NI assembly is 'unsustainable'

Northern Ireland’s Assembly is becoming unsustainable following the failure to restore devolution, a leading loyalist MLA warned today.

With the €37.8m Northern Bank raid shattering hopes that the Assembly could be restored soon, Progressive Unionist leader David Ervine said there was a danger that people were getting used to life without it.

The East Belfast Assembly member told PA: “I am getting to the point where I believe the Northern Ireland Assembly, as constituted, is unsustainable.

“The more we can survive without it, the more we can continue our day to day lives without it no matter how bad the decisions are from incumbent direct rule ministers, the more people are coming to terms with the view that they could do without a Northern Ireland Assembly.

“I think that’s dangerous. I think, as it is constituted, there is virtually no credibility left with the Assembly.

“Now don’t get me wrong. There’s no question MLAs are doing their constituency work and I am not for one moment suggesting that they have lots of energy left after they have finished a week’s work.

“They are working hard but the credibility of a Northern Ireland Parliament is slipping and that is very dangerous.”

Assembly members have received an annual salary of £31,187 since December 2003 despite calls from some people in the province for them not to be paid a penny until devolution returns.

They also receive allowances, claiming mileage.

However in a House of Commons statement last week on Chief Constable Hugh Orde’s claim that the IRA carried out the Northern Bank heist in Belfast, Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy said it was difficult to estimate when power sharing might return.

He also told MPs in a series of talks with the Northern Ireland parties he would explore their positions on a number of difficult issues facing them.

These included “the appropriateness of continuing to pay the salaries and allowances of the individuals elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in November 2003 and on our proposed way forward on the regulation of donations to political parties in Northern Ireland”.

Unionists have claimed it would be wrong for the Government to continue with direct rule from Westminster, claiming it penalises those parties which do not have links to paramilitary groups for the sins of others that do.

The Democratic Unionists have proposed a voluntary coalition involving themselves, the nationalist SDLP and the cross community Alliance Party as a way of bringing stable devolution to Northern Ireland, arguing such a system already works successfully in Scotland.

The Reverend Ian Paisley’s party has also suggested if that is not possible, the running of the 11 government departments should be handed over to the Assembly itself, with Stormont committees rather than ministers making the key decisions.

The SDLP has also come up with a proposal that power should be transferred back to Stormont with a team of commissioners drawn from civic society running government departments until MLAs are able to become ministers.

The Assembly would sit again, with commissioners facing the scrutiny of Stormont committees.

Both plans have, however, been rejected by David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists.

Mr Ervine said today it was difficult to see any way out of the current political crisis.

However he repeated his view that a statement from the IRA directly addressing Hugh Orde’s claim about its involvement in the Northern Bank robbery could help.

“It is very difficult to see us getting off this hook,” he admitted.

“But if the smart money is on the IRA being responsible for the Northern Bank, then the people who got us on this hook are republicans and the people who can get us off are republicans.

“We need the IRA to respond, not through sources or Sinn Féin leaders but in a statement by P O’Neill, to the Northern Bank claims and put its own credibility on the line.

“We also need clarity about what the IRA exactly meant in the recent talks about it ’going into a new mode’ and it also means movement from the IRA in the process with no prizes or prices extracted.”