Official Report: Monday 12 October 2026

Mr Speaker: The Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Act (Northern Ireland) 2026 became law on 7 October 2026. It is chapter 8.

Mr Speaker: The Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Act (Northern Ireland) 2026 became law on 7 October 2026. It is chapter 9.

Mr O'Dowd: I welcome the Secretary of State's statement on late Friday evening, which banned the Orange Order procession from the Garvaghy Road. This is not about a victory over one side of the community or the other. It is not about one-upmanship by anyone. It is about lifting a huge amount of pressure off the Garvaghy Road community and allowing that community to breathe. I acknowledge and welcome the way in which the statement was greeted by the Garvaghy Road community with dignity and respect. That is how the residents have carried themselves over the past weeks and, indeed, perhaps even longer, considering how long the issue had been going on before the most recent episode of the debacle.

There are opportunities in Portadown for communities to continue to engage with each other, grow with each other and learn from each other, and I have no doubt that there is a will across many sections of society in Portadown for that to continue. They should be given space to do so. I urge politicians to mind their words and to understand that words have consequences. I refer particularly to the use of language such as "using all tools in our armoury". When someone associates themselves, as the MP for the area has, with Mr Bryson, who is an associate of loyalist terror gangs or of individuals in those gangs, the word "armoury" has a menacing undertone. My colleague Councillor Paul Duffy arrived at his workplace this morning to find graffiti threatening his life and warning him to stay away. Words have consequences, and Councillor Duffy saw those consequences this morning. Again, I say this: allow the people of Portadown to continue the good work that they were involved in; allow them to engage with each other; and allow them the space to get on with their lives.

Mr Clarke: I will bring us back from the parallel universe that we have just heard about.

Police officers are expected to exercise their duties without fear or favour, and the same should apply to the Chief Constable. Clearly, however, on this occasion, he has disregarded that. The Chief Constable has questions to answer. What did Jon Boutcher mean when he said that policing the commission's lawful determination would have had "catastrophic long-term consequences"? Where were those consequences coming from? Where were the threats coming from? Jon Boutcher has been less than clear on that.

He also needs to spell out exactly what evidence he used for his assessment and what contact he had with senior politicians from different political parties. For my part, my party leader and I met the Chief Constable. We did not threaten the Chief Constable or insinuate that there were any consequences for anything in Northern Ireland; we just sought answers from the Chief Constable on how he was going to police the legal determination and the lawful right of the Portadown district. What did he mean by that, what representation was made by political parties, and, of course, what threats were made? What were those potential threats? From whom did they come? What intelligence was there? The spokesperson for the Garvaghy Road residents said that he had confiscated some petrol bombs and would confiscate more. Did he get them all? Were there weapons on the Garvaghy Road? How serious were those consequences for the Chief Constable to come to the determination that he did?

Of course, we can draw a parallel between another part of his statement and the situation faced by the two officers on the Ormeau Road who acted without fear or favour. The then Chief Constable threw them under the bus because of the actions and threats of Sinn Féin, only for us to find out in the courts that he had indulged himself in the political arena. It is clear that, on this occasion, the current Chief Constable has done the same. He has talked about these institutions, but, with respect to him and all his colleagues, these institutions are not part of his role in the determination. His role in the determination was about getting that lawful parade down the road. The consequences or otherwise for this place are none of his business, but he needs to tell us who was threatening these institutions. I am very clear: my party leader and our delegation made no such threats to the Chief Constable.

Ms Egan: Today, I will speak about the protest that I attended on Friday against Translink cuts, which was organised by students and trade unions. People across Northern Ireland have been stunned by Translink's recent proposals to cut services during the week; raise standard train and bus fares that are usually considered off-peak; and slash the young people yLink discount from 50% to 33%.

Public transport is not a luxury; it is a lifeline for many, taking them to school, jobs, family and friends. The Department for Infrastructure already does not adequately prioritise public transport. It can and should be improved, not cut. The cuts will disproportionately impact on young people, people who work shifts and those in rural communities. People build their lives around public transport, including where it goes and what it costs. They decide what jobs they can take and what plans they can make on that basis.

The proposals have caused a ripple of concern across my constituency of North Down at a time when the cost of living is exponentially on the rise. I have heard from many constituents who use the Bangor to Belfast train line for work on weeknights, whether that is in hospitality or healthcare, about how this will directly impact on the shifts that they can take and the money that they can bring into their household. Constituents in areas such as Groomsport, Millisle and Donaghadee have been in touch to ask why the proposals penalise those who enjoy living in the more rural parts of the constituency and rely on bus connections to Ards or Bangor.

Many young people and students have been in touch to highlight their concerns. My Alliance Party colleagues and I were proud to stand with them last Friday outside Grand Central station in Belfast to protest against the proposals.

The building of a greener and more sustainable society relies on significant investment in public transport infrastructure, but the proposals take us in entirely the wrong direction. I wrote to the Minister for Infrastructure over a month ago to ask what steps she is taking to intervene in the looming crisis and what steps she has taken to support Translink and find more funds for public transport in Northern Ireland. The cuts to services and increases in fares will hold back our economy, our healthcare system and our education system. They will hold back our communities from reaching their fullest potential. I was proud, on Friday, to stand against those cuts.

Ms D Armstrong: The Agriculture Minister sat down for an in-depth interview with the 'Belfast Telegraph' last week. I want to put a few things from that interview on record. He talked about death threats and an assault: such things are wrong, and I condemn them unreservedly. However, it is the substance of that interview that I want to deal with.

The Minister should read his Department's figures. He said that 90% of farmers were doing the right thing and that:

Those are his words, not mine. A few minutes later in the interview, he said that, if people keep opposing him, we will have to look at the size of the herd in Northern Ireland, naming dairy. Which is it? If the problem is 7% of farmers, why is the warning being pointed at everybody's stock? Saying, "Work with me, or we will cut your herd" is not working in partnership with industry, and it is not the 7% who will feel the result of that. I ask the Minister's party this straight question: is degrowth now Alliance Party policy for agriculture? The Minister has ruled out a buyout scheme, and I take him at his word on that. A buyout scheme is not needed, however, when it can be done slowly through enough small decisions, cut by cut, until a family farm can see no way forward and the next generation does not take the farm on.

On the subject of the nutrients action programme, farmers want clean water — I am yet to meet one who does not — but will not accept being pointed at as though it is their problem alone. The Minister's figures show that it is not. Work with them, Minister, and you will get somewhere; back them into a corner, and you will not.

The Minister is right that about 90% of farmers are doing the right thing, so where is the support for those people? In 2025, the Department offered not £1 — not one — in farm capital investment. Farmers being left alone by the Department is not the same as being backed by it. There is a bigger point that the Minister needs to hold on to: food production matters to this country. Taking acres out of production here will not mean that the world eats less; it will mean that it will be grown by somebody else somewhere that has none of the standards that we impose on our farmers. There is no victory in clearing our conscience by importing beef that has been produced off the back of a cleared rainforest.

My father held the Agriculture office at a time when a Minister of Agriculture understood that he was there to back the industry. This Minister talks about farming as a set of problems to be managed: it is not. It involves thousands of families, and it is what holds rural Northern Ireland together.

Ms McLaughlin: I pay tribute to Michael Canavan, who has sadly passed away at the remarkable age of 102. He was an extraordinary gentleman, and I held him in high regard. Michael was a giant in Derry's civil rights movement and a founding member of the SDLP who dedicated his life to standing up for his city and its people.

It is difficult to do justice in just a few minutes to everything that Michael achieved. He was on Duke Street on 5 October 1968, when peaceful civil rights protesters were met with violence. He witnessed at first hand the discrimination and injustice that so many people in Derry faced. He served as the secretary of the Derry Citizens’ Action Committee, was involved the Derry Citizens' Defence Association during the battle of the Bogside and was chair of the central committee at the time of Bloody Sunday. Michael refused to stand by when he saw injustice. He believed that everyone deserved to be treated with dignity, fairness and respect, and he was prepared to stand up and demand it.

Michael's contribution to Derry went far beyond the civil rights movement. He was John Hume's election agent in 1969, helped to establish the SDLP and was elected to the Assembly in 1973.

He was also involved in establishing Derry Credit Union, an organisation that continues to make a real difference to people across our city.

One of the causes closest to Michael's heart was the campaign for a university in Derry. He was part of the University for Derry Committee. In 1965, when the decision was made to locate the new university in Coleraine, he refused to accept that Derry should simply be left behind. At a time when our city was losing rail connections and economic opportunities, Michael was writing to industrialists across the world, encouraging them to invest in Derry and the north-west. That tells us everything that we need to know about what kind of man he was. He was not prepared to accept that Derry should settle for less, and he certainly was not prepared to give up on its future. Sixty years later, Michael was still campaigning for greater investment in our city and in the university, which generations of people had fought to secure. I had many lively conversations with Michael on a range of economic issues, and I always came away feeling much richer for them.

As someone who continues to campaign for regional balance and fair investment in the north-west, I feel that there is an enormous amount that we can learn from Michael's determination. He understood that Derry deserved the same opportunities as everywhere else — not special treatment but equal treatment — and that achieving that fairness required people who were prepared to keep making the case, even when others refused to listen.

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up.

Ms McLaughlin: Our city is a better place because of Michael's —

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is very much up.

Ms McLaughlin: — courage, determination and lifelong commitment to the city.

Miss Brogan: I am pleased to welcome the Court of Appeal's ruling last Tuesday to allow the A5 road upgrade to progress. It was a hugely significant day for the people of West Tyrone, who have waited far too long for that road to be upgraded and made safe. In the Chamber, I have said time and time again that the most important reason for upgrading the road is that doing so will save lives. More than 50 people have been killed on the A5 in the past 20 years, and countless families and communities have been left devastated by those losses and severe injuries caused by accidents on that road.

On Tuesday, it was very emotional at the courts when the news filtered through that the A5 upgrade had been given the green light. There were families there who had lost sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. There were people there who had lost school friends. Although there was obvious joy that the road upgrade had been given the green light, there was also a sense of sadness at the fact that people had to suffer the worst losses in order for us to get to this point. I take the opportunity to thank and pay tribute to those families for the incredible dignity, strength and patience that they displayed during what was a long process. It is a testament to their sense of community and humanity that, having endured the most tragic losses, they dedicated themselves to ensuring that nobody else has to.

I also thank the Minister for Infrastructure, Liz Kimmins, the previous Minister for Infrastructure, John O'Dowd, and officials in the Department for Infrastructure for all their hard work and determination to progress the A5 project. Despite the many obstacles put in their path, they remained steadfast in their commitment to delivering the A5. John and Liz understood the suffering that families had experienced and felt a responsibility to do all that they could to deliver the project.

The A5 upgrade also offers West Tyrone and the wider north-west of Ireland an enormous economic boost. The construction of the road will bring significant investment to the area by creating many jobs and much work for people locally. It will also provide a boost for local businesses and the local economy. Additionally, by reducing travel time to and from Dublin, the A5 will open up the north-west to more investment, increased trade, faster commuting, more tourism, the promotion of job creation and regional balance. It represents a £1·6 billion investment in a part of the country that has suffered from historical underinvestment and a lack of critical infrastructure. It is important that we come together now to deliver the A5 at pace.

Mrs Erskine: Last week, the Infrastructure Minister, Liz Kimmins, told the Assembly that landowners would know in a matter of days when their land would be re-vested, who would own it and who would have access to it. We are approaching a week from that statement, and landowners are still waiting for answers. The way in which they have been treated throughout the process has been nothing short of disgraceful. They have endured years of uncertainty and disruption to their land and farming businesses. They have had to reclaim their land, carry out work to restore it and try to get their businesses back on track, only to be faced with the prospect of having to hand back the land to the Department once again.

What are they told about compensation? They are told that compensation will be based on 2024 land market values. Let us put that into perspective. Imagine that the Department was trying to buy your house in 2024 and you were told to put things on hold and wait until the Department came back to you. Two years later, in 2026, the Department returns to complete the purchase. You know that your house has increased in value and that you could achieve a better price on the open market. Would you accept an offer based on 2024 prices? Of course you would question it, yet that is the prospect facing approximately 400 landowners along the A5 route. Why should they be expected to accept a valuation that may not reflect the current market, particularly after years of uncertainty and disruption?

Let me be clear: I recognise the importance of the A5. Improved connectivity in the west is vital, and the road has the potential to bring real benefits to our communities and our economy. We need to deliver major road projects in Northern Ireland, but supporting the A5 does not mean accepting that landowners should be treated unfairly. The farmers and families whose land, livelihoods and businesses are directly affected deserve to be treated as partners in the project, not as an afterthought.

Last Tuesday evening, Minister Kimmins attended a meeting at Tyrone GAA, where the decision to proceed was welcomed. It will be a safer route, and I understand the news being welcomed. However, I have to ask this: why was the Minister not sitting down on Tuesday night with landowners, working through their concerns and helping them to understand the next steps? That should have been a priority. Landowners need clarity on investment. They need ownership, and they need understanding. We can build the A5 and still treat people fairly. We can deliver progress without leaving families to carry the burden of uncertainty. Landowners deserve answers, fair compensation and respect, which should come with any —

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up.

Mrs Erskine: — major public infrastructure project.

Mr Speaker: I call Danny Donnelly.

Mrs Erskine: The Minister needs to provide clarity now.

Mr Donnelly: How many times must we hear about another scandal in the health service, and of how it has failed patients, before we take meaningful action? The urology services inquiry cost over £9 million. It found failures in leadership, governance and oversight that allowed patients to suffer serious harm. People waited for diagnosis and treatment, including cancer care, while the systems that were meant to protect them failed. The chair of the inquiry, Christine Smith KC, said that the findings were rooted in the experiences of patients and families who had been let down by the system. While one clinician was the catalyst for the inquiry, the report made clear that failings were deep-rooted across the trust.

That is just another scandal in a long line of failures. The Muckamore inquiry exposed systemic staff bullying, physical abuse and severe neglect of vulnerable adults. That crisis triggered the UK's largest police investigation into adult safeguarding and led to numerous arrests and suspensions. The neurology inquiry examined the recall of over 5,000 neurology patients linked to consultant Michael Watt and the failures by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust over a decade. The Southern Health and Social Care Trust cervical screening review was a major review that forced health authorities to recheck smear tests for 17,500 women, dating back to 2008. Campaigners and affected families have so far been denied a full statutory inquiry into how the screening errors occurred and whether other trusts were impacted on.

There is also the infected blood inquiry. Northern Ireland victims have been heavily impacted on by the UK-wide infected blood scandal, where thousands were treated with contaminated blood products. The public inquiry condemned successive Governments and health bodies for systemic cover-ups and ignoring safety warnings. The Dunmurry Manor care home investigation, carried out by the Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland, uncovered severe failures in the standards of care, safety and regulation for dementia patients.

Each of those cases has massively impacted on the lives of the victims and their families, some of whom have lost loved ones. Each of the cases deserves attention in its own right. Together, they leave us with this question, which another apology cannot answer: who is responsible for ensuring that this changes?

We have only a short time left in the mandate, but we need the robust duty-of-candour legislation that Justice O'Hara recommended in 2018. Families have waited long enough.

Ms Sheerin: We have heard some awful, hurtful and hateful rhetoric in recent weeks. I condemn all of that, and I condemn any abuse levelled at any politician or person regardless of their background or persuasion. With that in mind, I want to speak specifically this afternoon about comments made over the weekend by the North Antrim MP and leader of the TUV, Jim Allister, when he said that, a fortnight ago, the Garvaghy Road should have been "sanitised"; "sanitised" is the word that he used. I urge everyone to think about what that means. The implication, of course, is that the people of the Garvaghy Road are dirty. That is a strategy and a mindset that was employed by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Fascist leaders in Europe in the 1940s used that same strategy. When you consider a people or a community to be subhuman or dirty, you have licence to abuse them. That strategy was employed by the British when they colonised India and when they colonised Ireland. That allowed for the genocide that occurred here and for the denial of rights to nationalists in the North. Ultimately, it allowed for nationalists to be beaten off the streets, targeted and murdered by the state.

What Jim has done is to say the quiet part out loud. He thinks that the people of the Garvaghy Road should have been beaten off the streets by the PSNI. He thinks that the Orange state should still own the police, just as the RUC were owned and encouraged to drag people off the streets and beat them over the head with batons in days gone by. He wants us to go back to 1969, when the former leader and founding member of the DUP, Ian Paisley, told us that Catholics multiplied like vermin. I have a message for Jim Allister: the people of the Garvaghy Road are some of the proudest, most resilient and kindest people that I have ever had the privilege to know and stand alongside. The nationalist people of the North are not vermin. We are not dirty. We are not subhuman. We will not be dragged back. We know our rights, and we are not going to be beaten off the streets as in the days of yore. We are not going back: not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Sin é.

Ms Bunting: I rise to acknowledge the historic four-day visit of the Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to Belfast. Seeing that truly magnificent vessel, which is a titan of British engineering, standing proud against the Belfast skyline was phenomenal, as was borne out by the many — my husband included — who parked their cars along our roads and walked a considerable distance to take photographs of the massive super-carrier on that historic occasion.

It was not just a routine port visit, however. It was a truly historic milestone for our capital city and, indeed, for Northern Ireland. It has been 61 long years since a Royal Navy aircraft carrier last graced the waters of Belfast harbour. HMS Centaur arrived here in 1965, when most of us were not even born. Northern Ireland has waited for over six decades, and what a sight it was. I was privileged to be invited to tour the ship by Brigadier Andrew Muddiman and to enjoy lunch aboard, but I was hugely disappointed — honestly, I was gutted — not to be able to avail myself of that kind invitation, especially having previously toured the historic USS Midway. I record my sincere thanks to Brigadier Muddiman and his team and to wish them well as they leave our shores today.

Belfast — East Belfast in particular — has deep and unbreakable generational naval and maritime roots. We are the city that built the Titanic and whose world-famous shipyard built 140 warships during the Second World War. We are a city built on engineering brilliance, heavy industry and maritime heritage. The presence of that tremendous carrier should serve as a reminder of who we are and what our people can achieve when afforded the opportunity. It is so great to see our shipyard doing well again. The visit should also inspire us not simply to rely on past glories but rather to keep striving to ensure that Northern Ireland always punches well above its weight and lives up to its potential.

As the flagship of the Royal Navy and a vital command platform for NATO, HMS Queen Elizabeth represents the very best of British resolve, strength and security in an increasingly volatile world. Further, having her here reminds us of our enduring place within the United Kingdom and the security that the Royal Navy provides to these British Isles. It is as well that we are not relying on the Republic.

To Brigadier Muddiman, his officers and every member of the almost 800 crew, we hope that you were able to experience something of the legendary warmth and hospitality of the people of Northern Ireland during your stay. Belfast harbour, and the people of East Belfast and beyond, are proud to have had you here. We thank you for your service, we thank you for bringing that magnificent ship to our shores, and we wish you every success in your endeavours as you strive to keep us safe.

Mr Speaker: Mr McReynolds, you have two minutes.

Mr McReynolds: Thank you, Mr Speaker. As chair of the all-party group on neurology, and as someone who is living with multiple sclerosis, I rise to again highlight the issues facing those living with a neurological condition in Northern Ireland. Just last month, I stood on the steps of Stormont alongside the Northern Ireland Neurological Charities Alliance (niNCA) as it launched its report, 'Left Behind: The Price of Inaction on Neurology Reform'. The report spells out the economic impact of neurological conditions, how failing to invest costs more than investing, and the current crisis in neurology services. The Health Minister stood with us that day for photos, so you can imagine my interest when a written ministerial statement on the regional review of neurology services arrived in my inbox last week. As I read it, I was reminded of the £65·4 million needed to transform services for people here, but that interest turned to surprise when I saw him advise that he cannot commit to the level of funding required to fully deliver against the review's recommendations. Instead, we have £11·5 million over the next five years, not £65 million. That is less than 20% of what is required.

Neurology has the longest waiting times of any speciality in Northern Ireland, with 28,188 people waiting for a first neurology appointment and some waiting for more than seven years. The sector has long called for action and is deeply concerned that it is being overlooked. As highlighted by niNCA, urgent investment is needed across every aspect of neurology, including consultant capacity, specialist nursing and allied health professionals — I could go on. It welcomes the fact that some money is coming but stresses that what is proposed is simply not enough to fully transform services and the lives of those living with a neurological condition. Moreover, the neurology delivery team must have the leadership, accountability and authority to drive real change and take bold decisions, which we did not see from its predecessor.

As chair of the all-party group on neurology, I will continue to champion getting more money and intervention to support those living with neurological conditions across Northern Ireland. The issues are complex, but that does not mean that they should not be taken seriously and addressed.

Mr Speaker: Mr Colin McGrath has sought leave to present a public petition in accordance with Standing Order 22. The Member will have up to three minutes to speak.

Mr McGrath: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to present this petition on behalf of the people of Kilclief, particularly the children, parents, staff and wider school community of St Malachy's Primary School who are fighting to protect the future of their school. For generations, St Malachy's has been at the heart of Kilclief. It is a place where children have learned, friendships have been formed and generations of families have passed through the doors, but today that future is under threat.

We need to remember something important when we talk about closing rural schools. When a school in a small rural community is closed, it is not simply a building that is closed. A major piece of that community's heart is taken away, and once that is gone, it is very difficult to get back. I acknowledge the excellent schools throughout the wider Lecale area. We are fortunate to have dedicated teachers, staff and governors working tirelessly to provide the very best education for our children. We are blessed with fantastic schools in St Joseph's Primary School, Strangford; St Mary's Primary School, Dunsford; St Patrick's Primary School, Saul; St Patrick's Primary School, Legamaddy; and St Nicholas' Primary School, Ardglass, to name but a few neighbouring parish schools. One of the most disappointing aspects of the Department of Education's approach to school closures is the way that it pitches neighbouring schools and communities against one another, leaving them competing for survival. I reject that approach. Every school has its own identity, its own contribution to make, and its own place in the community that it serves, and we should not have to argue for the survival of one school at the expense of another.

Of course, I recognise the financial pressures facing the Department, and nobody can ignore those realities.

Surely, however, with all the expertise and resources available to the Department, we can find more imaginative solutions than simply closing schools. The option that is cheapest on paper is not always the best one for our children and our communities. I am increasingly concerned that rural communities, particularly across South Down, are being asked to bear the consequences of such decisions.

The children of Kilclief deserve access to local education; their families deserve to have their voices heard; and their community deserves a future in which its school continues to play a part. Today, I and the 5,000 people who have signed the petition ask the Minister to listen to those voices, to properly explore the alternatives and to reconsider the proposed closure of St Malachy's. Once we lose such vital community institutions, we may never get them back. The people of Kilclief deserve better than that.

Mr Speaker: I will forward the petition to the Minister of Education and send a copy to the Committee.

I ask Members to take their ease while we change the Table.

Mr Clarke: I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Before we proceed to the Question, I remind Members that the motion requires cross-community support.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Members will have a copy of the Marshalled List of amendments detailing the order for consideration. The amendments have been grouped for debate in the provisional grouping of amendments selected list. There is a single group of 15 amendments that deal with temporary water use bans, regulation and commencement.

I remind Members who intend to speak that, during the debate on the group of amendments, they should address all the amendments on which they wish to comment. Once the debate has been completed, any further amendments in the group will be moved formally as we go through the Bill and the Question on each will be put without further debate. The Questions on stand part will be taken at the appropriate points in the Bill. If that is clear — I think that it is — we shall proceed.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): We now come to the single group of 15 amendments. Members may wish to note that amendment Nos 3 to 7 are paving amendments for amendment No 9, amendment Nos 10 and 11 are consequential to amendment No 9 and amendment No 11 is a paving amendment for amendment No 13.

Ms Kimmins (The Minister for Infrastructure): I beg to move amendment No 1:

Ms Kimmins: There are 15 amendments that, I believe, strengthen and clarify the Bill. The amendments reflect the detailed work carried out by the Committee for Infrastructure, the Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC), the Examiner of Statutory Rules and officials in my Department. I thank all who were involved in the process for their efforts.

I am extremely grateful for the support shown for the Bill. In particular, I thank the Committee for Infrastructure, including former Chairperson Peter Martin, for its positive engagement and thorough scrutiny of the Bill. During Committee Stage, the Committee engaged positively with officials, and, as a result, I tabled amendments to address any concerns that it had raised. I am pleased that the Committee has agreed to support the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill, subject to my proposed amendments.

Amendment Nos 1 and 2 widen the potential means of advertising a temporary use ban in clause 1. Clause 1 updates the list of activities that can be subject to a temporary use ban under article 116 of the Water and Sewerage Services (NI) Order 2006. The Committee asked whether clause 1 could be amended to include the use of social media in the advertising requirements for a temporary use ban in addition to giving notice in at least two newspapers circulating in the area and on the undertaker's website.

However, such exact wording would present a problem in how social media could be legally defined. Therefore, a slightly different terminology has been used to widen the scope of the advertising requirements to achieve the same result.

Amendment Nos 1 and 2 to clause 1 will enable a water undertaker to give notice of the commencement or revocation of a temporary use ban

That will give greater flexibility than specifying social media in the legislation, although social media will also be covered by the wording. The amendments provide for more widespread public awareness of any potential temporary use ban and, in all likelihood, greater compliance.

Amendment Nos 3 to 9 amend clause 2 and better define the scope of the future processes for the approval of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). Through the amendments, I have clarified that the approvers for sustainable drainage proposals will be either my Department or NI Water as the sewerage undertaker. An amendment has been drafted that will provide for the appointment of a body to carry out the approval role rather than a person. The body, which, as I have stated, will be either my Department or the sewerage undertaker, may act as approver and may also provide advice or guidance. As a result of that amendment, there are consequential amendments. For example, the references to "person" in clause 2 will be replaced with "body". The approval body may also provide advice on all things related to sustainable drainage systems for developers, industry etc. The suggested amendments will provide greater clarity and assurance on how SuDS approval will be delivered in the future.

Amendment Nos 10 to 12 will amend clause 3, which provides supplementary detail on matters such as enforcement and penalties in relation to SuDS. Amendment No 10 provides for the use of the term "body", as with the previous amendments, and amendment Nos 11 and 12 provide supplementary powers in respect of fines referred to in new clause 3A and clarification of the Department's role in the provision of guidance.

Amendment No 13 inserts new clause 3A to provide clarification on notices and offences. The definitive offences and penalties with regard to SuDS are given clarity in the Bill by the new clause, which provides for the specific offences and an express cap on penalties that may be imposed under clause 3(3). The amendments also further define the types of notices that may be used as part of the enforcement regime. Those include a temporary stop notice, an enforcement notice, a breach of conditions notice and a stop notice. The new clause also includes examples of some of the offences envisaged and any consequential amendments. The amendments allow for a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale for obstruction of an authorised person who is exercising powers of entry and a maximum fine of £100,000 on summary conviction for the offence of failing to comply with a notice. The Minister of Justice has confirmed that she is content that the proposed criminal offences and penalties are consistent and proportionate and will not have a detrimental impact on the justice system.

Amendment No 14 amends clause 6 to require that regulations made for a homeowner flood protection grant scheme should be subject to the draft affirmative resolution procedure. That will allow for greater Assembly control over any such regulations.

Amendment No 15 amends clause 15 to require my Department to commence clauses 1 to 12 within 12 months of Royal Assent. The Committee had suggested that I consider an amendment to require my Department to lay a report before the Assembly that sets out the reasons for any delay in the commencement of those clauses. However, on reflection, I have concluded that that would be inappropriate and have instead proposed amendments that set definitive timings for commencement.

That concludes my comments on the amendments. I thank Members for their contributions to date and look forward to receiving their support for the amendments.

Mr Stewart (The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Infrastructure): As Deputy Chairperson, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Consideration Stage of the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill on behalf of the Committee. I record the Committee's appreciation of the contributions by former members to its examination of the Bill and the associated provisions and for the diligence, effort and time that they devoted to scrutinising the legislation at Committee Stage. I also thank the Minister for Infrastructure and her departmental officials for their engagement with the Committee throughout the process. In addition, I acknowledge the many organisations, stakeholders and individuals who submitted detailed written evidence, appeared before the Committee to provide oral evidence, hosted Committee visits and otherwise assisted the Committee in its deliberations. Those contributions provided not only much-needed clarity during the Committee's examination of the Bill but a strong evidence base to inform its deliberations on the Bill's provisions.

The Committee's scrutiny of the Bill was thorough and extensive, and I am pleased to set out today the work that it carried out and the conclusions that it reached.

The Bill was introduced on 23 June 2025 and was referred to the Committee after it successfully passed Second Stage in September 2025. The Committee considered the Bill and related issues at 29 meetings, as well as doing pre-legislative scrutiny prior to the Bill's introduction, and Committee Stage concluded in July of this year. While the policy intent of the Bill was broadly supported, the Committee approached its scrutiny with one overarching objective: to determine whether the Bill would deliver in practice the outcomes that the Assembly and the public expect.

To inform its work, the Committee issued a public call for evidence, and it received submissions from a wide range of stakeholders, including other Statutory Committees of the Assembly, councils, environmental organisations, professional bodies, industry representatives and public bodies such as Northern Ireland Water, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA), the Woodland Trust, the Construction Employers Federation (CEF) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). The Committee supplemented that written evidence with oral evidence sessions with key stakeholders and departmental officials. Committee members undertook a site visit to a sustainable drainage scheme in Antrim to see at first hand how such systems operate in practice. In addition, the Committee held an external meeting in Downpatrick that provided an opportunity to hear directly from representatives and communities affected by flooding events.

Throughout Committee Stage, members were assisted by detailed research papers prepared by the Assembly's Research and Information Service (RaISe), and I thank them for that. The papers included a substantive review of the evidence concerning sustainable drainage systems. As would also be expected, the Committee commissioned and considered legal advice from the Examiner of Statutory Rules, together with legal and procedural and advice from Legal Services and the Bill Office.

The evidence received demonstrated broad consensus on the Bill's overall objectives. There was widespread support for the measures aimed at improving water management, enhancing hosepipe bans, reducing flood risk and promoting more sustainable approaches to how we manage surface water in new developments. Support for an objective did not necessarily equate to support for every mechanism in the Bill as introduced. Indeed, while a number of provisions attracted relatively limited criticism, the Committee's scrutiny increasingly focused on three areas: the proposed framework for sustainable drainage systems in clauses 2 and 3; the future operation of the homeowner flood protection grant scheme in clause 6; and the commencement arrangements in clause 15.

Clauses 2 and 3 generated by far the greatest concern. The Committee was fully supportive of the principle of having sustainable drainage systems. Evidence provided to the Committee consistently demonstrated the important contribution that SuDS can make to reducing flood risk, improving water quality, enhancing biodiversity and reducing pressures on ageing drainage infrastructure. No member questioned the value of those objectives. It became increasingly apparent during scrutiny, however, that many of the critical policy decisions underpinning the future SuDS framework had not yet been taken and would instead be determined through regulations at a later date. While recognising the need for a degree of flexibility in an evolving area of policy, the Committee became concerned that the Assembly was being asked to approve a legislative framework without sufficient clarity about how some of its most significant provisions would operate in practice.

Following legal advice, a particular concern arose about the proposed approval body. Clause 2(5) provides for regulation-making powers:

to carry out approval functions in respect of sustainable drainage systems. Members questioned who such a person might be and whether an issue of that significance, potentially involving the creation of a new public body, should be determined through future regulations rather than set out more clearly in the Bill. The Committee spent considerable time examining those issues. Members sought legal advice, engaged repeatedly with departmental officials and challenged the Department on whether greater clarity could be provided in the primary legislation. That was not always straightforward, and while it recognised the need to preserve a degree of flexibility for future policy development, the Committee was resolute that flexibility should not come at the expense of legislative certainty or Assembly oversight.

Clause 3 provides a framework under which the regulations could create offences and penalties relating to the SuDS regime. The Committee was concerned that the clause did not specify a maximum fine for certain offences. Having considered the legal advice and evidence, the Committee took the view that, where the Assembly is granting powers to create criminal offences through secondary legislation, the parameters of those powers should be clearly defined in primary legislation. Again, that became the subject of significant discussion between the Committee and the Department.

The Committee also considered clause 6 in detail. Members welcomed the principle of placing the homeowner flood protection grant scheme on a statutory footing but were keen to ensure that any future scheme would operate under clear regulations subject to Assembly scrutiny. Evidence received from communities affected by flooding reinforced the importance of transparency, consistency and fairness in the operation of any grant programme. Similarly, the Committee devoted considerable attention to the commencement provisions. Members wanted to be confident that, once engaged, the legislation would not simply remain dormant indefinitely. The Committee therefore explored whether stronger commencement arrangements could provide greater certainty regarding the implementation of the Bill's provisions.

By the later stages of the Committee's scrutiny, members had identified a range of areas where amendments could strengthen the Bill. The Committee wrote to the Department seeking draft wording and detailed responses in relation to several clauses and instructed the drafting of potential Committee amendments. While the Department indicated a willingness to address a number of the Committee's concerns, draft amendment text was not available before Committee Stage concluded. Consequently, when the Committee undertook formal clause-by-clause scrutiny, it agreed clauses 1 and 6 on the basis of assurances that departmental amendments would be tabled to give effect to the positions that had been agreed during discussions between the Committee and the Department. The Committee agreed the remaining clauses but reserved its position on clauses 2, 3 and 15, pending sight of the Department's final amendment proposals.

I am pleased to say that the amendments subsequently tabled by the Minister address all the key issues repeatedly highlighted by the Committee during its scrutiny of the Bill. The collegial and productive engagement between the Committee and the Department underlines the importance of Committee scrutiny in developing and improving legislation. It allows for meaningful and necessary changes to help ensure that the legislative aims and safeguards are clearly defined, while retaining sufficient flexibility to support efficient policy development.

The amendments to clause 2 replace "person" with "body" and provide expressly that the function may be exercised only by the Department or sewerage undertaker. That provides significantly greater clarity regarding future governance arrangements than is present in the Bill as introduced. The amendments to clause 3, together with the proposed new clause, establish statutory parameters for offences and penalties under the SuDS network. Those provisions ensure that the important matters relating to criminal liability are addressed directly through primary legislation.

The amendment to clause 6 requires that the regulations established in the flood grant system be subject to draft affirmative procedure, thereby ensuring a higher level of Assembly oversight.

The amendment to clause 15 introduces a requirement that commencement orders be made within 12 months of Royal Assent, providing greater certainty regarding implementation.

Finally, the amendments to clause 1 strengthen public notification arrangements relating to water-use restriction.

The Committee's scrutiny of the Bill demonstrates the value of the Committee Stage. From the outset, the Committee broadly supported the policy objectives, but that support could never remove the need for vigorous scrutiny of the legislative detail. Throughout the process, the Committee sought to ensure that the important decisions were properly scrutinised, that delegated powers were appropriately constrained and that future accountability mechanisms were clear. While there were occasions when progress required substantial discussions and persistence, particularly in relation to clauses 2 and 3, the Committee believes that engagement between it and the Department will ultimately produce a stronger Bill, provided that the House supports the amendments today.

The Committee looks forward to the Further Consideration Stage of the Bill and, ultimately, implementation of legislation that will contribute to improved water management, stronger flood resilience and more sustainable drainage arrangements across Northern Ireland.

That completes my remarks as Deputy Chair of the Committee. I will now make some brief remarks as infrastructure spokesperson for the Ulster Unionist Party. First, I thank the Minister and her departmental officials for all their engagement throughout the process. The Committee's role in scrutinising the Bill has been really worthwhile. It has been a collegial process, and I thank the Minister for that. I also thank each of the stakeholders who engaged with us; I felt that they did so in good faith. We listened to their concerns and any points that they raised throughout the process. That is reflected in the amendments.

On amendment Nos 1 and 2, I raised the need for clarity at Second Stage. We all know what it is like to try to get information out there in the modern age, when it comes to promoting hosepipe bans or any communication that NI Water or the provider has. While I had suggested potentially including social media there, I understand where the Minister is coming from with the wording of those departmental amendments. I appreciate that that is now an acceptable landing ground for that.

On amendment Nos 3 to 9 on clause 2, there was considerable discussion of the issue at Committee Stage. I welcome the clarity that approval functions will rest with the Department's sewerage undertaker rather than with a specified person. That gave us a lot of concern at Committee Stage, so it is important to get that clarity.

There was a lot of discussion on amendment Nos 10 to 13 and creating that offence. I welcome the amendments, which provide clearer statutory parameters for offences and penalties. Minister, you will be aware of just how many questions members of the Committee raised with you and departmental officials. It is really worthwhile and welcome that we have that clarity now.

On amendment No 14, on the homeowner flood protection grant scheme, I am particularly pleased that regulations to establish the scheme will now be subject to the draft affirmative procedure. That gives more guarantee and confidence to people who could be affected by that going forward.

I am glad to welcome the Bill and see it progress. As a member of the Committee, I will continue to do all that I can to make it the best that it can be.

Mr McNulty: As members of the Infrastructure Committee, we support all the amendments that have been proposed and see them as providing important tidying up and clarification of the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill.

In my role as an MLA and as a civil engineer, I have spoken with industry, which has expressed a strong appetite for guidance on sustainable urban drainage systems that are not just hard SuDS. The current guidelines in the North provide only for limiting the storm water run-off from any site to 10 litres per second per hectare and to accommodate storage, generally on-site, in underground tanks or oversized pipes. Provisions have been made with regard to soft SuDS and offsetting. However, those have been agreed and determined only on a very local, ad hoc and individual basis. Developers are crying out for guidance and criteria that they can design to for approval in relation to construction of soft SuDS solutions like swales and ponds.

The expectation is that the Bill will provide clarity on design guidance and for responsibility and maintenance of such. The SuDS Bill is long overdue to help to alleviate flooding and provide associated flood remediation, define and regulate SuDS design and construction, regulate water use and make provisions regarding communication with sewers. As laid out in the July 2026 Turley report, waste water has become a major growth constraint for construction. It is estimated that around 55,000 homes are delayed or impeded due to some level of capacity constraints: no drains, no cranes. The Turley report states that the SuDS Bill will reduce future pressure on the waste water system but not as a near-term solution to the current capacity crisis. Therefore, while the Bill is a positive step forward, the Department must collaborate with industry to find long-lasting solutions to address the waste water capacity crisis that is a barrier to construction and economic development to the tune of £11 billion in an economic opportunity gap by 2040. I will say that again: the current lack of capacity in our waste water system and the lack of a plan to address that inadequate capacity will cost our economy £11 billion by 2040.

Mr Boggs: I welcome the opportunity to speak at the Consideration Stage of the Bill, important legislation that the Minister is bringing forward as part of her three-pronged approach to tackling issues with our waste water infrastructure, particularly when it comes to capacity.

Addressing the challenges in waste water infrastructure is much more than an issue just for the Infrastructure Minister: it affects every aspect of public services from building new homes to hospitals to schools. However, the Bill and the way in which the Minister has worked with the Committee show that she is committed to doing all that she can to improve a challenging situation.

The Committee's report, albeit that it was published before my time as a member of the Infrastructure Committee and as an MLA, has conveyed that most stakeholders support the need for a legislative framework to address water management, sustainable drainage and flood resilience: the Bill provides that.

That is more important than ever as we face a climate with more adverse weather conditions, including flooding.

I know that the Bill's principles were debated at Second Stage, and therefore I will not rehash them. Looking at amendments No 3 to 9, which are to clause 2 — specifically amendment No 9 — it is clear that the Minister has listened to the concerns of the Committee and stakeholders and has now named NI Water as the undertaker and the Department for Infrastructure as the body responsible for SuDS approvals. That removes the nervousness that some had about additional responsibilities for councils or different approaches that could be taken by each, and the path has now been laid to avoid necessarily setting up a new SuDS approval body. That is welcome.

As the Deputy Chair said, there was significant Committee discussion about clause 3 and amendment Nos 10 to 13. I will not focus on those amendments too much. I will just say that we are content with the clarity that they provide in offences and penalties. Hopefully, the Department and NI Water will not need to use those powers in too many instances.

I turn to clause 6. The Department's intention to place the homeowner flood protection grant scheme on a statutory footing is positive news, and I know that it will be welcomed, particularly by those who have been impacted on by flooding in the past but also by those at risk of flooding in the future. Amendment No 14 simply ensures that the Assembly has greater oversight, through draft affirmative procedure, of the regulations that will be made. That is totally acceptable.

Finally, amendment No 15, which is to clause 15, simply mandates the Department to commence these provisions within a reasonable time frame of 12 months rather than that being at the Department's discretion. We are keen to support that through the amendment that the Minister has brought.

In closing, I again thank the Minister and her officials, who have worked constructively with the Committee to get to this stage. I put on record that we will support the Minister's amendments today, and we look forward to the next stage of the Bill as it progresses through the Assembly.

Mr Dunne: As a member of the Infrastructure Committee, I too welcome the opportunity to speak during the Consideration Stage of this important Bill. As others have said, a considerable amount of work has gone into getting to this stage through the Committee processes, during which the Committee, I believe, took the opportunity to properly scrutinise the Bill. I also welcome the Committee Chair's joining us for this item of business.

There has been good cooperation across the Committee to get the Bill to the place where it is today, strengthened and improved since we previously debated the issue in the House, when some elements of the Bill could have been seen as simply a mere enabling framework rather than a fully detailed legislative scheme. That is progress, and it is to be welcomed. The role of stakeholders who have contributed to get us to this point should also be acknowledged, as well as the work of our dedicated Infrastructure Committee staff.

The measures in the Bill — strengthening flood resilience, promoting sustainable drainage, reducing pollution and improving water management — are all objectives that we can certainly share. We know the devastation that flooding can cause — homes ruined, businesses disrupted and families displaced — and we know that our ageing drainage infrastructure is also under increasing strain. The Bill provides some of the legislative tools that we need to respond more effectively to those challenges. However, the Bill will not be a silver bullet and will not really scratch the surface of the waste water crisis that we currently face here in Northern Ireland.

Throughout the Committee Stage, one of our greatest concerns centred on clauses 2 and 3, which relate specifically to sustainable drainage systems, otherwise known as SuDS, alongside clause 6, on the homeowner flood protection grant scheme, and clause 15, which concerns the commencement dates. We recognise the significant benefits that SuDS can deliver, including reducing flood risk, improving water quality and protecting biodiversity. However, there were genuine concerns that several important decisions about how the new framework would operate had been left simply to future regulations, without sufficient detail in the Bill. In particular, the original wording about the body responsible for approving SuDS arrangements lacked clarity, and we talked about that at length and considered it extensively during the process. It was rightly questioned whether such an important governance decision, potentially involving a new public body, should be more clearly defined in primary legislation.

One concern that was shared in the Committee — it was a concern that I had — was the potential risk of an approval body coming from across our 11 councils, which could potentially have seen 11 different bodies, adding more confusion and potentially having 11 different variations in interpretation of the regulations right across Northern Ireland. We also sought greater safeguards around the creation of offences and penalties, believing that appropriate limits must be established by the Assembly rather than left too widely to secondary legislation.

On clause 6, we supported placing the homeowner flood protection grant scheme on a statutory footing but emphasised the need for fairness, transparency and proper Assembly oversight. During Committee Stage, we heard directly from residents who have been badly impacted on by significant flooding in the south Down area. As an MLA for North Down, which includes areas identified as being at substantial flood risk, I recognise the risks, challenges, fears and concerns that are out there. Hearing that directly makes it important that we put such provisions in place to support those who are most impacted on. We also wanted greater certainty that the Bill's provisions would be implemented promptly following Royal Assent. Those issues prompted extensive engagement with departmental officials, consideration of legal advice, as has been mentioned, and requests for amendments to strengthen the legislation.

We maintained our previous position on clauses 2, 3 and 15, pending the Department's final proposals. I welcome the amendments that the Minister subsequently tabled, which address many of the concerns that we raised during scrutiny. It was certainly better late than never. They clarify that SuDS approval functions may be carried out only by the Department or a sewerage undertaker. They establish clearer statutory boundaries for offences and penalties, and they require that the regulations governing the flood grant scheme undergo the draft affirmative procedure. Importantly, they also introduce a 12-month deadline for making commencement orders, and they strengthen public notification arrangements concerning the water-use restrictions, on which the Deputy Chair touched earlier. That process demonstrates the importance of robust Committee scrutiny and that our responsibility is not simply to support good policy intentions but to work to ensure that legislation is clear, proportionate, accountable and strengthened where it can be.

We believe that, overall, our engagement with the Department has helped to secure meaningful and lasting improvements. I look forward to Further Consideration Stage, and, hopefully, we can all start to see some of the benefits of the legislation progressing.

Mr McMurray: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill in my capacity as infrastructure spokesperson for the Alliance Party. We have supported the general principles of the Bill and continue to do so.

The three main aspects of the Bill are the implementation of temporary bans on water use, sustainable drainage systems and flood prevention and remediation. All those points have been addressed in depth at various points in the Bill's passage through the Chamber and Committee, so I will not dwell on them. However, at this stage, it would be remiss of me not to thank the Committee Clerk and the staff for their work and how they facilitated the scrutiny of the Bill. Likewise, the advice received from Assembly staff has always been of great help in assisting the Committee to arrive at its considered positions. Briefing papers compiled by RaISe staff have also been of great assistance. The Minister and Department were also responsive to many of the critiques made by the Committee, which allowed consensus to be reached. As we have heard from the Deputy Chair, we thank the Minister and her Department very much. Finally, the Committee took a collegial approach to the Bill throughout, so, at this stage, I thank the Deputy Chair and former Chair Mr Martin, who is not in attendance today but did a good job in facilitating some of the meetings. Thanks to all who responded to the consultation or gave evidence to the Committee.

Part of the Committee process involved a visit to see how sustainable drainage systems work in Antrim town. Seeing that was very helpful, and I express my thanks to those who helped to facilitate that. The other visit involved bringing the Committee to Downpatrick. There, we heard of the challenges from Downpatrick businesses and Newcastle homeowners, who have, unfortunately, witnessed at first hand the destructiveness of flooding. Again, I thank them for their evidence at Committee.

In my Second Stage speech, I expressed my hope that the Bill would strengthen resilience in the face of heavy rain and drought, help to reduce pollution and facilitate more environmentally friendly solutions to manage water resources. As I said then and repeat today, those are all important goals that the Alliance Party has championed for a long time. I have to admit that, at one point, I thought that the Bill would be a straightforward Bill to approve. Indeed, much of the Bill remained uncontroversial throughout Committee Stage, as reflected in the scarcity of amendments today. However, some issues were raised by way of advice on drafting, as the Deputy Chair touched on and explained in a bit more detail. All of those required a fair amount of back and forth with the Department and some compromise and goodwill on the Minister and Committee's behalf. I believe that a satisfactory solution has now been achieved, and, again, I thank the Minister and her Department for that.

The amendments balance the need for constitutionality with the Department's legitimate desire to retain some flexibility and develop a more detailed evidence-based policy further down the road. We are happy to see this important Bill progress, and we support the proposed amendments. Thank you very much.

Mr Buckley: First, on a point of housekeeping, I apologise to the House for my not being in the Chamber for the start of the debate, particularly given the fact that I am the Committee Chair. I thank the Deputy Chair for stepping in at late notice to read out the Committee remarks. I was not a member of the Committee during its detailed scrutiny, so it was perhaps more appropriate for the Deputy Chair, who was there, to make those remarks. I make my remarks as the Democratic Unionist Party's spokesperson on infrastructure.

The DUP supports the broad objectives of the legislation, because nobody can seriously dispute the need to improve water quality, strengthen flood resilience and modernise our drainage infrastructure to ensure that Northern Ireland is better prepared for not only drought conditions, such as those that we have seen recently, but periods of extreme rainfall. Those objectives are sensible and necessary. We have seen first-hand in recent years how flooding can have such a detrimental impact on local families, businesses and farmers. I reflect on Portadown in my constituency where that has undoubtedly been the case recently. The Bill has to be tailored in light of concerns around water capacity and waste water infrastructure, because both issues have become particularly acute as time has gone on. The challenge before us is not about whether action should happen or is required but about whether this particular legislation delivers that action in a practical, proportionate and affordable manner.

The DUP took a constructive approach to its scrutiny of the Bill. The former Committee Chair Peter Martin, as mentioned, previously outlined that the legislation seeks to reduce pollution, strengthen resilience to floods and droughts, promote sustainable drainage systems and improve water resource management. Those aims command widespread support in the House, and, as a result of some of the Committee's draft amendments, some concerns were identified.

As a party, we have always been consistent and have emphasised that environmental ambition must be matched by economic realism. Northern Ireland faces an unprecedented crisis in housing. Families are unable to access housing because waste water infrastructure has not kept pace with demand. Developers face uncertainty and delay, and communities are frustrated by decades of underinvestment in water and sewerage infrastructure. The DUP has consistently argued that resolving waste water constraints and facilitating housebuilding must remain a central priority for the Executive. Infrastructure policy should unlock development, not inadvertently create further barriers to it.

Similarly, we are acutely aware of ongoing costs. At a time when households are already under significant pressure, farmers are facing uncertainty and businesses are continuing to wrestle with rising overheads, the Assembly must ensure that any new regulatory obligations do not simply transfer additional costs to homeowners, landowners or developers. Good legislation requires clarity about who pays and who is responsible for the obligations that will be enforced.

One of the DUP's core concerns throughout the scrutiny of the Bill has been the extent to which significant matters are being left to future regulation. In a sense, the Bill provides the framework, but many of the detailed arrangements will emerge only through subordinate legislation at a later date. Whilst I have no fear or hesitation in saying that regulations undoubtedly have their place, Members should always be cautious when primary legislation delegates substantial policy decisions to Ministers and Departments. Notwithstanding those reservations, the DUP recognises the progress that was made through the Committee Stage and supports the continued passage of the Bill.

I will now turn directly to some of the amendments. Amendment Nos 1 and 2 provide additional flexibility regarding the way in which temporary water use restrictions are communicated to the public. The DUP has absolutely no difficulty in supporting those amendments.

If Northern Ireland faces drought conditions or a serious rainfall shortage, it is entirely reasonable that Northern Ireland Water should have the flexibility to use modern communication methods to ensure that the public receive timely and accurate information. The effectiveness of restrictions depends on public awareness of them, and amendment Nos 1 and 2 are practical and proportionate.

Amendment Nos 3 to 10 and amendment No 12 largely relate to governance arrangements for sustainable drainage systems and clarify that approval functions can be exercised by a body such as the Department or a sewerage undertaker rather than by an individual person. The DUP understands the rationale behind the amendments and accepts the need for legal clarity. I stress again, however, that governance structures are only one part of the equation. The key questions remain those of accountability, capacity and cost. If Northern Ireland Water is expected to undertake additional responsibilities within the framework, it must be properly resourced to do so. It would be wholly unacceptable to place additional statutory responsibilities on an already overstretched organisation without giving it the necessary funding and operational support. Time and again, we ask agencies to do more work out of the same funding envelope. Members have to be acutely aware of that concern.

Amendment No 11 will enable regulations to be made to substitute different financial amounts in future enforcement regimes. The DUP notes its inclusion and recognises the need for some flexibility in any regulatory framework. Powers relating to financial penalties should always be exercised cautiously, however. The Assembly should be careful to ensure that sanctions remain proportionate and are not used in a manner that imposes excessive burdens on households, businesses or developers acting in good faith.

Amendment No 13 will introduce a new clause on notices and offences. It is undoubtedly the most significant amendment before the House. It will establish the framework for future enforcement notices, stop notices, temporary stop notices, offences and penalties, including fines of up to £100,000 on summary conviction and unlimited fines on indictment. The DUP accepts that legislation without enforcement mechanisms is often ineffective. Those who deliberately disregard obligations, create pollution risks or undermine flood management measures should face consequences. Enforcement powers must always be accompanied by safeguards, however. When we have such regimes in place, the ability to apply common sense is often lost. We therefore urge the Department to ensure that any future regulations are proportionate, transparent and fair. Particular care should be taken to distinguish between deliberate non-compliance and situations in which individuals or organisations have made genuine errors or acted without malicious intent. From dealings in their constituencies, Members will realise that, on many occasions, a genuine error has been made and that no one was deliberately at fault or intended any malice. We must bear that in mind as we prepare for all eventualities. Many people will be concerned to read the references to fines of up to £100,000 and unlimited penalties. Although such powers may be justified in the most serious cases, they must not become part of an overly bureaucratic system that discourages development or imposes unreasonable risks on those seeking to comply with the law.

Amendment No 14 provides that regulations made under clause 6 must be approved by resolution of the Assembly before they can take effect. I welcome the amendment, because it goes to the heart of what I said earlier. Throughout its scrutiny of the Bill, the Committee highlighted concerns about the volume of matters that are left to subordinate legislation. For that reason, having enhanced Assembly oversight is a positive development. The Committee highlighted that during Committee Stage and will continue to engage on the matter throughout the rest of the legislative process. If Ministers are to exercise significant powers through regulations, it is only right that elected representatives have a meaningful opportunity to scrutinise and approve proposals before they become law. Amendment No 14 would strengthen accountability, so it merits support.

Amendment No 15 would introduce a requirement relating to commencement within 12 months of the Bill's receiving Royal Assent. The DUP supports the principle behind that amendment. Too often, legislation progresses through the House, only for its implementation to drift. Setting clear expectations around commencement provides certainty for stakeholders and helps to ensure that the legislative intent is translated into practical delivery.

In conclusion, the DUP, as I have noted throughout, supports the Bill in its current form. We support measures to strengthen flood resilience; action to improve water quality; and the wider use of sustainable drainage systems where they are practical and effective and deliver value for money. We also support the efforts to future-proof Northern Ireland's water infrastructure against the many challenges that it faces. However, policy must work in the real world. That means ensuring that costs remain proportionate; that housebuilding is facilitated, rather than hindered; that Northern Ireland Water is properly funded; that householders, businesses and developers are not burdened with unclear obligations; and that powers that are delegated to the Department remain subject to robust scrutiny in the House. Subject to all the concerns that I have highlighted, the DUP will continue to work and engage constructively with the Bill as it progresses through the House.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Minister, I call on you to make a winding-up speech.

Ms Kimmins: Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank all Members for their contributions. I note and really appreciate the collegial and positive way in which the Bill has been discussed. I know that Members appreciate the importance of the policies that are included in the Bill, and that they will benefit everyone in the North.

As many Members have said, the amendments that I have tabled are mainly minor and technical in nature. They provide clarification, and I hope that they remove any confusion, particularly about the potential SuDS approval body, to which many Members referred in their remarks. The amendments do not deviate in any way from the original policy intention of the Bill; indeed, they provide greater clarity on its operation.

I have listened carefully and will now address some of the specific issues that Members highlighted. The Deputy Chair of the Infrastructure Committee, John Stewart, mentioned the lack of clarity. I appreciate his comments about the work that my officials have done with the Committee, stakeholders and me. That is the approach that should be taken to legislation. We should listen to concerns and, as far as possible, work to find ways in which to address them so that we can move forward in a way that satisfies everyone concerned. This is a really good example of such an approach.

Justin McNulty raised the important point about the need for clear guidance on SuDS, particularly for industry. Officials are working closely with industry experts, representative bodies and key stakeholders through the SuDS advisory group and the SuDS stakeholder group to ensure that they are actively engaged in policy development and kept informed of the emerging requirements. Although there is still significant work to be undertaken in developing the implementation framework for the new regulatory regime, I am keen to issue guidance on the SuDS standards at the earliest opportunity to provide that clarity for the industry.

The Chairperson of the Committee, Jonny Buckley, raised a number of issues, the first of which was about housing. My Department continues to work closely with colleagues in DFC, the Housing Executive and NI Water to identify solutions to unlock waste water capacity through the housing supply strategy group. My predecessor John O'Dowd and I have provided £30 million to unlock almost 5,500 properties across the North since 2024. I am pleased that the Executive, including the Member's colleague the Communities Minister, recently agreed to prioritise waste water infrastructure, as they recognise exactly what he said: that waste water infrastructure underpins the achievement of many other Executive priorities, particularly housing. That is important, and it is a good step forward for us as an Executive to ensure that we follow our words with actions and achieve what we want to achieve.

The options for the new SuDS regulatory arrangements will be costed and assessed through a business case, informed by further public consultation. It should be noted that some functions of any new public body may replace existing functions and may therefore not give rise to additional costs. My Department will continue to engage with key stakeholders on that as work progresses.

Finally, the Committee was interested in the enforcement of SuDS. I agree with the comments that any new enforcement regime for SuDS must be proportionate and fair, and my Department will undertake further consultation, in due course, to ensure just that. In my opening remarks — I know that the Chair of the Committee was not able to be in the Chamber at that stage — I stepped through the different stages of that, including a temporary stop notice. I hope that that gives some assurances that we are taking steps, at the earliest stage, to ensure that the regime is fair and proportionate.

I again thank the Committee and all Members for their support in the Bill's progressing to this stage and for their valuable contributions to date. I hope that they feel that they have been listened to and that their issues have been addressed in the most comprehensive way. I ask Members to support amendment Nos 1 to 15, which we discussed today.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): That concludes the Consideration Stage of the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill. The Bill stands referred to the Speaker. Take your ease while we change the top Table.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I call Danny Baker to move the Further Consideration Stage of the Bill.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Members will have a copy of the Marshalled List of amendments detailing the order for consideration. The amendments have been grouped for debate in the provisional grouping of amendments selected list. There is a single group containing all 14 amendments. The amendments propose alternatives to existing clauses 1 and 2. They also set a minimum daily allowance, provide the Department with regulation-making powers concerning holiday periods and address commencement of payments. There are also a number of technical amendments. I remind Members who intend to speak that, during the debate on the single group, they should address all the amendments on which they wish to comment. Once the debate is completed, any further amendments in the group will be moved formally as we go through the Bill, and the Question on each will be put without further debate.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: We now come to the single group for debate. Members should note the following links between amendments. Amendment Nos 2 , 3 and 4 are mutually exclusive to amendment No 1 and will not be called if amendment No 1 is made. Amendment No 3 is mutually exclusive to amendment No 2 and will not be called if amendment No 2 is made. Amendment No 4 is consequential to amendment Nos 2 and 3 and will not be called if neither amendment No 2 nor amendment No 3 is made. Amendment Nos 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are consequential to amendment No 1 and will not be called if amendment No 1 is not made. Amendment No 7 is an amendment to amendment No 6. Amendment Nos 13 and 14 are consequential to amendment No 8 and will not be called if amendment No 8 is not made. Finally, amendment No 12 is consequential to amendment No 11 and will not be called if amendment No 11 is not made. I hope that all that is clear to everybody.

I call the Minister of Education to move amendment No 1 and to address the other amendments in the group.

Mr Givan (The Minister of Education): I beg to move amendment No 1:

Mr Givan: In moving amendment No 1, I will also speak to amendment No 2 and amendment Nos 5 to 14. I will also refer to amendment Nos 3 and 4, which have been tabled by the Chair of the Education Committee.

I will make my comments under three headings. The first is redrafting amendments, which preserve the Bill's policy intent while improving its legal drafting. The second is an amendment to give clearer effect to the Chairman's intention regarding the value of the payments. The final one is amendments that would require the date of the first payments to be set in regulations subject to the approval of the Assembly.

I wrote to the Committee Chair and the Bill sponsor on 6 October, enclosing the text of the amendments and explaining my rationale. My opposition to the Bill overall remains unchanged. I set out my view at Second Stage that this is, effectively, a welfare intervention, and I continue to believe strongly that the Bill will result in funding being diverted from key educational services that are already under huge strain, particularly in the context of an unprecedented increase in demand for special educational needs provision.

More fundamentally, it is also a poorly targeted welfare measure. The purpose of free school meals is to ensure that every eligible child has access to a nutritious lunch during the school day, supporting their participation in education and readiness to learn. If the objective is instead to address food poverty, it is difficult to justify a payment that is linked solely to the value of lunches on school days. Food poverty does not begin and end between Monday and Friday, nor does it disappear at weekends. If the concern is that families cannot afford to put food on the table, why would a welfare payment be tied only to school day lunches while ignoring breakfasts, evening meals and, crucially, the weekend? That highlights the fundamental flaw at the heart of the Bill. It seeks to address a wider welfare issue through a mechanism designed for an educational purpose, and, worse still, it proposes to fund that intervention from an Education budget that is already insufficient to meet the needs of our schools.

Whatever my views on the Bill, as Minister, I also have responsibility to ensure that legislation is drafted appropriately. If the Bill is to become law, it should be law that actually works. I have, therefore, tabled a number of amendments to protect the statute book. Those amendments, which would rewrite the Bill without changing any aspect of the policy intent agreed at Consideration Stage, are amendment Nos 1 and 5, amendment Nos 7 to 10 and amendment Nos 13 and 14. The initial draft, as is so often the case with a private Member's Bill, was so inadequate and poorly drafted that close liaison with the Office of the Legislative Counsel was required to completely reconstruct it. The most effective way of addressing the drafting issues is an almost complete rewrite of clause 1, rather than piecemeal amendments. Members will be assured that, as a result of these amendments, the Education Authority would make holiday meal payments to parents of pupils who are entitled to free school meals for the relevant holiday periods. Nothing in these amendments reopens that decision.

Amendment No 1 leaves out clause 1 and inserts a new article 58A into the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 in order that the holiday meal payments would sit clearly apart from existing school meals arrangements in article 58 of the 1986 Order. Amendment Nos 5 and 8 place the power to update the list of holidays and the power to make ancillary provision in clauses of their own. Amendment Nos 9 and 10 leave out clauses 2 and 3, and amendment Nos 13 and 14 leave out subsections (4) and (5) of clause 4, because the rewrite makes those clauses unnecessary. Amendment No 7 is a consequential change to amendment No 6, which I will return to later. It updates a reference so that it points to new article 58A(1). I encourage Members to support those amendments, as they do not change any of the provisions of the Bill but are simply a set of sensible drafting improvements that have been developed with the Office of the Legislative Counsel and are designed to ensure that the legislation functions as intended.

This is about having effective legislation, notwithstanding my opposition to the Bill. This is what I have been asked to do as a Minister. I could have taken the approach to say that it is entirely up to the private Member and that, despite the inadequacies of the Bill and because of my opposition to it, I am not going to bring forward what the First Legislative Counsel told me would be required to have effective law in statute. As the Minister, I have taken the decision to act responsibly and table amendments that make the Bill's intent effective. Members, if you do not want to vote for it, you do not need to vote for it, and you will have an ineffective piece of legislation. However, if you want the Bill to do what you want it to do, despite my opposition, you will vote for these amendments, because they make the Bill effective. It is entirely a matter for Members as to how they decide they want to create a statute book in respect of these issues.

Amendment No 2 is a stand-alone amendment to address a drafting issue in the amendment that was moved by the Chair of the Education Committee. The Chair's intention is clear that holiday meal payments should never be worth less than the value of free school meal provision during term time. However, as drafted, that amendment is not operationally workable. It provides that the holiday payment must be no less than any charge imposed for a school meal. The difficulty is that, in post-primary schools, there is no single school meal charge. Individual items are priced separately, and pupils who are entitled to free school meals receive a daily allowance.

Legal advice has confirmed concerns that there is no single defined charge against which that provision could be applied. As a result, the drafting is open to challenge and requires amendment. That issue is addressed in the revised drafting as set out in new article 58A(9) in amendment No 1. However, if amendment No 1 is not agreed, amendment No 2 would resolve the drafting problem as a stand-alone amendment. It provides a clear and definitive basis for calculating holiday meal payments, by linking them either to the price of a school meal or, in the case of post-primary pupils, to the value of the Education Authority's daily free school meal allowance. That would mean that holiday meal payments in nursery, primary and special schools would be equivalent to the relevant school meal charge. Crucially, it would also ensure that post-primary pupils receive a holiday meal payment that is equal to the daily free school meal allowance that is provided during term time, which is currently £3·34. I hope that the Committee Chair will agree that that approach provides the necessary clarity and still delivers on the Committee's intended outcome.

To conclude my opening remarks, I will now turn to amendment Nos 6, 11 and 12, which would allow the commencement date for payments to be set through future regulations. To be clear, no one in the Chamber disputes the importance of helping families with the cost of food, but that is not the issue that is before us today. The issue is a simple one: where will the money come from? My Department is already under immense financial pressure. Based on the current Education Authority meal prices, the Bill will require around £7·2 million this year, more than £22 million in 2027-28 and approximately £32 million by 2033-34.

At the same time, Budget discussions are ongoing, and difficult decisions about public services lie ahead.

Mr Baker: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Givan: Sorry, is someone looking for me to give way?

Mr Baker: May I ask a wee question?

Mr Givan: I thought that I had heard something. Feel free, Danny.

Mr Baker: Thank you. Before you continue, will you break down the £7 million figure for this year, please?

Mr Givan: After the Bill goes through Final Stage and receives Royal Assent, we will be coming into the Christmas period, after which we will hit half term and Easter. We therefore considered the provision's becoming a legal requirement on the granting of Royal Assent and worked through what that will mean for the cost associated with giving effect to the legislation. Sorry, do you want to come in again?

Mr Baker: That is great news. I hope that we can have the legislation in place by Christmas, so it is good that you are on that page. Thank you.

Mr Givan: It is to do with the timing. Once the Bill gets through Final Stage, and if Royal Assent is granted, the legal impact of the legislation will take effect immediately, and, as it stands, that will mean an associated cost of £7 million. There are then the figures that I outlined for next year and the following years to consider. That £7 million would have to be found not from the Department of Finance or from ring-fenced funding but from within the Department of Education, which is a Department that, if we take the John O'Dowd Budget as the starting point, is facing a £500 million deficit. From where therefore are we to get the money? The Bill does not ask for it to be ring-fenced in the block grant but to be taken out of the Department of Education's budget. It is therefore a welfare payment that is to be paid for out of its budget, and, as I said, based on Sinn Féin's draft Budget, the Department is already looking at over half a billion pounds of a deficit.

One could be supportive of the provision had Sinn Féin put forward a draft Budget that ensured that funding was available for it, but it did not do that. It was an inadequate Budget, with over £500 million in education cuts, and the Bill not only adds another £7 million but makes it a legal requirement that the provision take priority over all else. Before a Minister of Education can get to decide their priorities, legislation therefore states, "Whatever your allocation, this is the first priority. Before special educational needs, this is the first priority", and the Minister is then constrained in identifying their priorities. We are taking part in discussions with the Secretary of State and the Treasury on our financial position, yet here we have an Assembly wanting to add more financial challenges for the Executive. How does that land with the Secretary of State and the Treasury? How does it give the Finance Minister any credibility when he is talking to the Secretary of State about the Executive's being able to take difficult decisions? That is a contradictory position.

Mr Martin: I thank the Minister for taking an intervention. I am seeking clarity on his point about the legislative imperative in the Bill. My understanding is that the Department implements a range of programmes, such as the extended schools programme or programmes to tackle educational disadvantage. Minister, are you saying that money would first have to go to meeting holiday meals payments and that those programmes could be under threat?

Mr Givan: That is precisely the point, and Mr Martin has hit the nail on the head. Something has to give, and, in order to give effect to the legislation, it has to give not from within any other Department but from within the Department of Education. About what other schemes that the Department is currently funding would Members say, "Don't do that. Stop funding it"? Would it be the extended schools programme? Would the eligibility criteria for those who qualify for free school meals need to be changed in order to finance free school meals over 12 months and not just in term time? Those are issues that my officials are grappling with to see how effect can be given to the provision. One proposition that is being actively considered is removing the current level of income for free school meals to balance it against the total cost increase from this pressure. That is a serious issue for those families, and it is the kind of issue that officials in my Department now have to grapple with.

Against that backdrop, Members need to ask whether it is responsible to create a permanent spending commitment that runs to tens of millions of pounds without first identifying how it will be funded. We are already struggling to fund essential services. Schools are under pressure, hospitals are under pressure and the question is not whether the proposal is well-intentioned — it is a well-intentioned proposal — but who will pay for it. Are Members prepared to see millions of pounds diverted from Education budgets to fund what is, in effect, a welfare payment? If so, they should be honest about the consequences, which will be felt not in departmental spreadsheets but in classrooms and support services and by children across Northern Ireland. Indeed, some of the children most affected may be among those whom the Bill is intended to help.

The amendments offer a responsible alternative. They would allow the Bill to come into operation following Royal Assent while providing for the commencement of payments to be set by regulations that are subject to the draft affirmative procedure. In other words, the Assembly would still decide when payments begin, but it would do so with full knowledge of the funding position. That seems to me to be a reasonable and responsible approach that allows us to demonstrate our commitment to families and our responsibility as legislators.

By contrast, proceeding without identifying a sustainable funding source is like taking on a major new financial commitment when you cannot meet the bills that you already have: it does not solve the problem but simply transfers the pressure elsewhere. If a family were facing financial difficulties, it would think carefully before taking on a significant new and permanent cost without knowing how it would be paid for. Government should be no different.

If the amendments are agreed, the Department will undertake a review of affordability that will include consideration of the final budget position. That is not delay for delay's sake but basic financial responsibility. I propose the draft affirmative procedure because it ensures that Members will retain the final say. Payments would commence after the Assembly had considered the evidence and voted accordingly.

I will be frank with Members: if the Bill is commenced without the funding to sustain it, the impact will be felt elsewhere in education. Funding cannot be spent twice. Every pound committed to the Bill is a pound that is unavailable for other educational priorities. Members who oppose the amendments should therefore be clear about what they are asking schools and pupils to give up in return.

I said at Second Stage that good intentions alone do not fund public services, and that remains true. I say this to Members: proceed with supporting the Bill, if that is what you wish to do, but support it in a responsible way. Let us identify the funding and understand the consequences. Members can then decide on commencement with their eyes wide open as to the impact. That is what good government demands and what the public expect us to do.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The next item of business in the Order Paper is Question Time. I therefore propose, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting until 2.00 pm. When we return to the debate, the next Member to speak will be Nick Mathison, Chair of the Education Committee.

Mr O'Dowd: With the Speaker's permission, I will answer questions 1 and 4 together.

A recruitment exercise to establish a dedicated team with the expertise required to take this work forward has now closed, and the team will be put in place in the coming months. Once established, the team will undertake detailed policy development work and prepare a framework for public consultation. As part of that process, the Department intends to engage with interested parties through a call for evidence and/or a public consultation. That engagement will help shape future policy proposals and inform the development of legislation in this area during the next mandate. Given the limited time remaining in the current Assembly mandate, the work undertaken during this period will lay the necessary foundations for reform, and the Department intends to continue the policy development and legislative preparation into the next mandate.

Ms Brownlee: I thank the Minister for his answer. That is good news. It is something I hear about daily in my constituency, but it is a problem across Northern Ireland. I see homeowners being taken advantage of, and it is really unfair, so it is great to hear about the work that you are doing. Can the Minister provide a more detailed timeline of when the consultation may be open? Will you commit to ensuring that councils are one of the main stakeholders and can engage with the consultation process to ensure that all voices are heard?

Mr O'Dowd: The issue crosses all constituencies and has been raised in the Chamber many times. It is one of the reasons why I wanted to move forward with preparing the groundwork for the legislation, which will be enacted in the next mandate. Councils will play a vital role in the consultation, and I commit to that being the case during my mandate. I cannot give you a more detailed time frame at this stage. Land and property law is complex, and we have had to recruit a specialist team to do this. As I said, the recruitment is now closed, and we will put the team in place in due course. Once I have more information, I will share it with the Member.

Miss Hargey: This is an important issue, particularly in my constituency of South Belfast, where there are many residential apartment blocks. Can you outline the progress that you hope to achieve before the next Assembly election?

Mr O'Dowd: My priority is to ensure that the foundations for reform are firmly established. I expect the dedicated team to be in place within the coming months and to begin detailed policy development and stakeholder engagement. It is preparatory work to help ensure that the informed policy proposals can be taken forward and that the legislative reform can progress at pace during the next mandate.

Mr Durkan: Those who live in apartments, especially but not exclusively, often encounter a convoluted management structure that leaves them feeling powerless. Minister, you previously said that a registration scheme for management agents could be progressed during the mandate. You outlined some of the progress that has been made. There has been a bit, but it has not been as much or as fast as we would have liked. What comfort can you give residents trapped in that situation?

Mr O'Dowd: I can give them the comfort that work is now under way to give them the legal protections that they require under the law. As I said to the original questioner, it is a hugely complex area. Land law and property law here differ from England and elsewhere. You cannot simply lift legislation and transfer it over. We have to work through our legislative processes here to ensure that we get it right.

Ms Bradshaw: I thank the Finance Minister for the update. It is a really important issue for my constituents in South Belfast. Minister, do you have any idea of how many management company structures there are in Northern Ireland? The issues are complex. I have worked on five or six cases with different problems with management companies. Do you have any idea how people will be individually supported going forward?

Mr O'Dowd: I do not have those figures to hand and do not know whether they are available. If they are, I will make them available to you. I am aware of the issue. I deal with those matters in my constituency and see the complexities that residents have to deal with. I hope to simplify that and bring in protections for them, but it will take some time to get that preparatory work done, and legislation will be delivered in the next mandate.

Mr O'Dowd: The issue has been raised on a number of occasions with the British Government as part of wider discussions on the Executive's Budget and funding arrangements. I have been clear that we must have fair and equal access to the fund and that we should not be disadvantaged simply because our governance structures are different.

In England, many functions that benefit from National Wealth Fund investments are delivered by local authorities or privatised companies. Here, equivalent responsibilities, including infrastructure, economic development, strategic transport, regeneration, housing investment and energy policy are largely delivered by Executive Departments and arm’s-length bodies. Treasury officials have indicated that borrowing from the fund by those bodies would count against the Executive’s reinvestment and reform initiative (RRI) borrowing limits. That would create an unequal outcome, requiring us to use scarce borrowing capacity for functions that, elsewhere, may sit outside central government control.

The principle is straightforward: access should be determined by the merits, value and viability of an investment opportunity, not by differences in administrative structures. If all Administrations are to have equal access to the National Wealth Fund, its arrangements must be flexible enough to reflect our differing constitutional and delivery models. The absence of English-style local authorities must not become a barrier to investment in projects that support growth, infrastructure and regeneration. I will continue to press the Government to ensure that the Executive can benefit from the National Wealth Fund on a fair and equitable basis.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Minister for his answer and for confirming that he has made representations on this. The National Wealth Fund provides much potential for many here. You have outlined your view that funding should be based on merit, but the reality is that public authorities and businesses in Northern Ireland are placed at a disadvantage. Is any work going on in the Department with those authorities and businesses to help them with that access — to provide them with support and guidance — to deliver the key objectives of the fund, which he has set out?

Mr O'Dowd: That function would largely fall under the Department for the Economy. As I said, we have been engaging with the British Government on this for some time, and I have no doubt that the Budget will arise later in Question Time. It has also formed part of the Budget discussions. There appears to be a lack of understanding in the Treasury of the differences between how English local authorities and local authorities here operate. Until that message is understood, we will have continued difficulty around the matter. However, there are huge opportunities here if we can get the issue resolved for our local businesses.

Ms Murphy: Can you clarify whether the Executive would miss out on some investment if the British Government do not grant access to the National Wealth Fund?

Mr O'Dowd: We will continue to miss out on that, as will our local businesses. There is a huge opportunity for the fund to be an economic driver here in allowing businesses, local authorities and Departments to invest. In my opinion, that comes down to a misunderstanding of how Administrations work here and elsewhere. I will continue to engage with the Government on the matter. As I said, it has formed part of our Budget discussions as well.

Mr O'Dowd: Until the Budget is in place, it is not possible to make any additional allocations to Departments. The Member will know that decisions on allocations to individual Departments are for the Executive as a whole. I recently met the Health Minister to discuss the significant budgetary pressures facing our health service.

I fully support building on the progress already made in reducing health service waiting lists. As Finance Minister, I have demonstrated my commitment to prioritising funding for the health service. The 2025-26 Budget included an earmarked allocation of £165 million for the Department of Health to reduce waiting lists and increase elective care capacity. The draft multi-year Budget that I brought forward proposed maintaining that additional £165 million in each year of the three-year period. Together with support from the transformation fund, that investment has contributed to the progress made in tackling waiting lists during 2025-26 and continuing into 2026-27, delivering real benefits for people awaiting medical care.

More progress is needed. It is therefore vital that the Executive secure a fair and sustainable funding settlement for the health service and all our public services. The Executive remain ready to engage urgently and constructively with the British Government to secure sufficient support for the current financial year and a credible path towards sustainable public finances.

Mr McGrath: Minister, if the funding has not been earmarked, can you update us on how the Health Minister will ensure that our hard-working domiciliary care staff will get the real living wage that has been promised to them?

Mr O'Dowd: My priority in setting our Budget in the short time ahead is for nurses, teachers and other public-sector workers to receive their pay uplift and the minimum living wage. That is a priority. The focus for us all in the time ahead has to be to agree a mechanism to ensure that teachers, nurses and other public-sector workers receive their pay uplift.

Mrs Dillon: Minister, do you agree that it is for the Health Minister to ensure that the real living wage is awarded to our social care workers, particularly given that it has now been promised for almost two years, and that he must find that money from within his budget, however he does that, given that he made that commitment and that promise?

Mr O'Dowd: It is only right and proper that all our workers are paid fairly and properly and that, when it comes to the real living wage, the workers who have been left behind are brought up to the level of that wage. I will do everything in my power, working with Executive colleagues and the Health Minister, to make that happen, but, ultimately, such decisions are for individual Ministers.

Mr O'Dowd: Since the baby loss certificate scheme was launched on 22 June 2026, the General Register Office (GRO) has processed and issued nearly 8,300 certificates. As we mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, I want to recognise all those who have experienced the loss of a baby and the families who continue to carry that loss. No certificate can ease their grief. However, the response to the scheme shows that formally recognising a baby's life can make a meaningful difference. That recognition has been made possible by the parents, advocates and organisations who bravely shared their experiences and campaigned for the scheme.

I recently had the opportunity to meet the officials who process the applications and issue the certificates. It was an opportunity for me to thank them for the care, compassion and dedication that they bring to that important work every day. I believe that this is one of the most important pieces of legislation delivered during the Assembly mandate. It shows the real difference that we can make to the lives of the people whom we serve when we come together with compassion and a shared sense of purpose. I am proud of what we have delivered: a compassionate scheme that gives parents and families the formal recognition that they deserve.

Ms Finnegan: Minister, I thank you and your officials for all the work that you have done on that important scheme. It has certainly made a difference in the lives of the parents who have come to me in my constituency. Can you highlight exactly what your Department has done to promote the important baby loss certificate scheme?

Mr O'Dowd: We recognise how deeply personal baby loss is and how important it is to bereaved families to have the certificate. My Department therefore continues to work closely with organisations and with health and social care trusts to raise awareness of the baby loss certificate scheme sensitively and compassionately. The Registrar General, Dr Philip Wales, will also participate in an event — I believe that it is on Wednesday — organised by the Finance Committee to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week. He also acknowledged the event on the steps of Stormont today, when he again highlighted the scheme. Such events make parents and loved ones more aware of the scheme. The decision on whether to apply for a certificate falls to them, but we are very keen to get the information out to as many people as possible.

Mr O'Dowd: We would not have public services without public-sector workers to deliver them. I recognise that it is essential that our public-sector workers be appropriately rewarded. That is why my priority is to secure a mechanism to enable delivery of public-sector pay awards. In normal circumstances, public-sector pay policy sets the overall parameters and principles for pay awards and provides a framework for that. The absence, however, of an agreed Executive Budget has meant that the public-sector pay policy has not yet been set for 2026-27. Any pay award must be affordable within agreed departmental spending limits. At present, as I said, Departments do not have the benefit of an agreed Executive Budget within which to plan or operate. The Executive remain ready to engage urgently and constructively with the Government to secure sufficient support for the current financial year, a credible pathway to having sustainable public finances and a pathway to securing pay uplifts for public-sector workers.

Mr Robinson: I thank the Minister for his response. What additional funding is required, beyond the current offer from the UK Government, in order to put the Executive's finances on a solid and sustainable footing?

Mr O'Dowd: Pressures across Departments in the current financial year are around £1·6 billion, while the offer that is currently on the table is around £525 million, so the Member can see that there is quite a significant gap. Public-sector pay alone is £500 million or thereabouts, and any settlement or agreement has to include money for pay uplifts for teachers, nurses and other public-sector workers. That is the current state of play.

Mr O'Toole: Minister, you said in your initial answer that the Executive cannot conclude public-sector pay deals without setting a Budget, and the Executive have not set a Budget. Will you confirm for public-sector workers who want to know when they will get their pay deal that, unless the Executive agree a Budget, they cannot have a pay rise?

Mr O'Dowd: In the absence of a Budget, we have not secured a pathway to public-sector pay uplifts. I continue to explore all options and have been engaging with the Executive's legal advisers. Without breaching confidentiality, I can say that there has been substantial discussion around the Executive table on the matter. I believe that it is the ambition of us all to secure public-sector pay uplifts for our teachers, nurses and others. Of course, the ideal solution is that we secure a sustainable and fair Budget, and that is why we continue to engage with the British Government.

Ms Flynn: Minister, you touched on the fact that some work is under way on the Executive to try to deliver pay awards for public-sector workers. Can you go into any other detail on what work is being done behind the scenes to make sure that those pay awards can be secured?

Mr O'Dowd: As I said, I am exploring all avenues, including engaging with the Executive's legal advisers and my Department's legal advisers to see what methods we can use to secure and deliver pay uplifts for public-sector workers. I continue to do that. The ideal way in which to do so would be to secure a Budget, but we would also have to have the money in that Budget to pay those workers. We have not been successful in balancing the two things thus far.

Mr O'Dowd: I recognise the significant pressures that high motor insurance premiums are placing on citizens across the North. While insurance regulation is a reserved matter, I have continued to engage with the British Government, regulators and the insurance industry to highlight concerns about affordability and to press those with responsibility to take action to improve outcomes for consumers. The industry has pointed to a range of factors that it believes contribute to higher premiums here, and my officials have been facilitating discussions between the industry and relevant Departments on issues that fall within their areas of responsibility locally. One issue that my officials continue to engage with the industry on is the extent to which the absence of regulations for claims management companies may be impacting premiums. I asked the Association of British Insurers (ABI) in February 2025 to provide written evidence on the matter. My officials received the ABI's evidence only late last week. While I am disappointed that I had to wait nearly 20 months for that to be provided, officials are now actively considering it. Once the evidence has been assessed, I will carefully consider the appropriate next steps.

Mr Kingston: I thank the Minister for that answer. Indeed, that ABI report set out that, in 2025, motor insurance premiums were 9% higher in Northern Ireland than they were in the rest of the UK. It highlighted a number of factors, including that claims here were 59% higher than the UK average, and that bodily injury claims here were 78% higher than the UK average, due to issues in our civil justice system. The Minister mentioned that claims management companies are not regulated here, as they are in the rest of the UK. As you have said, Minister, there is a need for cross-departmental working —.

Mr Speaker: Is there a question, Mr Kingston?

Mr Kingston: This is the question, Mr Speaker: given the need for cross-departmental working on the issue, will the Minister commission a working group alongside the Department of Justice, in particular, and, potentially, the Department for Infrastructure, to look at all the relevant issues?

Mr O'Dowd: I congratulate Mr Kingston on a well-researched question. That gave me a chance to catch a breather.

All of those factors come into play to varying degrees. Another factor is the lack of competition: as a result of Brexit, a number of insurance companies from the South pulled out of the market, which left a gap in competition. We have to look at all of those factors and ensure that we have a healthy, competitive market and that we are using all the regulatory powers at the disposal of either the Executive or the British Government to ensure that people here are getting a fair deal. I will want to see all the evidence presented to me before I make a final decision on where the problems exist. At the end of that, we, collectively, will have to form a mechanism that ensures that people here are getting a fair deal.

As for the working group, my officials are coordinating work between Departments on the issue. It may not be classed officially as a working group, but, once we have analysed the current information, if it is felt that we need to move to having a formal working group, I will be more than happy to do so.

Mr McNulty: Minister, many young people have become priced out of owning a car by extortionate insurance fees. Will you bring forward tighter regulations for insurance companies, particularly multi-national companies, so that younger people, especially those in rural areas, can afford access to a car? What representations have you made to the Department of Justice on the personal injury discount rate here, which, obviously, affects the cost of insurance in the North?

Mr O'Dowd: As the father of two young drivers, I assure you that I am acutely aware of the cost of insurance in this society. It is prohibitive to many and needs to be properly managed and regulated, as seen in a number of evidence sources, some of which Mr Kingston outlined. As I said, we are working our way through it. It has taken 20 months for the Association of British Insurers to send us the information that we currently have, which is disappointing. However, we now have that information, and we will analyse it. I will decide on what moves we can and should make next. By and large, this is not a devolved matter; it falls under the remit of the British Government. However, I assure you that I will do everything within my powers to ensure that young people — and older people — here are treated fairly by the insurance industry.

Mr O'Dowd: The report makes an important contribution to the discussion on how fair and affordable public-sector pay awards can be delivered sustainably. In particular, it highlights the structural pressure created by the way that public services are organised and funded here, including where pay costs are not fully reflected through Barnett funding. That reinforces the need for the British Government to provide the Executive with a fair and sustainable funding settlement so that the contribution of public-sector workers can be properly recognised. I will continue to press the Government for that. Importantly, the Fiscal Council also indicated that its report is the start rather than the end of the conversation on those matters. My Department will continue to engage with it on that, and I encourage other public-sector stakeholders to do likewise.

Dr Aiken: I thank the Minister for his answer. The Minister will be aware that, when the Treasury came to do the open-book exercise, one issue that was raised was the cost of providing public services in Northern Ireland compared with the costs in England and Wales. The Fiscal Council report looked quite closely at those differences, finding that some services were around 30% more expensive to deliver in Northern Ireland than in England and Wales, despite delivering less than those delivered in England and Wales. Is the Minister looking at doing any proper research on those issues, so that we can either better fight our case or look for efficiencies where we need them? Either way, the work needs to be done.

Mr O'Dowd: The Treasury report was far off the mark regarding our society. That goes back to Diane's question about the National Wealth Fund. The Treasury does not fully understand how this place works or the differences between the roles of Departments, councils and arm's-length bodies (ALBs). When you compare apples and oranges, obviously, you will come out with the wrong answer to that equation. The Fiscal Council report is useful, as its reports always are. It is independent and the start of an analysis of that matter. The Fiscal Council is probably best placed at this stage to continue that work. I look forward to engaging with it on that matter, and I have no doubt that the Member and others will do so as well.

Mrs Mason: I thank the Minister for that assessment and for reinforcing the need for the British Government to adequately fund the North. Minister, you referred to this already, but do you agree that the Fiscal Council report is only the start of the conversation?

Mr O'Dowd: Yes. The Fiscal Council was keen to make the point that the report was the start of a conversation, rather than definitive conclusions on those matters. It is an interesting area of study, and we have to understand cost variations in a detailed way. The headlines, as I said to Dr Aiken, are about how we deliver public services here differently. Our rurality is another matter, as is the fact, which we should be proud of, that we have not privatised many of our public services, as England and elsewhere have. That is right and proper.

Mr O'Dowd: Attracting more young people to the Civil Service is a priority for my Department. We promote the wide range of available careers through engagement with schools, universities and careers events. We also provide practical routes to public service through apprenticeships, skills academies, student placements and work placements. During 2026, more than 200 people were appointed through the operational delivery apprenticeship scheme, and phase 3 of the JobStart scheme provided 21 paid placements, with 15 participants accepting permanent Civil Service positions. This year, 108 students are undertaking placements across a range of disciplines and Departments. Recruitment for the 2027-28 student placement scheme will open this month, offering approximately 100 opportunities. My Department is also developing an employability scheme for care leavers, which will offer paid placements of up to 51 weeks, with the potential for permanent appointment on completion of the placement.

Mr McGuigan: Go raibh maith agat,

Minister. Thank you for outlining the opportunities that the Civil Service can offer our young people. You touched briefly on apprenticeship offers. What apprenticeship opportunities can the Civil Service offer our young people?

Mr O'Dowd: Since 2024, we have offered apprenticeships in a range of fields, including heritage skills, such as joinery, stonemasonry and blacksmithing; ICT; work psychology; electrical, mechanical and civil engineering; and vehicle and plant fitting. During 2026, more than 200 people were appointed through the operational delivery apprenticeship scheme. In June, the second group of students graduated from the skills academy for civil engineering. That is an Assured Skills partnership between the Department for Infrastructure and Belfast Met, supported by the Civil Service's HR in my Department.

Ms Mulholland: Minister, will you outline how any students with a disability can be assured that opportunities to be successful in the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) student placement scheme will be equitable?

Mr O'Dowd: The Civil Service is an equal opportunities employer, including for students who come into the scheme. Measures are put in place to ensure that everyone has equal access to the workforce and within it.

Mr O'Dowd: With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer questions 10 and 11 together.

My priority remains to secure a fair and sustainable multi-year Budget that gives Departments certainty and enables them to plan, invest in and transform public services. Members will be aware that there has been extensive engagement with the Government over recent months, including with the Secretary of State and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Executive met last week in response to my calls for an urgent meeting to discuss the Secretary of State's proposal. During the meeting, the Executive considered the offer, assessed its implications for Departments and public services, and agreed to further engagement with the Secretary of State. Ultimately, agreeing a Budget and securing fair funding are inseparable. I remain committed to working with Executive colleagues and Westminster to deliver both as a matter of urgency.

Ms D Armstrong: I thank the Minister for that answer. Minister, in light of the failure to pass this year's Budget, what baselines will be used for setting next year's?

Mr O'Dowd: I sincerely hope that we set a Budget before we get to that stage. My focus is on continuing engagement with my Executive colleagues and with the British Government.

Mr Speaker: We move on to topical questions.

Mr O'Dowd: As I said to Mr O'Toole during Question Time, I am exploring all legal options to see how we can secure a pay rise for our nurses, teachers and public-sector workers. That is my ambition and my plan. The ideal way forward is to secure a Budget. In the absence of that, I will work with my Executive colleagues to secure a different way of doing it.

Mr O'Toole: With the greatest respect, Mr Speaker, that is not good enough. Working for legal contingencies when the British Government could, at any minute, step in — a British Government who, we all agree, do not prioritise this place — and impose a Budget on this place, preventing pay rises, is a completely unacceptable position. I am aware, because someone raised the matter at a town hall meeting with me last week, of an FE college lecturer who has been laid off. People are losing their jobs in the absence of an Executive Budget. Meanwhile, all Members here are guaranteed a pay rise. That is not an acceptable position. I therefore repeat the question, Minister: when will there be a Budget, and when will public-sector workers be guaranteed the pay rise that they have earned?

Mr O'Dowd: As I have said three times now, I am working my way through the processes, legal and other, to see how we can secure a public-sector pay rise.

It is an important topic that Mr O'Toole raises with me, but I thought that he might also use today as an opportunity to apologise to me for comments that he has made in the Chamber over the past two years about the A5. I have just looked back over his comments, some of which have flowed through his conversation today. He has accused me of:

A:

— meaning me —

He has also accused my officials and I of needing to have:

While also referring to:

I hoped that Mr O'Toole would take the opportunity to apologise to me. He has not, but I assure him that all the things that he has accused me of in relation to the A5 were false. The failings that he accuses me of around the Budget are also false.

Mr Speaker: At least he did not call you a plonker. [Laughter.]

Mr O'Dowd: Conversations and letters have gone back and forth over the past week or so. Last Tuesday — I am trying to get the days right — we had an urgent Executive meeting to discuss the latest offer from the Secretary of State. There was significant engagement around the Executive table. We discussed our priority of securing pay lifts for our teachers, nurses and public-sector workers. As I said in previous answers, I continue to explore that.

Mr Sheehan: Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a fhreagra.

Does the Minister believe that further progress could be made if the British Government were to take a constructive approach to the negotiations?

Mr O'Dowd: As with any negotiation, both sides have to approach it with a constructive mindset. The Executive are doing that. We have set out plans of how we see reform and efficiencies. However, the amount of money on the table at this stage simply does not meet the basic pressures that the Executive face. No one from the Government, whether it be the Secretary of State or the Treasury, has been able to answer the question that I keep putting to them, which is this: why do you fund Scotland at £3 billion above its level of need, Wales at £1 billion above its level of need and us at below our level of need? It is about fairness and equality. No one from the Government side has been able to respond to that.

Mr O'Dowd: We are preparing a consultation on Jade's law. I hope to be in a position to make an announcement in the next number of weeks, possibly in November. We are making progress.

Ms Brownlee: I appreciate the Minister's response. Does he agree — I am sure that he does — that it is absolutely impossible to justify a situation in which someone who has murdered or attempted to murder their partner continues to exercise parental responsibility for their children? Urgent action is required. Will you commit to doing everything in your power to progress that issue as swiftly as possible?

Mr O'Dowd: I agree that further legal protections need to be put in place, particularly for the children and the bereaved families concerned. Although Jade's law is on the statute books in England, it has not yet been enacted. It is well-intentioned legislation, but it is such a complex area that it has not been implemented. I want to reach a point at which we have not only legislation on the books but legislation that can be implemented and fulfil its purpose.

Mr O'Dowd: I do not have those figures in front of me. Each Department is working to its indicative budget, as set out by the permanent secretary, but the A5 is a flagship project, and, therefore, the funding for it is ring-fenced.

Miss McIlveen: I thank the Minister for his response. Obviously, compensation to landowners based on November 2024 valuations is unacceptable. What re-evaluation mechanism for those landowners are the Minister and his Infrastructure colleague looking at?

Mr O'Dowd: I understand that the Minister for Infrastructure is involved in that matter and will report back to the House or the farmers involved as soon as possible. It is a matter for the Minister for Infrastructure. The valuations are carried out through Land and Property Services, independent of interference from any Minister.

Mr O'Dowd: On 30 April, I announced my intention to bring forward proposals to reform aspects of family law, including parental responsibility, to ensure that our legal framework continues to protect children and reflects public expectations. Since that announcement, officials have been progressing work on a range of policy options and engaging with key stakeholders to inform the development of policy proposals. That engagement has included discussions with organisations representing families and victims, legal and family justice stakeholders, elected representatives and individuals with lived experience of serious domestic abuse and other serious offences affecting families.

Miss Brogan: Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as an fhreagra sin.

Will the Minister outline when his Department intends or hopes to consult on that, le do thoil

Mr O'Dowd: I hope to be in a position to publish a consultation on it shortly. I will bring more information to the House about that, given the seriousness of the issue and Members' interest in the process. While much of the public discussion is focused on cases in which one parent murdered the other parent, my Department's consultation will consider a broader range of circumstances, including other serious offences committed against the child or the child's other parent.

Mr O'Dowd: I recently visited a business — a cafe — in the Harbour estate that opened as a result of the Back in Business scheme. The enthusiasm of the owners in taking on the huge challenges of opening their business was infectious. They were clear that the Back in Business scheme gave them a bit of breathing space to open, invest in and keep the business afloat.

Mrs Mason: Go raibh maith agat.

Thanks for that, Minister. On the back of that, will you give us an update on the non-domestic vacant rating consultation?

Mr O'Dowd: My Department recently completed a consultation on the proposals for a business growth accelerator scheme and changes to non-domestic vacant rating. The proposals arose from work that was undertaken last year with business representatives through the strategic review work. My officials are reviewing the responses to the consultation, which formally closed on 23 September, with extra time granted for some late responses that were received before the end of September. As the policy relates to the rating scheme, any resultant decisions will be taken by the Executive.

Mr O'Dowd: Social value and ensuring that we use government spending power to promote it has been a key factor of the procurement policy throughout my time and that of a number of my predecessors. Since February 2025, the revised social value in procurement policy has provided a stronger framework for monitoring and reporting social value outcomes. The Strategic Investment Board recently provided an update on social value outcomes that have been achieved since 2018: over 8,000 people who were long-term unemployed or disadvantaged in the labour market have gained employment; 479 social enterprises have been part of the supply chain; and over 16,000 hours of volunteering, almost 40,000 hours of skills development activities, over 6,000 weeks of work experience, almost 40,000 hours of health and well-being initiatives and over 11,000 hours of environmental initiatives have been achieved. It has been a worthwhile project.

Ms Flynn: I thank the Minister for that update. Will the Minister outline how important it is that prompt payment is made to support local businesses that provide services to government?

Mr O'Dowd: Cash flow is always a challenge for businesses, particularly those in the SME sector. Paying suppliers on time remains a key priority for the Department. I recognise the important contribution that local businesses make. The Executive's prompt payment policy encourages Departments to aim to pay 90% of valid, undisputed invoices within 10 working days while adhering to the statutory limit of 30 days.

Mr O'Dowd: That is not the case. Pausing the revaluation does not mean that the current valuation list should no longer be maintained. The list must be updated as properties are created, altered, demolished, divided or amalgamated. Where a new property is created or an existing property undergoes physical changes such as an extension or improvement, LPS must consider whether that property's valuation should be updated. That is normal valuation list maintenance, and the work is carried out across all sectors. Since the decision to pause Reval2026, LPS has completed more than 7,100 valuation cases, fewer than 100 of which relate to hotels and licensed premises.

Almost 60% of those cases arose from applications or challenges by ratepayers.

Mr Brett: Thank you, Minister. Your officials clearly knew that I might ask that question, so I thank them for the detail. That being the case, how many of those hotels requested the valuations that are taking place currently? Will you commit to continuing your dialogue with the sector to ensure that we have a fair and balanced outcome for all sectors across Northern Ireland?

Mr O'Dowd: I commit to continued dialogue with the sector and look forward to its bringing proposals to me. I do not have the figure for how many hotels requested a valuation, but I am sure that the Member will agree that if a hotel, or any other premises or property, has been extended or had significant works carried out on it, it, in turn, should pay its fair share of rates.

Mr O'Dowd: The consultation closed last month. My officials are evaluating the consultation responses.

Mr Blair: I thank the Minister for his answer. Does he believe that it is possible for any changes to rate relief, including those previously consulted on, such as the small business rate relief, to be implemented in the next financial year?

Mr O'Dowd: There is opportunity, but it is up to the Executive. My previous reports and recommendations on rates have been blocked at the Executive by the DUP. If there is a will, there is a way, however.

Mr Speaker: That concludes questions to the Minister of Finance. Before we move on to questions to the Minister of Health, I again remind Members not to walk between two Members when they are engaging. On this occasion, it happened when the Minister and Mr Brett were doing so. When Members come into the Chamber, they should try to ascertain who is asking the question and who is answering it.

Mr Butler (The Minister of Health): I thank the Member for her question. Access to general dental services remains a priority for me. Although the most recent dental statistics show a continued decline in patient registration across Northern Ireland, the rate of decline has reduced substantially compared with the previous year. In East Antrim specifically, the number of registered health service dental patients increased by 2% in the 12 months to June 2026. Although that is encouraging, I recognise that many people continue to face difficulties with accessing health service dental care. The wider decline in registration reflects a trend of general dental practitioners reducing their health service commitment and increasing private provision.

On 16 September 2026, I published the general dental services cost-of-service review, which identified the gap between the current remuneration for providing health service dental care and the cost of delivery of that care. Publication of the review represents an important step towards reform. Officials are now progressing an options appraisal to consider measures that will improve patient access and support the long-term sustainability of health service dentistry across Northern Ireland, including in the Member's constituency of East Antrim.

Residents of East Antrim who are not registered with a health service dentist and who have an urgent emergency or pressing dental condition may be able to access treatment through the dental access scheme. That scheme funds participating dental practices to provide appointments for unregistered patients who are experiencing dental problems. In addition, the enhanced child examination scheme is a regional initiative that supports improved oral health outcomes for children through enhanced preventative care, oral health advice and earlier intervention. Taken together, the initiatives demonstrate the Department's commitment to improving access to health service dentistry and to supporting better oral health outcomes for people throughout Northern Ireland, including in East Antrim.

Ms Brownlee: I thank the Minister for his response. Something that concerns me is that, in the past few months, over 2,500 people have been deregistered in East Antrim. That development may not be included in the Minister's stats. The figures are stark: only one third of adults in rural communities are registered with a dentist; 67% of children are registered; and a quarter of a million people across Northern Ireland have been deregistered. That is serious. The British Dental Association (BDA) is warning that the service requires urgent investment.

Does the Minister accept that a decade of inaction has contributed to the crisis? What specific measures will he take now to increase NHS dental provision across Northern Ireland?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for her question. There are a lot of things to consider in this regard. I do not like the position in which we find ourselves regarding dental waiting lists and access to dentists, but I do not think that there has been inaction for 10 years. We are in that position because we have been underfunded and under-politicked. We could have been facing a much better situation, however steps are being taken. It is essential that we have a sustainable dental workforce to improve health service dentistry. Additional funding was provided in 2026-27 to support six additional dental foundation training places, increasing opportunities for newly qualified dentists to undertake their training in Northern Ireland. That investment will help to strengthen the dental workforce pipeline and forms part of the wider work to support the long-term sustainability of dental services and improve access for patients across Northern Ireland.

Mr Donnelly: Minister, you mentioned the general dental services cost-of-service review that your Department published last month. You have accepted that there is a significant gap between the hourly rate paid to dentists and the cost of providing dental services. What actions are you taking to ensure that the gap can be closed, even if that is done over time rather than in just one leap?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. As with every challenge that I face in Health, it is really important that we establish the voice of the service user and of the clinicians who provide the service — in this case, our dentists. Therefore, engagement will be absolutely key. There will be early engagement with the dental profession and key stakeholders through the British Dental Association. Dentists will play an important role in developing reform proposals for general dental services. It is important that relevant stakeholders actively participate in that process to ensure the success of any reform. Following the publication of the report, the director of primary care attended a Northern Ireland Dental Practice Committee meeting to discuss the report and next steps. Officials will continue to engage with the British Dental Association and other key stakeholders as the appraisal options progress. I had a meeting with my departmental officials on this last week. It is an issue in which I am acutely interested: I want to ensure that there is equity right across Northern Ireland, regardless of a person's circumstances.

Ms Flynn: Minister, the 'State of Child Health' report that was published a couple of weeks ago identified that, in child dental extraction rates, inequality between the least-deprived and most-deprived areas has increased significantly. The gap, which was 1% in 2020, had risen to 11% by 2024. Is the Department doing any specific work to target the areas that are most deprived and have greatest objective need?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for her question. I can comfortably say that that formed the biggest part of my conversation with departmental officials and my analysis of the risks that we still face. I see access to NHS dentistry as a goal that we should all try to attain. As the Member rightly pointed out, across the health suite — and across life, unfortunately — social disadvantage can be a cruel determinant for young people, particularly children.

My Department has committed an additional investment of £8 million in general dentist services in 2026-27. That is to provide support to health service dentistry across Northern Ireland. The investment is intended to improve access by supporting the sustainability and capacity of general dental practice. Measures include enhanced fees for key treatments, increased activity payments to directly support practitioners who continue to provide health service dentistry and investment in workforce measures to support service provision in the medium term. Taken together, those actions are intended to improve the resilience of general dental services and to support access for patients. The Help with Health Costs scheme provides assistance with the cost of health service dental treatments, helping to ensure that financial circumstances do not act as a barrier to accessing necessary dental care. I look forward to working with the Member in the coming years to ensure that there are no such barriers.

Mr Chambers: Minister, I certainly welcome the ongoing action that you have taken to improve access. What new action is your Department taking to recruit, train and retain dentists in order to improve access to health service dentistry across Northern Ireland?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his supplementary question. There are workforce pressures throughout the health and social care system, and dentistry suffers from that same pressure. Opening up places requires resource, but we have no shortage of people who are willing to take up those posts. Extra funding was allocated in 2026-27 to support six additional dental foundation training places. We have to get ahead of the situation in order to anticipate the growing need, particularly of those who cannot access NHS dentistry, and to ensure that any future provision matches that growing need in the community across Northern Ireland. We have to remain agile in that regard and consider it on an annual basis.

Ms McLaughlin: The reform that you have outlined does not give me a great deal of reassurance. The situation is urgent, and we need urgent steps to be taken in order to stop dentists leaving the health service. What urgent steps can you take to stop that immediately? There are dental deserts across all of our communities in Northern Ireland.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for her question and the way in which she put it. There are multiple crises across the health and social care system. The review will give us a platform to engage proactively with all stakeholders. As I have said many times, the stakeholders — in this case, our dentists and the BDA — are central to the solutions that need to be found. As the Minister of Health, however, I am absolutely committed to ensuring that service users are central to any transformation and development of service provision. That door needs to remain open, and I have asked my officials to stay agile in that space and to monitor it, almost on a daily basis, in order to ensure that we start to see improvements and develop them.

Mr Speaker: Question 2 has been withdrawn.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. I understand the ongoing concern in relation to the provision of emergency general surgery at the Causeway Hospital and the potential impact on other acute services as a result of any change. However, let me be abundantly clear; any decision on a permanent change to a Health and Social Care (HSC) service must follow established guidance and governance processes. I have not yet been asked to make a decision, and no final decision will be made until I am content that the outcome, whatever it is, has been fully scoped and is supported by robust evidence, including on the points that the Member lists in his question.

A detailed process is under way, which already includes significant scrutiny, with the trusts working closely with my strategic planning and performance group (SPPG) and other stakeholders. As that work is ongoing, I cannot give a definitive timeline for the finalisation of the proposal or for any subsequent decision. I have already made clear my commitment to ensuring that the wider implications for the Causeway Hospital and other areas of the HSC, as well as patients, staff and local communities, are fully understood before any permanent decision is taken. That includes consideration of clinical safety, service quality, the workforce, patient experience, the impact on other hospitals and the long-term sustainability of services across the system.

The provision of safe and sustainable services will remain central to my consideration of any final proposal. Any decision that I make on whether to refer the proposal to the independent reconfiguration committee will be informed by the evidence that is available to me when I am asked to make a decision on a permanent change. While it is premature to pre-empt the outcome of that process, I can assure the Assembly that I will make a decision only when I am fully satisfied that any proposal has been subject to full and rigorous scrutiny.

Mr Bradley: I thank the Minister for his detailed answer. Does he agree that, along with any reconfiguration, there needs to be reform of the five health trusts and a delve down into whether they reflect the wider system pressures and whether their use of funding, strategies and staffing have created the problems that we are now experiencing? There is a correlation between the reduction in the number of hospitals and the increase in waiting lists.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question, and his passion for his local area and its hospital. I am not going to say yes or no to his question, even though it is a fair question.

I have been Health Minister for just over six weeks, and I have had the pleasure of meeting each of the health trust leads and their senior leadership teams, and I am convinced that they have the same single ambition as anybody in the Chamber, including myself, which is to improve on and provide the best health and social care service. It is undeniable, however, that there are issues and problems. We have waiting lists, and our inboxes are full of issues that our constituents face daily. However, work is under way at a very high level on cross-trust collaboration, and I am actively involved in that conversation with the trusts. That collaboration needs to be developed further, and some people could, perhaps, consider that in the future.

Northern Ireland has a population of only 1·9 million, and, in a compare-and-contrast with across the water, there are those who say that a single trust approach would work. The experts have so far said that that would not be the right approach for Northern Ireland. We need to ensure, however, that the further transformation is informed by clinical practice and by those who receive care, and that we consider every effect and impact that any change will have at any level. However, we need to look at driving ambition and continuing to work in the same vein as we have for the past 10 years and inject some positivity and service improvement right across the system.

Miss McAllister: Minister, you spoke a few weeks ago about pausing not the overall reconfiguration but the hospital network system. You just mentioned the committees in common across all the trusts, but our waiting lists will not get better in the long term if we do not change and deliver healthcare in a more sustainable way. Given that you said that you are parking that initiative, where do we go from here in which hospitals deliver what services and what is the best for everyone in Northern Ireland? That is how it has to be looked at on the whole.

Mr Butler: I really do thank the Member for her question, because it gives me the chance to address something that was maybe misconstrued. There has been no pause on any network reconfiguration. What has been paused is how we name services and what we call them. It is literally a pressure that I identified when I talked to service users. Sometimes we overcomplicate the system. We relegate and promote systems by giving them a terminology that maybe does not best fit the system and the service that they have. That causes unnecessary nervousness and a disconnect from the very people whom the hospital network is designed to serve.

On

, I have not paused any work in that space. What I have asked is that we drop the four names that were developed for the purpose of describing a hospital. As I have said many times, depending on where you live, you already experience healthcare delivery in a different way. If you live rurally, it is a bigger challenge to get a domiciliary care package, and there is sometimes a nervousness if a person has a long drive to a hospital for acute care. In the short time that I have — I will not be able to address it in six months — I want to re-establish the social contract between service user and service provider. As I have said many times, we all want the same thing, which is better health outcomes. We have the best clinicians and the best people in the world, and we need to ensure that the service is understood and that health is not done to people but with people. Hopefully, that arrests that line of thought.

To reiterate, tackling waiting lists and providing better health and social care remains my absolute ambition and commitment.

Mr Gildernew: Minister, following the unplanned collapse of emergency services at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen, there were several inadequate — indeed, shambolic — consultations. So inadequate were they that your predecessor had to pause the move, and finally it was withdrawn. What steps will you take to ensure that there is genuine and meaningful consultation with communities about the health services that they require?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. I will respond in two parts, if he does not mind. The temporary suspension of emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital remains in place. It is important that people know that the suspension is temporary. The Western Health and Social Care Trust is developing a longer-term vision for services across its hospital network, and it is engaging with staff, patients and the wider community in that space. That work is expected to inform the trust's proposals for the future of the South West Acute Hospital, including emergency general surgery.

No permanent decision has been taken. Any proposals for permanent change must follow the Department's guidance, which includes appropriate consultation and the provision of assurance, and they would require my approval. The Member will be well aware that, within two weeks of taking up my post, I visited the SWAH. Contrary to popular belief, although there are challenges in health, I will absolutely go as far as I can to meet people and speak to them face to face, because that is really important in gaining their confidence.

The Member makes a really good point. It goes back to my ambition of establishing a social contract whereby health provision is done with people rather than to them. I absolutely respect clinicians' advice. When the clinical advice stacks up and has better patient outcomes at its core and when people are informed that that is the case and can believe it, we have nothing to fear from any wider service transformation. That is the system that we need to embed, because we have finite resource; we have a growing list of health problems; we have an ageing population and a diminishing birth rate; and we have complex comorbidities. All that is making medical provision even more difficult. There are things in train, however, and I am really excited about the neighbourhood model. If we can deliver that, it will deal with a lot of our pressures.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. Regrettably, Executive approval has not yet been secured. Approval should, of course, be accompanied by sufficient recurrent funding to assure affordability in this year and future years. I emphasise to Executive and Assembly colleagues as well as the UK Government the increasing urgency of decisions on the matter.

Industrial relations across Health and Social Care (HSC) are becoming increasingly fragile. Resident doctors, consultants and specialty, associate specialist and specialist (SAS) doctors have already taken industrial action twice this year. The Royal College of Nursing intends to ballot its members shortly, and other unions are expected to follow early in November. We now face an increasingly precarious position. Staff have waited considerably longer than colleagues in England to receive their 2026-27 pay award. That further delay risks a significant deterioration in relations with staff and trade unions and increases the prospect of industrial action during the winter period — the worst time of the year for that — which would have severe consequences for patients, waiting lists and service delivery.

There is also an important operational consideration, My officials have advised that the window of opportunity to implement the arrangements through payroll in this financial year is rapidly narrowing: it closes day by day. The earlier a decision is made, the easier it will be to manage implementation. If the window is missed, there is a risk that implementation will be pushed later into 2027, which would have a severe impact on not only industrial relations but patient safety. It is no longer simply a question of timing. Every week of delay increases industrial relations risks and reduces our ability to implement the award in this financial year. We are approaching the point at which the remaining payroll implementation opportunity could be lost. I therefore strongly urge Executive colleagues and the UK Government to support an immediate decision.

Mr Burrows: I thank the Minister for that comprehensive answer. Does he agree that there are those in this place who, by their selfish actions, seem to want to collapse the institutions and that the first casualty of that collapse would be public-sector pay?

Mr Butler: That is without doubt. I sat with colleagues last week in my fourth Executive meeting, and I will be fair to my Executive colleagues: it was the number-one item on the table. Whilst I agree — we all agree — that it is the first priority, addressing it comes with complexity, and bringing down the Assembly would mean that we could not deliver it. It is as simple as that; that is what we are talking about. We are talking about going into winter, and I am rightly being cross-examined on winter preparedness, because all Members in the Chamber want our hospitals and our GP practices to work and want access for their constituents.

We are facing into the time of year of greatest risk. I have spoken to the unions a number of times. They feel deflated and defeated, because they should not be in this position — they really should not — and I do not blame them for their thoughts. I hope that they do not take industrial action, but I expect that they will. Those who seek to bring down this institution need to factor that in.

As I said, within the next month, I expect the ballots to indicate a vote in favour of taking action. It is incumbent on us, whether at Executive level or Assembly level, to make this place work, because making this place work means that we can help to heal the health service.

Mrs Dillon: It would be helpful if your party leader and colleague would clarify whom he thinks is going to pull down the institutions, because that is calling it out for what it is. It certainly is not those on these Benches.

A Member: He is away.

Mrs Dillon: I see that he is away.

Mr Speaker: Is there a question?

Mrs Dillon: Minister, I understand that you cannot give the pay increase until the ministerial direction has been approved. I fully understand your position on that. However, may I get some clarity on the real living wage? I believe that you are in a position to move forward with that if you are able to find money within your budget. It is not always about getting more money; sometimes, it is about how you spend what you have. May I get some clarity on that?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for her question. Whilst everybody in the health service regardless of their clinical practice, whether they are a band 5, a band 6, a band 7, a band 8, a consultant, a doctor or a dentist, deserves to be fairly remunerated, for me, one of the most important issues to address is the real living wage for care workers who work in the community or other settings. Whether they are a band 2 or a band 3, they really need our help at the moment, because they are facing not only an unfair pay packet but, for those who drive and travel, the pressure of rising fuel costs, and there is not enough agility in the system to reflect that.

I say this to the Member: if I do not get a budget agreed, I do not recognise the ability within my current budget to meet the need that the Member alluded to. If we do not get a budget agreed — we are not talking about additional moneys coming over — I already know that I am going to overspend this year, so no matter what I do, and no matter what I commit to, even with the Secretary of State's final offer, as he called it, there is not enough money in my budget to make those decisions. They therefore need to be made collectively and at the same time.

The other pressure that I read into the record a minute or two ago is the mechanism involved. It is not complex, but it takes time. If there was an agreement at the Executive, it would probably still be in the region of 10 to 12 weeks before that money hit pay packets. If you look at the calendar, you will see that the probability of getting it in before Christmas is less than slim, even if we acted now.

Mr Wilson: Minister, with your answers focusing on the value of staff in our health and social care system, you will also be aware of our voluntary sector and its equal value in complementing your Department in a considerable way. To that end, you will be aware of the work of incredABLE in my constituency and its important adult short-break service that has operated safely and effectively for over 20 years. I understand that it has been in touch with you about an urgent matter concerning the insistence of the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) on registration. However, you will be aware that the unique and vital service that incredABLE provides does not neatly sit within the existing categories under the RQIA's remit. Minister, will you therefore give every effort and attention to the matter and seek to explore all available avenues with incredABLE staff in order to find a resolution that ensures that this vital short-break service continues to operate, given its immense importance to everybody whom it assists?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member. He has been here only a short time, but he has managed to weave an incredible supplementary question into this topic. I am very alive to the issue. It is something that I have been contacted about not just because I am the Health Minister but because people understand my acute interest in the space of learning disability and respite services.

I am fully aware of the issues relating to the provision of services by incredABLE in the Southern Trust area and the issue of the cease-and-desist letter, which is the piece that people are talking about in the media at the moment. The closure date was to be around 13 October or perhaps the end of October. The RQIA has subsequently agreed to extend the cease-and-desist date to 31 December — something that I contacted it about — and notified all relevant parties accordingly. My officials continue to engage with the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority as a matter of urgency, as I fully recognise the importance of trying to find a solution that will allow the service to continue.

Mr O'Toole: I will be brief. The Minister said that he wants to give workers a pay rise but that that cannot happen in the absence of an Executive Budget. Will he agree that, if we all get a pay rise but the many tens of thousands of healthcare workers who deserve a pay rise do not, it will bring this place into utter disrepute?

Mr Butler: I absolutely agree. Thank you for your question and for the manner in which you put it. My 10 years of working in this place have been incredibly frustrating. What I do know is that, when parties in this place have been pressurised into finding agreement, it has been on the back of the pressure felt by Health and Social Care workers. We need only think back to COVID, when we clapped and gave them all a pat on the back. That appreciation was probably lost in the two most recent pay negotiations, because they quickly recognised that it is about politics in this place.

It would be not regrettable but disgraceful if we were to lose the opportunity to show our Health and Social Care workers what they mean to us and to prioritise the transformation and reset that everyone in Northern Ireland so desperately deserves. This place's number-one function should be to make things better, and there is nothing more important than making someone's health better. We have plenty of pressures to face, plenty of inequalities to address and plenty of work to be getting on with, and it is about time that we started to get on with it.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. I assure him that the Department takes concerns regarding suspected cancer clusters very seriously and recognises the impact they can have on local communities. There is no higher priority than ensuring that any potential public health risk is properly investigated and addressed.

Departmental officials first became aware of concerns regarding a suspected cluster of childhood cancer cases in the mid-Ulster area in July 2025. The Public Health Agency was asked to work with the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry to assess whether there were any unusual patterns or rates of childhood or rare cancers in the area, compared with those expected across Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Cancer Registry analysed validated cancer incidence data up to the end of 2023 and concluded that incidence rates of childhood cancers, including acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, among children aged from zero to 14 living in the mid-Ulster area, were not significantly higher than the Northern Ireland average.

Unfortunately, validated incidence data is currently available only up until 2023. My predecessor was briefed by the Public Health Agency, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and a senior clinical specialist from the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and was assured of the robustness of the analysis undertaken. I am also being briefed on the issue and will continue to be kept informed of any developments. The Public Health Agency continues to monitor the incidence of childhood cancers and is working with the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry to improve data timelines. I will keep the matter under review as further validated data becomes available. The Member will be aware that my office is arranging a meeting with him, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss his concerns further.

Mr Speaker: We will now move on to topical questions.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. I spent the weekend feeling genuinely concerned about the future of this place and about the ramifications of, shall we say, a staged walkout or if Stormont were to cease. The evidence shows us that, when we do not have Stormont for two or three years and we have compromised Budgets, people come to harm. Successive Ulster Unionist Ministers of Health have not ducked the pressures. There are pressures and failings, but we are facing into them, and we are seeing some green shoots of recovery in elective care and waiting lists

I have to go back to the issue of pay, because we cannot neglect the elephant in the room, which is public-sector pay and not just nurses' pay. It cannot be ignored that, if there were no functioning Executive, I would have limited powers even if I were to take on a caretaker role for five or six months. I would have to live within the resources that I had. I could not move to further transformation and reset. My imminent fear is about winter preparedness. I cannot be clearer about this: destabilisation of this place, in any sense, impacts on public service delivery; it really does.

I do not want to prioritise subsets of what I am looking at, but there is absolutely no doubt that it would be almost impossible to deliver elective care and address the waiting lists. Significant spending decisions would be well beyond my remit. Workforce plans and safe staffing legislation, which are absolutely vital if we want to establish a safe workforce plan for future health and social care provision, would be beyond my remit. We need to ensure that we deliver those things in this mandate.

Mr McGrath: Thank you, Minister, for the reply. It is notable that some of the people shouting loudest for this place to be collapsed are not even of this parish; they are of a parish over in London. For five of the past 10 years, courtesy of Sinn Féin and the DUP, there has been no Executive. What impact has that had on getting our health service to where it is today?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his point. It is a point that I have made many times regardless of the portfolio that I have held. It is inarguable that political dysfunction and not being financed appropriately is a recipe for disaster. Last week, we had Professor Bengoa with us. While, in public and private conversations, Professor Bengoa said that we have made progress and that he understands the impact of COVID, for instance, he also recognised the impact of the failure to have leadership from the Department for five years. There are green shoots, there is potential, and we have a plan, but we need leadership, whether that is from me as Health Minister for the next six months or from someone else who picks it up in April.

We have learnt from the failures of our recent past, and there are many in the Chamber who served during that time. We did work on the mental health strategy and on suicide prevention, and you sat with me on many of the all-party groups. We put our shoulder to all those things, but, unfortunately, we are years behind on delivery, and we have to cherry-pick what we do because we do not have enough resource.

These things are also impacted on by our workforce. We have 6,500 vacancies across the health and social care sector. My Department is working at pace to better understand that and develop a workforce policy that delivers for the future. However, it requires us to make mature decisions around budgets. Health does not happen just in the Health Department; it happens in Communities, Education, Justice — it happens across the piece. That is why we need the Executive to speak the same language on those priorities.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. We recently announced £2·3 million of funding for that, which is not a significant amount of money given what we commit at the minute. The review team has been working at pace to do what it can with that pot of money. We have an idea of what the full cost would be over a number of years, but there are still challenges. We can learn from the past and, going back to the questions that were raised before, get confidence in neurological services, support and clinical practice. We are determined to get it right. We are determined to deliver on the answers that the review provided. I need to ensure that the voices of those who are impacted will be at the table and will be heard. The door will be open, and the team will be available in the further roll-out over the next number of years.

Mr McReynolds: I thank the Minister for that response. The regional neurology alliance will form the core of that new neurology delivery team, but I have not heard what measurable outcomes the alliance has delivered since October 2025. What governance, decision-making authority and accountability arrangements will you put in place to ensure that the team can resolve disagreements on how to improve service delivery; deliver on recurrent funding; and, ultimately, implement the review's recommendations to start delivering for people living with neurological conditions across Northern Ireland?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. I should have declared an interest at the start as a former member of the all-party group on neurology.

The Member's question is one that has been written, emailed and messaged to me from people whom I know. It is really important that we get off on the right foot on that. I believe in co-production. It is absolutely central to this, because we need to have the confidence of service users and those collective voices. We have to trust our clinicians. We have to ensure that we burn ourselves out getting off on the right foot when it comes to those governance arrangements, because we have to get it right this time. I look forward to engaging in that work with the alliance and the coalition.

Mr Butler: I have too many pages in this folder.

The figure of £20 million represents not a sudden or unexplained overspend on Encompass but an increase of approximately £19·9 million between the original in-year capital requirement and the programme's latest forecast. The largest element is approximately £10 million arising from an uplift in Epic licensing costs. A further £4·8 million relates to additional implementation team costs, including programme management and organisational support, with approximately £1·6 million relating to the extension of external resources. Additional hardware requirements account for just over £1 million, with the balance arising from other movements and increases across existing capital lines. Together, those changes increased the forecast capital requirement from approximately £15 million to £34·9 million.

Encompass is now live across all five health and social care trusts. The scale of its adoption has been significantly greater than originally anticipated. That is a positive indication of how extensively the system is now embedded across Health and Social Care. However, the costs associated with operating and supporting a live regional system also need to be properly understood and managed sustainably.

Mr Blair: I thank the Minister for that answer. I hope that he accepts it when I say that there are many service providers across multiple sectors who would see £20 million as a very significant uplift. What they would ask, especially in relation to the health sector, is this: how can that cost be met, and what will now not be done in order to meet that need?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. He is absolutely right to ask it. At this moment, absolutely nothing is at risk. The roll-out of Encompass is being done within the existing envelope. There is nothing at risk with regard to that. I have a day-1 brief concern that, I am sure, many of you will recognise, and it is a conversation in which I have certainly engaged with my departmental officials. It relates to the costs associated with tech, data and information systems and the long-term sustainability of those programmes. I do not want to be guilty in the future of not having done my due diligence to understand licensing costs and the value that we get out of those systems. My absolutely number-one, fundamental belief and ambition is that, in any investment that we make, whether that be on IT or data systems, patient outcomes must be central to that. Some of that will be in the efficiencies that we get with excellent systems like Encompass. However, that efficiency must be monitored continually and measured to ensure that we get value for money from the systems. The Health and Social Care system exists for better patient outcomes. Therefore, even if it is around data systems or licences, I want to ensure that we apply absolute due diligence to that and get the benefit from the systems that we need to get.

During questions to the previous Minister, I rebuked a Member for walking in front of the Member who was speaking: it has just happened again. Members, please watch who is in their place to ask a question and to whom the Minister is responding, and neither walk in front of them nor behind them. It is rude, inappropriate and unprofessional.

Mr Butler: I thank the Minister —. I am elevating you before you retire. I thank the Member for her question. I am sorry that I was a little bit distracted; I thought that it was the Minister who had been told off.

With regard to the Member's question, I absolutely remain agile and interested in that aspect. If you are content to write to me, I will give you a full answer on that rather than trying to squeeze an answer into the last 30 seconds. The question should have a full answer.

Mr Speaker: There is a whole minute and a half for you.

Ms K Armstrong: Thank you very much, Minister. Yes, I would appreciate that written answer, given the fact that it is taking some departments four years before they are putting people on to waiting lists.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for her question. The failure to meet some people's basic needs and address the pressures that they are facing is absolutely regrettable. Anybody who is on a waiting list for an indeterminate amount of time will come to other harm; there is absolutely no doubt about that. We are making progress, and it is my ambition to ensure that we do not lose the momentum that we have and that we seek to expedite that even further.

Mr Speaker: Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr Baker, for showing good manners there, by the way. Members, take your ease for a moment while we change the Chair.

Mr Mathison (The Chairperson of the Committee for Education): Speaking first as the Chair of the Education Committee, my remarks will, for that section, be quite brief. At Consideration Stage, I set out in some detail the Committee's work to scrutinise the Bill and the Committee's rationale for tabling amendments at that stage. I do not intend to rehash that narrative today. However, it is worth noting that, during that previous debate — the Minister has already referenced this — I highlighted a concern about whether the Bill as drafted left open a loophole of any kind whereby the Department could set payments at a value that is lower in holiday periods than the value attached to a free school meal payment during term time. It was that concern that led to the Committee seeking further engagement with the Bill Office and tabling amendment No 3, which is in the House for debate today. That amendment sought to bring clarity by introducing the text:

The Minister has already referenced that in his remarks, and he has brought an amendment that tries to improve the wording of that. I will come to that later in my remarks. During the Committee's engagement, notwithstanding the fact that some members continued to express opposition to the Bill in principle — the DUP and UUP members specifically — the Committee was content, at that stage, to support that draft. Shortly before our Committee meeting last week, the Minister wrote to me, as Chair, setting out an alternative amendment to address those concerns, as well as a range of tidying-up alterations covering the main provisions of the Bill, largely contained in amendment No 1. He further submitted additional amendments that alter when the first payments due in a holiday period will kick in and some additional changes to wording around commencement. Again, those amendments are all in front of us today for debate, but given that they arrived on the day that the Committee was meeting, the Committee had insufficient time to consider them in any detail. We had a brief closed session with the Bill Office to talk through the amendments insofar as was possible, but Members will all be aware that Bill Office officials are not there to provide legal advice, and there really was insufficient time to deal with the Minister's amendments in any detail at that meeting. On that basis, I am unable to set out any agreed Committee position on the Minister's amendments, and it will be for individual Members and parties to set out their positions on all those in the debate today.

Before I conclude my remarks as Chair and move on to contributions as an Alliance MLA, I put on record my thanks to the Bill sponsor for his work on introducing the Bill, to the Committee Clerk and the team and to the Bill Office for its engagement over many weeks of Committee in the drafting of amendments. I also thank them, particularly staff in the Bill Office, for their readiness to make themselves available to the Committee, often at short notice.

I will now make some more detailed remarks as an Alliance MLA. From my perspective and that of my party, the Minister's amendments are, to a large extent, a tale of two halves. Amendment No 1, which is the redraft of the Bill to tidy up and create the greatest legal certainty possible, warrants support. It is not unusual for Ministers to table those sorts of amendments, and, if we are looking to deliver legislation that delivers the most effective clarity and gives the clearest legal effect to the Bill's policy intentions, we would, in my view, need some pretty strong and robust reasons to reject it, From that perspective, I am certainly content to support amendment No 1, and I will come to that in more detail.

At this point, I put clearly on the record that I will not support amendment No 6. In my view, it gives the Minister the power to entirely dictate when the first holiday meal payments can be made, and it is clear that no payments will start until the Minister introduces regulations to that effect, subject to the approval of the Assembly. That, to my mind, puts the issuing of those payments at risk from the outset. Parents hoping to receive the financial support that the Bill creates would feel rightly let down if, on the one hand, we create the expectation of financial support, but, on the other hand, legislate to build in indefinite delay. On that basis, amendment No 6 does not have my support.

I note the Minister's comments on finances in relation to the Bill. Of course, any Minister will raise the budgetary position in their Department, but, on that basis, we also have to be honest and clear: Ministers have budgetary choices to make. In the already limited and reduced mandate that we are operating in, the Education Minister has spent well in excess of £10 million — potentially substantially more, and maybe the Minister can clarify that — on initiatives such as TransformED. He did not have to do that. It was a choice. It was his reform agenda and his programme of interventions, but not one iota of democratic scrutiny was applied to or required for that, because it has not required Executive support. It has not led to a single vote being taken in the Chamber on whether the Assembly approves any of that programme of work, nor has it required a single piece of legislation. The Minister is very clear, however, that this spend needs the most robust and highest level of democratic scrutiny possible. It is clear that it was a choice that money went into the TransformED agenda and not directly into school budgets, school buildings or measures to tackle teacher workload. Those are choices, and those are choices that Ministers have.

I do not want to labour the point, because we are here to debate specific amendments. However, as amendment No 6 has been set out and very much framed by the Minister as addressing the financial implications of the Bill, those points are worth making. The Minister has made the choice that substantial funds, in his view, are better spent on TransformED than on front-line education, and that has led even to practical impacts on schools, such as closure days. When children would otherwise be in school, they are being taken out of school for TransformED days as opposed to engaging in learning in the classroom. Again, I reiterate the point: Ministers have choices, and I have no doubt — we are all clear — that the Minister before us is no shrinking violet. I am sure that he will be able to make the case —

Mr Martin: Will the Member give way?

Mr Mathison: I will in a moment.

— to the Finance Minister that he needs to be appropriately resourced to comply with the provisions of the Bill.

Mr Martin: Will the Member give way?

Mr Mathison: I will make just a wee bit more progress. I will finish my remarks on finance and then bring you in.

Another example that I will give — I have been labouring this point, possibly as a lone voice — is that £5 million is spent every year on placing two-year-olds in our nursery schools, and £5 million is not an inconsequential sum. The Minister's officials have told the Committee that that spend does not lead to effective provision for those children. It is not where they should be placed, yet, year-on-year, certainly in the last academic year for which I have records, we spend in excess of £5 million on that. We need to be clear that, although the Bill comes with a price tag, the notion that the Department is simply running like a well-oiled machine with no waste and that nothing can be done around any of the spend that comes out of the Department does not hold water. We spend more and more each year on SEN provision, yet, year after year, parents and teachers tell us that that support is not effective and that it does not deliver the outcomes that are needed. I have put it on record that we continue to operate a divided and inefficient education system, but the Minister has told me repeatedly that he does not feel that the cost of division in education needs any attention. We have no evidence of savings from the wholescale reorganisation of the system that created the Education Authority a number of years ago. I am not clear about whether there is a clear commitment to deal with an area-planning system that does not tackle the need to rightsize the school estate.

I could go on, but I am conscious that I may be about to be quickly brought back to speak to the amendments, so, at this point, I will bring in Peter Martin before I return to the remainder of my speech.

Mr Martin: I thank the Chair of the Education Committee for allowing me an intervention. He has made a whole range of points, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not agree with. I was quite struck, however, by the examples that he used on the way through his contribution. He cited a few, and I will not repeat them all, but he mentioned the word "choice", saying that Ministers have choices when it comes to how they spend their budgets. Does the Member agree that, because the Bill is primary legislation, the Minister will have no choice but to simply take £23 million out of his budget and spend it in this way?

Mr Mathison: I thank the Member for that intervention. I will say two things. First, the Assembly has choices to make, and that is what we are doing today. Secondly, once additional spend is built in for the Department, the Minister has choices about what he does in order to facilitate that spend. That is for the Minister. Again, as I said, I have no doubt that the Minister will be very effective in making the case to the Finance Minister about the extra resource that he requires.

I move to amendment No 8. I also have some concerns about it. Perhaps the Minister will speak to it in more detail and provide some clarity in his remarks. It creates what look to me to be quite substantial regulation-making powers in relation to article 58A(1) to (9), which are, essentially, the new provisions that will be inserted by amendment No 1 if it passes. Again, while such regulation-making powers are not unusual in a Bill, my reading is that clause 4, as amended at Consideration Stage, builds in similar provisions based on wording that was developed with the assistance of the Examiner of Statutory Rules. I am content that the current clause 4, as previously amended, builds in those powers for the Department. Similarly, it is my view that the current clause 4, as previously amended, seems to be clear on commencement dates and the intention to ensure that payments land at the next relevant holiday period. I do not, at this stage, have any sense that amendment Nos 11 to 14 are required to go through today.

Amendment No 1 is a substantive tidying amendment. I will refer to the Minister's letter to me as Chair of the Committee. He addressed some of these points in his opening remarks, but I want to be clear on the assurances that were given in that letter, because it is important to put them on the record. It is a reasonably substantial bit of text, but it is very important that we are clear on the Minister's position in his engagement with the Committee around the purpose of amendment No 1. I quote from the Minister's letter to me:

I think that that is very clear. I welcome his assurance that amendment No 1 is being presented to us for our consideration not as an amendment that is about unpicking the Bill's policy intent but as one that is about ensuring that it gives the most effective legal clarity that we can achieve. I thank the Minister for bringing that forward, and I am certainly content with those assurances.

I also reference the Minister's letter to me as Chair of the Committee about the Committee amendment tabled in my name. It provides an assurance about the value of the payments. The letter states:

The Minister is clear in that correspondence. Based on the content of the letter, I feel that the engagement on the amendment, which relates to the value of the post-primary payment and how it should be set, is constructive. The issue certainly went back and forth during the Committee's consideration of the Bill, and I welcome the Minister's coming at it from a constructive position. I apologise that I had to read out a lengthy excerpt, but it was important for me, by way of supporting amendment No 1, to have it on the record in order to clarify the Minister's assurances on which I am relying. I welcome the fact that the Minister, in his remarks today, has confirmed that amendment No 1 delivers the Bill sponsor's policy intent but with improved clarity and effectiveness.

The post-primary issue is technical, but it is important that we get it right. There is no single meal price for that cohort of pupils. Rather, there is a daily allowance. I am content that proposed new article 58A(9) in amendment No 1 addresses that clearly. To my mind, that is preferable to how the Bill is currently amended, which makes reference to a single "daily allowance" and does not really tally with the situation in primary-school settings in particular, where there is a unit price as opposed to the daily allowance for post-primary settings. The clarity is therefore welcome, and I hope that when it comes to the administration of the Bill's provisions, that will give the clarity that the Education Authority, in all likelihood, will need in order to set the payment level appropriately.

Similarly, I have no issue with amendment No 5, which provides flexibility in the Bill on the setting of the holiday dates on which the payments will apply. The Bill as amended at Consideration Stage has similar provisions built into clause 1, and I am content to take the expert advice from the First Legislative Counsel (FLC) and will go with his wording to ensure clarity and consistency.

To summarise, the Alliance Party has consistently supported the Bill's intent to ensure that families have access to holiday meal payments. We are therefore happy to support amendment Nos 1, 5, 9 and 10 in order to deliver the clearest, most coherent mechanism to deliver on that policy intention. As I outlined, however, amendment No 6 hands over to the Minister and the Department all the control for releasing the first payment, and that is not acceptable for parents who desperately need the support. For that reason, I cannot support it.

We have not had sufficient time to understand fully the scope and extent of amendment No 8, so I do not plan to support it today. I am, however, open to hearing what the Minister has to say about it. I am also content with clause 4 as amended at Consideration Stage, so, on that basis, I do not consider amendment Nos 11 to 14 to be necessary. I have a concern that, in fact, they put at risk the principle that payments should commence at the next available "relevant", or, more simply put, holiday, period.

I look forward to the Bill's passing Further Consideration Stage today. I hope that it will not be long before it reaches Final Stage and progresses to becoming law.

Mr Martin: My comments on the Bill will be brief, but they will reflect my party's position. I reiterate what the Education Minister said: the Bill has been brought forward by its sponsor with good intent. The concept of ending hunger amongst our children is admirable; in fact, the Assembly should aim to do that. I will come back to that later.

I will address the intended, or perhaps unintended, consequences of passing the Bill today as it stands. As the Minister mentioned, his amendments would not change the fundamentals of the Bill at Further Consideration Stage when it comes to the eligibility criteria, the holiday periods, the EA's duty and the value of the payments. The amendments are not about seeking to delay or block the Bill; they are about ensuring that the measures could be funded by the Department, and that the Department could deliver what the Bill requires. That is simple fiscal responsibility. The Education Committee Chair, who spoke just before me, will be aware that the Department's budget deficit for this year is in the region of £500 million. He will also know that the in-year cost of the Bill's proposals would be something like £7 million, and that the recurrent cost would probably be in the region of £23 million. The Chair said that the Education Minister has "choices" about how he spends his budget, but I know from my time on the Committee that, whilst the Education budget is fairly sizeable, the amount of flexibility in it, once you take out salaries and statutory functions, for example, is very small.

The Bill as it stands would place a vires on the Department to deliver that additional funding to parents without any mechanism to uplift the Department's budget accordingly, which, for a private Member's Bill, is fairly unusual. It remains clear that, without additional ring-fenced funding being provided to the Department of Education by the Finance Minister, the Department of Education would, as the Education Minister referenced, have to absorb those costs in some way. The only ways in which it could do that would be to change some of the criteria around how it evaluates free school meal entitlement (FSME), to stop other programmes or to divert funding from somewhere else.

The Minister reflected that argument in his comments, and I will pick that up. He was talking about a fairly basic economic concept called opportunity cost. Essentially, it refers to the potential benefit or gain that is given up when choosing another option; if someone has a certain amount of money to spend and they spend it on x, they cannot spend it on y. It is wholly legitimate for the Assembly to ask where the money would come from. Would it come from youth services? Would it come from extended schools? Would it come from SEN? I struggle to understand why, despite the Bill's positive and very wholesome proposal, we would legislate to put an additional £23 million of financial pressure on a Department that already has an overspend of £500 million in a financial year that we are over halfway through.

When I looked at some of the figures this morning, I noted that the Sure Start programme, which, as members of the Education Committee will be aware, is an absolutely brilliant programme that delivers really good outcomes for some very vulnerable families in Northern Ireland, costs £37 million per year. To pay for what is being talked about in the Bill, that programme, which is an exemplar, would need to be cut by about 60%. Regardless of the efficacy of the policy, simply adding a £23 million commitment to a Department that is already overcommitted and has already overspent does not seem particularly sensible. I just do not see where the fiscal responsibility is with this. I am happy to give the Floor back to the Chair of the Education Committee, because we have had a bit of back and forth on this. Where is the fiscal responsibility in putting a legislative duty to commit £23 million of recurrent funding on a Department that has already significantly overspent and will overspend more as we go through the year?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, sorry.

Mr Martin: Sorry.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: No, you are OK. Peter, will you refer to the amendments that you are speaking to? Go ahead, Nick.

Mr Mathison: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I am conscious that we need to focus on the amendments, but amendment No 6 is being framed as one through which to address the issue of finance.

If the Member is saying that this is the thing to do, which seems to be the message coming from DUP Members, and is certainly the message that came from DUP Members on the Committee, albeit they may think that it is being done through the wrong Department, does he not agree that there are already provisions in the Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 whereby the Minister could engage with Executive colleagues to look at pooling resources to see how we can do it? There are creative ways to address all of this. The Bill would create the statutory duty, but there are frameworks that would allow for budgets from across the Executive to be pooled in the best interests of the child. The Member seems to be saying that he thinks that the Bill at least delivers on that front.

Mr Martin: Thank you to the Chair of the Education Committee. I absolutely believe that, if we can provide alleviation to hungry children, we absolutely should, but I am clear that the Bill is not the vehicle by which to do that, regardless of whether we had £23 million. I am speaking to amendment No 6, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. If we had £23 million, I would have a question about how best to use it. If somebody were to gift the Assembly £23 million — the Bill sponsor is looking at me and smiling — I would ask this: how do we best deliver that money legitimately into the mouths of the children who most require it?

The Minister might touch on this, but, on the wider point that the Chair referenced with regard to amendment No 6, I have certainly not heard anything about whether the Finance Minister has committed to ring-fencing that money in the Budget. The Member may be more in tune than I am, however, since I have not been on the Committee for a while. That ring-fencing should be done, because the Bill as amended at Consideration Stage puts additional pressure on an already overcommitted Education Department, which cites some of the issues that the Committee Chair raised in his contribution.

I will continue, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, and, as I said, my comments will be brief. I only have another couple of points to make. The Bill focuses on school-aged children who are entitled to free school meals, and does not deal with the wider societal issue of food poverty, which affects many families. The Bill is undoubtedly a mechanism to address that, but I suppose that my issue is that the Department of Education should not be the vehicle. I accept that there is a legitimate argument: food poverty is absolutely clear and present in our society as it stands, but it is unusual in the extreme to put the vires for addressing that on the Department of Education rather than dealing with it at Executive level. When considering that alongside the funding challenges that already exist for the Department, I have a series of questions.

On that note, I read, with great interest, the Education Endowment Foundation's report on the impact of school breakfast clubs throughout the UK, as I am sure the Bill sponsor will have.

School breakfast clubs have an incredible impact on kids' ability to function effectively in school, because, as has been mentioned in the Chamber, perhaps even by the Bill sponsor at previous stages, a hungry child does not learn well. Children should not be going to school hungry. That has been really effective, and I wanted to point it out. However, the EEF research highlights that as being during school — the breakfast clubs and their support address the issue during school time when the children are learning and studying. I will cite another one: the Trussell 2025 report, 'Hunger in the UK', also highlights the continuing scale of hardship and the effect that it has on our children. You can accept both of those reports, you can look at the Bill and agree with those reports and the impact that, they clearly say, hunger has on children and you can still say, as I am doing today, that this is not the right vehicle to address those issues.

Everyone in the Chamber will say that addressing those issues is mission-critical, but that is something that the Executive — not the Education Minister — have to take on board, address and respond to, and it should not be done through a private Member's Bill that, ultimately, will put the Education Minister under pressure to find £23 million of recurrent resource that he does not have in his budget. That is our issue with the Bill. I urge Members to support the amendments.

Mr Burrows: I will address the Bill, specifically the amendments. I support the Minister's amendments, and I will explain why. First of all, nobody is taking issue with the principle that the hunger of any child or adult in our society is a serious issue; the question is whether this Bill addresses the issue at hand. That is where we have grave reservations that, without regulations to at least try to salvage the Bill, it is simply potentially squandering huge amounts of public money. First, this is an unfunded statutory commitment. It puts a permanent obligation on the Department of Education without providing the money with which to discharge it. Pardon the pun, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. The £23 million or £30 million cost has to come from somewhere else. "There is no magic money tree" is a phrase that was in circulation a long time ago.

A Member: Will the Member give way?

Mr Burrows: I will give way in a second. I know that the Members subscribe to an ideology that is akin to economies such as that of Cuba, which are economically bankrupt and where there is not an endless flow of money to be created.

I will give way in a second. Secondly, the Bill is not targeted. The regulations could help deal with that. There is no link in the Bill between food insecurity, children who are not getting the food and nutrition that they need and the payment. The Bill seeks, purely through administrative convenience, to make the test — .

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Jon, sorry, I hate interrupting Members' flows, but it is important, at this stage of legislation, that Members refer to which amendments they are talking about. It is not the Second Stage when you just talk generally. You need to go further than to simply say that you support the Minister's amendments. I say that by way of guidance.

Mr Burrows: Amendment No 6 relates to the need for regulations. We need to have some systems, some financial controls and some operational planning in place for this. Those are absolutely necessary. At the minute, it is simply administratively convenient to use the test of free school meals. There are no safeguards in the legislation as proposed. We can only hope that regulations would provide those. I will also deal with the point that a private Member's Bill is not the way to deal with this. It is not filling a gap in law, and it is not a social clause; it is a permanent obligation on the Minister that makes the Department of Education the administrator of a new cash benefit. If we have £23 million, it can be targeted a lot better. Therefore, I support the Minister's amendment. However, I want to make it absolutely and abundantly clear that dealing with those who do not get the nutritious food that they need is a vital obligation on our society. Between £23 million and £30 million would do that job very well, but it should be dealt with through the Executive, not through this Bill, which is extremely flawed.

Mr Givan: I appreciate the Member's giving way. He will know about the anti-poverty strategy introduced by the Minister for Communities that his party colleague and I have fed into. I certainly did so on the role and input that Education could have. The Chairman of the Committee indicated that he wants the Executive to pull together in working on this. That vehicle exists: it is the Executive anti-poverty strategy, which looks at the issues in their totality. That funding of £23 million would be allocated to that strategy, yet, to date, the strategy has been allocated zero. Would that not be a better and more collective way to spend than literally taking money out of our classrooms?

Mr Burrows: I agree entirely with the Minister. That is where the focus should be, rather than on this Bill, which would run the risk of those who are not in food insecurity getting a cash payment and those who are in food insecurity not getting a cash payment. I agree with the intervention.

As I come to the end of my remarks, I want to clarify something for those who have said that the Ulster Unionist Party is opposed to the principle of the Bill: that is not the case. If it is dealing with those who are hungry and those who are not getting nutrition, we support that. I just think that the vehicle that is being used is entirely inappropriate. The Minister's amendment No 6 provides some kind of control over that, but even that is insufficient. I can clarify that we support the Minister's amendments. I have severe reservations about the Bill being operationally effective in dealing with the issues that Mr Baker, notably and to his credit, wants to raise.

Ms Hunter: The SDLP welcomes the intention behind the Bill and acknowledges the work that has brought it to this stage. The principle of the Bill is straightforward. Children do not stop needing to eat when the school gates close for the holidays. Families who depend on free school meals during term time should not have to face additional financial pressures simply because schools are closed. The legislation offers a practical means of addressing that gap and could make a meaningful difference for thousands of families. The Committee has undertaken its scrutiny, considered the evidence and sought to strengthen the legislation, yet we find ourselves today considering a series of ministerial amendments that, taken together, risk fundamentally changing the character of the Bill. We feel that it is important for the Minister to work constructively with the Committee to address concerns. The changes proposed today would give his Department considerably greater discretion over the timing and operation of the scheme, and there is a real danger that, if his amendments were successful, we could end up with what could only be described as "zombie legislation". I will move shortly to specific amendments.

There is real concern about having on the statute book a Bill whose central provisions are never brought to life. A statutory promise of support for children with no certainty about when that support will materialise is also concerning. We recognise that there are legitimate practical difficulties associated with implementing a new payment scheme, and nobody is suggesting that the challenges should be ignored. However, we feel that there is a fundamental difference between addressing implementation difficulties and removing the statutory obligation to deliver. We feel that the Minister's amendments risk crossing that line. In particular, removing the existing commencement arrangements without replacing them with a clear timetable creates the possibility that the legislation could receive Royal Assent and then sit indefinitely awaiting departmental action. The Committee has sought to establish a meaningful statutory safeguard linking the daily allowance to the charge imposed for a school meal.

I move to some of the amendments. In amendment No 2, the Minister's alternative approach would provide greater flexibility in how payments are calculated, but that also includes the possibility of different rates for different pupils. An entitlement to a payment is of limited value if there is insufficient protection of what that payment will be worth. We should be cautious about handing extensive discretion to the Department, given that the purpose of the Bill is to establish a dependable entitlement for our children.

As was mentioned by the Committee Chair, we find amendment No 8 complex and broad. We have not been given the necessary time to comprehend its scope or its impact, so, sadly, we cannot support it.

There is a wider issue that exposes the fundamental dysfunction in the Executive. Today, we are considering legislation against the backdrop of an Executive who have yet to agree a Budget. The Bill is well intentioned, but it is sad that the difficulties that surround its implementation show symptoms of a much wider problem in our governance. We have an Executive who continue to operate as a collection of individual Departments rather than as one functioning Government.

It is welcome that private Members are bringing forward proposals to address the genuine gaps in our public provision. Ministers, understandably, have to grapple with the implications of delivering new responsibilities without an agreed financial framework, and I can imagine that that is utterly frustrating. However, I feel strongly that that is not a sustainable way to govern. It is important that we, as elected reps, whether in the Assembly or the Executive, do all that we can to tackle child poverty. In evidence to the Committee, the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People rightly recognised the contribution that the Bill could make, while emphasising the importance of also having a properly resourced anti-poverty strategy.

Holiday hunger is not an isolated problem; it reflects the deeper financial pressures facing families and the failure of government to develop a real and coordinated response to child poverty. We cannot legislate our way out of poverty while the Executive refuse to make the budgetary decisions that are necessary to address it. We know that private Members' legislation cannot be a substitute for collective leadership to make the necessary financial commitments. If there are genuine implementation difficulties, it is important that the Minister engage constructively with the Committee to identify how we can work collectively to overcome those difficulties.

For parents who struggle to meet the cost of food during the school holidays, the distinction between legislation that has been passed and legislation that has been implemented is a core issue. It is the difference between receiving help and receiving nothing. Today, the SDLP wants to thank the Bill sponsor; we want the Bill to succeed. Is it perfect? No. Are we going to try to work together to make it so and to implement it? Yes, it is important that we do so. It is important that we work with the Minister and that the Minister works with the Committee to best support the Bill. Ultimately, the Bill tells us something important about the state of poverty in Northern Ireland and the number of families who are struggling. It is important that we work together on that today. The problem is not a shortage of legislation or good intentions; it is a shortage of collective decision-making, political leadership and a willingness to match promises with resources. Until that changes, we will continue to pass the legislation that we can, through the Committee, in the best way possible to change the lives of the young people who are facing poverty every day.

Mrs Guy: I begin by reiterating my support for the Bill. I want it to succeed and to be capable of delivering support to eligible children as quickly as possible. It is through that lens that we have evaluated the amendments at Further Consideration Stage.

The Minister wrote to the Education Committee on 6 October about amendment No 1. In that letter, he noted that the First Legislative Counsel took forward amendment No 1 to ensure that it would be:

He further noted:

Having read amendment No 1, I see no issue with supporting it, especially if it will ensure clarity on the statute book and provide stronger legislation. The amendment drafted by the First Legislative Counsel makes it clear that the EA:

New article 58A(9) clarifies the language around the daily amount that will be paid to families by the EA, and proposed new article 58A(5) is clear on the qualifying holiday times. Therefore, there is nothing that stands out as a concern for me, but I am open to hearing about specific concerns from those who intend to vote against amendment No 1.

I understand the reluctance of some to vote for it, which is born out of a lack of trust in the Minister. It is regrettable that the amendment came forward so late, meaning that there was little time for engagement. That was in the Minister's gift, however.

As was noted by the Speaker, if we proceed with amendment No 1, amendment Nos 2, 3 and 4 will not be called. We will support amendment No 5, which provides the ability to change the list of holiday periods in clause 1 through regulations. That is a straightforward amendment that allows for flexibility in case school holidays change. Likewise, we will support amendment Nos 9 and 10, as they flow from amendment No 1, which we will be supporting. We will not support the other amendments, however. I highlight in particular amendment No 6, which gives the Minister the power to decide when holiday meal payments will begin or whether they should be made at all. We know that he does not support the intention behind the Bill, and, with those powers, he would in all likelihood not go ahead with payments for entitled families.

We know from the evidence gathered throughout Committee Stage from organisations working at the coalface that the payments would make a real difference. Organisations such as Children in Northern Ireland and Advice NI made it clear that making payments in that way would be effective. We are an outlier across these islands in providing no support to the families of children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds during holiday periods. Reinstating a scheme that was previously administered by the Education Authority is viewed as a tested and scalable method of delivery.

We do not support amendment No 8, which would provide sweeping powers to the Department to make regulations "of any kind". Given that limited scrutiny of the amendments has been possible, I am not clear why powers of such breadth are required. If the Bill completes its legislative passage, it will create an expectation among eligible families for financial relief in lieu of school meals during school holidays. Furnishing a Minister who is not supportive of the legislation with broad powers to alter it feels like too great a risk to endorse in haste.

I will return briefly to amendment No 6. The Minister raised his concerns about budget, and we are not naive about those concerns. As my colleagues and others noted, however, the Department of Education's budget is the second largest in the Executive, and it is for the Minister of Education, like all Ministers, to prioritise resources. That having been said, I would expect the Finance Minister to be receptive to any bid from the Education Minister to deliver that support to families.

I reiterate our support for amendment Nos 1, 5, 9 and 10. I am comfortable that they improve the Bill, and I look forward to its progressing to Final Stage.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I call our penultimate speaker, the Bill sponsor, Mr Danny Baker.

Mr Baker: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank those Members who have contributed to the debate and those who have supported the legislation throughout. I thank the Bill Office for its professional support and guidance throughout. That is why I am going to reject all the amendments, because I have real faith and trust in the legislation as it now stands.

I said at the end of Second Stage that it was no longer my Bill but that of the House. I have been honest and not tried to hoodwink anyone. I have been open about the Bill's policy intent and said that I would work with everybody, which I have done through the subsequent legislative stages. I welcome the fact that the Minister is here today. It was very disrespectful that he did not bother to come to the Chamber for Consideration Stage. It would have been particularly beneficial for amendment No 1 — proposed new clause 1 — to have been tabled at that stage, because that would have allowed us time to scrutinise it in order to produce the best legislation that we could, even though I believe that we got there in the end anyway.

I take on board the Chair's points, and I understand his position. What has come from the Minister and the Department has been disappointing, however. When the amendments landed at the very last second last Wednesday, I considered what we could possibly do to scrutinise them in order to have the best legislation possible, but that would have meant my delaying Further Consideration Stage. We heard earlier from the Minister himself that he has already factored in the possibility of making Christmas payments. To me, that is amazing. It would be great if, with a fair wind, we could get payments to people this Christmas. Even if I had wanted to delay Further Consideration Stage and return to Committee, even to hear from departmental officials on the direction of travel that we might go in, we do not have any officials coming to the Committee, because the Minister has thrown his toys out of the pram.

That is where we are today. I will not support any of the amendments, and I am particularly concerned about amendment No 6. We all know what that is: a Minister putting a dead hand on a piece of draft legislation. The DUP is not even hiding it — it does not support the principle — and we heard Peter say that, even if he had the money, he would not spend it on this.

Mr Martin: Will the Member take an intervention?

Mr Baker: No.

Mr Martin: Danny, come on.

Mr Baker: It was said. If there was an abundance of money, you would not do it. You would think of other ways of not doing it. You call it welfare, but you ignore the evidence.

Mr Martin: Will the Member take an intervention?

Mr Baker: No, I will not. No.

Mr Martin: I always take them from you.

Mr Baker: I will tell you why I will not take interventions from that side of the House. When the Minister did not bother turning up to Consideration Stage, he showed absolute disregard for the draft legislation, for the Committee and for the work that has been put in. In fact, there was a lack of engagement from DUP MLAs throughout the process. That is why. I will not get into another debate on the principle of the Bill, because that is all that you have done. You will do everything that you can not to spend the money on those who need it most. You ignore the evidence. You ignore the fact that there are children who return to school malnourished after the holidays, particularly in the summer, and that those children are four and a half months behind their peers who are not on free school meals. You ignore the fact that children on free school meals are five times more likely to leave school without five GCSEs at grades A to C. The link between poverty and educational underachievement is there for all to see, but you keep ignoring it. I will never be able to convince the DUP otherwise —

Mr Martin: Will the Member take an intervention?

Mr Baker: I will not take it.

I will not even try to convince you any more.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Danny, give me a wee minute.

Mr Baker: Yes.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: He has already said that he will not take an intervention.

Danny, I ask you, as I asked other Members, to return to the amendments.

Mr Baker: Yes, 100%, because that is what it comes back to. On amendment No 6, we are talking about budgetary pressures, but it is OK for the Minister to spend 30 grand, 43 grand, 19 grand, 12 grand, 16 grand or 27 grand on English consultants on the curriculum; money on a football pitch that no one asked for; £800,000 on an e-safety app that no one uses; £83 per mile on private taxi companies; or money on mobile phone pouches. Do you want to find £7 million for this? There you go: mobile phone pouches. Stop telling schools that they can spend tens of thousands of pounds from their budgets on it. That is how you do it.

Let us go to TransformED. Your senior officials say that it takes up 0·04% of the budget, like it is no big deal; you then come here and say, "I have no money; there is a big deficit". It is about prioritising. That is what I want to do. I want to prioritise the children who are most in need. I want to give them the best chance in life; they cannot take it if they are hungry. With amendment No 6, you are trying to kill that. I will not let you do it. The Members who support the Bill will not let you do it, which is brilliant. Amendment No 6 is a Henry VIII power. I had a wee giggle at that because I have listened to DUP contributions to debates on many private Members' Bills and other draft legislation: you are critical of Henry VIII powers, yet you want them for this.

On the surface, some of the other amendments that have been tabled could be OK, but I have not had time to scrutinise them. That is why I will vote against them all. I trust the work that the Committee did with the Bill Office. The Bill, as it stands, would make good legislation. I like the Committee Chairman's amendment better than amendment No 1. That is another reason, Michelle, why I do not really want amendment No 1: I like amendment No 3 better than the Minister's amendment that introduces the phrase "equal to". There are two reasons: I have no trust; and Nick's amendment is better.

I will finish by speaking briefly about where the Ulster Unionist Party is on this. Jon, I do not have a clue what you said: I could not follow it. I will say that one of the first amendments that the Ulster Unionist Party tabled was to reinstate these payments exactly as they were. It was proposed by your Health Minister, Robbie Butler, and he was so passionate about it. I can see why your former leader says that you are a man of style and no substance. When I tried to educate you on that out in the Great Hall, you were more interested in whether I had got a letter about being on Garvaghy Road than in 90,000 children who need support. That is the difference between me and you, sir.

Mr Burrows: Will the Member give way?

Mr Baker: That is the difference. That is me finished.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: You cannot make an intervention to a Member who has sat down, Jon.

Mr Burrows: I just missed it.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: You missed it. Darn tootin'.

Without further ado, I call the Minister.

Mr Givan: I am disappointed that Mr Baker could not give way to my colleague. I gave way to him on not one but at least two occasions. That is a matter for Mr Baker.

Mr Sheehan: You have refused to give way on many occasions, Paul, including to me.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Can we let the Minister get on?

Mr Givan: I am always happy to give way, and I will continue to give way, even though Mr Baker did not do so.

Let me jump straight to Mr Baker's comment. He said, "If you want to get your £7 million, take it off your mobile phone pouches. There it is". Some £200,000 in capital expenditure: that is how much was spent on mobile phone pouches. Yet Mr Baker casually throws out the line, "There's your £7 million". That is who is leading the Alliance Party by the nose through the Lobby to vote in favour of the Bill. It is quite remarkable how the Alliance Party has franchised its responsibility on fiscal matters to Sinn Féin. Where was the same approach when the Assembly voted on car parking charges at hospitals? That was delayed not once but twice because of financial pressures in the Department of Health. It would appear, however, that when it comes to education matters, the Alliance Party is an educational arsonist. It is quite happy to burn down the system and be led by Mr Baker. I expect it from Mr Baker.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Minister, I respectfully ask you — [Interruption.]

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, lads.

Minister, I respectfully ask you to return to your amendments.

Mr Givan: I will.

On amendment No 6, which is about being fiscally responsible, it is disappointing that the Alliance Party has chosen to act incredibly irresponsibly by outsourcing such decisions to Sinn Féin.

Let me speak to some of the other points more substantively. First, on the tidying-up amendments, Sinn Féin has taken the view that it does not need them. I will reflect on that before deciding whether or not to move the amendments, because, if it is quite happy with the legislation, it may be the will of the House that those amendments are not moved. It was the First Legislative Counsel that wanted them; I did not, but I decided that I would bring them forward. If the Member is entirely content with the Bill and Sinn Féin is confident in it, I will reflect on that.

Mr Mathison: I thank the Minister for giving way. Despite the Minister's assertions that, as a party, we are outsourcing our education policy to Sinn Féin, I think that I was very clear in my comments that, from the Alliance Party's perspective, we are happy to take the advice of the First Legislative Counsel, and I certainly hope that those amendments will be moved on that basis today.

Mr Givan: The Member wants to have his cake and eat it when it comes to the approach. Let us look at that in due course.

First, the Bill was not drafted as effectively as possible. My amendments, however, provide for its delivery in a more effective manner. The First Legislative Counsel presented amendments with the intent of keeping them in line with the substance of the private Member's Bill, but, ultimately, those amendments are a matter for the House. They do not seek to change any of the fundamentals of the Bill that were agreed at Consideration Stage. Given that the initial draft was so poorly conceived and ineptly drafted, we had little choice but to dismantle and rebuild it, transforming it into something capable of functioning as legislation. Sinn Féin and, I think, the SDLP have made it clear, however, that they do not believe that to be the case and that they are content with the Bill as drafted. That is their position. I do not believe that supporters of the Bill should have any reason to object to the substance of those amendments, but I have heard what Sinn Féin have said: it believes that they are wholly unnecessary. That is, ultimately, the position that it has adopted.

Finally, on amendment No 6 and amendment Nos 11 and 12, which I will move, there have been unjustified comments from Members and in the local media about my intentions. I want to deal directly with the suggestion that they are a way of blocking the Bill: they are not. I fully accept that the Bill, despite my opposition to it, has successfully progressed through the Assembly's legislative stages. If it ultimately receives Royal Assent, it will become law, and it must be implemented. That is the will of the Assembly. The purpose of those amendments is not to prevent implementation but to ensure that implementation is responsible, affordable and properly planned.

Amendment No 6 answers the question: when should these payments responsibly begin? It does not remove the Bill, nor does it reduce the value of a single payment; rather, it provides that the first payment date is set in regulations that must be approved by the Assembly. My Department would undertake a review to examine how and when payments can be made.

That is an important issue for society, but it cannot be tackled by making cuts to education services. Mr Mathison singled out TransformED for criticism. Should that area be cut in order to fund these payments? We should be honest about what that means: 90% of all TransformED funding is invested directly in the professional development of teachers and school leaders. It is addressing teacher workload. That is what TransformED is funding. However, the Chairman of the Committee put it out there as expenditure that is not necessary. He should follow up his opposition to amendment No 6 by stating that he wants to cut investment in the professional development of our teachers. That would be the honest thing to do.

TransformED is not about bureaucracy. It is not administrative. It is an investment in the people who stand in front of our children every day. For too long, professional development was neglected and underfunded. TransformED is beginning to address that deficit, and if Members wish to cut that funding, they should be honest about the message that it sends. The message to teachers and school leaders would be simple: your development is not a priority, improving teaching is not a priority and raising standards is not a priority. To cut such funding for the teaching workforce now would tell our teachers that, despite all the rhetoric about raising standards and supporting schools, investment in their skills and leadership is dispensable. I do not accept that, and the Assembly should not accept it either.

Earlier, I spoke about the enormous pressures on the Education budget and the very significant shortfall between the funding available and the funding required. Difficult decisions have already been taken and will continue to be taken, and we cannot simply close our eyes and wish it were not so. We cannot ignore that reality. I ask Members to consider the alternatives. It is estimated that this will require an additional £22 million in the next financial year, and that will rise to about £32 million by 2033. Where is that funding coming from? Nobody who supports the Bill has said, "It should be taken off x", apart from the Chairman, who wants to deal with TransformED and has called its validity into question. Amendment No 6 is financially responsible because it allows for an examination of the Bill’s costs so that the consequences are understood by Members before they vote for payments to begin. We should identify the funding first, then agree the date, and then the Assembly can decide with its eyes wide open. That is what amendment No 6 and the connected amendments relate to.

Again, it is for Members to decide why they believe that money should be taken from already overstretched education services to make a welfare payment. There is absolutely no guarantee that the funding provided will be used for the purposes it has been designed for. Noble as it is to frame it as a holiday hunger payment, there is no way to guarantee that that is how the funding would be used, because the children will not be in school. So it can be presented as a holiday hunger payment, but the funding can be used for whatever purpose the recipients decide to spend it on. In some circumstances, that may well be providing food, but there is no guarantee that that is all that it would be used for. It could be used for other things, and that is why the Chairman of the Committee was right that the whole Executive should pull together. The anti-poverty strategy is the vehicle to do that, yet Sinn Féin, which holds the Finance Ministry, has not contributed one penny towards the anti-poverty strategy, despite requests from my ministerial colleague in the Department for Communities, who has responsibility for that area. That is the dilemma that Members should have. At the end of a previous mandate, the Assembly rushed through legislation that was populist in its appeal, the hospital car parking Bill being one example. We voted for that — I voted for it, too — and we subsequently passed legislation to delay its implementation because of the financial pressures in the Department of Health. Why do Members not believe that the same approach should be applied when it comes to Education? It is important that Members reflect on that when it comes to the relevant amendments, particularly amendment No 6, before deciding on their position. I trust that Members will be able to reflect on that.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. Members will have to bear with me.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I will not call amendment No 5, as it is consequential to amendment No 1, which has not been made.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Amendment No 6 has already been debated. Amendment No 7 is an amendment to amendment No 6 but it is consequential only to amendment No 1. As amendment No 1 was not made, I will not call amendment No 7 and will proceed directly to the Question on amendment No 6.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I will not call amendment Nos 8, 9 or 10, as they are consequential to amendment No 1, which was not made.

Amendment No 11 has already been debated. I call the Minister of Education to formally move amendment No 11.

Mr Givan: Does it still stand? Does it get moved after amendment No 6 was voted down? Is amendment No 11 not connected to amendment No 6?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Not on this page. [Laughter.]

Hold on until I —. These people, these people.

Mr Givan: I think amendment No 11 is consequential to amendment No 6, which was not made.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Do you know what? We will take a wee minute to get procedural advice on that. I think that that is the right response, OK?

OK, Members. Amendment No 11 has already been debated. I call the Minister of Education to formally move amendment No 11.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I will not call amendment No 12, as it is consequential to amendment No 11, which was not made.

I will not call amendment No 13, as it is consequential to amendment No 8, which was not made.

I will not call amendment No 14, as it is consequential to amendment No 8, which was not made.

If all that is clear, that concludes the Further Consideration Stage of the Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill. The Bill stands referred to the Speaker.

Members, take your ease for a moment, while everybody who is not involved in the next item leaves the Chamber. Thank you.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: One amendment has been tabled. Members will have received a copy of the Marshalled List, which provides details of the amendment, and the grouping list. The amendment adds the Education Authority to the list of persons and bodies that the Department of Education must consult when preparing or revising a workforce plan. I remind Members intending to speak that they should address their comments only to the amendment that is before us. There will be an opportunity to debate the Bill as a whole at its Final Stage. If that is clear, we will proceed.

Mr Mathison (The Chairperson of the Committee for Education): I beg to move amendment No 1:

Anyone who listened to my speech in the previous debate will be pleased to know that I will not speak for any great length of time on the amendment or read any lengthy excerpts from letters from the Minister. I will simply say that there was a general acceptance at Committee, even among those who did not support the overall principles of the Bill, that the Education Authority could reasonably be included as an appropriate consultee in relation to an Irish-medium education workforce plan. It is entirely appropriate that the Education Authority be included, given its role in relation to support staff in our schools and in providing staff in relation to special educational needs and pupil support services. I have nothing to say other than that. I hope that what is a simple, sensible and straightforward amendment can be supported.

Mr Burrows: I am happy to support the amendment. I will keep it as simple as that.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Excellent. Thank you, Jon.

Ms Hunter: I, too, will be brief. I welcome the Further Consideration Stage of the Irish-medium Education (Workforce Plan) Bill. I record the SDLP's support and its thanks to the Bill sponsor, Pat Sheehan, for his work on the Bill. We heard evidence at length at the Committee, and the amendment before us today, which adds the Education Authority to the list, as the Chair rightly said, is short and sensible. The EA must be consulted when preparing and taking advice on the workforce plan. We in the SDLP support it.

Mr Sheehan: I have little to add except to thank Nick Mathison, the Chair of the Committee, for the amendment and to say that it is eminently sensible to have the Education Authority on the list of consultees in the Bill. I commend the amendment to the Assembly.

Mr Mathison: There is not a huge amount for me to summarise, so I will just do the formalities. As Chair of the Committee, I thank the Deputy Chair of the Committee and Bill sponsor, Pat Sheehan, for introducing the Bill, and I thank the Clerk, the Committee team and the Bill Office for all their support with the process. As I said, the amendment is simple and clear.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: That concludes the Further Consideration Stage of the Irish-medium Education (Workforce Plan) Bill. The Bill stands referred to the Speaker.

Members, please take your ease.

Mr Speaker: The next four items of business are motions, each signed by 30 Members, under section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 in relation to the exclusion from office of the First Minister, the Minister for the Economy, the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Infrastructure. There will be a single debate on all four motions. I will call the proposer of the first motion to formally move it. Debate will then commence on all four motions listed in the Order Paper. When all who wish to speak have done so or when the time allocated for debate has expired, I shall put the Question on the first motion. The second motion will then be read into the record, I will call the proposer to move it, and the Question will be put on that motion without further debate. I will follow the same process for the remaining motions. If that is clear, we shall proceed.

Mr Gaston: I beg to move

Mr Speaker: The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to three hours for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes in which to propose. The Ministers named in the exclusion motions will have 10 minutes in which to make their contributions to the debate, and each has opted to respond after the proposer of the motion. If all Ministers respond, the Member making the winding-up speech will have 20 minutes. All other Members will have seven minutes. I remind Members that the vote on each motion will be on a cross-community basis.

Mr Gaston: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Northern Ireland is at a crossroads. As the public watch on to see what happens in the House tonight, it will be a defining moment for confidence in the Executive. If we cast our minds back to the events in Portadown over the past number of weeks, we see that, ultimately, there was a contest between the lawful and the lawless. On one side stood men who had spent almost three decades complying with determinations that were, they believed, fundamentally unjust. They challenged those determinations through the courts, and they won. They applied through the proper legal process and received a lawful determination allowing 35 Orangemen to return home. They defended that determination in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, and again they won. Their opponents challenged that determination. Today, I am glad to say, the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed that challenge as unarguable. Every avenue available in a democratic society was followed.

On the other side stood those who acted as though the law did not apply to them. Those seeking to use the courts were met with threats and, sadly, intimidation. Representatives of Portadown district faced vile abuse outside the High Court. A young barrister required a police escort to and from the court. Portadown district's original legal team said that it could no longer continue because it felt threatened, as did its staff. Members of the House, including Policing Board member Miss Hargey, who, famously, must have been in the same toilet cubicle as 200-odd other republicans when the murder of Robert McCartney took place, played their part in whipping up the mob and making sure that those outside the court who were standing for the rule of law were intimidated and abused. Every citizen must be able to access the courts without intimidation. If people are deterred from bringing a case because of threats, the rule of law is being undermined in practice, whatever the words on paper may say. Ministers should have been unequivocal in defending that principle; indeed, that is what the Pledge of Office says. However, weeks after those events, the Justice Minister has yet to utter a word in the House about the vile abuse directed at Portadown district's legal team. Had that abuse been directed at republicans, you could not have held the Chamber doors against Naomi Long bursting in to bring an urgent statement to the House. You do not have to agree with everything that Carla Lockhart or Jamie Bryson believes to say that the sectarian and vile abuse that both have faced, including death threats, needs to be called out. That should happen to no law-abiding citizen in our country.

Once the courts had ruled, those who pledged to support the rule of law should have accepted what was laid out before them, but what did the Sinn Féin Ministers do? They blocked the road, defied the determination and ignored the courts. Instead of enforcing the law, the Chief Constable sought the intervention of the Secretary of State, who capitulated to the mob and reversed the determination. Among those who participated in the protest were the Sinn Féin Ministers named in the motions before us this evening: Ms O'Neill, the First Minister of lawlessness and of "no alternative", who does not want an Orangeman about the place; the Economy Minister; the Finance Minister; and the Infrastructure Minister.

The central issue before the House is this: if a determination can be set aside simply because republican protesters object to it, what confidence can any loyalist, Orangeman or unionist have in the impartial administration of justice in Northern Ireland? If court rulings can be ignored when they become politically inconvenient for Sinn Féin, what message does that send about the rule of law in Northern Ireland? The reality is that many ordinary loyalists watched the events in Portadown and reached the simple conclusion that there is one law for republicans and another for everyone else. They saw the lawful determination, which was upheld by the courts, being trashed by the unlawful obstruction of the Garvaghy Road. They saw Ministers from the Executive standing shoulder to shoulder with those who seek to frustrate the implementation of the law; and they saw them being led by the Portadown bomber, Breandán Mac Cionnaith. No amount of spin can counter those facts.

Members are not being asked whether they support or oppose Orange marches or whether they agree or disagree with the determination. The question in front of the House is much simpler: can Ministers who swore to uphold the rule of law participate in and support actions designed to prevent that law from being enforced? If the answer is yes, the Pledge of Office that each Minister has taken is meaningless. If the answer is yes, legal rights exist only until republicans decide otherwise. They do not want to follow them, and they thumb their noses at unionists who do. If the answer to that question is, indeed, yes, the Executive are signalling that organised opposition outweighs the authority of the courts and the obligations of government. The public have spent years being told that the rule of law must be respected and that court decisions must be obeyed: those principles cannot apply only when it suits republicans. The rule of law must apply equally to everyone, or it means nothing at all.

It has been suggested to me that the PSNI's calculations around forcing the parade through were influenced by the belief that there were firearms on the Garvaghy Road. Tellingly, the Chief Constable has had nothing to say on that subject. He needs to be clear on that point. Let us look at what he has been clear on. In explaining why he sought the Secretary of State's intervention, the Chief Constable referred to the risk of:

Shame on the Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher. His role should be non-political and focused solely on protecting and upholding the rule of law. An Executive who cannot survive the enforcement of the law when republicans say so are an Executive not worth having. What are the catastrophic events and long-term catastrophic failures? If this place were gone, I do not think that people would even notice.

Before the House are four motions of exclusion for lawbreakers — lawless Ministers. Simply opening the trapdoor on the First Minister is not enough; this place needs to send the signal that, if a Minister steps outside the rule of law, the police should go after them and issue full law enforcement, but there also have to be political consequences. It is on that point that I look to the DUP and ask this: what are you going to do about it? It is about time that the deputy First Minister was removed from office to send a signal —

Mr Speaker: Thank you.

Mr Gaston: — and push Michelle O'Neill out of office.

Ms O'Neill (The First Minister): Chris Bryant's ban on an unwanted march going down the Garvaghy Road was the right and only decision, because the Garvaghy Road community has the right to live free from sectarian intimidation and harassment. That, folks, is the bottom line. Unfortunately, a section of political unionism is determined to attempt to drag us back. It is opposed to the Good Friday Agreement, to equality and mutual respect, to partnership and to power-sharing. It has tried to turn back the clock to a failed past of sectarian domination and inequity. Unfortunately, it is leading the rest of political unionism by the nose. When unionist politicians therefore talk about the "mob" and demand the "sanitising" of the Garvaghy Road, what they mean — what they are saying out loud — is that, over the past number of weeks, the PSNI should have beaten and dragged peaceful residents off their own road just to allow a triumphalist and sectarian march through that small Catholic community. That is what they wanted. That is what the RUC and the British Army did in years gone by, and willingly, I would add. To those in political unionism, I say that this is not 1690. It is not 1921. It is not 1969. It is not even 1997. It is 2026, folks, and the Orange state is gone forever. There is, and will be, no going back.

Today's motion is supposed to be about confidence. Let me talk briefly about confidence. My confidence is in the people of the Garvaghy Road. My confidence is in the people of Garvaghy Road for their dignity, their bravery, their resilience, their steadfastness, their generosity and for the people they are. My confidence is also in all those people who stood in defence of their rights. My confidence is in the people who asserted the rights of the Garvaghy Road residents to live free from sectarian harassment and intimidation. My confidence is also in the thousands of people who travelled from across Ireland to the Garvaghy Road to the plight of those residents; in the support internationally, in Europe and the US; in the brave voices from within the Protestant community who stepped forward to join in the chorus of "No going back"; in the leading figures from the world of music and the arts; in the LGBTQ+ citizens; in the many Gaels, all of whom spoke out; and in the overwhelming positivity and support that there was for a small and isolated community who needed support and who received it in abundance. That is what gives me confidence and hope for the future.

It is no surprise to me that the three unionist parties have signed up to the motion, because the reality is that they have never accepted that things have changed. They have never accepted the reality that an Irish republican is now the First Minister, and a woman at that. They have never accepted equality; they have never accepted rights and respect; and, again, they still have not accepted the fact that it is 2026. Despite your efforts and this pointless motion, I will continue to be a First Minister for all. I will continue to show up, every day. I will continue to show up for workers, families and communities to secure fairer funding from the British Government for our public services to ensure that we can pay our nurses and teachers their salaries, and to ensure that we can fix and improve our public services. I will continue to stand up for what is right against what is wrong, for the future against the past, for equality against domination and for respect against division. Mr Speaker, let us look to the future, because there is no going back.

Mr O'Dowd (The Minister of Finance): I did not hear the start of Mr Gaston's speech, but I heard the end of it. The end of it told us what this is all about. Mr Gaston and his party are completely opposed to power-sharing in any of its forms; they are completely opposed to the Good Friday Agreement; and they want to bring this place down. Did events of a fortnight ago change any of that? No, they did not. Did events of a fortnight ago bring Mr Gaston any closer to changing his mind about his republican and Irish neighbours being his equals? No, they did not. Here is a message for Mr Gaston and those who choose to follow him or Mr Bryson, Mrs Lockhart or any of the rest of them: there is no going back. Republicans and nationalists will never ever again be beaten off the streets to satisfy the needs of regressive political unionism. Those days are over — over. Mr Gaston and others may hanker after those days, but they are not coming back. They are not coming back.

Over the past fortnight, those who claim that they want respect for neighbours and that they want community cohesion have used some the most disgraceful, disgusting and vile language about the community that lives on the Garvaghy Road. Disgusting is what it is. What have we heard from them over the past week or more? We have heard that the community of the Garvaghy Road needs to be "sanitised". How disgusting and vile is that? We have heard that the community of the Garvaghy Road needs to be sterilised. That is racist, supremacist language. We have heard that they are a "rabble", that they are a "mob" and that they are "henchmen". All those words have come out of the mouths of political unionism's representatives about the people of the Garvaghy Road. The use of those words is disgusting, vile, supremacist and racist, and it shows everything that is wrong with those who demand that the Orange Order should march down the Garvaghy Road. Everything that you need to know is in those words.

Despite all that, the community of the Garvaghy Road has shown great dignity, resilience and respect. They want a future in Portadown that involves everyone. They want to reach out. They want to continue the community growth and cohesion that was being built in Portadown before those who came in and decided to wreck it wrecked it. They want to work with their Protestant and unionist neighbours. They facilitate an Orange march — they facilitate a march out to the church. It goes past without any hindrance or interference, and that route is available for the Orangemen to take back. It was the unspoken and unwritten compromise that some could not abide and decided to wreck and destroy.

I and others stood with the community of the Garvaghy Road. I am proud to say that I stood with them. I have stood with them all my political life, and I will continue to stand with them because what was being done to them was wrong. Civil disobedience and disobedience is part of any democratic framework. There are many, many lawyers nowadays — everybody is a lawyer. Mr Gaston is now a lawyer, a prosecutor and a judge. May I remind you that nobody on these Benches has been found guilty of anything? No one has been found guilty of anything. We will continue to engage with the relevant agencies etc around these matters — and we will cooperate. We have not sent out a message, like the Orange Order has done, to Members of this Chamber not to cooperate with the police. Are Orange Order Members in this Chamber —?

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Dowd: I will not.

Are Orange Order Members in this Chamber now saying, under direction of the Orange Order, that they will no longer cooperate with the police? That is the direction that you have been given.

I will end on this. The most remarkable and brave people of the past fortnight are the 1,500 members of the Protestant community who signed a letter urging the Orange Order not to march down the Garvaghy Road. That, to me, gives hope. It is an inspiration to me. It shows that there are brave people in every section of this community and that the current cohort of political unionism does not speak for the entirety of the unionist community. It certainly does not speak for the entirety of the Protestant community. The Orange Order, while an important part of the unionist/Protestant community, does not represent the unionist/Protestant community. It shows that there are people out there who want to continue to move this society forward, and I will continue to back them as well.

Dr Archibald (The Minister for the Economy): A fortnight after the disastrous and inexplicable decision by the Parades Commission to permit an unwanted Orange march down the Garvaghy Road, the British Secretary of State finally did what he should have done from the start and banned it from taking place. That was after 14 days of the lives of the people of the Garvaghy Road being turned upside down — of their family life and their community life being disrupted. Over that time, however, there was growing and vocal support for that community from across Ireland and internationally, from Capitol Hill, the European Parliament, trade unions in Ireland and dozens of high-profile public figures in the arts, as well as people from an LGBTQIA+ background and, notably, 1,500 people from a Protestant/unionist background who signed an open letter calling on the British and Irish Governments to intervene. Thousands of people from all backgrounds and all parts of this island joined the community on the Garvaghy Road to show solidarity, all with a shared determination that there can be no going back and that this should not be happening.

It is abundantly clear that this issue has been dragged up specifically to create instability by those who are opposed to the Good Friday Agreement and power sharing for their own narrow political agenda. They are intent on trying to drag us back and undo 28 years of peace and progress, but they have failed. What this entire episode has done is to highlight that this state, which was built on foundations of sectarianism, reinforced for decades by institutional sectarianism with the Orange Order at its heart, cannot work. The Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the conflict and provided a peaceful way forward. However, some now in political unionism and loyalism seem determined to unravel it because they do not like the direction of travel.

The real question that should be posed in the aftermath of all this is not, as some have cynically tried to suggest, what it says to unionists about a future united Ireland. The question should be: what does this failed attempt at undermining our peace say to those from a nationalist and non-unionist background, right here, right now? After 28 years of peace and progress, some within loyalism and unionism are so determined to reassert their former supremacy that they sought to reopen this parade dispute with its horrifying, murderous history. It is lost on no one, from a nationalist background certainly, that Jim Allister talked yesterday in dehumanising terms of "sanitising" the Garvaghy Road. That betrays how some in political unionism still view the nationalist community as somehow lesser. By "sanitised", of course, he meant the nationalist feet off the street, like civil rights marchers in the 60s, anti-internment marchers in the 70s, those who attended the funerals of hunger strikers in the 80s and people protesting parades in the 90s.

Even though two thirds of the nearly 4,000 parades that take place every year are from a Protestant, unionist or loyalist background — 2,500 marches — and only 5% of those are deemed sensitive enough to have any conditions imposed on them, that is not enough; they want Garvaghy Road too, even though the community there very clearly and expressly does not want it. What this sorry episode actually says is that some see no accommodation with their neighbours. They do not want to share power; they only want things on their terms, and they want domination. The positivity and inclusiveness of the fleadh seemed to trigger those who thrive on division, and this is where we have ended up.

Let me say that the days of Orange domination and supremacy are done. Never again will those from a nationalist background, or any other background, be treated as second class. We are all equal. Our society has moved on, and people from all communities want to live in peace. They want our progress to be protected, and for their children and grandchildren to never experience what we, our parents and our grandparents did. That is why the message from the Garvaghy Road community resonated so much and so far. There is no going back; not now, not ever.

Ms Kimmins (The Minister for Infrastructure): Over the past number of weeks, we have witnessed some of the most regressive elements of loyalism and unionism, led by the unelected mouthpiece Jamie Bryson, who has no regard for the progress or the peace that we all want to see and which the vast majority of people here hold dearly. He has been stringing factions of the DUP along, not only in an effort to divide our society but dividing unionism in his wake. Let me say this, however: despite the vitriol that is being spouted and the reprehensible attempts to drag our communities backwards and revisit some of the most harrowing days of our past on the people of the Garvaghy Road, we have also seen the very best of our communities. People who are Catholic, Protestant, unionist, nationalist and other all came together with one unified voice and said, "No going back; not now, not ever". People stood in person and in spirit with the residents of the Garvaghy Road around the clock for almost two weeks, and that support continues to grow, not just across Ireland but across the world.

Those who sought to rip open that wound and rewind the clock in an attempt to assert the supremacy and domination that they feel they are entitled to are in the minority. Those who hark back to the past because they fear the future do not represent anyone but themselves. They would rather inflict pain and suffering and demonise the Garvaghy Road community than work with others for the benefit of all our children and grandchildren. Let me say this: not on our watch. I and my colleagues will always stand up for what is right. I am proud to have stood in solidarity with the residents of the Garvaghy Road and to have seen the leadership that my colleagues showed over past weeks, because that is not appearing from unionism.

There will be no going back to the dark days on the 1990s. I remember, as a 10-year-old, the fear that the Drumcree disputes brought me, watching the news and learning about the deaths of the three Quinn children, who were the same age as me and my siblings at the time. I will not stand idly by and allow any community to be plunged back into that fear and anxiety, not least those who still bear the scars and trauma of that horrendous period. The people of the Garvaghy Road community did not ask for this; it was foisted upon them. What Jamie Bryson, Carla Lockhart and the Orange Order seem to have forgotten is that they are a strong, resilient and proud community who are determined to ensure that they will never be second-class citizens. The thousands of people who afforded them their support also sent that message loud and clear.

I will not be lectured by Jim Allister's puppet, Mr Gaston, nor will I be lectured by the DUP, which is scrambling to distract from the series of scandals and investigations that are running rife through the party. Lastly, I will not be lectured by the unelected UUP leader, who has taken a wrecking ball to his own party. As for the investigation skills that he has displayed over the past few days and weeks, I would trust Chief Wiggum from 'The Simpsons' quicker than I would him with any investigation. [Laughter.]

My advice to all of the above is this: sort out your own houses. Get your own houses in order and let the Garvaghy Road residents live in peace in theirs. Sin é.

Mr Sheehan: As John O'Dowd, the Minister of Finance, pointed out, the motion talks about people "participating in ... unlawful protest", yet no one has been charged, no one is being prosecuted, and no one has even decided if the law has been broken. Do you know what that illustrates? It illustrates that the mindset of unionism is, "Whatever we say is true, irrespective of the truth of it". This is unionist truth: a law has been broken. Just like they decide where and when they are going to march, irrespective of whether they are wanted in a community or not. That is the mindset behind the Drumcree march. The only reason they want to go down Garvaghy Road is because they know that they are not welcome and not wanted there, but because that is what they always did, they think that they can always do it. They talk this nonsense about a traditional route. Orangemen used to march up the Falls Road. They also used to march to the field in Finaghy. They gave up both those routes voluntarily. Let me tell you, they can give up this one on Garvaghy Road voluntarily, because they are never getting down that road again. It is as simple as that.

There is an issue here about leadership within unionism. I spoke about that a couple of weeks ago in this very Chamber, and it is more relevant today than it was two weeks ago, because we have seen the complete lack of leadership within unionism. Leadership has been outsourced to an unelected so-called legal eagle: Jamie Bryson. Jamie Bryson says that either the march gets down the Garvaghy Road or these institutions come down. Carla Lockhart is saying the same thing. Gavin Robinson is saying something slightly different. Who is the leader in unionism?

When the plan was hatched to try to force a march down Garvaghy Road, what was said in the room? Who was in the room? Who thought it was a good idea? Who said, "Oh, we think we might have a wee legal loophole here so we can get down the Garvaghy Road"? Who in that room said, "What about the residents? They might have something to say about it. What about the police? Will they be able to force a march down the road if residents come out and protest? What are the implications of this?"?

There are over 2,500 Orange marches in the North every year. I will let you into a bit of a secret: in a new Ireland, there will be no ban on those marches. They can go ahead

but I will tell you this: there will still not be a march down Garvaghy Road. It is as simple as that. [Interruption.]

Who made the decision on that road? Who said, "Yes, let's go with this strategy to get a march down Garvaghy Road"? Was it Bryson? Was it Carla? Was it Gavin? Was Jon Burrows involved? Who made the decision? Who thought that it was a good idea? Sitting here now, all the unionists are lined up: does any of you now think that trying to get the march down the Garvaghy Road was a good idea? Any one of you, put your hand up. No. Not one of you will put your hand up. You have made a massive strategic blunder, and the reason why you have made that blunder is that you do not have leadership.

The double standards of the law and order parties across the way are mind-boggling. There is the party of Peter Robinson, who was part of the invasion of Clontibret. There is the party of Jim Allister, one of the founders of Ulster Resistance. Quite a few of you were involved in Ulster Resistance and the importation from South Africa of arms that were used to kill dozens and dozens of innocent Catholics. That is what your party was involved in. [Interruption.]

Gavin Robinson, who was out protesting — [Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order, order.

Mr Sheehan: — at an anti-immigration protest said, "No, I wasn't on the road. I was on the central reservation", but, when the footage came out, where was he? He was standing in the middle of the road. He said, "No, I wasn't protesting; I was working with the police". The double standards and the hypocrisy are mind-blowing. [Interruption.]

I thank all of you who are sitting across from me. Your constant rallying cry is that you want to make Northern Ireland work for everybody, but everything that you do has completely the opposite effect, so go raibh míle maith agaibh. Sin é.

Mr Buckley: The past two weeks have seen an abject failure of political leadership from Sinn Féin. What do I mean by that? At a time when leadership requires responsibility, sound judgement, integrity and respect for the rule of law, we have seen, even today, exactly how Sinn Féin ticks. The genesis of today's debate may be a parade, but it is about much more: it is about the rule of law. It is about those who feel that they are above it and those who feel that they are not accountable to it: "Do as I say, not as I do".

The other part of today's debate that will, I know, not be lost on my constituents or on the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland, having listened to the speeches from Sinn Féin Members so far, is the breathtaking level of arrogance on display. Pat Sheehan, of all people — a man who carried out the cash-and-carry bombing and was a political prisoner and a terrorist — is lecturing Members across the House and is sniggering and laughing, and that will not go unnoticed.

Misleading the House is a serious offence, but a fraudulent First Minister telling what would appear to be blatant lies to the people of Northern Ireland is quite a different thing. We have heard words from the First Minister today. Let us judge her on her words as First Minister. Let us judge her on the words that she spoke on her first day in office:

She continued:

this is the First Minister talking —

Those are snake-oiled, hollow words from a First Minister who could not even tolerate 35 Orangemen walking in silence, with no music, at 8.00 am on a Sunday morning. First Minister, those are fraudulent words; honeyed words. Your new Ireland project stands dead on the street in Portadown. You may talk about a shared society, but you do not want an Orangeman or a unionist about the place. That is quite clear by your rhetoric here today. Remember the words that she said:

The same lady was on the street calling the Orange march a sectarian hate march. Another member said that the Orange Order is akin to the Ku Klux Klan. It is beyond disgraceful to say that about people whom you once proclaimed were your neighbours. They do not seek domination or triumphalism: they seek accommodation. A First Minister who cannot accommodate 35 Orangemen —.

Ms O'Neill: Nonsense.

Mr Buckley: I can tell that she is prickled by this. She is prickled because she knows that the mask has slipped. The honeyed words of the First Minister have not met the litmus test at the first hurdle. My word, this First Minister stands exposed. When I talk about the nationalist citizens on the Garvaghy Road, I will proudly say that they are my neighbours. I respect them; I live beside them; I have interacted with them on many occasions; and I know their distaste and distrust of members of Sinn Féin. [Inaudible.]

Mr Buckley: I will say this, Mr O'Dowd — you did not give way — a Sinn Féin councillor had a death threat today, and I condemn that in the strongest possible terms. Let those responsible be prosecuted through the law and by the police. Did anybody hear one single word of criticism from any of the Sinn Féin Members about the fact that my colleague Carla Lockhart has had death threats and faced an online mob stirred up by the Members opposite? There has not been one word today, because it does not suit the narrative. They would rather whip up the mob against Carla Lockhart and the DUP when we know fine well that the objective for Sinn Féin is clear: stoke division and put fear at the heart of its electorate. Why?

Ms Ferguson: Why?

Mr Buckley: I notice that they are intervening now.

Why? It is because Sinn Féin has fundamentally failed its people time and time again. Uncontrolled illegal immigration: you were the cheerleaders. Woke policies: you are the cheerleaders. You could not be further from what genuine nationalist citizens believe when it comes to common sense, yet you come to the Chamber today to shout in arrogance.

The rule of law matters. The First Minister also signed the ministerial code on her first day — the Pledge of Office — and it will be interesting to see what the Alliance Party does when it comes to the rule of law. When we look at the Pledge of Office, I can identify where the First Minister has fallen short in at least 13 out of the 19 paragraphs.

Mr O'Dowd: Have you got your law degree yet?

Mr Buckley: Paragraph 6— I do not need a law degree, Mr O'Dowd. The paper is sitting in front of me. Let us judge them on its words:

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up.

Mr Sheehan: Time is up, Johnny. Time is up.

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up. I call Eoin Tennyson.

Mr Buckley: Members, I am being shouted down. Why? [Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Your time is up, never mind about being shouted down.

Mr Tennyson.

Mr Buckley: Why am I being shouted down? [Interruption.]

Mr Tennyson: I was born in 1998, the year that the Drumcree dispute was brought to an end and the Good Friday Agreement was signed. It was supposed to be a new start for the community. The people of Northern Ireland were promised not just peace but progress, progress that has never been fully realised because of the poor political leadership on display in the Chamber today and outside it over recent weeks. It is depressing, dispiriting and almost unbelievable that we stand here today, 28 years on, with Pandora's box having been reopened, and the power-sharing institutions once again being placed in jeopardy. Rather than learning from our past, some in the Chamber seem determined to relive it, distracting from their lack of delivery in the present and their complete absence of any vision for the future. My question is "Why?". Why do we want to hark back to what was a hellscape, the tensions around which claimed the lives of 21 people, including the three young Quinn children?

Politicians in the Chamber have invested inordinate amounts of energy reigniting the divisions of our past. Meanwhile, in the present, in 2026, half a million people are on waiting lists; some 25,000 food parcels have been given to local children to stop them going hungry; 60,000 people are experiencing some form of homelessness; our roads are crumbling; and our school buildings are falling apart. Yet, not half of that energy, anger or indignation has ever been levelled at tackling those issues.

Let me be clear: the events of recent weeks are serious. If any elected representative is found to have acted unlawfully, they should face the consequences of that conduct. No one is above the law, and no one should expect special treatment because of the office they hold. If anything, we should be held to a higher standard as we are lawmakers. Alliance has always stood for a culture of lawfulness and accountability, but the motion is not really about accountability; it is a political stunt designed to destabilise and pull down the institutions, and that motive has been clear from the outset. We want no part in that wrecker's agenda. The Assembly must not become collateral damage in a scorched-earth political strategy of division and distraction designed by those who opposed power-sharing from the outset and have expressed their opposition to it again here today.

A PSNI investigation is under way. There may well be further scrutiny through the established standards and accountability mechanisms of the Assembly, but respect for the rule of law means allowing those processes to reach their conclusion before rushing to judgement in a kangaroo court. Nor can the rule of law be cherry-picked. We have heard about "Do as I say and not as I do": well, of course, the leader of the DUP attended a protest that is now being investigated as potentially unlawful by the PSNI. We cannot cherry-pick the law either.

Accountability requires consistency; it requires evidence; and it requires due process. It also requires proportionate sanction. The motion delivers none of those objectives. It runs roughshod over the established due process that is set out to deal with such issues. It recommends a disproportionate sanction, reaches a premature conclusion and, worse, risks creating the perception that politicians seek to influence the conclusions that will ultimately be reached by the courts.

In recent days, we have heard calls for the resignation of the Chief Constable. It is, frankly, appalling that anyone who would profess to believe in the rule of law would turn their ire on the PSNI and the officers who have been placed in an invidious position by political failure and who have succeeded and should be commended for keeping people safe in the most difficult and trying of circumstances. It is the job of all of us in the Chamber to build confidence in the police, but it seems that, for some, it is far easier to dial that confidence down when it is convenient to do so. The policing operation alone has cost £5 million. Meanwhile, there was barely a whimper in the Chamber when the Education Authority told cold children simply to wear more clothes in school because their teachers cannot pay the energy bills for their school buildings.

Let us remind ourselves again what is being proposed here. It is not a motion to censure an individual. It is not a motion to refer Ministers to the established investigative processes. It is a motion to exclude almost half the Ministers in the Executive from the power-sharing institutions, effectively collapsing government in the process, and to what end? I have heard many who support the motion say that they want to be responsible and that they do not want to play fast and loose with the institutions. Yet, they are here today ready to press self-destruct with this vote.

Last week, Naomi Long warned that the Assembly had walked itself into a doom loop and that, if we do not pull back from the brink soon, it will be too late. That appeal has clearly fallen on deaf ears. The spectacle has damaged public confidence. People are weary after weeks of polarisation, provocation and triumphalism from the sectarian chants of "SS RUC" at officers who are too young to have even been employed by the RUC to the dehumanising, disgraceful and vile language of "sanitisation" being directed at the residents of the Garvaghy Road.

The public are looking for leadership now to de-escalate, heal the deep wounds that have been prised open and put reconciliation first. We need to bring people back together after what has been a shameful and torturous few weeks; to make the institutions work, despite the glaring challenges; and to build a genuinely shared future. If the past few weeks have shown us anything, it is that we have been deluding ourselves. We have been simply managing division and sectarianism in this society, rather than doing the hard yards of breaking it down and overcoming it once and for all. That needs to be our priority now.

Mr Burrows: The motion is, above all else, about the rule of law. It is about the cardinal principle — I will not give way during this speech — that everyone is subject to the law, whether they are the most prosperous and powerful or the poorest and least powerful. The rule of law applies to us all. This is not a new road for Sinn Féin to be on. It is the road on which you can break a law if you disagree with it and there is no alternative to breaking the law. Blowing up our town centres: no alternative. Orphaning children: no alternative. Widowing women: no alternative. Taking young men into back alleys with cudgels and shooting them in the knees: no alternative. The deaths of Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball: no alternative; they were collateral damage in your war.

The difference between you and us is that I can say that the murder of the three Quinn boys was outrageous. The people who did it were vile criminals, and there was never a justification. You cannot say that for the children who were murdered by your predecessors in the Provisional IRA. That is the reality. That is the moral difference. You can sit there and smirk, as Mr Kelly is doing. He is a man whose hands drip in blood. No one like you would be in a party like mine. That is the difference between us and them.

Let us turn to the example that you have set to young people. Ms O'Neill is someone of remarkable privilege. For a party of Marxist economics, it has remarkable privilege. When Ms O'Neill, Mr O'Dowd and the other Ministers break the law, do you know what they get? They might get more votes —.

Mr O'Dowd: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Neither I nor any of my colleagues have been found guilty of breaking the law.

Mr Brett: You have.

Mr O'Dowd: I have? Did I miss something?

Mr Burrows: You can explain it to the judge.

Mr O'Dowd: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have no appointment with any judge.

Mr Burrows: The final judge will judge you.

Here is the selfish thing, and I said it to Mr Carroll today: when you break the law, you get more votes, and, when young people follow your example, they lose opportunities. You encourage people to break the law. Do you know what they will do? They will pay the price. It is morally bankrupt.

Mr O'Dowd: I am glad that you are no longer a police officer.

Mr Burrows: You have a recurring problem with accountability. You still have not made the decision to back the rule of law. You joined the Policing Board late after you joined the institutions.

Mr Speaker: Order. Mr O'Dowd, it is not a conversation between you and Mr Burrows, and I remind Mr Burrows of that as well.

Mr Burrows, when you say "you", you are referring to me. Address your remarks through the Chair, please.

Mr Burrows: You could not obey the law at Bobby Storey's funeral. When a young constable did no wrong on the Ormeau Road, Ms O'Neill threatened the Chief Constable. She said that she would call on him to resign on 'Sunday Politics'. I have seen the disclosure in the text messages. I have seen the minutes. I have got them. [Interruption.]

Yeah, yeah. You threatened a republican Drumcree actually. I have seen that.

Mr Carroll: Were you breaking the law, Jon?

Mr Burrows: No. I was an expert witness in the case, and it was disclosed.

Ms O'Neill: So you broke the law [Inaudible.]

Interesting.

Mr Burrows: No, I did not.

You threatened to withdraw from the Policing Board and the Executive. I wonder whether you made the same threat to the Chief Constable this time. You have a big problem with accountability.

People say that there is no leadership from the leaders of unionism. The difference between you and me is that I will say to every member of the Protestant/unionist/loyalist community, as I said on 'The Nolan Show' today, "Do not fall into their trap of not notifying parades. Do not stoop to their level. Notify the parade".

Mr O'Dowd: Does that mean "Fenians"? You mean, "Do not stoop to the Fenians' level".

Mr Burrows: You used that language to me in the office. I have challenged you on it in a police station before. I do not use that language towards Catholics. You might do.

Mr O'Dowd: It is the way in which you act [Inaudible.]

Mr Burrows: OK. All right.

Mr Speaker: Order. Sit down for a wee moment, Mr Burrows. Mr Burrows, take your seat, please.

This is a debating chamber. The engagement is through the Chair. There is too much going back and forth here, particularly from Mr O'Dowd. You are being unusually naughty, Mr O'Dowd, on this occasion.

Mr Burrows, please speak.

Mr Burrows: Thank you.

Unlike Sinn Féin, I will say to the Protestant/unionist/loyalist community, "Notify your parades. Notify your protests. Do not break the law". I can say that and you cannot, yet you talk about leadership. There is no leadership in you — not one ounce of it.

Ms O'Neill: We have a mandate, Jon.

Mr Burrows: Thanks for that.

I turn to the Alliance Party. What has happened to the Alliance Party? They engage enthusiastically on no-confidence motions against other parties' Ministers but, when it is a motion against their Minister, they get up and leave. They enthusiastically called for people and voted to censure Gordon Lyons for a social media post, but defend Sinn Féin for blatantly breaking the law. They follow Sinn Féin into the voting Lobbies more often than any other party. They have been body-snatched by Sinn Féin. Yes, it was a good line, but it is true. The Members who were "the adults in the room" now leave the room when accountability comes out. We go back to the very nub of the issue: we have a party that simply will not sign up to the normal rules of democracy.

There are different views in the unionist community on various aspects of Drumcree. We are not an homogenous block. From the outset of the situation and throughout I called for mediation. I called for solutions from day 1. The language that you used was to whip people up, telling them to defy the rule of law and link arms. The Minister for Infrastructure has made cheap digs: you cannot even fix the potholes in the roads. It is a reprehensible failure. The First Minister comes out with the same line as all her predecessors: "The border poll is just around the corner and over the next bend". We have heard it all before. It is a failed project. The people you murdered? It was for nothing.

Ms O'Neill: Excuse me. Mr Speaker —.

Mr Burrows: Yeah, it was all of you collectively. [Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. I am about to speak, Mr O'Dowd, if you would take your seat.

Mr Burrows, first of all, you again referred to "you". You also said, "You murdered": that is not appropriate at this point. You have about a minute left, and you should get back to what you were saying.

Mr Burrows: Well, your former paramilitary wing murdered. You are inextricably linked. You should be ashamed of your conduct. You have damaged the institutions.

Mr O'Dowd: You were a disgrace to policing.

Mr Burrows: Thanks for that, John. People can see you. Jonny Buckley is right: your new Ireland is dead in the water. It died on the Garvaghy Road. You can laugh and smirk. We can see you.

Mr O'Toole: For the sake of clarity up front, we will not support the various motions of no confidence in Ministers before the Assembly today. They are a distraction from what we actually need to do in this place. Let me say first of all that I and my party welcome the Secretary of State's decision to ban the parade. We should never have got into this situation in the first place. It has opened up deep wounds that did not need to be reopened.

Rather than spend all my time today relitigating the difficult and depressing events of recent weeks, I will reflect on how we got here and, most importantly, where we go next. I will not trivialise questions about the rule of law, nor will I do what some have done and simply minimise the very real shock that reopening the Drumcree dispute after three relatively peaceful decades was for the ordinary, decent people of the Garvaghy Road and the shock of many in our society, from all backgrounds and all perspectives. To understand the past two weeks in their fullest context, you have to understand the shock that there was at a parade dispute being reopened three decades after it had been closed. That dispute had cost lives, including those of three young children who were burnt to death in their home. Then, all of a sudden, at 2.30 am, after 30 years of closure, a parade was to proceed in just a few hours' time. The decision by the Portadown Orange lodge, encouraged by a section of hard-line unionism, including one particular self-appointed and self-published Svengali, to reopen that tragic and dark chapter created an extraordinary situation in which elected representatives felt that they had to provide solidarity and leadership at extremely short notice to an anxious community that did not want that parade to proceed.

To be clear, I am not diminishing or trivialising the rule of law. It is reasonable and to be expected that lawful authorities investigate potential breaches of the law should they occur, and, as I said earlier, that has not yet been established. Members of my party, including our leader, have said that we will cooperate in any way that is appropriate, because we do accept the rule of law and the need for the PSNI and the courts to do their job. However, the SDLP was also founded in the tradition of peaceful protest. That is in our DNA, and that right is sacrosanct. Sometimes, such action is unavoidable. As well as being a party of civil rights, we are, in our DNA, a party of anti-sectarianism, and our vision of Northern Ireland now and the new Ireland that we want to build is fired by the urgent moral task of ending the divisions that have scarred us, including in Portadown.

No one who cares about bringing our people together could be anything but depressed at the wounds that have been reopened. Some people, of course, are gleeful. They thrive on division. They are defined by it. They are obsessed by it. They glory in it, and they want everyone else to be that way too, but here is the thing: most of us are not — not any more. For, while the Garvaghy Road saw one deep wound reopened in order to tear people apart, just two months ago this city saw, at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, an extraordinary coming together and a city and a region able to celebrate our difference. The Ulster-British tradition was on proud display at the heart of the largest ever festival of Irish traditional music and culture. I want to say this clearly to people from loyalist and unionist traditions, including those bands that inspired people at the fleadh, some of which were from my constituency: my party does not want to cancel you. I — we — genuinely want to celebrate the unique contribution of your tradition to this island now and in the new Ireland that we want to build, despite the rhetoric of some voices, but that does not and cannot mean reopening any and every provocation and dark wound from the past.

The Orange tradition is an intrinsic part of this island. It is in the flag of the Republic, though it is fair to say that the Orange Order has never been without controversy. I grew up a short distance from the house of a certain William Johnston of Ballykilbeg, a man who, like me, was from Downpatrick and went on to represent Belfast South. His entire career was founded in opposition to a law passed at Westminster — the Party Processions Act — that banned all Orange marches. Famously, he led an unlawful march from Bangor to Ards and is commemorated on banners and Lambeg drums to this day. I am sure that many Members will have heard of him. Indeed, back in the 19th century, such was the Orange anger at the Party Processions Act that some Orangemen wanted to repeal the Act of Union. That is true, if anybody who wants to go and look at the history.

I mention that because our history is full of ironies, and it is full of tragedy too. It is full of dark tragedy such as that of, as I mentioned earlier, the three Quinn brothers. Rather than spending all of our time reflecting on the darkness and trying to reimagine or recapture the darkness at the behest of people who care only about division, we need to be building the future. I want that future to be in a new Ireland. Others do not, and that is fine, but we need to be focused on the future, not on the darkest parts of our past. That has to involve focusing on the common good and seeing one another as human beings. PossibIy, it could start with our setting a Budget, paying our workers and improving our public services, but what it cannot involve is glorying in division and dragging us backwards rather than facing the future.

Mrs Mason: The people of the Garvaghy Road have been retraumatised: forced, 28 years on, back to a place of fear, pain and uncertainty that they thought they would never face again. That pain has reached far beyond their community, reopening wounds across the North, across Ireland and resonating with people across the world. Now that the sectarian parade has, rightly, been stopped and the residents of the Garvaghy Road have finally been heard, what does political unionism do next? It is so clearly on the wrong side of the issue that all that it can do is turn around and attack some of those who stood with that community. Political unionism is now in such a tailspin that it does not know where it is going or who exactly is calling the shots. Is Gavin Robinson leading the DUP, or is the DUP following whomever shouts the loudest that day and allowing the likes of Jamie Bryson to dictate its political agenda?

It is clear for all to see that these motions are political panic dressed up as concern for the rule of law. If you were being honest, you would say that that is exactly what they are: a distraction because Michelle O'Neill is showing the leadership for all that none of you can. You cannot demand respect for institutions while undermining them when the politics do not suit you; you cannot demand accountability from everyone else but resist it when it reaches your own Ministers; and you cannot take the rule of law off the shelf when it suits the you and then put it away when it becomes inconvenient. Your Ministers were found by the High Court to have acted unlawfully. Where was the outrage then?

Now, we have Gavin Robinson's bare-faced hypocrisy, pronouncing judgement on others while police investigate a protest that he attended. He has offered his explanation, yet he expects his allegations against our Ministers to be treated as a verdict. Please spare us your selective outrage and the holier-than-thou lectures. If the DUP wants to talk about accountability, let it start with its own record.

Let us be crystal clear about Michelle O'Neill's leadership. Her leadership for everyone does not mean that nationalists must accept that their concerns count for less. Reconciliation cannot mean staying silent when a community's rights are under threat and being trodden on. Michelle O'Neill has shown the confidence to reach across traditions. Respecting identity means doing so for all of our traditions and supporting vulnerable communities that need our support.

To those on the Benches across the way, hear this loud and clear: nationalists do not need the DUP's permission to be treated as equal citizens. We demand the same rights, dignity and respect for everyone. While political unionism continues to tie itself in knots, people out there are light years ahead of it. They want progress and a better future for their children and grandchildren. They will not thank you for reopening those old wounds.

Sinn Féin stood shoulder to shoulder with the residents of the Garvaghy Road. We were proud to do so, and we make no apology for that. You can table your motions and gulder from your Benches, but you will not bully us into silence. There will be no return to the days of the past or second-class citizenship for anyone. There is no going back.

Mrs Dodds: It is hard to start after the kind of gaslighting of unionism that we have just heard. Nevertheless, the debate is really important for the House to have, because the rule of law is fundamental to any society. At the heart of the debate is this question: can lawmakers be lawbreakers? That is what is at the heart of the debate.

This afternoon, we saw an extraordinary situation unfold in Northern Ireland. The Court of Appeal has ruled that, on all grounds, the Garvaghy residents' challenge to the Parades Commission determination was unarguable. That is an extraordinary situation. It means that the legal position remains that the determination is valid but that the parade has been banned by the Secretary of State on the advice of the Chief Constable. For many who are looking in on the debate and at what has happened over the past couple of weeks, it is hard not to conclude that the lawbreakers and the mob have got their way and that politicians in Westminster and the Chief Constable facilitated that.

There are plenty of questions for the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable, but, today, people in my community and those in Portadown whom I represent are asking, "Did the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable know about the Court of Appeal's decision in advance and therefore rush through their statements and those measures on Friday night?". We deserve answers to that from the Secretary of State.

I will make it clear that, for this party, support for those officers on the ground who have stood and taken abuse after abuse at the top of the Garvaghy Road and so on is unequivocal. However, we also have to ask important questions of the Chief Constable, who is tasked with upholding the law but unable and seemingly unwilling to police a lawful determination, as was confirmed again this afternoon. In his statement at the weekend, he indicated that there was the prospect of:

The Chief Constable owes us all an answer. Who is threatening the violence? It is not the Orange Order, members of which have remained peaceful and urged their supporters to uphold the law.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. Does the Member agree that one of the most chilling scenes that we saw was that of democratically elected Members from Sinn Féin and the SDLP linking arms with dangerous dissident republican terrorists who are pledged to the murder of police officers? Further, does the Member agree that we need to understand what sinister intelligence pertained to the Garvaghy Road in and around that week?

Mrs Dodds: The Member is absolutely right. I will come on to the whipping up of the mob, particularly on the Garvaghy Road and outside the courts, where I, Carla Lockhart and others experienced it and where young legal representatives had to get police escorts to come into court, such was the threat of violence. That is down to Michelle O'Neill, Mary Lou and everyone else who stood outside the courts and engaged in it.

The Chief Constable owes us answers, and it is important that he provides them. The Secretary of State also owes us answers. What exactly were the threats that Sinn Féin used about the political institutions that caused him to run away and make the decision that he did, a decision that was never made over many years and many disputes over parading? We need those answers, and the people whom I represent demand them.

A free and democratic society must have at its core respect for the law. When Ministers in the Assembly took office, they pledged to uphold the law, respect the courts and support the police. Those rules must apply to all. No one is entitled, not even the First Minister for what is right — whatever the heck that means — to choose which laws she supports and which laws she does not. The law-abiding people of Northern Ireland have witnessed a terrible whipping up of the mob and a terrible blocking of the Garvaghy Road in which Sinn Féin and SDLP politicians are complicit. Those acts were led by dissident republicans and Breandán Mac Cionnaith and were directed by the Provos. Pat Sheehan tells us all about leadership in unionism, but listen up: there is no doubt that Sinn Féin has just rediscovered the Garvaghy Road. It had to ask Breandán Mac Cionnaith's permission to come on to the Garvaghy Road, and now it is marching to the dissidents' drum. What does that say about Sinn Féin's leadership? Fail.

In doing that whipping up, what Sinn Féin has done is sectarianise and demonise the debate. It has demonised lawful members of the Orange Order: people who said that they wanted to uphold the law and went to the courts to get the law upheld. That is sectarianism, but then, it is in Sinn Féin's DNA, is it not, with its support for the criminal and sectarian campaign of the IRA. People out there are being gaslighted today, and they know who is doing it.

The one thing that is absolutely for sure in all this is that all the talk about a new Ireland has been exposed for what it is: empty words. It is an echo chamber: people talking to themselves, making promises that no one — no one — expects them to fulfil. It is clear that anyone with even a hint of a British identity knows how they would be treated in the new Ireland. In fact, it all comes down to "not a Prod about the place".

Mr Speaker: I call Nuala McAllister.

A Member: She is not here.

Mr Speaker: I call Sinéad Ennis.

Ms Ennis: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.

It really takes an obscene lack of self-awareness for the so-called leaders of political unionism in the Assembly to attempt to exclude four democratically elected Sinn Féin Ministers when they have not one vote between them. For Emma Little-Pengelly, who has no votes, Jon Burrows, who has no votes, and Timothy Gaston, who has — you guessed it — no votes to have the absolute brass neck to suggest that Sinn Féin Ministers with a combined mandate of 34,921 votes

do not enjoy the confidence of people

—

Mr Speaker: Order.

Ms Ennis: — is farcical in the extreme.

Mr Speaker: Order.

Ms Ennis: Another bizarre twist to the debacle and a ploy straight out of the Trump playbook is to accuse your opponent of that which you are doing yourself. The DUP has convinced itself that Sinn Féin started the dispute in a clandestine attempt to goad it into collapsing the Assembly and the Executive. Sinn Féin did not reopen the Drumcree dispute. Sinn Féin did not ask for 28 years of peace to be threatened. Sinn Féin did not make the Orange Order apply year after year to force its sectarian hate march through a community that does not want it. The ones who are doing the goading are the Orange Order; extreme loyalist elements; and people inside and outside the Chamber, including unelected mouthpieces, who do not want peace and are afraid of the future. Mr Gaston is not here, but I raised this point with him in Committee last week: if Mr Gaston, Jim Allister and the TUV do not want power-sharing, they should leave. If Mr Gaston does not want to be here, he should leave. Nobody is making him stay here. In fact, as I said to him last week — here he comes — Sinn Féin has a really great abstentionist policy. We are happy to share it with you, Mr Gaston, because, clearly, you need it. [Laughter.]

We need to get to the heart of all of this. Over the past number of weeks, people across this society have rightly been asking pertinent questions. Why has political unionism surrendered to unelected extremists? Why has it capitulated to Jamie Bryson, who has yet again walked it into another unmitigated disaster? Here is my theory on why it is happening, and I do not think that I am too far wrong: the ground has fundamentally shifted under your feet, and political unionism simply cannot cope. Time and time again, people have talked about "no alternative". Maybe Mr Burrows would like to answer some of these questions. Was there any alternative to the pogroms that burned my family and thousands of others like them out of Lisburn in the 1920s? Was there any alternative to civil rights being denied? Was there any alternative to one-party unionist misrule? Was there any alternative to Ulster Resistance, the red berets and DUP gunrunning? Was there any alternative to internment, shoot to kill or collusion? Was there any alternative to nationalists being beaten off the streets? Spare us all the faux outrage. The DUP has no plan for the future. That is why you are so obsessed with dragging us all back to the past. You have absolutely zero interest in these institutions and using them to improve people's lives. You are devoid of any ideas or legislation of your own, so you have engaged in an attempt to thwart and block any progress that others in the Assembly might want to make.

Then came the fleadh, which showed the world just how much Belfast and the North have changed. It united people and communities in a way that we have not seen before, and that has scared the life out of all of you. No matter how much you resist it, the conversation about a united Ireland is raging all around you. It is my firm belief that resurrecting and reopening the wound that is Drumcree was borne out of fear. It is the actions of people who are desperate to turn the clock back to a time when nationalists and Catholics were expected to know their place.

To top it all off, you simply cannot cope with how gracious

Michelle O'Neill has been as First Minister. Time and time again, she has reached out the hand of friendship and respect, trying to build bridges and move things forward. That respect has never been reciprocated. Instead of acknowledging her efforts, you chose to attack the person who continues to extend the hand. That is what is behind the absolute frenzied attacks on Michelle O'Neill. We are one step away from MAGA chants of, "Lock her up". That is where we are headed. Let us be honest about it: you are not angry because Michelle O'Neill is not a First Minister for all; you are angry because she is.

These past few weeks will prove to be a defining moment for the DUP as it has sought to use Drumcree to distract from the scandals and sleaze enveloping the party. It is also a reminder to those of us who believe that a new Ireland is possible and that the change that once seemed impossible is now irreversible. There will never be a return to the dark days of the past, where one tradition stood above the other. Unelected agitators can jump up and down all they like, but there will be no trampling over, or through, nationalist communities. Those days are gone.

Mr Speaker: Before I call Miss McIlveen, Mr Gaston, you left the Chamber for about half an hour, having brought the motion to the House. I do not look kindly on that.

Some Members: Oh!

Mr Speaker: That is being perfectly honest. It is a significant debate on which you will wind-up, and you should be here for the duration of the debate.

Miss McIlveen: I declare an interest as a member of the Association of Loyal Orangewomen. Yes, Mr Carroll, we exist and we are proud women.

There are moments when the Assembly must decide whether its principles mean anything at all. This is one such moment. A Minister cannot participate in an unlawful protest that obstructs a lawfully permitted parade, inciting others to do the same, and then expect the Assembly to carry on as though nothing has happened.

The Parades Commission made its determination, which was tested in the courts. That determination was that the Portadown Orange district was entitled to proceed in accordance with the conditions imposed on it. The Court of Appeal confirmed that again today. Despite that, the Garvaghy Road was unlawfully blocked, although Mr Sheehan, of course, does not seem to understand what that means. The First Minister was there. She did not call for calm or for the road to be cleared. Instead, she urged those who were there to stay the course. She urged them to break the law. Let me ask the question back to those Ministers: who was leading Sinn Féin? It was Breandán Mac Cionnaith, a convicted IRA bomber who walked from Sinn Féin to join dissident republicans. It was him telling the crowd to sit down, to link arms and to come back if the police moved them on. He was not alone, of course. Convicted terrorists stood on that road, shoulder to shoulder with Sinn Féin Ministers — leading Sinn Féin Ministers, in fact. That is the company that they chose to keep; not the police, the courts or the law that they pledged to uphold.

There is a line between peaceful, lawful opposition and taking matters into your own hands. It is the line between lawfulness and lawlessness. The rule of law does not take sides. If the Parades Commission makes a determination that you welcome, you cannot claim that the law has spoken and demand that everyone respect it, only to be out blocking the roads when its decision goes against you. There cannot be one rule for your opponents and another for your friends. You should not expect society to accept that a decision that has been reached through the proper legal process can be overturned simply by gathering enough people on a road. What are we telling the people of Northern Ireland by that action? We are telling them that the law applies until a big enough crowd decides otherwise and that a determination can be ignored if the right politicians turn up to help obstruct it. That is not the rule of law; it is the rule of the mob. Within two weeks, the parade was banned not because the law changed but because the crowd stayed on the road. That is the lesson that Sinn Féin Ministers have taught every crowd in Northern Ireland.

The rule of law is there to ensure that no one is above the law. It is the foundation stone of our democracy and exists to protect rights. That is why support for the rule of law is stated explicitly in the ministerial Pledge of Office. It is not for decoration or to be forgotten when it becomes inconvenient; it is a solemn undertaking that appears twice. Ministers pledge:

but also:

What confidence can people have in the Executive if Ministers appear to be willing to disregard the legal processes that they are duty-bound to uphold? Of course, Sinn Féin's respect for the rule of law has always been conditional. Its Members sit in Government on a Monday and, at the weekend, stand at memorials to the men who bombed, maimed and shot dead innocent people. This is a First Minister who told us that there was no alternative to the IRA's campaign. The situation at the Garvaghy Road shows us that, when it suits her, there is still no alternative to breaking the law. If you disagree with a determination, challenge it in the courts.

You do not stand on the road to stop it and then hide behind ministerial office when you are asked to account for it. The public are entitled to expect better. They expect Ministers to respect court rulings and the authority of the police, not attempt to wear their lawbreaking and subversion of the rule of law as some badge of honour.

Every Minister is legally required to take the ministerial pledge. Their appointments would be invalid otherwise. They have each fundamentally broken it. They pledge to support the rule of law in word and deed, and, on the Garvaghy Road, their deeds said otherwise. At a time of collective Sinn Féin onslaught, demonisation and hate-filled bile against the unionist community, I say this: now is the time for us all to stand together resolute, united and unwavering. For our part, we will do all in our power to ensure that that is the case, and I call on all unionist leaders to do the same. I support the motion of no confidence in the First Minister, Michelle O'Neill, and her Sinn Féin ministerial colleagues.

Mr McGuigan: I am proud of my ministerial colleagues; in fact, I am proud of all of my party colleagues. I am also proud that, along with thousands of people, I was able to stand in support of and in solidarity with the people and residents of the Garvaghy Road in defiance of that sectarian and triumphalist parade. Those Garvaghy Road residents have shown courage, strength and dignity through two weeks of fear and anxiety.

To understand why our solidarity with the residents matters, we need to understand the history of that parade in Portadown, but we also have to understand the history of this state. If you want to understand the history of this state, all you have to do is listen to Jon Burrows's contributions in the House. I am not old enough to have heard Craig or Brookeborough, but I doubt that either of those two displayed the arrogance and sense of superiority that we have to listen to from Jon Burrows every time he gets to his feet. This state was built by the UUP — Jon Burrows's party. It built the state around unionists, discrimination and domination. "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people" was the boast of its leaders, a place where Catholics and nationalists knew their place and faced discrimination in housing, employment and political representation. The unionist population was urged not to employ Catholics by their political leaders in cahoots with the Orange Order, whose influence ran through all of the policies of state discrimination. Catholics were not to be trusted, not to be employed and not to be given votes or houses. That was the attitude at the heart of the unionist Government, and it was reinforced through their laws. We had the Special Powers Act, internment without trial, the banning of meetings and publications and excessive police force. Those laws made those in charge of apartheid South Africa envious. When Jon Burrows says that nobody on this side would be in the Ulster Unionist Party, he is 100% correct.

Spare us the sanctimony and the suggestion that a lawful decision must automatically be a just decision. People in this state secured equality because they challenged laws and injustice. Peaceful protest against bad laws and bad decisions is fundamental to any democracy. The hypocrisy that we have to listen to in the Chamber about those who rightly stood with the Garvaghy Road residents from politicians whose party has a long history of selective respect for the law is extraordinary. Ian Paisley was convicted of unlawful assembly and served time in prison. He ended up as First Minister. Peter Robinson pleaded guilty to unlawful assembly after the Clontibret incursion. I remember that night well, because I remember another loyalist incursion on the same night: loyalists, supported by unionist politicians, openly carried weapons as they marched through my home village of Swatragh in the middle of the night in a similar attempt to intimidate all of us who lived there. Peter Robinson became DUP leader and First Minister. Apparently, context matters when unionist politicians attend protests. Utter hypocrisy.

As a North Antrim representative — indeed, as one who was voted into this place, given that two of the four signatories to the motion are from North Antrim but did not receive any votes — I will not allow the history of that constituency to be airbrushed. Ian Paisley and Jim Allister, both North Antrim MPs, built their political careers on the back of division, sectarianism and derogatory, demeaning language about Catholics and nationalists. Both were involved in the mobilisation of Ulster Resistance, an organisation that Jim Allister publicly pledged his support for and led in rallies through Ballymena town. Ulster Resistance imported weaponry that was used across the North, including in many cases in North Antrim, in collusion with the RUC and British state forces to murder Catholics, nationalists and republicans. I encourage all the sanctimonious representatives from North Antrim to read the findings of the Police Ombudsman's recent report on Operation Greenwich. At Harryville in Ballymena, for two years, Catholic families were disgracefully subjected to sectarian abuse and violence as they tried to attend Mass. Davy Tweed, a DUP candidate at the time and, subsequently, a TUV councillor, took part in those protests. The DUP defended the right to protest then. How does that record sit alongside today's lectures on responsible political leadership?

Timothy Gaston, as has already been said, has been reported as saying that either the Orange Order gets down the Garvaghy Road or Stormont goes down: what an admission. Public services, government and the needs of his constituents are made conditional on forcing a triumphalist, sectarian parade through a place where it is not wanted. The people of the North need functioning government, Mr Gaston. They deserve better than the ultimatums and sectarian politics of the TUV.

All of that general history explains why the Garvaghy Road residents' fears need to be heard and understood. The Drumcree parade is steeped in sectarianism. It is steeped in unionist violence. It is steeped in the triumphalism of the likes of the victory march of the DUP's Ian Paisley and the UUP's David Trimble down the road. It is a parade that cost 21 citizens their lives at the hands of unionist violence.

In North Antrim, we know that what happens in Portadown has consequences beyond the Garvaghy Road. We remember Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn, killed when loyalists petrol-bombed their Ballymoney home during the 1998 Drumcree stand-off. Their memory and that of the other 18 people who lost their lives demand that we protect peace. Respect for Orange culture — there are 2,500 parades — must include respect for residents. Tradition cannot confer an unlimited entitlement to impose a parade where it is not welcome regardless of the consequences. The First Minister, whom I am extremely proud of, has a responsibility to serve everyone, and that includes nationalist families and families on the Garvaghy Road. Being First Minister for all cannot mean remaining silent when their dignity and security are threatened. We in Sinn Féin have shown solidarity. We stood with the residents, whose voices deserve to be heard. We are proud of the action that we took. The days of unionist domination are over. The days of the Orange Order calling the shots are over. Catholics, nationalists and republicans are not, as described by Jon Burrows, a cancer. We do not need to be sanitised —

Mr Burrows: On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr McGuigan: — as suggested by Jim Allister. We are equal citizens. We will not be put in our place We will continue to stand with the Garvaghy Road community —

Mr Speaker: Point of order.

Mr McGuigan: — defend equality and build a peaceful future.

Mr Speaker: Mr McGuigan.

Mr McGuigan: There is no going back.

Mr Burrows: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have never called Catholics and nationalists a cancer on society, and, if you say that outside the Chamber, I will sue you. You are a liar.

Mr Speaker: I call Emma Little-Pengelly.

Mr Sheehan: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that Mr Burrows is misleading the House. He posted a tweet a few days ago about the nastiness of the language that is being used. That is coming from the man who described Sinn Féin as a cancer on society. If he is describing Sinn Féin as a cancer, he is also describing the people who vote for Sinn Féin as a cancer. So, stop the hypocrisy, Jon. We see you.

Mr Speaker: Sit down. Enough of the points of order. They are not points of order.

Mrs Little-Pengelly: What we are here to discuss today is incredibly important. There are people out there listening to the debate, and they have heard, quite frankly, quite a bit of silliness and silly behaviour across the Chamber. We have seen smirks, and we have heard jibes. I genuinely believe that Members on the Benches opposite need to get a grip if they do not understand the anger out there about their behaviour. People are furious. They feel let down. They feel disgusted. Those are things that people from across the community have said to me because of your behaviour.

We must never underestimate the importance of ensuring the continued confidence of the people whom we serve: confidence in these institutions and in the roles that we should be honoured to hold, confidence in democracy and confidence that the safeguards and mechanisms that we have actually work. That is why it is incredibly important to be here having the debate today, because it is part of the mechanism to hold people to account.

Here is the reality. We have heard from the Benches opposite about people not being lawyers or experts. I am a barrister, and I will tell you this: you do not have to be a barrister to answer a couple of simple questions. Is it legal for people in Northern Ireland to block a road?

Some Members: No.

Mrs Little-Pengelly: Did they block a road?

Some Members: Yes.

Mrs Little-Pengelly: The people of Northern Ireland understand that absolutely clearly, and they are appalled by that behaviour. I appeal to those on the Benches opposite, as I said, to get a grip and realise that you have done damage to the institutions and to the ministerial roles that you should feel privileged to hold. The confidence of the people of Northern Ireland has been shattered, and we are here today to hold those responsible to account. I am deeply disappointed that the First Minister is not in her place for this contribution and by the contempt, arrogance, disregard and recklessness that has been shown. Let us be clear. We have heard an awful lot about parading and about the past from the opposite Benches. That is a little surreal, because, while we heard Members say that there is "No going back", we heard them referencing the 1920s. We have been lectured about the violence of others by an IRA member who was imprisoned for his crimes against the people of Northern Ireland.

This is the thing: people are fully entitled to take a view on an issue. The Members and Ministers of this institution can, of course, take up arguments on behalf of their constituents. We can register dismay, anger and disagreement and can even join in a lawful protest, but we cannot pick and choose which laws and judgements of the court apply and which do not. A democratic society simply cannot survive without the rule of law. It is the very foundation on which freedom, democracy, equality and peaceful coexistence depend.

We may not always agree with the laws that are passed or with the judgements of the court, but we cannot simply replace those with laws of our own. That would inevitably lead to the breakdown of our society and of fairness and order. You know that; we all know that. Yet, we have heard distraction today away from the substance of the issue, which is not why we are here. It is because of the unlawful and absolutely appalling behaviour of people who hold ministerial posts including, indeed, the post of First Minister. It is so basic and so fundamental. How much worse is it that the person who should be leading by example — someone who is a lawmaker — is the person at the heart of that behaviour? That is why so many people are deeply appalled.

Sinn Féin needs to get real about the anger out there. People need to see that the democratic mechanisms of holding people to account work. If people do not feel that that is the case, that has consequences. Those on the Benches opposite should understand that and realise it. This was a time for leadership. It was about standing together to send a message of calm heads and calling people to get off the streets. Yes, register a lawful protest if you so wish, but, instead, the First Minister called people on to the streets. I want to make it absolutely clear that no one on these Benches was referring to the people of the Garvaghy Road as "the mob". The mob that was referred to was the gather-up of Provos, ex-prisoners, dissidents, republican activists and Sinn Féiners from every part of this island, all led by the First Minister and her Ministers.

The message was clear. The only people who were threatening violence and disorder were those who were defying the law. It was not just the Portadown Orangemen that you were defying; it was the decision of the Parades Commission and the decision of the Court of Appeal.

You were unlawfully preventing the PSNI from implementing that order, defying the law of the land, the human rights and civil liberties of others, and you wish to get away with it.

This is a time for people to stand together. I am going to call out in particular the Alliance Party, which sat on the fence all week to only now not back this motion — a motion that is about the mechanisms of this place, democracy, and holding people to account for their actual actions.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. Does she think it is particularly notable that the Justice Minister herself has boycotted the debate and not even turned up for it?

Mr Speaker: The Member has an extra minute.

Mrs Little-Pengelly: Absolutely. She should be in her place.

I represent Lagan Valley, and we have an Alliance MP, who has stayed silent on all these issues. I have spoken to hundreds of people across my constituency who are appalled. The Pledge of Office refers to maintaining the highest standards of conduct and to behave in a way that upholds "the highest standards of propriety":

— and —

This is very simple: no community, politician or protester is above the law. The integrity of this place and the confidence in its institutions rise and fall on the law being applied fairly, equally and without fear or favour. There is one standard. We are all equal under the law, and are equally subject to the law, so this is my message to Michelle O'Neill: you are not above the law. You are not immune to the consequences of your action. You have let down the people of Northern Ireland by your behaviour, and that is why I, my party and so many across Northern Ireland have no confidence in you.

I will be supporting the motion.

Dr Aiken: Many times, the Northern Ireland Executive have been as a democratic outlier in our nation, on this island and, indeed, across Europe. The fact that no confidence motions have been tabled under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 on the First Minister and the Economy, Finance and Infrastructure Ministers for failing to adhere to the ministerial code would be seen to be an extraordinary event anywhere, never mind here, especially as we have a ministerial Pledge of Office in which Ministers pledge:

— to uphold the —

— and, crucially —

As a Member of the Legislative Assembly, with our own code of conduct, we also agree to "uphold the law", and are asked to:

We are also asked to promote "good relations", that is, all good relations, no matter from which community they come:

— I have not seen much of that —

— amongst other things.

Also as MLAs, our undertaking under section 40 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, is:

As Ministers and MLAs, the First Minister and the Finance, Economy and Infrastructure Ministers, have, by their actions, failed in their duties to the Pledge of Office and the ministerial and MLA codes of conduct. Bizarrely, some said that Sinn Féin's actions on the Garvaghy Road were, perhaps, in ignorance of the law. In some way, they did not understand the court's determination or, indeed, direction from the legal authorities. By observing and listening to the actions of the First Minister and others, which were recorded and broadcast, it can be said categorically that there was no ignorance of the law, the legal requirements or the directions of a legal authority. They were clearly aware of what they were doing, and revelled in their approach. Rather than supporting the principle of "promoting understanding and respect", they went out of their way to raise tension and denigrate other parts of the community. They sought by their actions to ratchet up the failure to support the legitimate law of our nation. All that contradicts the codes and principles of public life, which, for an MLA and a Minister, is impermissible — unless, of course, you are in Sinn Féin.

The application of the rule of law is supposed to be consistent through the codes and principles of our elected political life here. Whether or not we like the law that is in the statute books, it is our duty to uphold those codes and principles. There is no saying, "Take it or leave it" or, "I'll only support the laws that my party tells me to" or, "My party's interpretation doesn't allow me to comply with the rule of law". Our codes and principles are, supposedly, sacrosanct. Deciding that, as a political party, we can collectively choose to ignore whichever law we do not like is not upholding civil rights; it is anarchy.

We have heard arguments that, according to the European Court of Human Rights, the First Minister had rights that entitled her and others to ignore ministerial and MLAs' obligations. It is believed that that refers to article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Luckily, as United Kingdom residents, they have the right to peaceful assembly, but that is a qualified right. Rightly, the state can impose restrictions where necessary for public safety, prevention of disorder or protection of the rights of others, which is clearly what the courts did, taking action that the First Minister and other Ministers could and should reasonably have been expected to know about.

Mr O'Dowd: Will the Member give way?

Dr Aiken: No.

Indeed, in invoking the European Court of Human Rights while ignoring the protection of other rights of other members of the community, it seems, on any reasonable balance, that they believe that the civil rights of those whom they purport to represent are somehow of higher value than those of others — the others who sought legal redress rather than taking any other action to uphold their community rights. Despite the interpretation of Sinn Féin Ministers, that is, objectively, in direct contravention of article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is a qualified right, and of the law in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Féin has form. There was the First Minister's actions at the Bobby Storey funeral. Sinn Féin party directives overrode COVID regulations, with funerals of IRA terrorists taking priority over public health. It is clear that, for this so-called First Minister and the rest of the Sinn Féin Ministers, the requirements of the law and the adherence to principles and obligations that is a requirement of office and a prerequisite for taking their seats in the Assembly are secondary to the requirements of their party.

Democracy is fragile enough without —.

Mr O'Dowd: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It appears that Dr Aiken is holding a trial — he is putting me and my Executive colleagues on trial — and not only that but he has come to a verdict. What impact does that have on my right and that of my Executive colleagues to a fair trial?

Mr Speaker: It would depend on how much cognisance a High Court judge would give Dr Aiken's remarks. I suspect that they would be fairly confident in their own interpretation of the law.

Dr Aiken: A High Court judge will make up his own mind.

Democracy is fragile enough without failure to adhere to democratic norms. In that, the Sinn Féin Ministers have clearly put party above democracy. That is, by any measure, a move towards totalitarianism. To paraphrase George Orwell, all are equal but some — anyone whom Sinn Féin agrees with or favours — are more equal than others.

Mr McNulty: Late in the night, 15 days ago, when the High Court overturned the earlier ruling to pause the hugely contentious march, we departed with a sense of disbelief and trepidation. When we arrived on the Garvaghy Road at about half past midnight, I experienced the foreboding atmosphere that was thick in the air, and I was taken aback by the look of determined and dignified defiance that I saw in the eyes of every one of the residents. Despite their fear, they stood resolute and determined to ensure that their children and grandchildren would not have to live through what they lived through. I was proud to stand side by side with the residents of the Garvaghy Road. Sometimes, the right thing to do is to stand your ground. After nearly two weeks, the British Secretary of State finally moved to ban the march, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief that good sense had prevailed and that the heightened tension had been calmed.

It must be said that these motions are a distraction from the real issues that people face here in the North. I call for a vote of no confidence in the Assembly for failing — failing to step in and protect maternity services at Daisy Hill Hospital and failing to ensure that expectant mothers do not face uncertainty and anguish over whether they will be able to give birth in their local hospital or be forced to travel bad roads for an hour or more while in labour. The real metric by which the First Minister and all Ministers here should be measured is their willingness and ability to reach across divides, to work together to save and to properly resource and fund services, including vital healthcare services that mothers and babies rely on in Newry, south Armagh and south Down.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

In each other's shadow we survive, or, more metaphorically, we rely on each other for shelter from the storm.

Mr Carroll: I begin by paying tribute to the Garvaghy Road residents and the community and the tens of thousands of people from across Ireland who came out to support them. They are not a rabble; they are not a mob: they are good, decent people. For 28 years, residents were told that a march would come back one day and that there would be nothing that they could do about it. The Parades Commission said yes. The courts said yes. The people, however, said no. Thousands stood along that road, day after day, for two weeks, and I was absolutely proud to stand with them. As some should know, residents were at the protest, as were trade unionists, migrants,

people from nationalist and unionist backgrounds. I will keep talking. You will not shout over or disrupt me. They stood together, and they won.

That is what the motions are really about. They are not about law and order or the Pledge of Office. The parties behind them cannot stomach ordinary people's organising, beating them and pushing back their state. The motions are a stunt. Everyone in the room knows it, including the Member who tabled them. He has admitted that they will not remove a single Minister from office, and he is not happy about that. They will not win a majority vote, and, even if they did, they need cross-community consent, which they will not get. Like others in the House, I know how that works, because, last November, I brought a motion of no confidence in the Education Minister, Paul Givan, over his Israeli-funded junket. Forty-seven MLAs voted for the motion — a clear majority of the House — but it fell, because unionist party members closed ranks to protect him. Who called that motion "Punch and Judy politics"? Why it was North Antrim's Mr Timothy Gaston, of course — the Member who has tabled today's Punch and Judy motions.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Carroll: Maybe later. We will see how we go.

I am no defender of the Executive. I have criticised them for years. The motions are not about any of that, however. They are a distraction from the DUP's record in government and, as others said, its litany of scandals involving Members and former Members. I ask those on the DUP Benches directly: who are all the motions for? Are they for the public, the majority of whom want no going back to division, violence or sectarianism, or are they for Carla Lockhart and Jamie Bryson, because "Big Gav" seems to be on his way out? Are these motions the price of holding the DUP together? If so, it is a ridiculous way to manage an internal row in the DUP that is being paid for in Assembly time that should be spent on hospitals and homes.

Then we have the lectures. They have the temerity to lecture us about law and order. The DUP leader said that the Chief Constable should leave a meeting with Breandán Mac Cionnaith — that is his name; that is how to pronounce it — as a detainee. That is the same "Roadblock Robinson" who attended an anti-immigration protest in Dundonald last June, the same month in which there was racist rioting across the North. I called him out on that last week, and the police are now investigating the protest. This is the same party whose Communities Minister named a leisure centre where migrant families were sheltering after being burnt out of their homes.

Hours later, a mob set that leisure centre alight. The Standards Commissioner's report said that the Minister's actions:

The DUP leadership shamefully stood by him.

The DUP's Education Minister went to an anti-immigration protest in Lisburn in June. On the same night, migrant families — children among them — were burnt out of their homes. Was it lawful? Probably not. Was it morally correct? Absolutely not. The same party's MP stood beside masked men at Scarva at a counterprotest to a Palestinian solidarity march. Those masked men were hurling abuse, throwing rocks and insulting journalists and there was slurry on the road because, God forbid, a couple of Catholics or Palestinian solidarity protesters were marching nearby. Spare us the sermon. For the DUP, the law is something to enforce on nationalist estates and against migrants, never on itself.

Then we have the former Member for North Antrim, Mr Jim Allister, who said that the Chief Constable should have "sanitised" the Garvaghy Road and escorted the Orangemen down it. He said "sanitised", as if the people of that road were dirt or filth on the bottom of your shoe to be scrubbed away. What a disgrace. That is what the unionist elite think of the thousands of decent, ordinary people from the Garvaghy Road who stood to defend themselves. Since then, as has been said, cross hairs have been painted on Paul Duffy's workplace, which I condemn. Their words have consequences.

Some in the House talk about the Orange Order as if it is a legitimate vehicle for cultural expression, like a benign Battle of the Boyne re-enactment society. However, here are the facts: it was founded in 1795, a few miles from Portadown, out of sectarian conflict. The gentry soon saw its use to split Protestant tenants from Catholic tenants, and to break the United Irishmen who dared to unite Protestants, Catholics and dissenters. It is worth reminding ourselves — people should know this — that when the Belfast workers stood together in the dock strike of 1907 and the outdoor relief riots of 1932, the Orange card was played to divide them and keep them apart. Political unionism does not speak for working-class Protestants. What has the DUP delivered for the people on the Shankill, Ballybeen or the estates of Portadown?

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. As the champion of equality, I have not heard him condemn one single threat that has been made against our colleague Carla Lockhart. There have been thousands of comments about her appearance, and some death threats. Will he take the opportunity to do so now? Also, why is he keen to sign motions against the DUP when he will not sign motions against Sinn Féin?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Carroll: The Member should listen to the radio, because I condemned the comments that were made about Carla Lockhart last week.

Mr Buckley: Come on, say it out loud. Do it now.

Mr Carroll: You cannot ask a question and then shout over me when I am trying to speak. A bit of manners, please. I also ask the Member and his party to condemn the comments directed towards the Member for Mid Ulster Ms Sheerin who was called a "banshee" in a disgraceful and misogynistic way. I am clear: I condemn misogyny and hatefulness wherever it comes from. You cannot do that because you are a hypocrite. I will move on. He has exposed himself once again.

Over 50,000 families are on the housing waiting list under a DUP Communities Minister, schools are in debt and working-class kids have been told to put on an extra jumper. The 'good jobs' Bill has been held hostage because the DUP cannot stomach the thought of cross-community trade unions getting through the door of the workplace. A working-class person from Portadown who is on the waiting list for an operation has far more in common with the residents of the Garvaghy Road than with anyone who leads the Orange Order or the DUP.

Why the tantrum now? It is because the DUP and the UUP know that they are losing. They have lost on the Garvaghy Road, and they are losing on the future of this island. A new Ireland is inevitable; the question is when and what kind. A new Ireland run by the same landlords, developers and vulture funds would be no new Ireland at all. James Connolly warned that a partition would bring:

He was right.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Time is up.

Mr Carroll: OK.

Ms Sugden: I have been a Member of this House for 12 years, and it has been a great privilege and a pleasure. I am not sure that I can say that today, because the people listening to us — if they even bother to listen to us — will be disgusted at some of the behaviour from across the House. It is no wonder that the people of Northern Ireland are fed up with the Assembly.

I will take this opportunity to reflect on what has happened over the last number of weeks and on where we go from here. I will also speak to the responsibilities of those who hold ministerial office, given that the motion specifically asks us whether the actions of four Ministers who attended the protest at Drumcree were consistent with their obligations under the Pledge of Office.

I recognise the right to peaceful protest, but there is a distinction between protesting against a decision and taking actions that prevent a lawful determination from being implemented. That distinction matters, particularly when you are a Minister. Other elected representatives were there, and they will be judged by the same processes as anyone else. Their actions will also be judged by the people who elect them. Ministers have additional responsibilities, and it is the role of the Assembly to use the appropriate mechanisms to hold them to account. The Pledge of Office requires Ministers to "uphold the rule of law" and support it unequivocally. I really struggle to reconcile those obligations with what we witnessed. I have heard the various Ministers justify what happened, and I will talk to that later.

This is Northern Ireland in 2026, not Northern Ireland in 1995. We have spent almost 30 years building institutions, strengthening rights and establishing independent processes because we recognise that we will not always agree in a deeply divided society. Therefore, I ask this question: what is the alternative to what we have built? When two communities cannot agree and an independent body adjudicates between them, what happens when one side does not like the outcome? Do we simply keep going until they get the answer that they want? What happens to the other side, where accepted processes and law have upheld their position? If that is where we are, I genuinely question what progress we have made. The progress that we have made has been about peace and the institutions, and we must be very careful not to undermine them.

I recognise the hurt, fear and intimidation experienced by the residents of the Garvaghy Road and Portadown. I recognise the wider impact that the dispute had across Northern Ireland all those years ago. I also recognise that, for 28 years, members of the Orange Order have continued to pursue a route that, whether or not you agree with it, matters deeply to them, so much so that they have applied to march every year and have continued to protest. I do not think that they have done so simply because they hate the people of the Garvaghy Road. That is too simple, and we should not make those assumptions. In a reconciled society, we should try to understand. We cannot talk about reconciliation while being prepared to understand only one side of the argument. That, I think, is where the political response has been so disappointing.

I have spoken to many in my constituency who genuinely had no interest in whether the parade went ahead or not. They were not involved, they did not want to take sides, and they probably wished that the whole thing had not happened. However, they then watched the response.

Mrs Dillon: Will the Member take an intervention?

Ms Sugden: Not now.

They heard the language that was being used and felt that an entire community was being characterised and dismissed. Those are people who have embraced the peace process and respect their neighbours, nationalist or neither, but believe that their identity and traditions are equally legitimate. They will not necessarily be the people who are shouting the loudest, but they will remember how the episode made them feel. All political leaders need to reflect on that.

I have never had a difficulty with there being a republican First Minister, because I respect it as a democratic outcome. I respect that it was mandated, and I respect voters across the region. However, that office carries a responsibility to represent everyone. The First Minister said that attending the process was the right thing to do. I must ask her to explain what that means. Right for whom? I understand why residents welcomed the support, but what about those who expected an independent determination to be respected? What about those who thought that their community was being spoken about with contempt? What about those who genuinely believed that we were moving beyond the politics of "us and them"?

Being First Minister for all cannot simply mean representing everyone when their interests align with yours. We still describe places as being unionist areas or nationalist areas, as though communities have exclusive ownership of public spaces. Surely, nearly 30 years after the Good Friday Agreement, we should be moving beyond that. No community should have to surrender its identity to feel welcome, nor does any community have an unrestricted right to parade wherever it wishes. That is why we have independent processes to balance competing rights, and, when we disagree with decisions, we challenge them lawfully.

Exclusion from ministerial office is a serious sanction. I will support the motions, regrettably. The obligations of the Pledge of Office are serious and must apply equally to everyone. They underpin everything that we do, the history that we have come from and the challenge that we have experienced along the way. If we do not have confidence in one another and in those who lead our Government, what does that say about these institutions and their ability to lead Northern Ireland forward?

When the court proceedings have concluded, the protests have ended and Drumcree is no longer dominating our headlines, what will we have achieved? What will we have left behind? We will all still have to live together, respect one another and have confidence in the institutions that we have spent 30 years building. We cannot build a shared future if we are prepared to respect the rules only when they deliver the outcome that only we want. Every Member needs to reflect on that. I really hope that this place does not collapse because I still see value in it. However, we all need to look to the person across the Chamber from us and ask, "Why?".

Mrs Dillon: I want to begin by trying to help those on the Benches opposite and the small number of agitators and unelected commentators who, quite frankly, do not appear to represent many people from the unionist and Protestant community to understand why I truly believe that it was the right thing to do to stand with the residents and community of the Garvaghy Road.

In 1997, when I was 20 years old, I travelled on a minibus from Newry to the Garvaghy Road to bring children from the Garvaghy Road to Newry — to get them out of the Garvaghy Road — because of what they were living through there. We took them to a community centre in Barcroft, where they had to lie on the floor to sleep. They were so excited to get away from where they were that you would have thought that we were taking them to Disneyland. It was simply to get a break from the fear and intimidation that was being visited upon them as a result of an Orange march being forced through their community. Anyone who is a parent will know that, when you give your children to anybody, you think, "Will they be OK? Will they be all right?". The gratitude and relief of those parents as they gave their children and responsibility for them to us will never leave me. They knew that, for a few days at least, their children would be safe from the fear and anxiety that had come to dominate their daily lives.

Unfortunately, those fears were well founded. Families in that community had already experienced profound trauma and loss. Darren Murray, a child of only 12 years old, was knocked down and killed while being chased by a loyalist gang. You want to talk about mobs: it was a mob that chased that child across the road, and he was knocked down and killed. In 1998, there was devastation at the heartbreaking deaths of the three young brothers, Jason, Mark and Richard Quinn, who were burned to death in their own home during the Drumcree stand-off. The impact of those losses continues to be felt, particularly by the families but also by the wider community, to this day.

Two weeks ago, I spoke to Darren's mummy and family in Drumcree community centre. I also met the parents of some of the children whom we had taken to Newry for respite almost 30 years ago. Their children are now parents themselves and they have their own children at their side. The level of anxiety in that centre was palpable. There was a very real fear, which was not based in rhetoric or political point-scoring but rooted in lived experience and collective memory. Those families were deeply fearful of a return to the bad old days. They feared a return of the Orange march being forced through their community, confining their people to their homes and disrupting the peace that they have enjoyed in that area for the past 28 years.

Mr Carroll: I thank the Member for giving way. Does she share my concern about the attempt to describe what happened as having all been the work of outsiders when, in fact, a large number of Garvaghy Road residents were on the Garvaghy Road, first on the Saturday and Sunday and then throughout the two weeks? Is that her experience of what happened on the Garvaghy Road?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mrs Dillon: Yes. I agree, exactly. The residents' greatest fear was that they would be left alone, because they felt that they had been abandoned before. That was their greatest fear. They were very clear about that.

Everyone in that centre was clear: their priority was to protect their community and, in particular, their children from experiencing what previous generations had endured. Yet, today we have motions of no confidence being brought against Ministers for doing exactly what they were elected to do: stand up for people when they needed them to, stand with the community when it sought protection, stand up for peace and stand up for children.

We have Members on the Benches opposite with an absolute brass neck. They are self-appointed investigators, judge and jury. I do not recall those same Benches demanding their former leader to resign as MP when he was charged with child sex offences; in fact, he retained that seat until Parliament was dissolved in May 2024, continuing to receive his salary and his pension rights. Jeffrey Donaldson also continued to hold the title of "Sir" — Sir Jeffrey Donaldson — until he ultimately forfeited that title following his conviction for child sexual offences. Once again, the silence from the Benches opposite was deafening, and people remarked on it day after day as he went through the court. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. The hypocrisy is hanging clean out of you. People from all backgrounds can see it for what it is.

I take the opportunity to thank the people from the Protestant and unionist community who bravely put their heads above the parapet and stood with the residents of the Garvaghy Road. That courage stands in stark contrast to the sectarian attack and threat made against our councillor Paul Duffy in his place of work this morning and the threatening call made to my constituency office over the weekend. To those who ask where the threat around Drumcree comes from I say this: maybe take a look at yourselves. Maybe ask whether the language being used is giving encouragement or even permission to the sinister elements who would happily drag us backwards.

Let me be absolutely clear: there is no going backwards. We will move forwards towards a better future for everyone in our community. We will stand with the people of the Garvaghy Road. We will stand with the families who simply want to live in peace. We will stand with the children who deserve to grow up free from fear, intimidation and trauma, and we will stand on the side of right.

Mr Brett: I just want to respond to the disgraceful remarks by the Member for Mid Ulster, who is trying to politicise the victims of the disgraceful Jeffrey Donaldson and bring that issue into the debate. Unlike her party, we never protected a paedophile-protecting leader, as you tried to do with Gerry Adams, so sit there with the disgraced face that you should have.

It has been telling that, in all the remarks made by Sinn Féin Members today, they did not address the motion, and that is because they cannot explain to the people of Northern Ireland why they believe that they are above the rule of law. The Sinn Féin Chief Whip even took the extreme step of saying that anyone co-opted to this place should not even have a say. She managed to throw Mr Boggs and Ms Finnegan, who sit on her Benches, under the bus. Apparently, they are not allowed to have a say in the House. Sinn Féin Members are so desperate to deflect from the fact that they cannot explain why they are above the law. At a time when a roads Minister cannot build a road, all she can do is block a road. At a time when an Economy — [Interruption.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Order.

Mr Brett: At a time when an Economy Minister has become more known for losing jobs than gaining jobs, all she can do is block a road. We have a Finance Minister who told us that the Budget that he had secured was the best deal since sliced bread until his Ministers came out and opposed it. He cannot get a Budget agreed, but he can block a road.

We have the self-proclaimed First Minister for all who makes up pointless and meaningless slogans depending on the time of day. She spoke about equality and mutual respect. What did the First Minister do when Breandán called members of the Orange Order "fuckers"? She brought him on to the stage and cheered him. She had no kickback or remarks for him. What did the president of Sinn Féin do when we heard the slogan, "These bastards are not getting down here"? She said that too. When it comes to equality, it is one rule for Sinn Féin and another rule for its unionist neighbours.

Sinn Féin Members have asked us who broke the law. Let us look at the remarks of Mr Gerry Kelly, who, in 2013, stated:

The Member has asked who is judge, jury and executioner. It is Members on your Benches who have made it clear that you are criminals and you have broken the law.

We have had more attempts at distraction. I do not know whether the First Minister is aware, but we have had a joint head of government from Sinn Féin since 2007, so what is the made-up nonsense of "Not going back"? Not going back to what? Not going back to when Sinn Féin defies the law because it does not agree with the courts? Not going back to when Sinn Féin not agreeing with other politicians leads to a Member of Parliament requiring police protection? As a result of what you said, First Minister, Carla Lockhart's child has to look on as her mother is put under police protection. Does that make you the First Minister for all? I hope that you are proud of that. You called people down to the courts. You and your colleagues stood and watched, arms folded and laughing, as Mrs Diane Dodds and others were chased and spat at. So much for standing up for women.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. Even worse than that, a member of the Policing Board, Deirdre Hargey, took to a loudhailer outside the court to whip up the mob against two ladies of this party, Diane Dodds and Carla Lockhart. Shame on her for that behaviour. [Interruption.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Brett: They do not like the truth. [Interruption.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Order, Members.

Mr Brett: We have had comments from the Finance Minister: "Be grateful, members of the Orange institution: we facilitate you". How lucky are they that their neighbours and friends say, "We will facilitate you". Members of the Orange institution are taxpayers of this country. There are 30,000 members in Northern Ireland, yet we have a First Minister who claims to represent everyone calling them all "sectarian". Those 30,000 people are "sectarian", but, of course, the First Minister, who celebrates the murder of people on the basis of their religion, is not sectarian at all.

Let us look at the cocktail of criminals with whom they stood. Who leads Sinn Féin now? Is it Breandán Mac Cionnaith, who left your party over its support for the rule of law? Is it Colin Duffy, who was charged with the murder of members of the army? Is it Martin Lynch? You may know him, First Minister. Is it Spike Murray — you may know him — or, indeed, Gerard Rice? Unfortunately, we have unelected extremism running Sinn Féin, not the Members on those Benches.

I say this to the Alliance Party: it is frankly remarkable that the only political party that you could namecheck in your sole contribution was the Democratic Unionist Party. I tell the thousands of unionists across Northern Ireland who have sillily put their support behind the Alliance Party in the past to look at those comments. The Alliance Party, just like Sinn Féin, does not want a unionist about the place.

The SDLP has said, "Sometimes, actions are unavoidable". The party of Hume and Mallon now has a list of laws that can be broken. Across Northern Ireland, people will be appalled.

Mr Carroll deserves little rebuttal. He is searching for Sinn Féin transfers to save a seat that he will lose to those Benches in a few months' time. He said the quiet part out loud about the people of West Belfast: he thinks that his neighbours on the Shankill Road are nothing more than Orange scum.

I will finish my remarks on Ms Dillon. I will take no lectures —.

Mr Carroll: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You know that that is not what I said. I implore to you to encourage the Member for North Belfast to retract that lie and scurrilous remark.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): That can be considered.

Mr Brett.

Mrs Dillon: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Can the point of order wait until Mr Brett has finished?

Mrs Dillon: Mr Buckley should retract his remarks about Deirdre Hargey.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Mr Brett.

Mr Brett: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. They do not like the truth. To the Member — [Interruption.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members, there is a Member on his feet. He will finish, and he will be heard. Points of order will be considered at the appropriate time.

Mr Brett.

Mr Brett: The fact is that the Member for Mid Ulster does not want to be called out on her last remark. That is a Member who is on record as saying that the Member for Upper Bann Mrs Diane Dodds is not a victim, when her colleagues tried to break into the Royal Victoria Hospital to kill Mrs Dodds and her dying child.

The people of Northern Ireland are rightly angry at every one of you. In the words of Ms Sheerin, you are a disgrace. Ultimately, the people of Northern Ireland will have the opportunity to hold you to account at the ballot box. This party will not run away from you. We will not back down to you, as the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable did. We will not flee the pitch as some unionists want us to do. We will come here every day, deliver for the people of Northern Ireland and call out your blatant sectarianism.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Before I call the next contributor, I remind all Members of previous rulings by and written correspondence from the Speaker requesting that swear words are not used in the Chamber.

I call Deirdre Hargey.

Miss Hargey: There has been a lot of talk about law and order from political unionism and some sections of the media that has focused solely on those who stood with the residents of the Garvaghy Road. I see that much of the commentary is selective and that some have short memories or a case of amnesia when they proclaim that they are the parties of law and order. The DUP, the UUP and the TUV have been loud in recent days in making such claims while completely ignoring their own actions and history.

There has been no reference by the DUP to its involvement in the formation and promotion of Ulster Resistance, an illegal loyalist murder gang. There has been no reference to 1976, when Peter Robinson approached fellow DUP members and the secretary of the United Ulster Unionist Council, Clifford Smyth, with the suggestion that the DUP form a paramilitary wing. There has been no reference to Sammy Wilson stating in an article about the Anglo-Irish Agreement that:

There has been no reference to when the DUP Whip Jim Allister laid out the carefully planned unionist response. It is well documented that, in August 1986, a meeting took place in a farmhouse in Omagh in County Tyrone. It was attended by five unionist politicians and two members of the Ulster Clubs executive committee. At the meeting, the formation of a new paramilitary organisation was discussed, with a pledge to see the endeavour through, whatever the cost to life or liberty, with a private army that was prepared to fight to the bitter end. The 'Sunday Tribune' reported that, at that meeting, the acquisition of weapons was discussed.

We move from August 1986 to 10 November 1986, when Ulster Resistance was formed and launched in the Ulster Hall. That meeting was attended by senior members of the DUP, including the then party leader, Ian Paisley, who said that he would give it his undivided support, and former leader Peter Robinson. They both donned the red berets and were joined by DUP member Ivan Foster and Alan Wright, who was the so-called commander of Ulster Resistance. Sammy Wilson, the then Mayor of Belfast, was also at that rally, and, of course, Nigel Dodds, the then press officer —.

Mr Buckley: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are two minutes and 35 seconds into Miss Hargey's speech, and we are yet to hear anything that relates to the motion before the House. Could you make a ruling?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): I will first consider whether that is a point of order, but it is noted.

Miss Hargey: We also had Nigel Dodds, the then DUP press officer, who handed out leaflets that stated the goals of the new illegal paramilitary group.

The DUP was not alone in that endeavour. It was joined by members of the UUP: Cecil Walker and Fraser Agnew. Agnew later said that he was not opposed to a citizen's army that came into conflict with the law. The now TUV leader, when he was a DUP member, commented:

Of course, they did not just stop it. Just like the meeting in August 1986 at which acquiring weapons was discussed, the Police Ombudsman's report on the murders in Loughinisland referred to the Ulster Resistance's search for weapons beginning within weeks of its formation in the Ulster Hall in 1986.

It started acquiring weapons after it was launched by senior members of the DUP. It was launched by your leadership and the man who is now leader of the TUV. Of course, we know the lengths that Ulster Resistance went to with the 1987 arms shipment from South Africa in which Noel Little played a key role. We know that it was a joint venture with loyalist paramilitaries, including the UDA and the UVF.

Mr Buckley: Lock yourself in the toilets.

Miss Hargey: You joined those murder gangs.

Mr Buckley: Lock yourself in the toilets again.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Order. Order.

Miss Hargey: Weapons that were also connected — [Interruption.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Order.

Mr Buckley: You do not see anything.

Miss Hargey: Will I get a chance to speak?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): There will be order.

Miss Hargey: Settle down.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): I would prefer not to keep standing up and interrupting a Member who is speaking, but, whether the noise comes from left or right, there will be order. Miss Hargey will be heard.

Miss Hargey: Thank you very much.

Those weapons were connected to the murder of 96 known cases, such as those in Loughinisland, where six Catholics who were watching the World Cup were gunned down at their table, and likely to be connected to hundreds of other murders by loyalists. As we know, the Loughinisland inquiry also connected it to the Glenanne gang, a group of loyalist members and state forces who were connected to the murder of 120 people. You have to ask the question: where did the weapons go?

Mr Buckley: You were locked in the toilets. In the toilets.

Miss Hargey: Do the DUP Members who helped set up the organisation still have them?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Miss Hargey, can I — [Interruption.]

Members, I ask that comments relate to the nature, at least, of the motion, which is about — [Interruption.]

Mr Brett: It only took you five minutes.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members, I can do this without your support, OK? I ask that comments relate to the motion in the Order Paper and that the Member speaking be heard.

Miss Hargey: The history of political unionism and the DUP working in arms with state forces and loyalist murder gangs lays bare your approach to law and order. It is a case of collective amnesia. There is one rule for you and another rule for everybody else — a double standard that needs to be exposed and, indeed, is being exposed.

Mr Buckley: Point of order. You were hiding in the toilets.

Miss Hargey: Is it?

Ms Bunting: Bobby Storey's funeral.

Mr Frew: Is that it?

Miss Hargey: No, I am not finished, OK? Thank you so much.

I will leave it with this. Many in here on the opposite Benches say that it is only about 35 elderly men walking down a road. What they do not look at is the fact that it was a walk that resulted in the murder of 21 individuals from that community. [Interruption.]

Any attempt to walk there tramples on those 21 graves. As a family member said to me last week, "Was my cousin's murder not enough?" I will leave you to ponder that question. Were the 21 murders not enough?

Mr Clarke: The McCartney sisters say the same.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members, before we continue, I ask at least that courtesy be shown to the Member speaking. I also ask that it extend to the Chair and that, if the Chair tries to ask for order from a seated position so as to allow the debate to continue, Members heed that. I will continue to interrupt where appropriate, wherever the interruption is coming from. The Members who have interrupted most in the past minute or two will know what they did and who they are. I will do this if they do it again.

Ms Forsythe: We know that Deirdre Hargey is just shouting through her megaphone, as she has done over the past weeks. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak today. To be honest, those outside this place looking in to Northern Ireland now are looking at those Ministers and seeing that they are an absolute embarrassment to us here. We all know and have long known that Sinn Féin does not want Northern Ireland to exist, never mind to thrive. However, what Sinn Féin has put on display and embarrassed Northern Ireland with has really let down everyone, not just unionists.

Today, the sheer lack of self-awareness and arrogance on display has been absolutely outrageous. There has been not a single reflection on the words of the motion or the Pledge of Office; no reference to the rule of law; no justification and no explanation of any of it. Sinn Féin Members said that they would not be second-class citizens, but it is OK for us to be second-class citizens with two-tier policing and two-tier court systems. What about the attempts to bully and terrorise Carla Lockhart, Jonny Buckley and Diane Dodds? They were absolutely outrageous. They treated them like second-class citizens. They tried to bully them, but they could not do it. They have now continued with an absolute slaughter of their characters. It is outrageous.

The First Minister used slogans such as "No going back" and talked about not being dragged back, but Sinn Féin needs to look at itself and realise that it is dragging us back to the days of IRA terrorism. Really, what were the threats? They were threats of violence from the IRA and dissidents being back on the street, to which the First Minister is on record as saying that there was "no alternative". Sinéad Ennis listed a number of atrocities. She should look at the Narrow Water massacre, which occurred close to her office, and some of the other things that the IRA did in our community. Linda Dillon's comments were absolutely disgusting and outrageous, especially as she is from a party of terrorists and sex offenders that is also known for its paedophile cover-ups.

On the point about dragging us back to violence, there are those from across the community, including younger people, who may have been manipulated by Sinn Féin's attempt to rewrite history. They are horrified by the blatant standing in the road, two fingers up to the law and the thuggish behaviour that has been on display. Another thing that the First Minister said was that we have a problem with her being First Minister because she is a woman. That is completely pathetic. She is not the first woman to hold the role, and she is in a joint office with the deputy First Minister, who is a better woman than she is. Sinéad Ennis referred to the First Minister as "gracious". That is absolutely laughable. Listen to the language. John O'Dowd talked about disgusting, vile language. What about the language of his mob? My colleague Phillip Brett read some of that vile language into the record. We heard what the unionist and loyalist communities were called, with the First Minister agreeing. The way in which you referred to the unionist community was absolutely disgusting. We hear you, and we see you.

Liz Kimmins referred to the leaders of unionism as unelected mouthpieces. It should not be lost on anyone that the leaders of nationalism — the unelected mouthpieces who are louder and clearer than everyone in this place — are in Connolly House and are dissident republicans. Look at yourselves. Look at your own. Look at your own —

Mr Speaker: Order.

Ms Forsythe: — party and what you are doing. [Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. The Member will be heard.

Ms Forsythe: The Economy Minister posted on social media calling on people to mobilise in the streets and join in the lawbreaking. That is outrageous. Who else would get away with that? We know that the Economy Minister has a record of losing jobs for Northern Ireland and being a disaster for the economy, but, if the outside world were looking in, it would see an Economy Minister saying, "Mobilise on the streets and destroy the place". How is that supporting any sort of jobs or investment for anybody here in Northern Ireland?

Again, I refer to the Alliance Party and the failure of the Justice Minister to condemn the lawless behaviour at any point, and she has failed to show up today. To be honest, it is pathetic for any Alliance Members to be sitting here today, given that they prop up the pan-nationalist front in this place. They ran away when there was a motion of no confidence against one of their Ministers but have stayed for these motions today.

Surprise, surprise: Matthew O'Toole and the Opposition will not support the motion today. They will support only motions that oppose DUP Ministers. Bad Paul Givan for going to Israel, and bad Gordon Lyons for trying to defuse riots, but Matthew O'Toole would not support the motion against the Alliance Minister and cannot stand up to Sinn Féin when it opposes the rule of law. That is absolutely outrageous, but we see them. The pan-nationalist front is on full display. Everyone can see it.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. Does she agree that, at some point in the future, Sinn Féin will have to reflect on how its dream of a united Ireland — a mythical new Ireland with respect for all cultures — died on the back of 35 Orangemen who wanted to walk in silence at 8.00 am on a Sunday?

Mr Speaker: The Member has an extra minute.

Ms Forsythe: I absolutely agree. The mask, balaclava —

Mr Speaker: Order.

Ms Forsythe: — or whatever it is has well and truly slipped, and that is there for everyone to see.

I return to the motion and the Pledge of Office. My colleague has paperwork here about the Pledge of Office, and 13 of 19 items are crossed out. The sheer disregard for it is absolutely outrageous.

Good and decent people from the PSNI have been in touch with me. They have been failed. They are really disappointed that police leadership has bowed the knee to Sinn Féin throughout. We should remember them as we look for a better way forward for law and order here in Northern Ireland. Some Members have suggested that the DUP is trying to distract, but it is very clearly Sinn Féin that is trying to distract. Look at the state of everything that it presides over. We talked about infrastructure and roads falling apart. Nobody can go anywhere in this country without seeing that. The Finance Minister has spent so much time running about after this issue, yet there are problems with rates and the Budget, which is where the focus should be. That is what the outside world sees when it looks in. Under the Economy Minister, there has been one disaster after another — we see that in the Economy Committee — with the cutting of college courses and loss of jobs. The catalogue of failures is clear for everyone to see.

The one question that none of them has addressed is to do with the motion: do Sinn Féin Ministers support the rule of law? Do they support the PSNI? Do not underestimate the anger from all parts of the community at the sheer arrogance and blatant disregard on display today and which has been on display over the past number of weeks.

Mr Speaker: I call Emma Sheerin. Ms Sheerin, you have four minutes.

Ms Sheerin: Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.

The hypocrisy on display this evening has been breathtaking. We have heard those who tabled the motions talk about standards in office and the rule of law. That has come from the proposer of the motion, the junior to Jim Allister — Jim Allister who, just this weekend, told us all that the Garvaghy Road should have been sanitised, implying that the people of the Garvaghy Road are dirty and inhuman — and it has come from the DUP, the former leader of which is in Maghaberry and the current leader of which is on camera protesting in the middle of a road. What was he protesting about? Illegal immigration. Every other week, DUP Members waltz in here and scaremonger about men of fighting age coming here in boats but do not have a word of condemnation for the British Royal Navy officer who came here and subjected members of the PSNI to sectarian and misogynistic abuse. In fact, the Member for East Belfast praised the navy in the Chamber earlier.

We will not take lectures from the hypocrites in political unionism, because we know what this is all about: deflection. They have not got a leader amongst them. The motion is based on insecurity and jealousy. Not if they put all their unelected spokespeople in a blue bin would they find a fraction of the talent that is on the front Bench in front of me on this side of the House. [Interruption.]

I am proud of each and every one of the people on it. I am proud to be a Sinn Féin representative and activist. Over recent weeks, we have seen the strength and solidarity that exists in our movement, the genuine respect that our people have for one another, the solidarity from our ministerial team and the leadership that they show. From being at the relatively young end of the Sinn Féin representatives in the Chamber, I know about that. I know about it through the mentorship, leadership, advice and support that I have received from my constituency colleague Michelle O'Neill since I first joined Sinn Féin as a teenager, and I know about it through the support that I have got from big John since I came into the House. Liz and Caoimhe, my friends on the younger end —

Some Members: Big John. [Laughter.]

Mr Frew: Big bad John.

Ms Sheerin: — of the spectrum, have benefited from the same support, but their talent shines through in their respective Ministries.

Members can laugh and sneer all that they want, but that is what the motions are based on. Those Members know that they do not have that strength on their Benches, and that is why they are deflecting again. They know that the days of the Orange walking wherever they want to — walking, as my colleague said, over the graves of 21 people who lost their lives, including four children — is never going to happen. Regardless of what they say about the law, the Members opposite know that they have stood on the wrong side of history yet again, while we have stood, as we always have, for the rights of people. I am proud of the actions of our ministerial team and our whole party in representing the rights of the Irish people to live free from intimidation and harassment.

I urge those Members to stick the motion in the blue bin, where it belongs.

Mr Speaker: I call Mr Gaston to make a winding-up speech. Mr Gaston, you have up to 20 minutes.

Mr Gaston: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We have heard a lot of hot air in the debate from the Benches to my left and certainly from Sinn Féin MLAs who say that they cannot live with or abide an Orangeman about the place. What they have spoken about is some parallel universe that they live in where reality and perception do not meet. They are simply on another planet. They have shown the same intolerance: they cannot abide unionism, loyalism or Orangeism walking down the Garvaghy Road for 14 minutes.

There is no tolerance and no respect.

I agree that the new Ireland lies in tatters, along with, I would go as far as to say, the Executive. An Executive who cannot survive the enforcement of law when republicans simply do not like it or agree with it do not deserve to survive, and we have a peace process that would suffer catastrophic long-term consequences if 35 men dared to walk down the Garvaghy Road. That is not an Executive worth propping up.

What we have witnessed was Sinn Féin promoting Mr Mac Cionnaith, its new cheerleader. You have promoted him to be the new chief constable of the Garvaghy Road. Let us have a read about Mr Mac Cionnaith. On 12 May 1982, the 'Belfast Telegraph' reported:

That is the man whom Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the dissidents are taking their lead from; that is the man whom they have promoted to be the chief constable of Garvaghy Road; that is the man who bombed the heart out of Portadown and now stands up pretending to be some champion for its citizens.

For the past number of weeks, what have we seen happen on the Garvaghy Road, apart from mob rule reigning supreme? We had Sinn Féin and Ms O'Neill's bedfellow, the IRA chief of staff, directing operations. He was directing operations, and Sinn Féin MLAs were following suit. We also had renditions of 'My Old Man's a Provo', which includes these lyrics:

That is the type of people who have been entertaining Sinn Féin and the SDLP over the past number of weeks. Do you know what? Not one of them has even blushed in the Chamber tonight at that being the people whom they have been standing with: a mob making a joke of La Mon, Bloody Friday, Enniskillen, Claudy and the countless other cases across our Province when Provo bombs packed with ground-up fertiliser blew people in Northern Ireland into eternity.

They even had the cash-and-carry bomber and failed hunger striker, Pat Sheehan. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. He stands up to lecture unionism on what is right and what is wrong. Pat, sit this one out. You are nothing but a hypocrite, and you should not be able to lecture anyone.

When we look across the Benches, we see Gerry Kelly. Oh, he has left; he has run away. He must be using his on-the-run letter. He is somebody who packs the Sinn Féin Benches. Those are the people with whom we have to put up in the Chamber. Mr Kelly served two life sentences for his part in the IRA bombing campaign in London, including the Old Bailey bombing.

We have a Principal Deputy Speaker who compared the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan. What does that do for good relations? Those are the sorts of people whom Sinn Féin packs its Benches with. Those are the sorts of people who show hypocrisy when they stand up and lecture others. However, the one who takes the biscuit today is none other than Policing Board member Deirdre Hargey, the woman who hid in the toilet with 200 other republicans and nationalists and looked the other way when Robert McCartney was murdered. Shame on you; not a bit of remorse comes with you.

We move on to the Alliance Party. It is good that Mr Tennyson and co joined us for most of the debate. Some Alliance Party Members have sat in for all of it. There was no mention from Mr Tennyson of the 344 Orangemen who were murdered at the hands of the IRA. Throughout Mr Tennyson's contribution, the boxing gloves stayed on. He does not dare go against his masters in Sinn Féin. He lectures us. He says that higher standards apply to us as lawmakers, yet he will troop through the Lobbies with the lawbreakers tonight. Many of the MLAs who were sitting on Garvaghy Road on the Sunday turned up here on the Monday and trooped through the Lobbies to vote for his Conversion Practices Bill. He is glad of their support. The hypocrisy of the Alliance Party knows no bounds.

What of our Justice Minister? Where is she? That is a good question. Maybe, if we start talking about the Chief Constable, she will hide behind, "That is an operational issue" — she dare not get involved. I have news for you, Justice Minister: when the Chief Constable moved from the realm of law into the realm of political enforcement and political appeasement, you, Justice Minister, have a duty to remind him that he is here to be apolitical and to rule without fear or favour. The Chief Constable needs put back in his place to concentrate on upholding the rule of law. He has derogated and shied away from that. He has pandered to the mob. He has pandered to Sinn Féin. He has pandered to the threats of violence. From whom? They were certainly not from the 35 Orangemen, who have been dignified and respectful from the beginning. The same cannot be said of Members on the Benches to my left. They have upped the ante, whipped up hysteria, broken the law and led the mob to hide from their own failings.

Of the many Members from the Sinn Féin Benches who have spoken today, not one could confirm that they supported law and order. We heard Liz Kimmins have the audacity to welcome — welcome — the court decision on the A5, even though, for two weeks, Sinn Féin derided the court decision and the Parades Commission decision to lawfully grant 35 men the right to return home after 28 years. We heard from Ms Sheerin. My goodness, Ms Sheerin likes to get exercised when she speaks. She only gets excited when it is something to do with Gaza or her pan-nationalist republican agenda. That is her interest. That is what she goes after people for. That is what fires her on. She needs to question some of the speeches that she has made and the hatred and incitement that she has spewed from those Benches when she has got to her feet. She is in no position to lecture unionism.

Now we come to the inevitable conclusion. We have had our debate — we have had our say — but, unfortunately, regardless of how Members vote in the Lobbies tonight, the absurd rules of this place will ensure that the motion fails. It will fail because it needs Sinn Féin to vote for it to pass. How can that be democratic in 2026?

What are we going to do about it? What will happen? The "First Minister for all" stood up to lecture us. She tells us that this is 2026, but she always refers to the past. A number of weeks ago, Michelle O'Neill was happy to stand at the graveside of Thomas McElwee, a terrorist and murderer, with not a thought for the mother of his victim or for the children of Yvonne Dunlop, yet she comes to the House to say that she is "First Minister for all". You are certainly not my First Minister, and you never will be.

Some Members: She is.

Mr Gaston: Oh, she is certainly not. She is not the First Minister for the Orangemen; she is only the First Minister for those whom she wants to represent. She has failed her test time and again.

We have heard from all sides of the House and we have our TikTok videos, but what are we going to do when the debate finishes? I turn my attention to the DUP, and I do that for one reason: it is the only party that has it in its gift to remove Michelle O'Neill from office. Where are the profound consequences that we were told about? In 2007, the DUP told the unionist people that:

Nineteen years on from making that declaration, is there really a unionist in the House who can say that Sinn Féin supports the police and the rule of law? I do not think there is, and, if there is, you are certainly kidding yourself. After what we have listened to tonight in the Chamber, would anyone dare suggest that that was anything more than a con? If it is and if you hold true to what you said in 2007, there is an onus on you to do something about it.

Some £190 million has been poured into good relations. When you ask what the definition of "good relations" is, there is not even an agreed position in the Executive Office on what it is. Some £190 million has been poured into the good relations and Communities in Transition pots, and all it took for the mask and the whole facade to slip was 35 men to be permitted to walk down the Garvaghy Road.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Gaston: I am happy to give way to Mr O'Toole.

Mr O'Toole: The Member has raised good relations and has mentioned the money that has been, as he says, "poured into" it. May I ask, genuinely out of interest, given some of the remarks by his party leader over the past couple of days, including the use of the word "sanitise" and things like that — for many people, that was a deeply obnoxious and offensive thing to say — whether his party genuinely believes in good relations? Does he think that there should be a good relations strategy and good relations funding? I am genuinely interested.

Mr Gaston: Good relations can exist only when two equal sides want to buy into it. Given what we have seen from you, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit, there are no good relations, because there is no tolerance for 35 men to walk down the Garvaghy Road. Fourteen minutes is all that it would have taken for the parade to pass. It would have taken one minute to pass any point along the Garvaghy Road at 8.00 am on a Sunday.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Gaston: I will give way one more time.

Mr O'Toole: The Member said that there are no good relations at all from the SDLP. I will point out to him what I said in my speech; I have it in front of me, because I read it out. I talked about the Ulster-British tradition being "on proud display". I said that Orangeism is intrinsic and valued on this island, but I drew a distinction between that proud tradition, which I and my party respect, and a specific provocative parade. Will he recognise that I drew a distinction between that parade and broader respect for that culture?

Mr Gaston: Mr O'Toole lost me at "respect" when he does not respect the rule of law. On that basis, Mr O'Toole, yes, you said it, but, when you do not have respect for the rule of law, that is where this place absolutely plunges into the gutter.

Mr Carroll: I thank the Member for giving way. Will the Member indicate whether all the anti-immigration protests that he has attended over the past two or so years were notified protests and whether he engaged in any road blocking?

Mr Gaston: If Mr Carroll has any evidence that I was at any protests, he can go through the archives and produce it. I have no problem standing to the law and order of this country.

When we consider all that has been said tonight, I do not believe that one person outside the Chamber, whether unionist or nationalist, would really see a difference if this place did not exist. It is failing, is dysfunctional and does not deliver for them.

The other argument that I hear from the unionist Benches is, "Oh, we shouldn't leave Labour in charge", but they never complete that sentence and say, "By the inaction of the DUP, it is leaving Sinn Féin in charge". Mr Robinson said that bringing down Stormont would not get the Orangemen home. That is what he claims. When I look at the Chief Constable's claims that the Executive could have come down if the rule of law had been upheld, I wonder how he reached that conclusion. He must have known that the DUP was not prepared to do anything. He must have known that, when the rights of unionists and Orangemen were being trampled over, there was no fear of these failing institutions falling. That is a dereliction of duty by Mr Robinson, and he should have been prepared that, when the court case was won — won a number of times, and, indeed, won in court today — there had to be political consequences for what we have seen.

It might have been a Labour Government Minister who signed the piece of paper on Friday night to stop the Portadown district from returning home for the first time in 28 years, but it was the very people who the DUP shared power with, and continues to share power with, who made that happen. It was the confidence that London had the DUP where it wanted it, with no backbone and no self-respect, that ensured that the Chief Constable put pressure on the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State made that announcement.

I close with this. Ms O'Neill talks about it being 2026, yet she refers to history. Miss Hargey was able to cite things from the 1970s and 1980s but cannot remember back to January 2005. At what point will they stop glorifying terrorism and eulogising people such as Thomas McElwee, who robbed three children of their young mother? I hope that the words of Geoffrey Dunlop — "What about my mummy?" — ring out around the Chamber. Think about that. Geoffrey Dunlop. "What about my mummy's life?" Those are the people that this First Minister of lawlessness chooses to eulogise, and she dares to stand up and say that she is First Minister for all. It is time that the deputy First Minister resigned and took Ms O'Neill with her.

Mr Speaker: Order. Before we proceed to the Question, I remind Members that the motion requires cross-community support.

Mr Gaston: I beg to move

Mr Speaker: Before we proceed to the Question, I remind Members that the motion requires cross-community support. I have been advised by the party Whips that, in accordance with Standing Order 27(1A)(b), there is agreement that we can dispense with the three minutes and move straight to a Division.

Mr Gaston: I beg to move

Mr Speaker: Before we proceed to the Question, I remind Members that the motion requires cross-community support.

Mr Gaston: I beg to move

Mr Speaker: Before I proceed to the Question, I remind Members that the motion requires cross-community support. The Whips have agreed that we may dispense with the three-minute rule.

Mr Speaker: It has been brought to my attention that a Member was wearing AirPods in the Chamber for a period. I will write to that Member, as they are not in the Chamber. If Members do not want to listen to debates and want to listen to something else, they should leave the Chamber to do so.