Time for Accountability to Replace Self-Serving Shambles
16 November 2011
The following opinion piece on the need for an opposition at Stromont appeared in the Belfast Telegraph on 11th November.
Today at 11 am the nation will pause to remember the sacrifice of tens of thousands of our service men and woman who gave their lives to defend freedom and democracy in Europe. Others have died in more recent times while attempting to uphold those same values in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, in Northern Ireland two of the most basic tenets of democracy are denied us: the right to vote a party out of government and even the existence of an Opposition.
An Opposition is not a luxury, but a fundamental in any democracy. The challenge, check and balance of an Opposition inevitably contribute to better government.
The present Stormont regime is abjectly failing to come anywhere close to the delivery of good government. Its record is appalling; serial deadlock is its hallmark. Six months on from the election and still no Programme for Government. Instead of debating legislation the Assembly fills its time talking on Private Members business, such as weed control. So much for supposedly being a ‘Legislative Assembly’. Yet Northern Ireland’s political establishment can carry on regardless, safe in the knowledge that the system is so rigged as to ensure that all the parties, no matter how badly they govern, are guaranteed their place at the Executive table. Vested interest at its worst.
The absurdity of mandatory coalition, and its by-product of no opposition, is the cancer at the heart of Stormont’s failure. If ever a cosy consensus needed shaken up by a vibrant and effective opposition, it’s at Stormont. Under the present arrangements if you dare to ask the difficult questions and seek to bring some accountability you will find the entire system arrayed against you. Just a short time ago I was gagged for a week by the Speaker. Why? Because I dared to poke fun at McGuinness seeking alternative employment in the Republic! Regularly in Stormont debates are held in which only government MLAs are called to speak! Yet in spite of these impediments I believe the contribution I have been able to make demonstrates what an Official Opposition could do. Only opposition MLAs, with no vested interest in sparing the blushes of the Executive, will raise and pursue the hidden things of government that need exposed and opposed.
The issues requiring the robust attention of an Opposition are myriad: the squander of public money, like £30m on consultants on an A5 project which might never be built; the scandal of the secret salaries, and unpublicised increases, of Special Advisers; the waste of £100m pa on useless north/south bodies; the disparity in sports funding, with the GAA getting the lion’s share; the hopeless deadlock in education, now to be aggravated by multiple school closures; the underfunding in the health service as we fall further behind GB; and an investment strategy which is not working, particularly outside the Greater Belfast Area.
Stormont needs an opposition in order to bring greater transparency to what goes on in government departments and hold them to account when they fail and/or misuse public money. This is something which shouldn’t be - as one of your contributors argued earlier this week – a mere long-term aspiration but something which is a democratic imperative now. Our second class citizenship as democrats must not continue another 4 or 5 years.
Equally, we need fundamental reform whereby mandatory coalition is jettisoned and a government coalition is formed by those who can agree on what to do about the economy, health, education etc, and who can command the requisite majority in the Assembly. And those who can’t agree – whoever they might be - form the missing link, the Opposition. Thereby, accountability and good and workable government could be brought to Stormont, in place of the self-serving shambles which daily adds to the public contempt for what passes as government on the Hill.
