The following is an extract from Jim Allister’s speech during the Budget debate yesterday.
I want to comment, if I might, on the position going forward. We heard many references today to the need for prudence, sensibility, living within our means and the necessity to demonstrate to the public our probity in respect of handling public money. All those things are right and proper. In the same breath, we heard about the extreme pressures on various sectors: health, education and infrastructure. Outside the House yesterday, we heard the Minister talk about the fact that, for the future Budget, he is already £600 million short.
If that is the context in which the House is dealing with public finances, the Budget Bill and prudent expenditure, it leads me to ask the question: why, then, are some — indeed, why are the Executive — wanting to indulge themselves in various vanity projects? There is an example of one today. Since the First Minister and deputy First Minister want to spend £11 million annually on Irish language and associated concepts, I asked the Health Minister, whose mathematical skills maybe mean that he should be the Finance Minister, what £11 million would buy for us in the health service in extra nurses. Wizard-like, he told us that £11 million a year equates to 275 extra nurses. Knowing of the need in health, knowing of the shortfall, knowing of the constant stream through our offices of people complaining about waiting lists, delays, not being able to get a bed, not being able to access the health service in the manner in which they ought, who of us, faced with that, could say to any of our constituents, “Well, in fact, it is more important to have Irish language or the nonsense of Ulster Scots than to have 275 extra nurses a year”. Yet the Executive, First Minister and deputy First Minister are saying to the Northern Ireland community, “We want to take £11 million of scarce resources and not give it to the health service or schools. We want to put it into Irish language or Ulster-Scots identity projects. Suck it up. You may be short of nurses and other things, but this is so important that we are determined to do it”. We talk about priorities. Is the House not headed in entirely the wrong direction when it comes to priorities? It is a colossal sum of money for that sort of project.
Let me refer Members to the fact that the Northern Ireland Audit Office, which does real work in the community and is essential to the whole process and workings of government, has an annual budget of just over £7 million. It has a staff of 106. In recent years, it has diminished its budget demand and staffing by tightening its belt. Here we are saying, “Never mind the Audit Office with its £7 million. Irish language and the rest of it needs £11 million. Never mind that the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, the Commissioner for Children and Young People and the Commissioner for Older People run on a fraction of £11 million. We are to ring-fence £11 million of resources for language issues”. Really?
Then, we stand up in the House and empathise with our constituents about their real needs. We say how appalling it is that they do not have the health service that they deserve and how we will make sure that they do. At the same time, we talk about wanting to squander money like that. It is time that the House took a good look at itself when it comes to these issues.
Mr McHugh: Will the Member give way?
Mr Allister: Certainly.
Mr McHugh: The Member refers to money being spent on the Irish language. It is a tirade that I listen to often. I remind the Member that the Irish language is not there in splendid isolation. It is the language of a community and the language of this country. For many in the community involved in the Irish language — in fact, a continually growing number — it is also their first language, and they, too, have health issues. The language is ingrained in them and is part of what is important to them. Isolating those people from their language or pretending, for one second, that money being spent on the Irish language does not also address the educational needs and health issues of that very same community is, in itself, a fallacy.
Mr Allister: Let me deal with that. It is not as though the Irish language community has been starved of funding for all these years and, suddenly, we will spend £11 million on it. Sorry, but the Irish language community has been one of the most feted communities in Northern Ireland. It has its own education system where, unlike any other sector, you can form a primary school with 12 pupils, whereas primary schools in the controlled sector face closure. The Irish-medium sector has its own North/South body with executive powers. It is a sector that has had expenditure of over £200 million in recent years. No one need pretend that the Irish language sector is being neglected.
It has been feted beyond belief, and now we are going to pour — squander, rather — £11 million on some vanity nonsense about Ulster Scots and the Irish language and appoint endless commissioners and staff to enforce it on those who do not even want it.
I am saying to the House, “You need to get your priorities right”. I was about to say, “This House in particular needs to get its priorities right”, because the House under the “New Deal, New Dreams” document is going to provide for interpretation services. We are going to squander I do not know how many hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of pounds, in the House to provide a service that no one needs. There is not a single Member who needs the English language interpreted so that they can understand it. There is not a Member who needs it interpreted into Ulster Scots — think of it — or into Irish, yet, as part of this vanity project, we are saying that the House shall have interpretation services, it shall have instant translation services and it will be provided with headsets to listen to those few Members who can speak Irish, with yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker, being a notable exception. We will not have to wear the headsets for very long with some Members, because once they get past the opening remarks, there will not be much to say.
Think of the folly. The absolute squandering folly of a House in which every one of the 90 Members — yes, I will say it — adequately speaks English.
A Member: Do not go too far.
Mr Allister: No, I will not go too far. Everyone adequately speaks English. Nonetheless, the House is going to have this nonsense expenditure, while, meantime, people cannot get a bed in our hospitals and kids cannot get their special needs assessment.
It is time we took a look at ourselves, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is time we got our priorities right. When a Minister comes to the House with a Budget that has its priorities right, then it will be a Budget deserving of support, but a Budget that anticipates that sort of foolhardy, unnecessary expenditure is not one that should recommend itself to the House.