Doing What Matters Most?
In their draft Programme for Government (PfG) the parties to the permanent cross-sectarian coalition in Stormont claim that their plan "is different to anything we have proposed before”.
Rhetoric aside, the Workers Party only sees more of the same vague, deadline-free promises that have been the hallmark of Stormont governance since 1998 (during those periods when the institutions weren’t shut down).
In what follows we provide a detailed response to important aspects of the PfG. The agenda emphasises economic growth, particularly in high-potential sectors like cybersecurity, financial technology, and health sciences. Promoting growth in these sectors will primarily benefit the owners, investors, and corporations rather than the working class. As noted, vague promises around inclusivity and equal opportunities fail to address the root causes of inequality within the capitalist system itself. The plan includes public service reforms, such as improving healthcare waiting times, childcare provision, and housing supply. While these reforms may claim to address immediate social needs, they rely on market mechanisms and private sector partnerships (e.g., innovative funding models for housing), which require a profit mechanism. The plan discusses transitioning to a green economy through market-friendly mechanisms, such as investment in renewable technologies and partnerships with the private sector. This is a fantasy because the transition to a sustainable and equitable society is not possible under the expansionist and exploitative capitalist system.
The document emphasises a vaguely liberal ‘equality of opportunity’ across different sectors, including education, housing, and overall social support rather than a concrete commitment to equality of outcomes. The Workers Party believes that only a substantive orientation towards equality of outcomes, which would favour the producers of value in our society, i.e., the workers, can solve the major problems that the PfG alludes to. This vague commitment to opportunity is coupled with a ‘we’re all in this together’ rhetoric, which amounts to an attempted ideological cover-up of the stark social divisions that exist in our society.
In what follows, we offer a detailed critique of the PfG in relation to what it says about violence against women and girls, health, investment, tourism and regeneration, and ‘green growth’. We find that the Programme for Government is nothing new and is scarcely even a programme. Until a genuine programme is put in place aimed at producing substantive outcomes in favour of the producers in our society, governance in NI will continue to fail the majority.
The Childcare Section of the Programme for Government is a betrayal of the needs of
children and parents.
Reports show that almost 98% of women surveyed on NI have reported at least one form of violence or abuse in their lifetime.
The plans for the Health Service contained in the draft Programme for Government reflect the lack of detail which characterises the document as a whole.
The unspoken aim of the PfG is to follow the economic path taken by the Irish Republic, a
tax haven with an economy effectively run by multinational enterprises.
If regeneration
across Northern Ireland is dependent on the success of such an exploitative, low-wage
sector as tourism, we cannot expect workers to experience the benefits.
Only public ownership and planning is sufficient in scope, direction, and speed of action to deal with the global climate emergency. If this doesn’t happen, some ‘green entrepreneurs’ will get rich while the climate disaster worsens.
The State has a clear responsibility to all of its citizens to ensure that, not only is housing provided, but that it is accessible, affordable, of high quality and meets the physical, emotional and recreational needs of the population.
The Executive is obliged by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to put in place an Anti-poverty Strategy to tackle poverty, social exclusion and deprivation. Yet, the Programme for Government offers nothing but promises and commission reports .
A Programme for Government which offers only the bourgeois management of the economy in the interests of a social system based on expropriation and profit cannot meet the needs of working people.