It’s been over six months since the Northern Ireland Executive was restored. Having been absent for five of the past eight years, it was and is welcome to have political institutions which aren’t mothballed. But simply being there isn’t enough.
Repeated political collapses have exacerbated collapsing public services and fundamentally damaged public trust in Stormont. To address this, the Executive needs to produce a plan to rescue public services and deliver on our region’s other urgent priorities. Such a plan cannot simply be a list of generic aspirations, as past Programmes
for Government have been, it needs to contain specific actions, targets and timelines.
Too often in the past, none of these have been forthcoming – leaving the public with nothing meaningful against which to judge their government.
As part of our role as a constructive Opposition, the SDLP is publishing its own Plan for Change. We aren’t in government, but we owe it to the public to give a flavour of the priorities we would set and the targets we would work towards. We think the priorities and targets contained in this document offer a serious agenda for change during the remainder of this mandate.
To rescue our public services, we would produce a costed waiting list strategy and set a target to reduce childcare costs by 50 per cent by 2030. To restore trust in politics, we would enshrine a commitment to removing the ability of one party to collapse the political institutions. To maximise our economic potential, we would retool our investment and enterprise agencies to leverage dual market access and introduce legislation to overhaul regional balance, and we would take the decisions necessary to deliver on the targets in the Climate Change Act. We would introduce a Nature Restoration Bill with ambitious targets to restore our threatened environment and finally create an independent Environmental Protection Agency. To end division and intolerance, we would deliver standalone hate crime legislation, a new Refugee Integration Strategy and an updated Racial Equality Strategy.
Implicit within our plan is the need for prioritisation and choices. No devolved Government has limitless resources to address every challenge immediately. That is why a plan is necessary, setting priorities matched with practical actions and measurable objectives. Where there are decisions that require prioritisation or additional revenue raising, the Executive should be transparent and honest about the choices they are making – and why.
We think these and the other priorities in this document are the right and essential for the next three years. Ultimately, it is up to the Executive to decide and deliver on its priorities. When they finally do so, the SDLP Opposition will be there to hold them to account.
Matthew O’Toole MLA
Leader of the Opposition