Key test for Stormont is whether it will cull its own wasteful sacred cows – TUV
15 October 2010
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-
“If Stormont is to be relevant and credible with the wider public, who will be asked to bear so much in the up-coming cuts, it must be willing to slay some of its own sacred cows.
“Under the Belfast Agreement we have the most expensive and cumbersome infrastructure of government which it is possible to devise. When weighed in the scales of value for money some of it is a dead weight, bleeding taxpayers dry with no return. Most notorious in this regard are the multiple north-south bodies to which we’ve contributed £400million since devolution returned. £400m that could have built schools, hospitals, roads, or gone into frontline services, but instead was wasted on the political optics of non-delivering, non-productive north/southery.
“Any sensible and necessary north-south co-operation which is required can be conducted department to department. We don’t need the waste of these excessively expensive bodies, which judged by their output are useless. What has any of the north-south bodies done for anyone, other than provided overpaid appointments for Quango professionals?
“Leaving aside the politics of the contrived north-south architecture, on financial grounds no one could justify their continued existence.
“Thus a key litmus test of Stormont’s handling of the pending cuts will be whether it will face reality and cull these useless sacred cows or choose rather to add more pain to long-suffering taxpayers because it puts preserving its north-southery before citizens’ real needs. Likewise meaningful savings could be made by scrapping unnecessary translation into Irish and Ulster Scots. Every department could better use the scarce resources so wasted, but, again, will political optics and dogma be put before practical living? I fear so.”
