Health is the priority for all our politicians, says former minister
A FORMER Northern Ireland DUP health minister has called on politicians to own the healthcare strike, restore power-sharing and give striking workers the pay parity they are asking for.
Around 15,000 healthcare workers staged a walkout across Northern Ireland bringing widespread disruption yesterday.
A last-minute bid by the Northern Ireland parties to provide political cover for civil servants to take the decision failed.
The Civil Service has said the implications of enacting pay parity has far-reaching and long-term consequences for the Northern Ireland budget.
Officials believe a decision could also set a precedent for other sectors, such as education, so any decision would need local political consideration.
DUP MLA Edwin Poots urged Sinn Fein to re-establish the Executive and act on pay parity for healthcare workers.
“Quite frankly this is our problem, this is our issue. We are capable of resolving it if we have the will and that is by re-establishing the Executive,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.
“For me, health is the number one priority.
“It is not parades, it is not flags, it is not language. The issue here is that we have more than 300,000 people on the waiting list. The waiting list should never have gotten to that length.”
He said there was no need to wait on restoring pay parity for healthcare workers and they could tackle all the issues in a restored Executive.
“We can re-establish the Executive this week. We can have a Health Minister in place this week. We can decide to deal with the nurses’ pay parity issue this week, if they want to do it.”
He added: “I am interested in getting equality and parity for healthcare workers, in getting the rights of people who are in hospital in terms of getting waiting lists reduced and providing appropriate care with the appropriate number of staff.
“I wish Sinn Fein would have health as their number one priority, it was not even in their manifesto. They need to get off their high horse about Irish language and a series of other matters and put health as number one.”
Sinn Fein’s health spokesman Pat Sheehan said the matters around the political impasse had been “well rehearsed”.
Mr Sheehan said there was consensus among the parties that the money could be found to resolve the dispute and it was in the “gift” of the Secretary of State and the Civil Service to do so.
“At the end of the day there are no functioning institutions at the moment and it would be wrong to try and initiate a separate or independent talks process to resolve this dispute,” he said.
“What happens if the talks end in failure?
“All the parties have said if talks are successful we will restore pay parity. Julian Smith and the Civil Service should find the extra money required. There is always money to fight wars, money to bail out the banks. Let’s find the money for the healthcare workers and resolve this dispute now. The issues that led to the collapse of the institutions have been well rehearsed. What we need now is a credible and sustainable agreement that will ensure the institutions, when they are resurrected, they don’t collapse again.”
He added: “We need to resolve all the problems, there is not one single problem. Once we do that we can get the institutions up and running.
“What we need is a partnership government. People who are prepared to work on the basis of equality and that there is parity of esteem in the institutions.
“Even if the institutions were up and running in the morning, if we do not have the resources to deal with the problem in health and education we are going to create more problems down the road.”
A number of MLAs joined workers on the picket lines yesterday. Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill joined workers in Dungannon while the UUP’s Robin Swann was in Antrim.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said politicians should be embarrassed over the strike action taken. “I know I am,” he added. “Let’s stop the political games and sort it out.”
UUP leader Steve Aiken said all parties wanted to deliver pay parity to healthcare workers and would deliver on it in a future Executive. He appealed to the unions to call off their action on that basis.
However, he said he understood if there was scepticism about what the parties would agree to in the future.
Alliance leader Naomi Long said she believed Mr Smith saw leverage in health to force the parties back into sharing power.
“I can understand why he might think that,” she added. “Actually, what is much, much more important is trying to get the right atmosphere in the talks to feel there is an achievement to be made.
“But also to say to the people we are serious about this and I can understand why they don’t trust us ... They have heard the same thing so many times in the last three years, but I think parties are trying to get this resolved, they want delivery.”