Opinion

Tom Kelly: Citizens' Assembly will be a big political yawn

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

I should be grateful that I am not a lucky type of person especially given the fact that it is proposed to inflict on the long suffering people of Northern Ireland a grandiose quango called the Citizens' Assembly which is supposedly composed of those unfortunate enough to be selected from the electoral register.

This is not the sort of lottery I would like to win.

Apparently 99 randomly chosen people with no particular skills or talents will discuss and make recommendations on the great issues of the day under the chairmanship of some Solomon-like person with the patience of a saint and the skin of a rhinoceros.

It is a body established to create the biggest political yawn in the history of Northern Ireland.

If the paint is not drying quickly enough or you have tired of watching some Joan Collins look-a-like flogging stuff on QVC - then you could always tune into the proposed Citizens' Assembly which may become a replacement for those reliant on Prozac.

It’s hard to believe that anyone seriously thinks its a good idea to re-constitute something similar to the old civic forum which is hardly missed or lamented. Establishing a Citizens' Assembly is about as purposeful as me going to Lidl and buying a circular saw or a hand held vacuum sealer in the full knowledge I will never actually need it.

Northern Ireland has 1.8 million citizens. In terms of political representation we have 462 councillors, 90 MLAs and 18 Members of Parliament. That makes for one public representative for just over every 3,000 citizens. Let’s put that into perspective - the average GP practice has 5,500 patients. The average parish priest serves about 7,000 souls.

We are completely over represented but in fairness to our elected representatives across the board they are very accessible.

A key problem with any kind of civic forum or citizens' assembly is its source of authority. The old civic forum at least had some expertise within its ranks as various sectoral bodies from agriculture, business, trade unions and the voluntary sectors were on board. This new super talking shop is just like an over-enlarged focus group.

And it is large as it's proposed to comprise 100 people in total. The Republic of Ireland with a population of nearly five million has a 100-person Citizens' Assembly and yet those behind the thinking for Northern Ireland’s proposed body are seeking one of a similar size despite our population being less than half.

The Republic has a written constitution which means that consultation is necessary before making major decisions on constitutional reforms and the structures of referenda. Northern Ireland is different because it's a devolved administration that is part of the United Kingdom and sovereignty rests with the parliament at Westminster. The authority of the Citizens' Assembly in the Republic comes from the fact that it was created by the government and a third of its membership comes from the political parties within the Oireachtas.

The advocates for a Northern Ireland Citizens' Assembly argue that it's all about participative democracy. The reality is far from that. In Northern Ireland we have more opportunities to vote than many places. Given that the political parties receive quite healthy mandates one can only assume that they are representative of what the wider Northern Ireland community wants, even if by voting tribally it is impossible to achieve. Since the restoration of devolution, Northern Ireland politicians dodged the difficult questions and issues of the day by hiding behind the iniquitous petition of concern which was widely abused by both the DUP and Sinn Féin. It needs to be scrapped or modified and should be up for discussion at the forthcoming talks.

To date we have funded an elected assembly that doesn’t sit and hasn’t legislated in over a year. It’s an intolerable situation but it won't be helped by lumbering it with an unaccountable quango which pontificates on policy without any authority.

Northern Ireland needs its politicians to step up to the mark. Engagement with the public is important but this is a small place and all of the sectoral interests have access and influence with their public representatives. Creating an informal and ad hoc forum for those sectors to have dialogue if and when an executive is established would be meaningful and useful.

Creating a Citizens' Assembly in Northern Ireland would only codify what we do best and that's talk interminably to ourselves.