Opinion

The NI Executive was supposed to ‘hit the ground running’. But after 12 weeks, what’s the plan? - The Irish News view

We’ve had the photo opportunities, Assembly motions and a budget row, but still no programme for government

First Minister Michelle O'Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly with members of the Northern Ireland Executive and senior officials at Stormont Castle (Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye)
By The Irish News

It has been 86 days - just over 12 weeks - since the NI Executive returned, and people are entitled to ask what exactly ministers have been doing.

“Not much,” would seem to be the answer.

The two most fundamental tasks facing any executive are establishing a programme for government and setting a budget. The first of these is still bewilderingly elusive while the second has already descended into rancour.

This is the entirely predictable outcome of a cart-before-horse process in which Sinn Féin, the DUP, Alliance and UUP have sought to divide Stormont’s £14.5 billion cash between their departments before establishing this executive’s priorities and a plan of action to achieve them.

Health minister Robin Swann is clearly aggrieved, and it is difficult to see how sustainable it is if for the UUP to remain in the executive while voting against that same executive’s budget. But he has found himself in this position because the executive itself doesn’t know what its joint priorities are; it still hasn’t set them out, even in broad-brush terms. Before power-sharing returned, every party said that ‘fixing’ health was its top priority. Is that still the case?

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Commitments about when the programme for government will be produced have been vague at best. First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said it will “be in place for the summer”, though cynics might wonder if she means this summer or the next.

Why the lack of progress? The mountain range of challenges facing Northern Ireland, and therefore the executive, is already well mapped out and it is difficult to see how this will vary wildly from the plans of the previous executive, which comprised the same parties.

In addition, during the DUP’s bungalow-brained boycott of power-sharing, party delegations regularly met with the head of the civil service, Jayne Brady. The suggestion was that these meetings were designed to help any prospective new executive hit the ground running. The reality appears to be that they were little more than talking shops.

Why the lack of progress? The mountain range of challenges facing Northern Ireland, and therefore the executive, is already well mapped out… Shuffling tough decisions around indefinitely is the instinct of the mediocre, and can lead only to mediocre outcomes

Previous executives have been characterised by a crippling dysfunction which led to a lack of delivery and an inability to take decisions perceived as either too difficult or likely to be unpopular.

But failing to act because something is hard is plainly not good enough for politicians who have been entrusted with leadership by the electorate.

Concerns about popularity seem almost childish when the executive is a mandatory coalition of parties likely to remain locked together in power-sharing arrangements for years to come. This should in fact give the executive the confidence to look beyond the remaining life of this mandate and commit to a genuinely long-term programme.

There are also worrying signs that the executive simply won’t confront the very real problems holding back the development of this society and our economy.

Tackling the well documented pressures on our health and social care should be at the top of the agenda, but until the budget row at the end of last week we had heard little from Mr Swann.

There is a growing awareness that water and sewage infrastructure needs urgent investment over a period of years, yet infrastructure minister John O’Dowd seems focused on ruling out possible solutions rather than proposing ways of fixing the problems.

These are just two examples, but there are others, such as how Stormont will eventually grasp the nettle of raising additional revenue.

Shuffling tough decisions around indefinitely is the instinct of the mediocre, and can lead only to mediocre outcomes.

Devolution and power-sharing, with policies, decisions and laws made by locally elected and accountable MLAs, holds so much potential to transform this community. It will be a tragedy if this executive fails to act now and to endure into the future.