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“Clearly, however, the regulatory and enforcement regime for all those watercourses and marine environments is way out of date ecologically and, indeed, economically.”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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“That is what Jonny was doing when he made a series of bizarre claims that John Hume and Seamus Mallon would not be in sympathy with reform of the institutions. John Hume and Seamus Mallon helped create the institutions, along with David Trimble, John Alderdice, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Yes, the SDLP was intimately and proudly involved in the creation of the institutions. It wanted the institutions to function. It wanted us to be here, to work and to spill our sweat and not our blood. I will therefore take no lessons or preposterous, pathetic slurs from DUP MLAs about what John Hume and Seamus Mallon might have thought about our changing the rules, to be quite honest with you. <BR /> <BR />Jonny also said that the SDLP was forced into this position by the electorate.”
“<BR /> <BR />Jonathan Buckley's former party leader — I do not know whether he was involved in the defenestration of that particular former party leader — famously said:”
“One cannot, on the one hand, argue that aggressive austerity from Tory Ministers has left our communities in a terrible place and then, on the other hand, say that we need to retain the right to collapse government and give them the power to do what they like. The power that we have at a devolved level is limited, both because of the mandatory coalition system and because Westminster holds all the power. Deirdre, her party and I agree that we need to change that in the long term and that we need a new constitutional set-up, but, while we have the one that we have at the minute, it is not defensible for us simply to say, "Well, we should be able to collapse the institutions".”
“Why is it necessary for people to have their identity protected to abolish — to be able to take away — not just the principle of government but the operation of government? <BR /> <BR />I will go through a few of the comments that were made in the debate. Deirdre Hargey seemed to be in sympathy with some of the motion but focused on the regressive austerity imposed by the Tory Government. That is exactly right, and Deirdre would know, because she was Communities Minister and had to deal with a lot of that when she was in office, but what about the three years before that when there was no Communities Minister to deal with the aggressive austerity being foisted on the people of the North by a Tory Government and an austerity-obsessed Westminster?”
“It is suboptimal at best, and I do not think that it reflects the seriousness of the issue or the gravity with which the people of Northern Ireland view it. <BR /> <BR />We are clear that the purpose of today's motion is not about assigning blame or having a fight over what happened in the past, but, since Members raised issues that happened in the past, I will touch on a couple of those, purely to draw reflections on them. Our motions today are about positive, constructive momentum behind reforming the institutions, not to remove the pluralist or power-sharing principles behind them but to allow us to simply have a Government. What is so unacceptable about that? Why is veto necessary?”
“Thank you very much for that warning, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />First, I thank all the Members who have participated in the debate. It was a wide-ranging debate, and I will touch on as many key points as I can. People will not be surprised by anything they heard from any side of the Chamber. I welcome the fact that at least two parties support what we are trying to do. I am not entirely clear where Sinn Féin is on it, and I am clear where the DUP is. I will attempt to address some of the points that were raised. I am genuinely disappointed that the First Minister and deputy First Minister are not here to respond. Indeed, there is no Minister here to respond to the debate. I think that that is an insult to the Chamber, bluntly.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I agree with her, and I will talk in my winding-up speech about designation being something that we need to have a conversation about. Does she agree, though, that in the short term, given that there are things as well as designation, such as how North/South and east-west works, we should give urgent priority to removing the veto? It would be very good to get rid of that quickly. Some of those other things will take a little bit longer.”
“I will give way in my winding-up speech. I am happy to give way then to anyone who does not get in at this stage. <BR /> <BR />Let us protect the best of the Agreement and reform the veto that is undermining trust in the rest of it. The photo ops and positive vibes of the past month have been welcome, but we have seen this movie before, and rather than wait for the nasty plot turn and not-so-shock ending, let us change the script. Let us never again plunge our public services and our people into the vortex of no Government and no hope. <BR /> <BR />I commend the Opposition motion to the Assembly.”
“In order to build credibility, not just with the public but with the UK Government and others to reinforce our ability to negotiate, we need sustainable political institutions not ones that collapse so routinely. <BR /> <BR />As I said, a Tory Secretary of State who is working out his notice will not do this work for us: we need to do it ourselves, starting with these Opposition day motions. Let us protect —.”
“I am not going to give way at the minute, but I will give way later on in my winding-up speech. I will answer any questions then, but I am not going to give way at this stage. <BR /> <BR />A Tory Secretary of State who is working out his notice will not do the work for us. We need to do it ourselves, starting with these Opposition day motions. Let us remember that the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and the Finance Minister are now engaged in a process of negotiation with the Treasury over the financial settlement. As a constructive Opposition, we have said, "We support the asks you are making". However, let us be real: one of the reasons why the Treasury and the Tory Government have been able to be so cynical in their treatment of these institutions and politicians here has been the repeated cycle of collapse.”
“No one party can or should own reform. By definition, we need to achieve some degree of consensus in order to make it happen. There are multiple routes to reform, but we need to agree today that the first and most urgent change is the removal of the power to collapse the Government, and not make it conditional on other concessions. The protections in the Good Friday Agreement are supposed to build confidence not reinforce mistrust. The purpose of power-sharing is supposed to be positive partnership not negative veto. It has been said in recent days that the heavy lifting on this work needs to be done by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Secretary of State. We strongly disagree. A Tory Secretary of State who is working out his notice will not do this work for us. We need to do it ourselves.”
“Many of those ideas, such as a move to super-majority voting as opposed to cross-community voting, were based on SDLP proposals.”
“Here, I acknowledge the work of the Alliance Party on this agenda. It has proposed an opt-out model for parties that qualify for one of the top two roles but do not want to take one. The NI Affairs Committee at Westminster proposed a series of related changes, some of which would undercut, although not completely remove, the current veto.”
“Number one, the principle that no single party should ever again be able to collapse the institutions at will. I do not think that that is unreasonable. Secondly, the Programme for Government should contain a specific commitment to reform. Our second motion, which I will address in more detail when I move it later on today, creates a specific vehicle for producing legislative proposals on reform, namely an Ad Hoc Committee required to produce a report on options for removing the single-party veto by September this year. I am sure that there will be opportunities for us to debate that and for me to answer some of the questions around those proposals during the course of the debate. <BR /> <BR />Our motions do not prescribe an exact model of reform of the veto, but a number of options have already been publicly advanced.”
“As the party that did so much to shape the Good Friday Agreement, we do not agree with those who think that power-sharing — consociationalism, as it is known among academics — is in itself the root of our problems and our dysfunction. To take such a view is to wilfully ignore history, including the manner in which this jurisdiction was created, as well as ignoring the reality of a post-conflict society. <BR /> <BR />However, it is possible to reform and change the way that power-sharing works in order to provide a basic guarantee that there will be a government in the first place. Our reform motions today are designed to complement and implement one another. The first motion that I am moving acknowledges the harm done by repeated collapses and then pledges two things.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is worth unpacking some of that problem. We all know that there are divergent narratives of Irish history, but most of us should be able to agree that, tragically, Northern Ireland has been marked by division between people throughout its existence. There was, of course, division before partition. These institutions were created after nearly 30 years of violent conflict, and that conflict itself came after half a century of one-party rule that excluded one community from virtually all political power. Indeed, at times, that exclusion seemed to be the motivating purpose of the state. That hugely difficult inheritance is why we negotiated a system of power-sharing, of government based on inclusion rather than exclusion.”
“<BR /> <BR />Our first motion today begins by expressing shame on behalf of this entire institution for its repeated collapses and the profoundly negative consequences that those have had for ordinary citizens, workers and public services. To be clear, that is not about assigning blame, but it is about acknowledging a collective failure of the political class to deliver stable and sustainable government here. To anybody who thinks that we should simply leave the rules unreformed after nearly a decade of chaos and devolution only functioning for a few years out of that time, I simply ask this: are you serious? Can anyone argue with a straight face that we are fine as we are and should just plough on regardless? As the saying goes, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.”
“In a recent survey conducted by Queen's University, only a third of voters thought that the Executive would survive until the end of this mandate. That is an extraordinary statistic. Despite the positivity around the restoration of Stormont, only one in three people think that it will last three years. That statistic should shame all of us in this Chamber. That level of cynicism and distrust is exactly why I asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister to pledge to not resign their office before the end of this mandate. That was not a stunt. I was asking a question that most of our citizens want to know the answer to.”
“However, all of these problems — all of them, along with virtually every other public policy challenge that we face — have been undeniably made worse by the absence of devolved government: the absence of ministerial decisions to decide priorities and allocate budgets accordingly, the absence of a multi-year spending programme to allow health service leaders to recruit doctors and nurses on a long-term basis; and the absence of any funding guarantees until the last minute for large parts of the community and voluntary sector. <BR /> <BR />Although we are all — at least, the vast majority of us — pleased to see devolved government return, we cannot pretend that public trust in the very idea of this Assembly and Executive has not been profoundly damaged. It has.”
“I scarcely need list the litany of problems that beset our public services, from the worst healthcare waiting lists in western Europe to chronically underfunded childcare to special educational needs at breaking point or beyond. None of these problems were created by Stormont collapse, and none of them will be solved merely by the return of devolved government.”
“Those of us in politics and the media often focus a lot on the party political impact of one decision or another, asking, "What does that mean for the DUP?", "How might Sinn Féin react to what the DUP does?" and "How will the rest of the parties behave?". Those are legitimate and necessary questions in a democracy, but, when taken to an extreme, a fixation on political stand-offs leads us to the situation where public services and, indeed, the public themselves are of secondary importance. For nearly a decade, party political stand-offs and vetoes have allowed our public services and our public realm to decay and, in some cases, collapse.”
“Senator Mitchell was able to fulfil his wish in 2012 with his then teenage son, but, when he returned last year for the 25th anniversary of the agreement that he helped to broker and that created the Assembly, there was no Northern Ireland Assembly to observe. For five of the past seven years, there has been no devolved Government in Northern Ireland at all. Today's motions from the SDLP on Opposition day are about preventing that from ever happening again, because, if it does and the institutions collapse again, I am not alone in believing that they will simply never re-emerge.”
“I am pleased to open the debate on the first Opposition day of the new mandate. Opposition is a natural and healthy part of democratic politics, and we intend to perform that role constructively, as we have thus far. <BR /> <BR />During the negotiations that led to the creation of the institutions, Senator George Mitchell famously pledged to bring his then newly born son back to Belfast one day to listen to and watch a sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Senator Mitchell said that he hoped:”
“<BR /> <BR />It is important to pay tribute to the immense contribution of Dan McCartan — part of the heroic generation of footballers who brought pride, joy and self-esteem to the county that I grew up in, County Down — to mark his passing and to pass on our condolences to his wider family circle, everyone involved in Carryduff GAC, his friends and all those who treasure the contribution that he and the rest of that heroic generation made to our community.”
“<BR /> <BR />Dan McCartan was not just a Down GAA legend: he was closely involved with, I think, three GAA clubs, including, most recently, Carryduff GAC, which celebrated its half-centenary in the past couple of years. He and his family, including his son Mark, were a critical part of establishing and building that club into what it is today, one of the most successful and thriving clubs in County Down. It is also on the edge of south Belfast, and it is a source of immense pride that Gaelic games in that part of the city and the county are growing. Dan McCartan was a huge part of building that legacy. He was a dentist in Belfast, who combined his contribution to Gaelic games and community life with performing that role and public service.”
“Before 1960, a team from north of the border had never won the Sam Maguire; indeed, very few Ulster teams had come close to winning it. It is often talked about by people who remember it as being a moment of profound joy and relief. There was a sense almost of liberation and self-esteem for people who, for a variety of reasons, did not feel that either jurisdiction on the island of Ireland necessarily treasured their contribution at that time. It was a hugely significant moment that, in the 1960s, brought together the whole community in County Down. People not from traditionally GAA-supporting backgrounds still recall vividly the emotion and sense of pride that they felt.”
“I pay tribute to a giant of Down GAA, Dan McCartan, who passed away over the weekend. He and his brother were part of the heroic generation of Down footballers who won the All-Ireland in 1960 and brought the Sam Maguire Cup north of the border for the first time in history. Many members of those teams from the 1960s are still very much with us, but, over the past number of years, several of them, including Dan's brother, James, have passed. It is important to reflect not just on the enormous sporting legacy but cultural and community legacy that they leave behind.”
“Rather than this being about writing a cheque for billions or asking for a cheque for billions, as was said previously to the Minister, all we are asking for is for a costed plan. We realise that this is going to take more than years; it will take decades. Does the Member agree with me that the Executive now have increased borrowing power under RRI and could look to invest some of that in expanding rail?”
“I have a couple of quick low-hanging fruit questions. As regards Casement Park for 2028, will the Minister work with his officials on Balmoral station, which could be upgraded with better signage to get people to Casement Park, and Sydenham station, which has very poor signage to direct people to Belfast City Airport?”
“I urge Members to support our motion. We spend a lot of time on the past in this place; let us start building the future.”
“It should allow our people, particularly our young people, to look beyond the horizon and see not just anxiety about the climate emergency and frustration at the limitations of politics here. It is something we can do that is transformational, not just a modal shift out of cars and into transport or connecting the island in a way that we have not seen before but something transformational and hopeful that politics can do. It is long-term stuff, and why else do we seek office? Why else do we get into politics other than to do things such as this?”
“Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker. It is not a given, I am afraid, and it is important that our original motion is clear. I do not dispute much of what is in the amendment. Most of what is in the amendment is sensible, but it removes the reference to "every county in Ireland." This is an all-island rail review, not just Northern Ireland, and that matters to us and others. This is in an all-island context. There is a both-islands context, which we acknowledge, but I am afraid that the change that the amendment makes to our motion means that we have difficulty with it. <BR /> <BR />As I draw my remarks to a close, I want to say that this is inspirational.”
“There are some positive things in that. I am happy to give way, if the Member wants me to.”
“The deep, profound, structural challenges of regional imbalance and climate change that we have talked about today demand no less. That vision in the all-island strategic rail review is one that can inspire us across the island. <BR /> <BR />I will speak briefly about the amendment because it has come up a couple of times. The difficulty that we have with it is nothing to do with the text of the amendment, which is pretty unobjectionable. The difficulty is in what it takes out of our original motion. A critical few words in our motion are "every county in Ireland", which includes the wonderful, glorious lakeland county of Fermanagh. Your amendment, Mrs Erskine, removes Fermanagh, I am afraid — through the Speaker. That is why we have some difficulty with it, not because of any views that we have on the Union connectivity review.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am proud that it was an SDLP Minister, Nichola Mallon, who, when in the previous Executive, announced and drove forward — no pun intended; perhaps I should not use the verb to drive — moved forward the all-island rail review. The Department for Infrastructure and the Department of Transport in the South published their draft report last year, which estimated a £31 billion investment over the next few decades. <BR /> <BR />Our motion is not about saying that this will all be done today, this week or next year; it is about saying that we need to start the work now. You and your officials, Minister, need — I hope that you will — to start the work of planning and costing the plan. That is what the motion is all about.”
“However, as an island, we are among the most car-dependent regions in western Europe, with almost 70% of journeys in the North made by car, while only 2% of journeys are made by public transport. That is, bluntly, shameful. It is our fault, as legislators, as the people who do public policy, for not providing that option for our people. Between 2005 and 2015, capital spending on the railway network amounted to just £22 a head, far behind Great Britain, which spent five times as much over the same period. Our railways have thrived in spite of some of the underfunding by previous generations. They have thrived not just because people wanted to use them but because of the dedicated work of campaigners, including Into the West, which was mentioned.”
“As recently as 20 years ago, we closed the line from Lisburn to Antrim, which was mentioned by Mr Honeyford. As others have said, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan have lost their rail networks entirely. I will come on to the Fermanagh point, because it is an important one, and it is one of the reasons why we have some difficulty with the amendment. In the past 20 years, we have seen the tide begin to turn. The Belfast to Derry line, referenced multiple times, has seen passenger numbers grow, and people have regularly used the famous phrase from 'Field of Dreams': "Build it, and they will come." <BR /> <BR />In the most recent stats available, the NI Railways network saw almost 13 million passengers use its service, while the pre-COVID high of 15 million also marked a high in NI Railways' 50 years of existence.”
“We cannot get the train from here. The old Downpatrick and County Down Railway, which runs to my home town of Downpatrick — it was mentioned earlier — is now the Comber greenway. If we drive down the dual carriageway, we get to the Ulster Transport Museum in Cultra. We can look at the map and see how lines, connections and opportunity slowly wither, dry up and drop off over the 20th century. To my knowledge, this is the first time in over a century that a Chamber on these islands has discussed a strategic investment plan for the rail network on this island. As well as looking back, it is important that we look forward to a 21st-century of, I hope, new connections and possibilities. <BR /> <BR />In the last century, as I said, we saw decades of scaling back the network.”
“I thank my colleague Mark Durkan for bringing the motion to the Assembly. We can hear the engagement, breadth of interest and passion that there is about our rail network, its past, its, at times frustrating, present, and its huge potential. We are debating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look again at how we move people and goods — the goods part is important — across the island. We can all look back, and it is important that we do, at a century of, frankly, devastation of the rail network on the island, particularly in the North and, particularly but not exclusively, to cross-border lines.”
“There is chuntering from the sidelines from parties that would rather not wait for questions about important issues. <BR /> <BR />Can she, or any other Minister, give a guarantee to public-sector bodies and voluntary organisations that are worried about what the other £400 million of potentially reallocated funding by the UK Treasury will be?”
“I am afraid that people watching will find it absolutely astounding that no Minister has any idea what has been agreed in relation to reallocating existing money. Can she, or any other Minister, —”
“Does the Minister agree that any change, particularly any reduction, in our industrial derating regime would damage the ability to attract investment based on our dual-market access and manufacturing export?”
“Minister, Executive Ministers have said various contradictory things about revenue raising, some in print and some verbally. As a constructive Opposition, we have said that we do not think that it would be appropriate to impose punishing new rises on the people of Northern Ireland this year. The Executive will meet this week to discuss the regional rate rise. Can the Minister confirm whether she will be recommending an above- or below-inflation rise in the regional rate?”
“I agree with a lot of what the Member has said and with his point about the fact that we need institutional political stability to deliver big things, whether health reform or growth of the rail network. Will he agree that it would be helpful if the First Minister and deputy First Minister would confirm that they will not resign for the rest of the mandate? Will he support us and others in the Chamber who want to work towards reform?”
“Thank you, Minister. Recommendation 21 in the review is to "Promote learners learning together", including shared and integrated education. I declare an interest as a parent of a child at one of the schools affected, which will have its funding cut as a result of what was announced last week. Have the Minister and the other Executive parties agreed a package of funding that devastates capital funding and investment for shared and integrated education?”
“— but, potentially, a whole range of other events?”
“Minister, I agree with you on the sporting events, particularly on Euro 28 and the potential of Casement Park to bring a transformational, world-class stadium to west Belfast, the North and the island more broadly. Will you instruct your officials to work on specific economic analysis that will look at the potential long-term economic benefits and multiplier effect of building Casement Park, which will include having not only the Ulster final every year and the European championships —”
“It is completely unacceptable. I hope that we get more clarity from the Education Minister on how the decision was taken, who knew that it was being taken and what will be done to support those integrated schools and shared projects that are expecting to build facilities.”
“That, in itself, is unacceptable, but it is also unacceptable that £150 million that was designed to be allocated to shared and integrated education — that should be a priority for all of us in the Chamber as something that we are all signed up to support under the agreement and subsequent legislation — is being cut in private and in secret. <BR /> <BR />We need to know how the decision was made to reallocate the funding, which parties and Ministers knew that it was going to happen and why the Assembly was not told and had to wait until the information was sneaked out to parents, via an email, so that they could find out what was happening. What other important projects are going to lose funding as a result of the reallocation? What has been waved through by Executive parties in the rush to deal with these things?”
“That is a brilliant integrated primary school just outside Carryduff that had been expecting to build a new 14-base classroom and a two-class nursery. The school was also expecting to invest in special educational needs provision. <BR /> <BR />This case goes far beyond South Belfast. It is shocking news, and we will seek answers from not only the Minister of Education and the UK Government but other Executive parties, because it comes after a whole range of other bits of information about the agreed financial package has leaked out. Let us face it, this was leaked or sneaked out. It was not based on an official announcement from the Minister or the Department. Boards of governors were contacted in private and given the information.”