THE Irish Communist Party/Páirtí Cumannach Eireann welcomes the publication of the Northern Executive’s Programme for government earlier this month – the first such programme in ten years.
But while the publication of the Programme is to be welcomed, it has fundamental weaknesses. It is strong on aspiration but weak on the details of how the objectives are to be reached or measured.
The Programme calls for the building of 5,000 new social homes, and tackling hospital waiting lists by treating an extra 70,000 patients by 2027.
These are worthy objectives, but the Programme doesn’t spell out how they are to be achieved.
The core of the problem, of course, is that the Executive is starved of the funds needed to tackle the growing problems in health, housing, education and training in the North, with Westminster holding a tight grip on the purse strings.
So, Westminster has money for buying weapons of war to send to Ukraine to keep the conflict going, but can’t provide the resources to tackle poverty or to provide decent facilities for the people of Northern Ireland. Winter fuel payments are abolished to make room for military projects.
The £5 billion cuts to social security and a decision to slash the aid budget to fund increased military spending will hit the community in Northern Ireland. Both the disabled and their carers will be affected. At the time of writing the budget has not yet been announced but the pre– budget proposals give some idea what to expect.
Nor, despite the publication of the Programme, is there evidence of a genuine working together of the two main parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP. Instead of working together, they prefer to spar together.
The Good Friday agreement envisioned an institution where representatives of the entire community would work for the common good, but this has not happened and Stormont is stuck in a rut of powerlessness. No wonder people in both communities are losing faith in the institutions.
The DUP is reluctant to challenge anything coming from Westminster, afraid that such might ‘undermine the Union’, while Sinn Féin is not too bothered by Northern Ireland being unable to solve the social and economic problems of the people, believing that strengthens the case for a United Ireland.
The Irish Communist Party believes that a United Ireland is the best context in which the sectarian differences of the past can be set aside and in which the working people can exercise power. But the United Ireland we want is one which unites the people to fight for better standards than those which apply presently.
Sadly, the potential of the Stormont institutions, to bring the people together and to improve our social and economic situation, is not being realised in the sterile standing still of the Executive. Working people, Catholic, Protestant and those of no religion, are the ones who suffer from this inertia, from the inability of Stormont to deal with the problems we face.
It is long past time that the working people demanded better: A Programme for Government with clear targets and paths of implementation, along with a commitment for a joint fight to win more much needed finance for the North.
Trade unionists, community activists, and political campaigners from both communities need to raise our voice together and demand action not words.
The Irish Communist Party/Páirtí Cumannach Éireann will not be found wanting in the struggle for real action.