Opinion

Tom Kelly: Unless we fix the fundamentals like health and education nothing else can progress

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.

People are dying as hospital waiting lists grow longer
People are dying as hospital waiting lists grow longer People are dying as hospital waiting lists grow longer

The talks process has ground to a painful end but the reality is we have been here and done that so many times before that the public is bored rigid.

The irony is that some of our politicians actually have the nerve to sell their peace making ‘expertise’ to other struggling democracies. It takes some chutzpah to leave the political basket case of Northern Ireland and pretend to third parties that the place is some kind of nirvana.

The truth is much more simple - Northern Ireland has failed as a political entity. Charles J Haughey got a lot of things wrong but he was prescient when it came to Northern Ireland. Our politicians get in and out of the Stormont ring like punch-drunk boxers - not knowing when they have had enough.

Of course things are better than they were before 1998 but that’s a fairly low threshold by which to judge political success. We don’t kill each other any more. Hooray!

But there never was a need for an armed struggle no matter how many old boys medals republicans now give out to volunteers. No life was ever worth taking for achieving political developments that could always have been negotiated without threat around the table. And despite the emerging narrative that is how things actually ended.

The British government and unionism in general haven’t covered themselves in glory either; having never had much stomach for properly taking on loyalist paramilitaries, who to this day have merely privatised their drugs, prostitution and protection rackets. When it comes to tackling the UDA our police service use a velvet glove, lest they upset certain mainstream politicians who have cosied up to the very same UDA.

When you read the heart-breaking testimony of former police constable Peadar Heffron - a man who put on a uniform to protect and serve others and the marginalisation he endured from some of his colleagues in the GAA - you start to realise this is a far from normal society.

When dissidents attack PSNI officers, the political classes are great on tea and sympathy but are much less proactive at trying to lead and shape a society that wouldn’t tolerate attacks on police full stop. Condemnation alone is self-serving.

When people like Breege and Stephen Quinn can’t find justice for the barbaric murder of their son because certain sections of a community are suffering from collective amnesia through fear, you know our bar for normalisation is truly low.

While we may not be physically clodding each other with bricks or ammunition, political stalemate for party political gain is killing us.

Our hospital waiting lists grow longer. Patients are actually dying for lack of proper strategic direction in our health service. Large swathes of our young people from the most disadvantaged areas in Northern Ireland are having the life sucked out of them for want of aspiration, education and opportunities.

At 10 years of age children are put through examinations at the whims of whichever party spins the roulette wheel for post primary education. Only their roulette game is gambling away our children’s future. Our elderly are vulnerable and impoverished and now will be at the mercy of a heartless Tory government. Children with special needs that are not met increasingly have to be provided for by charitable donations and the fundraising abilities of their parents and schools.

Are these failures the litmus test of a successful political model? I think not.

Let’s be frank, there is a hierarchy of rights and they start with health and education. The right to find love and have one’s identity, culture and language recognised are very important too. But if we can’t fix the fundamentals nothing else can progress.

Survey after survey tells us the majority of citizens in Northern Ireland want to live in a more pluralist, diverse, normal and tolerant society. Unfortunately this silent majority forget to articulate those aspirations to their politicians when it comes to voting. Most stay at home and don’t vote which is about as useful as waiting for the tooth fairy at eighteen.

With this entire obsession with youth culture these days one would think that our young people would rise in a wave of righteous anger against increasing polarisation and sectarianism but no they don’t, they ignore it, or vote for it.

It looks increasingly likely that elections for the assembly and/or Westminster may be on the cards in 2018. If we keep making the same political choices, then we too make Northern Ireland fail.