NORTHERN Ireland’s elected elite seem incapable of getting anything right. No seriously, you may not believe it, but they can’t agree on a thing.
For example, the Review of Public Administration (with the notable exception of some progress in the health service) the vast majority of the Review of Public Administration has hit the buffers, run aground, and generally failed to deliver one iota of savings.
Edwin Poots can’t get his story straight on local government review (how many councils and when the election can take place…try and get one right) and Catriona Ruane can’t get the education and library boards amalgamated under the proposed Education and Skills Authority.
Of course, each minister is not to blame. It’s just the other side causing the problem. The pages that include the words ‘consensus’ and ‘compromise’ appear to have been ripped from MLAs’ dictionaries.
The objective of the exercise should not be party politics when one assumes a ministerial position or other responsible post such as committee chair.
In a mandatory coalition the objective should be to agree good government, carried out through good governance and administered by impartial civil servants, helping direct public services by interpreting ministerial policies once the appropriate legislative and administrative processes are in place.
Instead we have inertia, ineptitude and plain stupidity.
It would be wrong to imply that any minister or MLA is stupid; it’s just that they insist on behaving so stupidly. One can only hope that they are not an example for the rest of our population.
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