Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before addressing political issues, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party and on my own behalf I extend our best wishes to Mr. Martin McGuinness and our sincere hope that he will be able to overcome his serious health situation. I do not pretend to agree with many of the positions he has taken over the past 40 years but I do believe he sought to be a constructive force in making the post-Belfast agreement institutions work. I have no doubt he will agree that during our time as Ministers with responsibility for education we had a positive and active working relationship focused on delivering for all communities. Most of this work was done far away from the spotlight, with my then departmental officials providing a great deal of expertise in the early stages of the review of the deeply unfair 11-plus exam. In addition, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, I worked constructively with Martin McGuinness, leading to the devolution of justice following fairly prolonged negotiations. If we are believe even a fraction of reports, it would appear that the current political mess is one in which Mr. McGuinness advocated a different policy but others intervened to impose their will. It has not been said whether Mr. McGuinness is withdrawing from politics. If he is, we wish him well and hope that those assuming leadership roles have a yet unrevealed strategy which goes beyond pulling everything down.

Earlier today, the British Prime Minister outlined her Government's core objectives for the Brexit negotiations. It is now clear that the United Kingdom will not be in the Single Market or the customs union and will not accept arrangements which require freedom of movement, or the jurisdiction of the independent European Court of Justice. The Prime Minister's speech was laced with the threat that if Britain is not given what it wants, it will launch an immediate trade war and a race to the bottom in regulation and employment conditions. Even more significant is that whatever arrangements are finalised will be applied unilaterally to all jurisdictions subject to Westminster, irrespective of how they voted in last year's referendum. Nobody is seeking and, therefore, there will not be any special treatment for Northern Ireland. This car crash Brexit is the worst possible news for Northern Ireland, which has the highest unemployment levels, the highest poverty rates and weakest budget of any part of these islands. It is also the most exposed to the impact of the UK exiting the Single Market and customs union. The only independent study of the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland has shown a major reduction in growth and employment, combined with pressure on already struggling public finances.

By any definition, this is a critical moment in shaping the future for everybody who lives on this island, and none more so than people in Northern Ireland. Fundamental decisions about the economy and society are being taken now and in the weeks ahead, yet, for at least the next ten weeks, the people of Northern Ireland will have no one working for them. They will have no presence at the already too weak consultative committee established in Downing Street. They will have no one to challenge the dismissive attitude of the Tory Government to Northern Ireland. They will have no one demanding that the full and continued rights of EU citizens in Northern Ireland be respected. Let no one be in any doubt that the decision to cause an election at this moment has dramatically increased the risk of Northern Ireland, and by extension the rest of this island, suffering due to the Brexit decisions being taken now. The decision to reject any further discussions or to find a means of at least delaying the collapse of the Executive until after this critical period is deeply damaging. The absence of an assembly or Executive for an extended period delays rather than brings forward an inquiry into the heating scheme or the introduction of any measure to reduce its cost. It also means that there is no budget for 2017 and the urgently needed plan for tackling a crisis in accident and emergency departments has been shelved.

The fact that the DUP and Sinn Féin have caused the collapse of the Executive and the need for assembly elections should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following politics in Northern Ireland in recent years. Unfortunately, much of the Dublin media has adopted an approach of ignoring the North unless there is a crisis. It is because of this that the long procession of events and bad behaviour that led to this breakdown received almost no attention. Fianna Fáil has repeatedly said over the past five years that the dysfunctional behaviour of the DUP-Sinn Féin tandem was causing real damage. There has been a clear and consistent growth in public detachment from politics in the North and a falling belief that the institutions were focused on the concerns of real people. The rising dominance of the DUP and Sinn Féin has not been based on a rising tide of support but on falling turnout driven by communities losing hope that their interests will be heard in the Executive.

The RHI scheme is not the first scandal; it is the latest of many. The BBC "Spotlight" programme has played a particularly important role in exposing the regular partisan abuse of public funding in the North. Those with the votes at the Executive and assembly have combined to ensure that nothing has been done. We saw a whitewash when an MLA, who cannot drive, received £5,000 in a claim for petrol which he says he did not sign. No concern was expressed when £700,000 was given by Sinn Féin Ministers to a company in return for no identifiable service. Crass sectarian abuse by senior DUP personnel has been met with a shrug and, on occasion, applause but never censure. Public outrage in relation to Project Eagle and other controversies has been met with the mantra of "do as little as possible". At the same time, a long list of solemn agreements has been ignored by the parties. They have worked together to prevent the re-establishment of the civic forum, because it might lessen their influence. They have allowed many policy areas to stagnate. They have also allowed our Government to be frozen out of basic discussions about the future of the North.

For example, the DUP and Sinn Féin went to Downing Street to launch a development plan that made no mention of any cross-Border dimension and about which our Government was not informed. This was a clear breach of accepted principles and previous practice.

Sinn Féin is absolutely correct that the DUP's behaviour in regard to handling of the heating scheme has been arrogant and unacceptable. The DUP has misused the office of First Minister to block and delay further entirely justified investigations into how the scheme was drafted and left in place at such unacceptable cost to the people of Northern Ireland. Its abuse of the petitions-of-concern process is a disgrace. What Sinn Féin has absolutely not done is established why it needed to collapse the assembly in order to challenge this behaviour by the DUP. More important, it has failed to set out any serious proposal for reforming how the Executive works or to acknowledge its own role in creating an arrogant and unaccountable joint office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister.

The complaint about failing to share information or to allow proper discussion at Executive level that we are today hearing from Sinn Féin is nearly word for word what was said by the SDLP, UUP and the Alliance Party when they were in the Executive. For years, they pointed out that the DUP and Sinn Féin refused to circulate information, stitched up decisions before Executive meetings and operated towards them what they called the "mushroom policy" of "Keep them in the dark and cover them with dirt". When today we hear Sinn Féin complaining about an arrogant and non-transparent Executive, it is impossible not to look back at how these other parties were treated and realise the incredible double standards applied by Sinn Féin. I recall that at the time of the devolution of responsibility for justice, in a manoeuvre by the DUP and Sinn Féin to prevent the SDLP from getting the relevant position, they nominated Mr. David Ford of the Alliance Party without even consulting him. He read about his impending appointment in the media. That was the level of transparency and consultation with other political parties. We heard it all the time from the other parties.

This behaviour by the DUP and Sinn Féin led those three parties to leave the Executive and create a functioning Opposition in the Assembly. The pressure this has placed on Ministers has been demonstrated by the growing aggression and arrogance with which they respond to tough questions in the assembly. It is worth looking back over the past five years, in particular, at the angry response from Sinn Féin every time my party and others have called the Executive dysfunctional. On countless occasions, its leaders have accused us of undermining the peace process through pointing out that the behaviour of the Executive's leaders threatened the continued operation of the Executive.

The core facts of the RHI scheme and its disastrous financial implications have been known for over a year. They were known before the last assembly election and they have been pursued doggedly by the Opposition in Stormont. What exactly is supposed to be changed by this election other than the relative strength of parties? Neither of the two big parties has proposed to make the Executive more open, inclusive or effective. No objective has been offered beyond the short-term one of putting manners on the other side. Instead, the only demand is that we have the verdict before the trial is held. Now that the election is happening, we must hope that once we get through the initial bluster, we hear some concrete commitments to ending the dysfunction and focusing on the people's concerns.

Each party needs to be asked what it is willing to do to remove the roadblocks to action on health, employment, poverty and sectarianism. What exactly are they proposing in regard to reducing the potentially disastrous impact of Brexit? How are they going to make Ministers and the Executive accountable and reduce the abuse of government by the larger parties? They must also be challenged on what they are going to do to implement clear agreements to tackle the causes of sectarian conflict.

The equality agenda has become a partisan weapon in the hands of the two largest parties. The DUP has blocked action in order to keep alive the idea of it being a defender of the Protestant interest. The petty and often nasty behaviour of DUP politicians to implementing basic equality measures has been corrosive. For its part, Sinn Féin has failed to give it priority other than rhetorical priority. Deputy Adams caused deep damage when he referred to it as "the Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy" while also referring to opponents in Unionist parties as "these bastards". At the same time, it has sought to project ownership of the relevant measures rather than to join a cross-party consensus. The equality agenda is not a Trojan horse or a political strategy; it is a fundamental pillar of building a society focused on common welfare, not partisan manoeuvring. It is also contained in solemn and legally binding agreements.

As we have said many times before, the dysfunction in the Executive and assembly has been enabled by a policy of disengagement by the Governments. The policy of saying "It's about time you sorted it out by yourselves" has failed for six years and it continues to fail. The objective has never been for the Governments to be able to step back from engagement; it has always been for them to remain active in helping the institutions to work and to support a spirit of effective and inclusive co-operation. No doubt Sinn Féin has decided it can gain electorally by having an election now. It perhaps feels that campaigning on this issue will help it push back challenges from the new SDLP leadership and People Before Profit candidates, whose encroachment in west Belfast has obviously destabilised the party establishment in its previous electoral fortress. Whatever the reasons for the cause of this election, we need it to allow some progress rather than just rearranging the chairs. It has started badly but I hope that in the next seven weeks there will be a debate on issues that should dominate, on proposals to end the cycle of disputes and deliver an Executive and assembly that spend more time fighting problems than fighting each other. One has only to look back over the past two or three years to note the stop-start trend. It is unacceptable.

Let this be an end to the policy of disengagement. Northern Ireland must not be an issue that returns to our debates and to the media only when there is a deep crisis. We need Ministers to step up their levels of engagement and to understand that building connections with Northern Ireland is a core part of their responsibilities. Most of all, we need to move beyond this fight and proceed to tackling a Brexit process that has gone from hard Brexit to destructive Brexit and seems intent on ignoring the special status of Northern Ireland and its EU citizens, as revealed in today's speech by the British Prime Minister, Ms Theresa May, whose references to the island of Ireland were very sparse. It was regrettable that there was no serious commitment to the objective of seeking special status for Northern Ireland in her speech today, rather it was about strengthening the union as the core mission of the British Government. There are very serious issues for the North down the line, notwithstanding the efforts of the Irish Government in consultation with other European Governments. These Governments do get the importance of the peace process and the special dispensation for Northern Ireland, and they have said that to us. It is extremely important that all the energy of all political parties on this island be focused on Brexit and preparing for it. This election is a luxury that we can ill afford on this island at this time.

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