Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Last year, with the return of the Stormont Executive, we were promised a new decade, a new approach. It has been a turbulent year but what is the verdict one year on? Last week, the BBC Northern Ireland "Spotlight" programme focused on the level of reliance on food banks by many in Northern Ireland, particularly young workers.

It shone a spotlight on the number of people who are really struggling during this pandemic. The show said that the Stormont draft budget was a slap in the face for those young people and others who are relying on services that are now facing cutbacks. Are we going to have a new approach on this question or will it be like the decade from 2010 to 2019 when the parties in the Stormont Executive passed on the cuts and attacks on working people that Westminster imposed?

Will we see a new decade with a new approach for women on the issue of abortion? We will not if the DUP has its way. The DUP is cynically using the concerns of disability activists in order to push back against women's rights on the abortion issue. There is a big question there for Sinn Féin and for the other MLAs. Will they back the campaigns being organised by women and trust women or will they let the DUP away with these attacks on the right to choose?

Since the start of the new year we have had some serious warnings on the dangers of sectarianism, not least the threats against port workers and others. A coming together of sectarian parties at the top does not constitute a new approach for a new decade. What would do so is an anti-sectarian and socialist alternative from below that is built in and across both communities. That is how we will have a genuine new decade and approach.

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