Opinion

Newton Emerson: Stormont needs more ministers to solve the endless credit and blame game

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.

The need for a united front on Covid has papered over the cracks but they are still there
The need for a united front on Covid has papered over the cracks but they are still there The need for a united front on Covid has papered over the cracks but they are still there

To function better, Stormont needs more ministers - perhaps as many as 35 more.

Far from being an outlandish suggestion, this is the standard approach to its central problem.

A perfect example of that problem is the Sinn Féin and DUP “game of ping pong” - as Sinn Féin recently described it - over Covid support for the taxi, coach and haulage industries.

Transport falls under SDLP infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon.

To deliver emergency support she needs powers from the DUP-controlled Department for the Economy, funds from the Sinn Féin-controlled Department of Finance, plus approval from the Sinn Féin and DUP-controlled Executive Office.

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The two main parties were pleased to report this week they will transfer the money and powers. However, the same was reported in mid-September, after Sinn Féin and the DUP had already stalled for two months. Then they tried to ambush Mallon in the assembly by accusing her, somehow, of causing the delay.

This is when Sinn Féin made the “ping pong” remark, referring to an alleged passing of the ball between the SDLP and the DUP. In reality, it is a neck-twisting tournament of DUP and Sinn Féin doubles on one side versus SDLP singles on the other, with the doubles partners also trying to score points off each other.

Taxi, coach and lorry drivers have been left waiting for four months while Sinn Féin and the DUP haggle over how best to get the credit while landing Mallon with the blame.

The taxi industry seems to occupy a special place in our political landscape but the credit and blame game is a general feature at Stormont, affecting all decisions and parties. The welfare reform crisis from 2012 was arguably the most damaging example. Sinn Féin eventually accepted reform and secured an excellent mitigation package with the DUP, yet it still faced SDLP jeering from the sidelines - to which it was absurdly sensitive. The division of responsibilities between departments encouraged parties in the same executive to point fingers at each other: the SDLP controlled the administration of benefits, while the first ministers decided policy.

Welfare reform paralysed government for three years and brought devolution to the brink of collapse. Stormont was barely back before it was down for another three years. Since then, the need for a united front on Covid has papered over the cracks but they are still there, as the transport story shows.

Although executive reform is an important part of January’s New Decade, New Approach deal, RHI has put the focus on transparency and accountability - an end to deal-making behind closed doors. Revealingly, a basic ability to reach deals is no longer considered a problem.

Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson Newton Emerson

Sharing credit and blame has never been viewed as one of Stormont’s fundamental design flaws. The issue has been obliquely considered in terms of ministerial ‘solo runs’, supposedly addressed by St Andrews through a requirement for more collective responsibility. This attempt to spread blame and credit evenly does not work, as events have shown.

In July, Arlene Foster faced an unprecedented DUP revolt for agreeing with Sinn Féin - behind closed doors - to reduce collective decision-making. In a five-party executive, it seems the big two want enhanced scope to distinguish themselves.

There is a tendency to see all this as a hopeless consequence of mandatory coalition, as required by the design flaws of Northern Ireland itself.

However, the credit and blame problem is common to all coalition systems and they almost all address it the same way: by having senior and junior ministers from different parties in every department. We need hardly look far for an illustration. The Republic’s new three-party government has a record-breaking 20 junior ministers.

Stormont hints at this concept with its all-party assembly scrutiny committees but they only offer oversight - or to put it bluntly, blame.

For credit, all parties must have a stake within departments. It might not be necessary for every minister to have four juniors - one or two might suffice. At the very least, every party should have a junior minister in the Executive Office, rather than the DUP and Sinn Féin junior ministers there now.

This does not have to be unworkable: Switzerland, with seven first ministers, has had stable all-party coalition for 172 years. Nor need it be expensive: junior ministers are paid £6,000 per year more than MLAs.

You could get two for the price of one Covid wind turbine payment.

They might have got payments to taxi drivers as promptly.