Opinion

Newton Emerson: Is the public prepared to support the executive in making necessary tough decisions?

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Boris Johnson talks to the media at Stormont. Picture by Hugh Russell
Boris Johnson talks to the media at Stormont. Picture by Hugh Russell Boris Johnson talks to the media at Stormont. Picture by Hugh Russell

There is little new in New Decade, New Approach in terms of changing how Stormont works or the issues it faces.

Five parties are now in the executive but the same two are back in charge. They have considerably more money to play with but apparently not enough to avoid all the difficult decisions they hoped to avoid.

So everything depends on a new approach by the parties themselves. This goes beyond the need for mutual respect - we are past the point where fine words speak louder than actions. Proof will be in the executive’s ability to take those difficult decisions, having largely ducked them over the past two decades. While we wait to see if it can, this is a good time to ask an equally important question: are we, the public and the media, prepared to let it?

Our politicians have been forced back to Stormont by an unmistakable message from the electorate to get back to work, yet the role of the health strikes in applying the final pressure sends a mixed message. There appeared to be universal public support for the trade unions’ demand for pay parity with Britain.

Is it advisable to raise public sector pay further above the private sector, when Fresh Start sought to rebalance the economy in the opposite direction? Is parity necessary to recruit more nurses, or does the staff shortage have other causes?

The answer to both these questions could be ‘no’. The concern is that they were never asked and nobody would have been thanked for asking them.

The media has done a better job of explaining the need for overall NHS reform, in line with the Bengoa report endorsed by all the executive parties. However, public understanding of this in principle never seems to apply in practice. In 2015, when a decision was taken to downgrade Downpatrick’s Downe hospital, 15,000 people - equivalent to the town’s entire population - took to the streets. No politician can ignore that kind of pressure, yet similar decisions must be replicated across Northern Ireland.

The crucial test of the new executive will be whether it rallies around UUP health minister Robin Swann or scapegoats him as he tries to implement Bengoa.

One of the few structural changes in New Decade, New Approach is for minor parties to enter opposition up to two years after an executive is formed, creating an incentive to support Swann for at least that long in case he leaves his poisoned chalice to someone else. Public reaction will be decisive in whether the executive holds together.

To the extent health reform is an issue of nimbyism, approving new roads and energy projects provokes comparable public intransigence. How much more gurning about pylons and incinerators should be reported with a straight face?

The media completely flunked welfare reform during the last three-year Stormont crisis from 2012 to 2015 and shows no sign of a new approach as the issue resurfaces. Coverage dominated by shroud-waving and meaningless anecdotes contributed significantly to the dysfunction and eventual break-up of the executive prior to Fresh Start. There was scant recognition that welfare reform is a popular policy with the public or that problems with reform are matched by problems with the existing system.

Water charging, also set to resurface, was no better explained. We will have to find extra finance for water, one way or another. The question is how to avoid flawed models of charging that open the door to privatisation.

Water charging highlighted how reluctant people in Northern Ireland are to pay more for basic public services. It seems the new executive will have to raise additional revenue and the rates are its only serious tax-raising power. Domestic rates should be the focus as they are low by UK standards, while commercial rates are already strangling town centres and destroying jobs. Domestic rates are effectively a wealth tax and can be fair and progressive with the right exemptions. Are we willing to put a little more money where our endlessly complaining mouths are?

None of these problems are unique to Northern Ireland politics. With our all-party executive and optional opposition we may even be uniquely equipped to solve them.

If we do not, the fault could extend well beyond Stormont’s walls.