Speech by party Vice-chair Keith Harbinson proposing the following motion:

This Conference believes that the devolved institutions do not provide a stable foundation on which to build the future of Northern Ireland.

This Conference, aware of the increasing severe restraint on public spending, deplores the wanton waste of scarce resources on Belfast Agreement devolution, with its bloated administration and north/southery, and calls for the abolition of the present Stormont structures and their replacement with efficient, democratic devolution.

Party Leader, Mrs Allister, Party Officers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; it gives me great pleasure to propose the following motion

This Conference believes that the devolved institutions do not provide a stable foundation on which to build the future of Northern Ireland.

This Conference, aware of the increasing severe restraint on public spending, deplores the wanton waste of scarce resources on Belfast Agreement devolution, with its bloated administration and north/southery, and calls for the abolition of the present Stormont Structures and their replacement with efficient, democratic devolution.

Conference this motion can be summed up succinctly and simply as the shambles at Stormont, but so deep and wide are the problems that exist within the current devolved structures, I shall deal merely with a few of the most salient.

It is an obvious fact and a natural starting point when examining the issue of devolution in Northern Ireland to face up to the reality, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, that the present Stormont administration is abjectly failing to come anywhere close to the provision of good government for the people of Northern Ireland.   This fact stands apparent to anyone who cares to examine the record of this calamitous coalition, with its hallmarks of serial deadlock and lack of consensus on almost every issue.  Apparent it would seem to all bar those with a vested interest.  To these people it is apparent only that they at all cost must keep this Executive lurching along, as to allow an end to them would spell disaster.  To these people I say that to continue along this current path, lurching from crisis to crisis, deadlock to deadlock, you risk bestowing a much greater disaster upon the people of Ulster.  The time has now come to say enough is enough, Mandatory coalition doesn’t work, can never work and should now be confined to the annuls of history as a lesson harshly learnt. 

And Mandatory Coalition conference can never work, and the reason that it can never work is that as with the man who built his house upon the sand, without a good solid and stable foundation, anything we hope to build will fall asunder.  The St Andrews agreement and its predecessor the Belfast Agreement cannot provide such a stable foundation on which to build any kind of good and durable government, and it is the guarantee of mandatory coalition which underpins this paralysis.

Mandatory Coalition is an ideology suited to Utopia, but sadly not to Northern Ireland.  The natural division which exists within Northern Ireland from the backdrop of centuries of internal strife and conflict means that the common purpose essential to good government under any form of coalition is missing, and this is compounded further by the fact that under the current disposition those responsible for 40 years of terrorist murder have been gifted a place within such a coalition to the eternal shame of those so-called Unionists who are responsible.  Under this Mandatory System they must be there, which means that it doesn’t matter how you or I vote as Unionists, we can never remove Sinn Fein/IRA from Government.  Conference this denies us what is considered the very lynchpin of good government in every other country throughout the Western world, Democracy, and on that basis, Mandatory Coalition can not work, it may limp by for a few years, but it can never last.  This system of Government not only denies you the essence of democracy in being able to vote a party from Government, but it also deprives us of an effective opposition, standing as a suitable safeguard against a sufficiently motivated Executive where they disagree with the Government policy.

Instead we have mutual vetoes offered up as sufficient checks and balances.  The only thing however that the use of these powers has demonstrated to be keeping in check is progress and delivery for the people of Northern Ireland. 

The Mutual Veto has ensured that deadlock is the order of the day on almost every issue, where deals are done within deals before even the simplest act can even resemble working never mind good government.  This is of course driven by the fact that one side of the cosy coalition fail to recognise the constitutional position of our country and are committed to the destruction of everything we as Unionists hold dear, so it is no surprise to see the stagnation, it is no surprise to see Unionists within the Executive placed over the proverbial barrel time and time again and it is no surprise anymore to see concessions being granted in the face of Republican pressure.  Conference ‘who will blink first’ Government cannot be classified as good Government; and this is the best that Belfast Agreement devolution has to offer.

There are those who claim that they are in control of Stormont!!

The Prime example of the folly of such claims of course is the failure in securing a change in the definition of a Victim despite an election pledge to do so.  Quite simply, having surrendered an absolute veto to Sinn Fein/IRA over this issue, so long as Belfast Agreement devolution continues, they will never be able to fulfil such a pledge.  The current system renders a toothless return for Unionism however for those who so wantonly cast aside pre election pledges in an expedient pursuit of power, I am sure no amount of sleep was lost.

Aside from this failing form of Government, it is patently obvious that the structures put in place to facilitate and work this coalition are equally disastrous to Northern Ireland.
The question must be asked that in a country with just 1.7 million people, do we really need 108 MLA’s, 11 Departments, 14 Ministers, 18 overpaid Special advisors as well as all of the vast expense that goes with it?  Perhaps herein lies the problem, with so many people drawn into this unworkable shambles and reliant upon it as their means of livelihood, will there ever be the stomach to see an end brought to the shambles as a means of curing it?

At the top of course we have the unworkable office of the Joint First Ministers, who whilst they occasionally dress the same, it would appear are not always reading off the same page.  Recently we have witnessed the DUP First Minister delivering his speeches not as First Minister, but rather in his capacity as leader of his party, as he didn’t have the authority of his self confessed IRA commander partner Martin McGuiness to deliver it on behalf of OFMDFM.  Conference when we use the term Joint First Ministers we accurately capture and articulate the working mechanics of the Office.  One part cannot do anything without the approval of the other.  Couple this paralysing restraint with the fact that both Ministers come from profoundly different ideological backgrounds, the fact that day and daily we see the pantomime played out between the two of dislike clouded over by professionalism and the fact that the Executive table gut each other at every turn, I ask does that sound like a government pulling together, with its shoulder to the wheel for the good of this Country?

The Joint First Ministers Office has twice the staff of the Prime Ministers Office, some 400 people, yet we are told this Executive is committed to cutting waste.  Does any man in the street truly believe that this Executive with such wanton wastage can deliver anything that remotely resembles value for money Government?

In 2007 it was pledged that obtaining a sufficient financial package to solve the problem of water charges was a pre-condition to any agreement on devolution.  Now we find that water charges are once again back on the agenda driving the ‘substantial cuts to public services’ which we were promised would be avoided.  Indeed everyone from Councillor to MP lauded this as a major achievement of the Stormont Assembly, yet now we see how fragile and empty that all was.  With a deficit of some £370 million, I fear that the good people of Northern Ireland are about to learn rather harshly the price of poor Government.

Then there is the spending on North/South bodies, which Peter Robinson himself once said amounted to “a direct tangible legislative link with the Republic through All-Ireland bodies.  The distinction between Northern Ireland and the Republic has been torn away, under this deal North and South come closer together and Northern Ireland ever more distant from Great Britain.”  Conference the truth is that these bodies exist solely to advance the goal of a United Ireland, and far from curbing them, as again was the promise, we have seen increased North/Southery with little or no opposition to either their spawning remit of control or their budgetary demands, that is to say until the question was raised by Jim Allister.  Conference the £130 million wasted on these bodies every year is a disgrace, there is absolutely no value for money return to the people of Northern Ireland as quite frankly none of these North/South quangos can be seen to have produced a single example of tangible benefit for anyone in Northern Ireland.  They can’t even offer a balanced workforce and to add insult to injury, they are allowed to squander our financial resources for the privilege whilst or Hospitals and Schools are made to scrimp and save.

Therefore conference it is quite evident that not only do we need to address the form of Government practiced in Northern Ireland, in order to provide lasting, good, durable and value for money Government we must also look at the mechanics of the structures.

But what do we know conference, if you listen to our political opponents you will here that we have nothing to offer, we don’t have a plan and don’t know how to possible lead this country forward.  How ironic therefore that the path advocated by TUV since our inception, namely a voluntary coalition, where Government is built upon common purpose and principle, is now the very next step in Peter Robinson’s master plan, and the topic currently closest to the tip of his tongue.  Peter the current tide flowing throughout Unionism is far too strong for you to hope to row back up stream, even with your many spin doctors and advisors to the oar.

Peter Robinson has indicated the unworkability of the present system and spoke of his desire to see a democratic voluntary coalition put in place, but as previously outlined conference he could only do so in his role as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party as McGuiness would not agree.  And no wonder he doesn’t agree, because he knows that under a voluntary coalition with a TUV input, he and his cohorts in Sinn Fein/IRA can kiss goodbye to the cosy position they currently dictate from.

On 10th April 1998, Peter Robinson said “Did thousands of our fellow citizen’s die and tens of thousands maimed in order to secure cabinet positions for Adams and McGuiness and set up a United Ireland process?”  Well Peter, did they?  This form of Government failed in 1998, it has failed again, and as Albert Einstein once commented “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them,” but conference, one doesn’t have to be Albert Einstein to acknowledge that things must change.

TUV is not opposed to shared Government, but we are unashamedly opposed to terrorists in Government and to a system that guarantees their rule over us.  If Sinn Fein/IRA are indeed as fit for Government as some would have us believe then allow the to get their on their own merits as Plaid Cymru did in Wales and the Scottish Nationalist Party in Scotland, and not clinging to the coat tails of the largest Unionist party.  In the rest of the UK a voluntary coalition prevails, where after an election those who agree can form a coalition, and those who can’t oppose and offer an alternative Government at the next election and a real and telling opposition during the sitting of the parliament.  If required a 60% qualified majority to guarantee cross-community involvement can be put in place.

Conference in order that any country can provide true democracy, it must satisfy two criteria.  It must provide opposition and it must allow for a party, where not fit to be there to be removed from Government.  What we currently have is the very antithesis of British Democracy.

As Dean Godson said about the entire Peace Process “the full story will probably never be told,” so too I think of the current Stormont Assembly, where day and daily this failing Executive provides fresh concessions and new levels of appeasement to Republicanism, and all in the name of Government.  I don’t think that we will ever know the full extent of what deals have been done and assurances given, but what I do know is that it must stop, and it must stop now. 

The people of Northern Ireland now more than ever are entitled to good Government and a value for money Government.  Hard pressed families, who have had their lives destroyed by daily job losses expected more from a Stormont Executive, many of whom operate 2, 3 and even 4 jobs!!  This trend must also be reversed.  Just this week, Unionism within the Assembly chamber lost a vote in respect of the obnoxious Bill of Rights that is being proposed by 46 to 39 because of the absence from Stormont of the DUP’s 9 MPs.  The people of Northern Ireland deserve better, they deserve full-time representatives doing the job on a full-time basis.

If Peter Robinson cannot acknowledge these facts then I believe it is time for him to go.  We cannot economically or politically endure this Government any longer.  I was reminded recently of a quote by the most famous Unionist leader of all, Lord Carson and I shall leave you with this:

"God give us men- a time like this demands great hearts, strong minds, true faith and willing hands.
Men whom the lusts of office do not kill, men whom the spoils of office do not buy, men who possess opinions and a will, men who live honour, men who cannot lie.”