A FREE & UNITED EIRE

A fully free and united Eire would doubtless resolve much discontent in that Celtic nation which has thus far been sold down the river by Blair et al:

Public disillusioned with Stormont – MLA THE NEWSLETTER

12 MAY 2008

FRUSTRATION with a lack of radical thinking and legislation coming out of the Executive is beginning to permeate Parliament Buildings.

Ulster Unionist MLA Fred Cobain has said there was a realisation that little is happening at Stormont, one year into devolution.He has blamed stagnation on the unnatural form of government which forces opposites into coalition and means decision- making is hampered by the need to always compromise.

A recent poll showed that around 60 per cent of the population is disillusioned with or not engaged by the Stormont Executive and Assembly.Mr Cobain said that, aside from Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie's social housing policies and some things Michael McGimpsey has done at health, 'little or nothing of real note is happening'.

'People in Northern Ireland are totally detached from the Assembly because of the lack of anything that impacts on their lives for the better coming out of Stormont,' said the MLA.The Assembly itself was still largely a debating chamber, he said – ignored at Executive level.'How many issues passed on the floor have seen or will see the light of day in legislation?' he asked.'Do we have a common policy on education, health; where is the legislation to tackle poverty?'I represent a constituency (north Belfast) where levels of deprivation are the worst in the UK or on the island of Ireland.'I do not see any social policies to make real changes to the constituents I represent.'

He blamed the d'Hondt style mandatory coalition for the paralysis.'The model we have at the moment does not lend itself to people coming forward with new ideas or decision-making,' he said.'Either the need to always have a consensus or the cross-party and personality jealousies and rivalries in the Cabinet, hold us all back.'And it's because of this system of having to have all the main parties forced to share power.'It doesn't work when everything has to be based on compromises.'

Mr Cobain accepted that the mandatory coalition was necessary 10 years ago, when no trust existed between parties and everyone needed to feel included and protected.He said things had changed and it was time for a normal form of majority government or voluntary coalition between agreed parties - with any safeguards eased, or adapted to suit the changed times, built in.'With all parties in the government there is no Opposition and therefore you lose that dynamic which encourages radical ideas,' he said.'We need a government in which a two-party coalition can be judged on their manifesto commitments and have to implement their manifesto to survive in government and an Opposition coming up with better ideas to try to remove them.'

Mr Cobain said that 'the most obscene thing in this Assembly is that the Alliance Party and Alliance members mean nothing'.'It's bad enough that we have a deadlocked government but we also have a dysfunctional system, that means a party whose vote literally doesn't count and the people who legitimately voted for them are having their vote wasted and their voice not heard. It is truly obscene.

'If ever there was an argument for change, and an example of democracy being subverted here, that is it.'