Opinion

Patrick Murphy: Waving flags will not sort out waiting lists

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

New DUP leader, Edwin Poots. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.
New DUP leader, Edwin Poots. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire. New DUP leader, Edwin Poots. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.

When Edwin Poots appoints his new DUP ministers will it make any difference to our hospital waiting lists? If Sinn Féin becomes Stormont’s largest party will child poverty levels fall? If Stormont collapses, will it matter?

Sadly, the answer to all three questions is “No”. The reason is simple: what happens in Stormont and what passes for politics here, have little relevance to the real world.

Allowing hospital waiting lists to spiral out of control is just one example of the disconnect between politics and people, which has resulted in government by neglect.

It results from that obsessive compulsive disorder which drives politicians here consistently towards constitutional issues. It is a comfortable position for them. They merely have to engage in a sham fight with the other side and wave flags to disguise their responsibility for huge inequalities in health, education, housing, welfare and disposable income.

For example, Edwin Poots says his job is to defend the union. (No, Edwin, your job is to meet the social and economic needs of all the people here.) Ian Paisley has prioritised “engagement with the loyalist community” on constitutional issues, without acknowledging the social and economic deprivation which many of them endure. (Where are the loyalist protests against poverty?)

Meanwhile in the real world, 335,000 people wait for a first outpatient appointment. Because waiting lists are already full, GPs can’t refer patients, so they may have to wait for up to seven years for treatment.

And what do they ask politicians and commentators on television: “What’s the future for the DUP?” (The answer is that it hardly matters.)

Political unionism took another opportunity to hide from reality this week by welcoming the British government’s Disney-style creation of Royal Hillsborough. This is part of a tradition of adding a royal prefix to the names of places visited by royals, those last remnants of medieval inequality and superstition. (Will the recent visit by Prince Charles to Slieve Gullion mean that we can soon expect Royal South Armagh?)

Stormont’s neglect of its people is concealed on the nationalist side by the drive for a united Ireland.

In competing with SF’s “conversation” for Irish unity, the SDLP established a New Ireland Commission, claiming they are “rolling up our sleeves…to have the difficult conversations” about constitutional issues.

Neither party advocates a conversation about poverty, even though in the past year, one charity alone distributed emergency food parcels here to 79,000 people, including 31,000 children.

Perhaps nationalist politicians believe that hunger can only be relieved by constitutional change, a conclusion based on what de Valera argued in 1918. He said that Labour (meaning the welfare and living conditions of ordinary people) must wait, until the (all-Ireland) Republic was achieved. We are still waiting.

Speaking in Coalisland, he emphasised that “freedom” must come first. The nationalist politician, Joe Devlin, (who would probably be closest to the SDLP today) argued at Mooretown, near Ardboe in March 1918 that “Labour cannot wait”.

On April 1, this newspaper published a poem supporting Devlin. Its last two lines were: “The social struggle cannot now abate/Labour is winning - Labour will not wait.”

Last week Mid-Ulster Council, which includes Ardboe and Coalisland, set about consulting local businesses about a united Ireland, claiming, “The discussion about constitutional change is now well under way”. (Never mind your hip replacement, close your eyes and think of Ireland.)

In 1918 there was a debate about prioritising the living conditions of ordinary people while seeking an Irish republic. A century later there is no debate. Today, in a Stormont designed in that direction, constitutional issues and their sectarian politics takes priority over people.

That is why we have criminally long hospital waiting lists, hungry and homeless families and growing poverty, especially in hardline loyalist and republican areas.

But when we achieve a united Ireland, or a more secure union with Britain, everything will be fine. Flags will cure all our illnesses. So how should we tackle the hospital waiting lists? Put out more flags.