It is an appalling indictment of our political dysfunction, which some wear as a badge of honour, that tens of thousands of public sector workers feel they have no choice but to strike in the depths of winter in the hope of achieving fair pay.
No wonder they are frustrated. They have been told that the funds are available to cover pay claims but that until power-sharing is restored, they won’t receive a penny. Ire has, correctly, been turned on secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris. He has resisted calls to release the money, arguing that were he to do so, it would be tantamount to direct rule.
If that sounds unconvincing, it’s because it is. He has already freely involved himself in other matters which would ordinarily be the responsibility of a Stormont Executive. Why not also intervene in facilitating pay awards he has already accepted deserve to be met?
It may be wishful thinking to expect an NIO minister with a general election on his mind to have his heart softened by the appeals of Northern Ireland workers. But for the locally elected MLAs of the DUP to also be a block to resolving the pay dispute is both self-defeating and cruel.
The dismal spectacle of the recalled Assembly merely emphasised that the DUP is a party unable to escape the maze of its own hubris… The DUP’s entire approach since Brexit has been ‘cynically orchestrated’, though ‘orchestrated’ suggests a degree of planning and strategy that has been entirely absent from Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s boycott
The dismal spectacle of the recalled Assembly merely emphasised that the DUP is a party unable to escape the maze of its own hubris. The best Gordon Lyons could do was to accuse Sinn Féin of playing a “stunt” and say that the recall had been “cynically orchestrated”.
Yet the DUP’s entire approach since Brexit has been ‘cynically orchestrated’, though ‘orchestrated’ suggests a degree of planning and strategy that has been entirely absent from Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s boycott.
Ulster Unionist Robbie Butler hit a raw nerve when he said that it was not DUP MLAs who were driving the party’s stance but its MPs. Matthew O’Toole of the SDLP makes a strong point when he says it is the DUP who have given the Tories the power to use our public sector workers for “crude political purpose”.
When those workers take action today, they will do so with a moral authority and in greater numbers than the shabby Protocol protests Sir Jeffrey and his fellow travellers on the Brexit fringe play to.
The workers deserve support and fair pay. It is a tragedy that they are trapped in the vice-like grip of DUP intransigence and NIO indifference.
