As we prepare to mark one year since the Stormont institutions were reestablished in a few week's time, looking back on the progress made by the Executive in the year since its resumption, it is clear to see the impact the lack of devolved government has had on Northern Ireland.
While we should be approaching three years into a five-year mandate, we are instead looking at a backlog of legislation and public services which are suffering as a result.
Only last week we were reporting on ambulances being forced to queue outside hospital emergency departments with the public asked to consider alternatives before calling 999.
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While this is not a unique issue to Northern Ireland, with the Welsh Ambulance Service declaring a critical incident days later as more than half of their ambulances were waiting to hand over patients outside hospitals, it does point to not only a failure in winter planning but when taken in the context of wider issues within the healthcare system, it demonstrates the need for urgent reform which could have been implemented years ago had the Assembly not collapsed.
The 2016 Bengoa Report has still to be implemented almost a decade later and while one of Mike Nesbitt’s first actions as Health Minister was to invite Prof. Bengoa back to Northern Ireland to reboot the reform agenda, it cannot be done without significant investment and with Ministers being asked to tighten their purse strings, it is unclear if the money needed will ever be found.
Health service reform is just one of the many issues on a growing list to be tackled by the Executive, indeed back in June the First and deputy First Ministers published an ambitious list of 20 proposed pieces of legislation that were to be introduced to the Assembly in 2024. Of those 20 pieces od legislation, only seven have been introduced to date.
To put this into perspective, during the whole of last year the Scottish Government introduced 15 piece of legislation and the Welsh Assembly introduced just six. Stormont’s unrealistic legislative ambitions risk sacrificing scrutiny and quality for quantity.
In the two years between now and the next Assembly election, the Executive have no hope of solving all the problems that we face and with a limited budget and resources, the onus is on Ministers to focus on delivering fewer things to a better quality which they themselves acknowledged in the draft Programme for Government.
One area where the Executive could focus their attention on is the duplication of services as a result of the conflict which is costing hundreds of millions of pounds each year. An example of this comes from a 2023 report from Ulster University which found that the duplication of services within our segregated education system is costing around £600,000 per day. If that money were to be freed up, it could allow other departments to focus on delivering more of their objectives.
If one this is for certain, Northern Ireland cannot afford another year of missed opportunities and half-measures. This year, the Executive must rise to the challenge, abandon any empty promises and focus on real, tangible reforms.
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