with which the debate was conducted. I will not go through every point that was made, but I will tackle a few. <BR /> <BR />First, I want to reflect on the depth of the crisis that we face and what it means for our society, our people, ourselves and our families. A lot of the most impassioned people to speak on the subject are, necessarily, women. Female MLAs have spoken today with extraordinary intensity, as Sorcha Eastwood did in the House of Commons last week. My colleague Sinéad McLaughlin opened the debate.”
“Does the Member see the contradiction in what he has just said? He said that he does not believe in pretrial education, but he then said that judges direct juries in every criminal trial. Is it not the case that there is, by definition, instruction and education for jurors in every trial? Our motion calls for that to be enhanced, as does the Gillen review.”
“We have been a laggard not just in dealing with climate but in environmental action and nature restoration more generally. <BR /> <BR />In this mandate, or in what is left of it, we need to see those targets and plans put into meaningful action. We need the Executive to agree a climate action plan urgently. I commend genuinely the Environment Minister for bringing such a plan to the Executive, but we now need to see practical action. It is not just going to affect us all; it will completely transform the way that we live over the century. Let us be serious about it and start to deal with it in this jurisdiction.”
“Last year, across the world, including in Spain and Mexico, we saw extreme weather events. We will keep seeing extreme weather events as climate change and breakdown bites. It is happening. Climate change is not deniable any more, nor is it something that we can simply put a stop on. We can mitigate it with our policy response, but we can also continue to work to limit it by moving towards net zero. <BR /> <BR />Often, we in Northern Ireland have acted as though climate change is happening somewhere else and that we can continue living and acting as though it does not matter. Certainly, it took us a very long time in this place to adequately respond to climate change. I am pleased that we passed a Climate Change Act at the end of the previous mandate. We were the last jurisdiction in these islands to do so.”
“Most of the wildfires that plague that part of the United States happen at the height of the summer, but, in January, those wildfires are raging. They have left dozens dead and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in one of the wealthiest and most affluent parts of the planet.”
“The year 2024 was the first in which the globe recorded a temperature rise of 1·5°C above pre-industrial levels. That number is an important one, but not in a good way. A decade ago, at COP21 in Paris, the major participant nations in that conference agreed to limit global temperature rises to below 1·5°C. For decades, that has been deemed to be a critical threshold that the world cannot cross. Recording one year's rise on that scale does not completely breach the barrier, because the 1·5°C threshold has to be recorded as a median over a number of years, but it shows that climate breakdown is happening faster and more aggressively than people thought in 2015 and than we have been planning for. It is frightening. It is chilling — no pun intended. <BR /> <BR />We have seen the images from Los Angeles in recent days. This is January.”
“I appreciate the Member's giving way. I do not share all of his analysis — I do not come from exactly the same place as him politically or economically — but, given what he is saying, the two alternatives are greater fiscal powers for the Northern Ireland Executive, which I do not think that he wants, or, perhaps, an entirely new constitutional settlement. There is a jurisdiction just down the road that is in a much better fiscal position and is not having to impose new charges. Would he like to select from either of those choices? I invite him to pick one.”
“Being a sister party in the Party of European Socialists in no way binds me to agreeing with decisions made by the British Government. My party is not in a confidence-and-supply arrangement like yours was. That went really well for the DUP; you really were able to undo austerity. <BR /> <BR />My party, like all the other parties here, will vote for the motion and agrees that raising employer NICs is the wrong decision and the wrong way to go by the Labour Government. The point that I made was that, unless we are fundamentally honest about the limitations of our current arrangements under the devolved settlement and, ultimately, in terms of where decisions are made, we will never be able to effect fundamental structural change. <BR /> <BR />Those are the only points that I wanted to make. We will support the motion and the amendment.”
“Will you give me an extra minute to respond?”
“I have little time. I am happy to give way, if I am allowed.”
“We fully support that, and we will support the motion and the amendment. However, let us also be honest about the long-term limitations of our current arrangements and how, in the very long term, we will not be able to effect fundamental change without more fundamental change in our arrangements.”
“I strongly support the call that we should lobby, and the Finance Minister should, of course, make those representations, because imposing extra costs on our public sector is not the way for the UK Government to proceed. We strongly oppose it, we wish that it had not been imposed, and we are deeply frustrated with some of the content of the Budget. Let us be honest, however: unless we choose at some point to do things differently ourselves here, we will keep being faced with decisions that have a deleterious impact on our public services. We will keep being faced with choices that we did not make and cannot fundamentally change or reshape. <BR /> <BR />By all means, let us lobby the UK Government to give clarity on what additional support they will give and lobby them hard to meet the additional costs of this.”
“We had a decade and a half of austerity that ground down public services and reduced deficits on the backs of the poorest people and to the cost of public services. What is happening now is that a new Government have come in, with a weakened economy, and have made the decision not to invest in those services. <BR /> <BR />I find it ironic that the DUP has tabled the motion, having championed Brexit. They have no particular interest in looking to a new future in which we can make more of these decisions ourselves on this island. I personally think that that would be a much preferable outcome. To be honest, much of what we say today will not change the employers' National Insurance picture. I wish it were otherwise, but let us be honest with ourselves about that.”
“I completely agree with the thrust of the motion — I would rather that we were not facing those additional costs — but, ultimately, people send us to the Assembly, and the Assembly elects an Executive in order to use its power to effect meaningful change for people's lives here. It is slightly ironic that we have heard from the opposition party — the party opposite, I should say; we are the Opposition party — and, indeed, from the other main governing party about their frustrations around the limitations of the power that they have. Let us go back to why the UK Government are doing this in the first place: it is in part because the UK is a smaller and weaker economy than it used to be. That is the blunt truth: Brexit has weakened the UK economy.”
“It is particularly important to say that, in the areas, for example, of general practice or in social or domiciliary care, where we know that, given the debates that we have had today and the state of our health service, it is vital that those areas of service are primed and ready to take the burden off acute care, particularly in our emergency departments but in hospitals more generally, and that those areas are well staffed and operating as they need to be and are able to do what the Health Minister keeps referring to as the "shift left". It is a particular concern for those services, and I share that concern. <BR /> <BR />More broadly, however, the fact that we are having the debate is in itself slightly frustrating and a bit sterile, if I am honest. This is a devolved Chamber.”
“I am happy to speak to the motion, which we will support. Like others in the Assembly, we recognise the negative and damaging impact that the increase in employer National Insurance contributions will have on our public sector and on those bits of the community and voluntary sector and private sector that help to deliver public services. That will have a deleterious, knock-on impact across a range of front-line services. It is really important that where we, as the Opposition, can add our voice constructively to an Executive approach to the UK Government, we do that. That is what we will do today. It is clear that it would be better if the additional costs were not being lumped on to our public sector and, indeed, to our community and voluntary sector.”
“Minister, given that you have decided that "reasonable" means that you will block those two schools from becoming integrated, what is your view of a reasonable number, so that parents who want to begin this journey can understand what the Minister will say?”
“— a DUP Minister will not allow them to proceed with that journey. Can I ask —.”
“Minister, you say that you made the decision on the basis of legalities, but everything that you have said today makes it fairly clear that you are taking the decision for clearly political reasons. You have outlined what appears to be a vendetta against integrated education. It comes after you decided to take money from integrated education — £150 million — earlier this year. Given that your party says that it promotes, in all other areas, parental choice in education, when it is about selection or relationships and sexuality education (RSE), on this specific occasion, parents have literally chosen to begin the journey of integration, and you have said no. You said —”
“Minister, you touched on the fragmented nature of responsibilities here. When the dilapidation Bill is finally introduced, can there be careful joint working — to use the cliché — between the different agencies? We clearly have a crisis in parts of the city. I brought the issue of the Tribeca Quarter to the Chamber, but there is also Crumlin Road courthouse: we are allowing our built heritage to slip into disrepair. Will there be jointery between councils, the Communities Department, the Finance Department and your Department, which is responsible for the dilapidation Bill, to make the regeneration joined up and coherent?”
“Minister, I commend you for introducing legislation in 2024. Many Ministers could learn from that. I also appreciate your being in the Chamber. You are clearly suffering from a cold, so fair play for being here and answering questions. <BR /> <BR />In light of the seriousness of the hate crime situation that we face, given what we saw on the streets of Belfast last summer, will you revisit your plan not to introduce stand-alone hate crime legislation, which was a commitment in your party's manifesto, and seek to introduce a Bill in this mandate that properly tackles hate crime? I appreciate that you will say that that will be part of another Bill, but will you revisit your plan not to introduce stand-alone hate crime measures?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is your office able to investigate whether the Secretary of State is able to give the Assembly clarity on the terms of that independent review, and, if so, when, given that the verdict of the Assembly is a critical part of that independent review's being commissioned?”
“I appreciate the Member's giving way. She mentioned the benefits. Go back to some of the points that were made; I have listed lots of benefits. On the dual market access, it is important to correct what was said earlier. The chief executive of Invest NI did not say what he was quoted as saying, that there are no possible benefits. He said that there had not been a specific, singular investment purely on that basis, which is a different thing. On the economic point, does the Member accept that Northern Ireland has outperformed the rest of the UK since the protocol came into force? The argument that it is damaging in a GDP sense is simply not borne out by the statistics.”
“I appreciate Mr Gaston's giving way again. In particular when he read out the correspondence that he had received, he majored on what he saw as the anomalous and democratic deficit situation around people not having a say in the European Parliament. There is, of course, an answer, which is Northern Ireland having MEPs. I presume that, given that that would answer part of his point, he would support our call for Northern Ireland to have its own MEPs. Perhaps he or even his colleague, a former MEP who has now tragically left us and gone to London, could return to the European Parliament.”
“I appreciate the Member's generosity in taking interventions. She pointed out that the UK Government are a significant contributor to PEACE PLUS: I acknowledge and welcome that. Will she direct me to the line item in the Budget that shows that the UK Government have replaced the European social fund and all the other lost funds that social enterprise community groups are dealing with?”
“I appreciate the Member's giving way. I am interested in some of what she says, to the extent that she was an MEP. Although I obviously do not, in large part, share her politics, she was a diligent MEP and did a lot of work and had a mandate. Does she agree with our call to return Northern Ireland's representation to the European Parliament via observer status? She might even seek some form of mandate to return, given that she is the most experienced former MEP in the Chamber. Would she be interested in such a role in future?”
“That would have been madness, but there is now a real opportunity for the north-west to be at the meeting point of those two markets.”
“On the subject of opportunities for Derry and the north-west region, will the Member acknowledge that some of the Members opposite talk about the fantasy idea of mutual enforcement? They may want to go back to a period when members of the Shared Prosperity Commission went to the north-west region. They — some of the hardest Brexiteers around — acknowledged that full customs controls and a hard border, which is the inevitable consequence of a hard Brexit, could not be imposed on the north-west. Full-blown customs controls could not be imposed between Coshquin and Bridgend.”
“I genuinely appreciate the deputy First Minister's giving way as a sign that she is willing to have a serious debate. Could she give me an example of any jurisdiction in the world that operates the kind of mutual enforcement that she would like to see on the island of Ireland?”
“I appreciate the deputy First Minister giving way. I and others have dealt with the point about cross-community voting. Will she acknowledge that, prior to the debate, we voted on carbon budgets, which most people would say are a pretty big deal? They are such a big deal that her party forced a Division and voted against them. I might disagree with that, but it is entirely the right of the DUP to have that perspective. That was not decided by a cross-community vote, and that is a pretty significant issue — significant enough for there to be a Division. Will she accept that cross-community voting is not a commonplace thing that happens on every single important vote in this Chamber?”
“Not my party. We are hugely positive about a European future for this place. Let us harness our unique position. Let us take advantage of the unique position that Northern Ireland is in. Let us claim the rights and privileges that we have as people who are entitled to European citizenship with unique rights under EU law. Let us take advantage of those opportunities. Let us harness dual market access. Let us claim our voice in the European Parliament. Let us give our young people the opportunity to travel, live and work across the continent. Let us not be dragged down by negativity and pointless stunts. Let us choose a European future. I commend the motion to the Assembly.”
“<BR /> <BR />We also want to focus on North/South interests, because, for all the talk of disruptions across the Irish Sea — there have been some, and they need to be managed — there has been a huge range of other disruptions to the all-island economy and cross-border life that we need to examine. Under article 11, which talks about the North/South context, and article 14, which allows for the NSMC to make representations to improve the operation of the protocol, there is a real opportunity for us to start to deal with those challenges. <BR /> <BR />Some in the Chamber want to focus only on the negative. Some in the Chamber want us all to forget their responsibility in delivering a hard Brexit. Some in the Chamber want to drag us back to the division and dysfunction of the past few years and the Brexit debacle that they helped to deliver.”
“Why not look for every single opportunity that awaits us? <BR /> <BR />I am totally positive about our future. I am passionate about the opportunities that await us. Yes, the SDLP is the most pro-European party here, but these are practical, pragmatic ideas, too. My party has already written to the UK Government Secretary of State about our ideas. After the debate, we will write to the chairs of the Joint Committee, Maroš Šefcovic and Nick Thomas-Symonds, to make it clear to them that we want to see any future initiatives on the protocol focus not just on east-west interests or the interests of a narrow part of unionism but on the interests of everybody here in Northern Ireland.”
“I want our institutions to be back fully in ERASMUS, but not just for university students; I want all our young people to benefit from youth mobility programmes. I want us to have a voice in the European Parliament. Some Members complain about the way in which the protocol is being implemented and about EU law. Why not take advantage of our unique position and have, via observer status in the European Parliament, our voice at the heart of where those decisions are taken? Why not take advantage of our unique position and give our young people all those opportunities? Why not look to see whether the European Investment Bank is willing to partner with the Shared Island unit to underwrite infrastructure investment in Northern Ireland? Why not look to see whether we can push to get more EU funding using the PEACE PLUS initiative as a model?”
“I do not think that constantly dragging us back into arguments about some of these matters is necessarily the way in which to make a positive offer. <BR /> <BR />I am positive about our European future. I am positive about the opportunities that await our young people. That is what we are pursuing. Our party was in Brussels last week having meetings with members of our European socialist and democratic group to talk about what we would like to see. We would like to capitalise on Northern Ireland's dual market access. We want opportunities for our young people, and not just ERASMUS. Yes, at the minute, young people from Northern Ireland can participate in ERASMUS, but they need a sponsoring body in the Republic to help them.”
“He has made his point, but there has been huge progress in smoothing out the issues. <BR /> <BR />The DUP is a party that wants to pursue and protect the status quo. That is not my lookout; I want Northern Ireland to rejoin the EU via a new Ireland. It is, however, some prospectus for young people here who are thinking about their economic, professional and constitutional future to hear the big opportunity that awaits us in having access to both markets being talked down. If I were defending the constitutional status quo — believe me, I am not; I would like us to leave the UK and rejoin the EU — I would be a little less negative about the possibilities in front of this place, but that is the DUP's lookout. It is for the DUP to make that argument.”
“Why not ensure that Harland and Wolff is able to move its goods for the purposes of renewable technology into the UK and EU markets, so that we and the workers of East Belfast can take economic advantage of our position by manufacturing goods and moving them into the UK and the EU single market? Why would we not take those opportunities?”
“Although it is true that he said that there had not been specific FDI on that basis, he did not say that there was no potential or proposition. He did not say that at all. It would be mad for us to throw away our dual market access proposition. There are regions across the world that would love to have the proposition that we have: the seamless ability to move goods into the UK and EU markets. Just one example is decarbonisation and the green economy. The UK and the EU are moving towards net zero. That will mean a huge project and transition involving huge amounts of low-carbon manufacturing, such as the manufacturing of wind turbines. Mr Brooks was animated earlier. We have in his constituency a historic manufacturer, including of the kinds of machinery that can be used in renewable technology.”
“Our people also have the opportunity to rejoin the EU automatically at some point in the future. As I said, however, even if they do not want to exercise that right, although I do, there is a vast universe of opportunity awaiting us if we embrace our position at the crossroads of two markets. We are uniquely positioned — frankly, people all over the continent are envious — to take advantage of the situation. First of all, we have "dual market access", a phrase that has been bandied about today. I think that I might have been one of the first Members to use it in the Chamber. Mr Buckley dismissed it, saying that the head of Invest NI stated that there had not been any specific investment because of it.”
“After today's vote, assuming that there is a simple majority, a review will be called and there will be a process in which we look at how we improve the operation of the protocol. Our party hopes that we will get the absolute best from the opportunities that lie in front of us from the protocol. We are a proudly pro-European party. We are the most pro-European party in the Chamber. We make no apology for wanting Northern Ireland to rejoin the EU in a new Ireland or for believing that that is the best future for all our people. Even for those who do not believe in that future, there are huge opportunities from a special relationship between Northern Ireland and the European Union. <BR /> <BR />Let us bear in mind that not only is Northern Ireland bound by certain EU rules under the protocol but our people have EU citizenship by birthright.”
“Those are the values that made John Hume believe and say that the European Union was the greatest peace project in human history. Our party stands firmly behind that aspiration. On 23 June 2016, and in subsequent years, many of us felt that that sense of our identity and belonging had been fundamentally taken away from us, so I understand that, for many unionists, the protocol presents difficulties. I would not diminish them and I would not dismiss them. The way to approach them is not to tear down political institutions, boycott things or threaten to collapse, or actually collapse, institutions: it is to work to make things better. <BR /> <BR />To that end, the SDLP published its paper for what happens next.”
“I have no difficulty with that. <BR /> <BR />I also want to acknowledge that there are real, genuine and sincere difficulties that people have with the protocol on the basis of their identity and their sense of belonging. I would never diminish or dismiss those concerns. I go back to my personal experience, which Mr Buckley referred to. On 23 June 2016 and subsequently, I felt that the terms of my citizenship had changed. That is a part of the reason why I changed my career and became a politician here. I am an Irish citizen and a European. It is because of my European identity that I believe profoundly in the values of mutual respect, pluralism and diversity. Those are the values that fundamentally animate my party.”
“The answer is no, because I fundamentally do not agree with the proposition. However, I respect you and gave you the opportunity to make your point. I thought that the leader of the Alliance Party also wanted to say something, but she does not. That is fine; I will make some progress. I do not want anyone to feel that I am being miserly when it comes to interventions, although I will speak more briefly than Mr Buckley. <BR /> <BR />We only have the protocol, and now the Windsor framework, because of a hard Brexit. It creates a corpus of EU law that applies in Northern Ireland specifically to the movement of goods. It is imperfect, but it offers critical protections. The idea that it has fundamentally damaged our economy is wrong, but there are specific challenges that specific businesses need to have resolved.”
“Of course, the point has to be made that there is no cross-community consent, by definition, for the constitutional status quo. So it is a bit absurd for the DUP to try to superimpose it post facto on some of the things that it does not like about a hard Brexit. <BR /> <BR />I give way to Dr Aiken.”
“There is a differentiation in our vote today, between a cross-community vote and a simple majority vote. If there is a simple majority vote, there will be review, but if there is a cross-community majority, the review period will be extended to eight years. What it does not give is what the DUP want: the ability to operate a veto against everyone in this community who voted Remain, and I do not care if it bothers people in the DUP that I am pointing out that people in the North voted Remain. The DUP wants a veto: that is what it demanded from the UK Government during the Safeguarding the Union process. It did not get one, but let me remind the DUP that cross-community voting, so called, does not apply to every single motion in the Assembly. It never has done. Pointedly, no cross-community consent was required for Brexit.”
“I will give way in one second. It is also important to say that that very differentiation between a simple majority and what is called a "cross-community majority" gives the lie to all the nonsense that has been talked about "cross-community versus simple majority".”
“Schedule 6A to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, I believe, now makes it clear that, if there is a vote today by simple majority, the relevant articles in the protocol will extend by four years but the UK Government will deliver an independent review. There is a review. That is something that the UK Government put in law. It was not something that we demanded or insisted on, nor was it something that we particularly supported, but it is not true to say that there is no review process, if there is a simple majority vote to continue the application of the protocol.”
“If it were to have an office in Belfast, that would enable business trade bodies and Members of the Assembly to have meetings there, to make representations and to find out what is happening around the application of EU law or any checks that are or are not happening or, indeed, around future pieces of EU law. There is a reasonable proposal that, I hope, Members in the Chamber can get behind, and there are lots of others in our paper. Yes, by all means, let us look at how we can continue to ensure the smoothest possible implementation of the protocol. <BR /> <BR />I also want to challenge one of Dr Aiken's points. He said that, if we did not vote against the motion today — the motion specifically relates to articles 5 to 10 — there would be no review and nothing would happen. That is not true, because the law has now been changed.”
“That is why, in our paper, 'Our European Future', which I will talk a fair bit about today, there are practical suggestions about how we can grow our voice in Brussels and create better mechanisms for making representations to the EU-UK Joint Committee and the Specialised Committee. I would like to think that some of the Members who have talked today about all the challenges will get on board with this, but one such opportunity is through taking one obvious step — there are business representative groups that support this — which is to have the European Commission open an office in Belfast. It had an office in Bedford Street for many years and has an office in London that causes no major issues.”