Too Late for Tinkering with Stormont Structures
August 16th, 2026
Mandatory Coalition has been an absolute disaster and has failed in all of its obligations to those who worked hard to achieve a yes vote for the Good Friday Agreement and worked in good faith, in the hope that the “peace dividend” often spoken about, would provide life chances, opportunities, and prosperity. The absence of a prosperity dividend is clear, especially for those communities who were marginalised, suffering from the poverty, isolation, multiple deprivations, lack of housing and well paid employment that are prevalent throughout working-class areas.
After nearly three decades the lives of working-class families have steadily declined on all levels, and this can be attributed to the failure of our elected representatives to deliver on the promises made to their constituents. The constant secrecy surrounding the decision-making process at Stormont has turned into a conspiracy of silence on the part of elected representatives and civil servants. The lack of freedom of information is scandalous, as is the lack of legislation going through the Assembly.
Where are the Bill of Rights, the anti-poverty strategy, the Good Jobs bill, and all the other promises in manifesto’s that have never been delivered on? Tinkering with the structures and processes will not deliver the changes needed to ensure transparency, openness, accountability, and a people first culture that has long been absent from our political system of government.
NHS: Put Staff and Patients First. For an Immediate Health Pay Increase
The Health Minister has stated that the health service is heading to “a very bad place” because of the failure to set a budget for this fiscal year. The service is already in a very bad way and has been for well over a decade.
It is outrageous that staff are once again forced to take industrial action to get the pay increase, they are entitled to. The Executive has once again let public sector workers down and I have no doubt that many of them will be brazen enough to visit picket lines to show support, after all there is an election coming up.
There was no question of affordability when it came to the gigantic pay rise those same politicians voted to award themselves not so long ago, over £14,000 despite the lack of productivity on their part.
The health service is being run on the good will of the staff on the ground who are stretched to breaking point trying to deliver even the most basic standards of care. Senior officials and managers within the service have been involved in decision making that has resulted in so called efficiencies, i.e., cuts and changes to services.
These same managers who have managed to waste millions of taxpayers' money and lower the quality of care are amongst the highest earners in the healthcare sector.
It is time politicians put staff and service users and patients first and stopped listening to vested interests inside and outside of the national health service.
Dedicated staff from all sections off the service deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. They should not have to visit food banks, and they should be paid their long overdue increases.
