Minister Ritchie announces funding for Girdwood barracks

Speaking during the SDLP Party Conference, SDLP Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie MLA said:

Fri 5th February

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Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be before you today as Minister for Social Development and to have the opportunity to participate in the Social Development debate.

 

I would like to express my thanks to all the other speakers in this debate and to our spokesperson, Thomas Burns, not only for his kind remarks but for all the work he has put in the last year.

 

I would also like to thank Mary Bradley who continued the good work of Alban Magennis on the DSD Committee.

 

When I started out as Minister I said my number one priority was Housing. That remains the case.

 

It has been a challenging time for Housing although we have had some notable achievements. We have increased the level of new social house building beyond historic levels, although it is still far from what we want it to be. We have introduced a range of innovative initiatives, which offer people new pathways to home ownership. And we have started to drive this Party’s core belief in a ‘Shared Future’ through our housing policies and programmes.

 

However the challenges remain immense. We have long waiting lists, high housing stress and records levels of homelessness. And although most of what I do is designed to provide as much support as possible to our beleaguered construction industry, where many workers are facing the prospect of unemployment, my priority will always be to help those in housing stress and those without a roof over their heads.

 

And the financial outlook for housing is equally challenging. The collapse in capital receipts coming into the Housing Executive from the sale of Executive houses and land has impacted severely on our housing programmes today and will continue to do so in the period ahead.

 

Nonetheless we haven’t just sat on our hands. We have put the available resources to good work to stretch the absolute maximum out of the budgets we have.  By building more houses on land we already own; by requiring housing associations to borrow a greater proportion of their investment requirement and by grouping them to reduce procurement costs we are now getting more for less. As a result I am delighted to tell you conference, that we will start more new houses this year that has been done in any single year for over a decade. And we will increase it again further next year. I would like to pay tribute to my staff in DSD and the Housing Executive as well as in the Housing Associations. Together we are working nothing short of an economic miracle in housing.

 

I mentioned ‘Shared Future’ in Housing:

 

It is my belief and the belief of this Party, that while the violence may have ended, we still have a deeply divided and fractured society. And we must do something about it. Reconciliation remains the biggest challenge facing our community and the ‘healing process’ as John Hume put it, must now get underway.

 

I have launched a number of shared future schemes in our newbuild programme where people sign up to share their neighbourhood and to go far beyond mere co-existence. I also have a programme of 25 neighbourhoods in established Housing Executive Estates where we can support initiatives that keep communities together.

 

But I wanted to do more than that. That is why I hit the road and carried out 14 public meetings right across the North on the question of how we further build a Shared Future. While Sinn Fein and DUP couldn’t even agree a consultation paper, I was out meeting Unionists, Nationalists, republicans and loyalists face-to-face in their own communities to see what ideas they had. My thanks to all of our own people who came out to the meetings. From these meetings I am convinced that the vast majority of people would prefer to share their neighbourhood rather than live in a 100%single identity community.

 

Indeed, that is probably the biggest single difference between us and our political opponents, now that they have abandoned decades of unjustified violence.

 

For them co-existence, division and carve-up is enough. For us that is unacceptable. Just because our two communities have different cultural and political aspirations does not mean we should remain separate, divided and in conflict. Many of our opponents do not want a Shared Future. Instead they drone on about equality as if it is the only thing that mattered. But equality with everyone equally poor, or equality with everyone equally hating each other is no vision for the future. We have to meet people’s needs for a better life.

 

This brings me to Girdwood Barracks site in North Belfast. Here we have a former military site beside Crumlin Road Gaol, some 27 acres, within a mile of Belfast City Hall. This area of North Belfast is deeply divided and it is difficult to find an agreed way forward for the site. But this part of North Belfast has acute levels of housing stress and more social housing is desperately needed there. I said last year, and I assured Alban Magennis, that I would not allow the lack of consensus on the site to stop development of much needed housing. So today I can announce to you Conference, that I have instructed the Housing Executive to appoint a Housing Association to commence the work to build at least 200 new social homes on the Girdwood site. Starting Immediately. I will continue to seek consensus on the overall plan for the site but the housing will now proceed.  I also hope that Housing on Girdwood will allow us to proceed with the long overdue redevelopment of the adjacent ‘Long Streets’ area of North Belfast.

 

On the regeneration side of DSD, we have done an immense amount of work on town centre redevelopment environmental improvement and public realm schemes. The town we are in today is a good example of the work that is being done across the North. We are doing a lot of work in Derry and recently laid the foundation stone for the new Footbridge across the Foyle. I hope it will symbolize a coming together towards a Shared Future in Derry.

 

Derry is not just home to our Party leader, but also home to our Party President and Nobel peace prize winner, John Hume. I can think of no more fitting place given their work to heal the historic divisions in the city, in which to showcase our intentions around a ‘shared future’. I want the citizens of Derry to drop their political and tribal allegiances for a moment and recognise John Hume as our greatest ever bridge builder. I want the new bridge to be named the Hume bridge. And if the other authorities can’t agree on that then let’s ask the people of Derry in a Plebiscite.

 

As you know DSD has responsibility for two agency functions – the Social Security Agency and the former Child Support Agency now Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division. Both of these large Divisions are performing significantly better now despite cuts to their budgets than they were at the point where devolution was restored. I want to pay tribute to the hard working staff in both agencies.

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I want to turn now, from the business of government to the reality of our politics. Under the present Executive government what started out as a new dispensation has become a bitterly cynical administrative charade dominated by 2 parties who only care about themselves.

 

DUP and Sinn Fein have thrown away the hope created by the Good Friday Agreement in pursuit of their own selfish, narrow objectives. And they have no mandate to do so no matter how much they brag about their numbers. For the people voted for power sharing – they did not vote for carve up.

 

The recent so-called “deal” announced with great fanfare today is not a new beginning.  It is a temporary fix based on a corruption of democracy.

 

The only reason we had the recent impasse is because Sinn Fein failed to negotiate devolution of Policing and Justice at St Andrews.  They persistently lied that they had secured DUP agreement and persistently lied that the DUP was in default.  The two governments, to their shame, went along with Sinn Fein’s lies.

 

Sinn Fein’s inability to negotiate effectively with the DUP is evident again in the latest deal.  They have sold out the right of nationalists to have fair representation around the Executive table.  Instead of closing the unionist ministerial numerical advantage from 6 – 4 to 6 – 5 as would have happened under D’Hondt – they have succumbed to a DUP veto which will extend the unionist advantage to 7 – 4.  They have created a situation where a nationalist vote is worth less than a unionist vote.

 

And they have caved in on Parading.  They have agreed to scrap the Parades Commission which delivered the slow but steady progress that has been made.

 

And watch the new Working Groups.  As ever, the DUP will run rings round Sinn Fein when it comes to the detail.

 

And that, colleagues, is why we have to get back in there, stronger, as a Party,  ready to assert our democratic rights.

 

We cannot accept more carve-ups and more cynicism when people are crying out for delivery on the bread and butter issues that really affect their lives. 

 

Today’s deal is not “historic” or “seismic” or any of the other devalued terms favoured by London and Dublin.  I indicated to the two Prime Ministers this morning, to their faces, that the SDLP was not impressed.  The Deal is, I repeat, a temporary fix based on a corruption of democracy.

 

And we must get stronger so that we can put things right.

 

 

 

 

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