Brian Feeney: People who argue for making Stormont work are in denial: It can’t

Last November Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd said he didn’t “recognise” figures from industry bodies citing the huge backlog in house building as a “fiasco”.

Now, you can fight about the number but that doesn’t alter the problem, which is the political failure of O’Dowd and the Stormont executive to deal with the simple fact that in dozens of towns across the north, you can’t build new homes because the occupants couldn’t flush the toilet.

O’Dowd is talking rubbish.

He refused, because he says “they all involve domestic water charges. I am not introducing them”.

Stormont’s unionist majority won’t be coming back, Mr Benn - The Irish News view

Brian Feeney: People who argue for making Stormont work are in denial: It can’t

However, he’s not pushing that. So we’re stuck because of a political failure by the minister to come up with a plan, which he denies.

It’s not just O’Dowd. That failure applies right across the board, nowhere more than in health.

Everyone knows what needs to be done but there’s no political will to do it. The plan has been sitting there for 10 years.

The NIO says there’s enough money to provide a world-class health system here but the minister and the DHSC operate a system that’s not fit for purpose: it wastes millions.

However, here’s the thing. If Mike Nesbitt ever got round to presenting a plan, no-one in the executive would support him. Certainly not the DUP, who automatically oppose everything he says because he’s the UUP leader. Political failure.

There’s another fundamental problem of course. There’s no money.

There are huge gaps in public transport, roads infrastructure and energy. Little items could be dealt with from the existing budget, but ministers don’t get round to it.

There’s hardly enough money to maintain the existing road system, never mind fix potholes or upgrade.

Developing new infrastructure depends on money from the south or handouts from Britain. Expecting anything else is because a lot of people here think the north is “a wee country”.

After all, the BBC regularly gives reports on the north’s “economy”, though there isn’t one. As economist David McWilliams said, it’s completely dependent on Britain.

If the north were asked to pay its way, “with a budget deficit of 27% of GDP it wouldn’t last a day”.

Not only is there no money, the north can’t raise any because it’s a colonial administration, a glorified county council, not a government.

Its mechanisms are bizarre. There’s no-one in charge. As Jayne Brady, titular head of the civil service, told the assembly’s Public Accounts Committee last week, she does not have direct accountability for the permanent secretaries in each Stormont department, so she can’t direct actions in regard to the delivery of the executive’s capital projects. What?

Ach, sure that was only six years ago and the transport hub is nearly completed.

As a cartoon portrayed Garret FitzGerald telling a Spanish prime minister, “There’s no word in Irish that quite conveys the urgency of the word ‘mañana’.”

The procedures of the executive itself are a major problem. Sinn Féin and the DUP control what any minister can table and when. They also stymie each other.

It’s never going to change. However, time has moved on and the question has changed.

Those, like Simon Harris, who argue for making Stormont, and therefore the north, work, are in denial. It can’t work. You can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.

Trying to do so is condemning people to live in a backwater.

If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click here

Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.