Time to leave failure behind - TUV
27 January 2010
Responding to the failure of the Hillsborough negotiations, TUV Leader Jim Allister QC said:-
“The reality that the unworkable doesn’t work should not surprise anyone, nor that the insatiable demands of Sinn Fein can not be met. Did it really take a failed 3 day mission by the Prime Minister to prove what any thinking person should know.
“How many times does Belfast Agreement devolution have to fail, before reality is faced, even by the slow learners who have sought to prop it up? This Executive has never functioned; its epithet is total failure at colossal expense. Even on the mundane its delivery is nil, anything straying beyond the simplistic, like orderly transfer of 11 year olds, guarantees gridlock and chaos. To think they could ever have succeeded with policing and justice was a pipedream of the Stormont inadequates.
“Public disdain and despair over the Stormont shambles has never been greater. Few would mourn its passing. The point is fast approaching, if durable and democratic devolution cannot be obtained – and that requires abandonment of the lynchpin of failure, mandatory coalition, that other options are addressed. We can neither politically nor financially afford the misery of a dysfunctional Stormont which perpetually piles failure upon failure.
“Only voluntary coalition and a vibrant Opposition can restore stability and make devolution work. If, after an Assembly election, such is not attainable within a prescribed period then we need to enhance local government as the next best option. We don’t need 108 MLAs, 11 bloated Departments, 14 feuding Ministers and the vast expense that goes with it all to administer the affairs of just 1.7 million people. Streamlined local government combined with a single elected authority to corporately administer education, health and roads could easily provide efficient and sufficient government.
“So, its time to move on from the serial failure of Belfast Agreement, with its inbuilt explosive device of toxic mutual vetoes.
