DUP talk of reducing Stormont, mere sound bites signifying nothing - TUV
08 October 2010
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister QC:-
"Of course the number of Stormont departments and MLAs need to be drastically slashed, but Peter Robinson is merely playing to the gallery, because he bound himself into arrangements guaranteed to prevent such changes, since at
“In calling for something he cannot deliver he might hope to divert attention from his responsibility for the bloated and excessively expensive bureaucracy at Stormont, but, in reality he only draws attention to his own impotence in being unable to change it. If such change was required, and it certainly was, then making it a deal-breaker at St Andrews was how it could have been delivered, but, sadly, getting power, any power, was much more important for those who now pretend they can change that with which by default they agreed.
“As to what they can change, the DUP has failed: streamlining local government – reducing the number of councils and councillors - collapsed under Hapless Poots!
“We don’t just need a radical reduction at Stormont, but the useless and grossly expensive north-south bodies could be culled with no loss to anyone but much gain to hard-pressed taxpayers, who pay £100m pa to sustain these sacred cows of the Belfast Agreement. Instead, the DUP is buttressing them by growing an embryonic all-Ireland parliament through the north-south parliamentary forum, in session no later than last night.”
