Message to Stormont politicians – get back to work

Message to Stormont politicians – get back to work

5 September 2018

OVER 150 people gathered at Newcastle promenade last week as part of the We Deserve Better movement.

As the young and the old gathered on Tuesday evening, people in Belfast, Portrush, Derry, Enniskillen and Newry were also joining forces to send an unequivocal message to Northern Ireland’s politicians to get back to work.

Northern Ireland has reached an unwanted milestone of going over 600 days without a functioning government since Martin McGuinness pulled the plug on Stormont in January 2017.

There is increasing concern at grassroots level that politicians have “failed to get their acts together” with people urging politicians to get back to work.

Concern is mounting that there is no Stormont Executive in place to legislate for the people of Northern Ireland, placing increasing pressure on health, education, agriculture, justice, infrastructure and the arts.

The We Deserve Better initiative was launched by Fermanagh’s Dylan Quinn whose social media post went viral, prompting people in major towns to get involved. He said it was time for all  the people of Northern Ireland to have their say on the current crisis which is having a major impact  on daily life.

Joan Martin — who organised last week’s dignified protest in Newcastle with the help of Pauline Hart  — said there was anger that politicians were not doing the job they were elected to do, but were still getting full pay.

Joan made contact with Dylan ahead of the protest and was pleased with the community response at the event where people had an opportunity to express their views on the current political impasse which has left Northern Ireland without a working government.

Joan said that since the political institutions were pulled down, the Province’s 90 MLAs had been paid £9m and also given themselves a pay rise.

“People deserve to have their voice heard and that is what last Tuesday night was all about,” she explained. “Politicians need to explain why they continue to be paid while the health and education sectors in particular are struggling and seeing service provision cut.”

Joan said there is real concern that Northern Ireland is being “left to drift” as there is no effective political leadership which people voted for. She said people expect the politicians to be at work and backed the clamour for them to engage in meaningful talks on the way forward and get back into government.

The Dundrum woman said the event, alongside those held in other towns, was designed to send a clear message that people have had enough and want the MLAs back in Stormont working for those who voted for them.

Joan hopes the We Deserve Better campaign is something that will focus a lot of minds, explaining people are aware that some MLAs who want to get back to Stormont as part of a functioning Executive, but this has not been possible as result of the political leadership vacuum due to the DUP and Sinn Fein being unable to agree a way forward.

“It feels as if we have been putting up with the impasse but there is momentum for change. Hopefully this movement will be able to grow and put some pressure on the politicians to get back,” she continued.

“A lot of people have said that maybe we should do this again and last week I encouraged those in attendance to take photographs and send them to their MLAs to show the support there is for them to get back to work.”

Joan said the simple message from last week’s meeting to the politicians was: “We elected you, get back to work.”

She added: “The politicians are in effect our employees, we elected them to do a job for us and at the minute they are not delivering. It is outrageous they are being paid, but not delivering and the Secretary of State should be doing something. However, the fact of the matter is that the Tories and the DUP are in cahoots.”