Greens slam ‘farcical’ collapse of Stormont

Fuel poverty tops conference talk

RUSSIA’S war on Ukraine and our Government’s failure to protect us from spiralling energy costs topped discussions at the Green Party NI conference yesterday.

“It’s time for change,” party leader Clare Bailey told the Mirror.

The South Belfast MLA blames the lack of investment in green and clean energy for the bills Northern Ireland people now face.

She also called on the DUP to elect a First Minister so £300million of emergency funding can be spent.

She told members: “As people struggle to afford to feed their families and heat their homes, Stormont is sitting on £300million of emergency funding which can’t be spent due to the collapse of the Executive.”

Ms Bailey hit out at the latest “farcical and damaging”

Stormont crisis saying

“those who wanted

Brexit and have got

Brexit need to take responsibility for Brexit”.

She added: “It’s time to put an end to manufactured crises – we want a system that can cope with the issues facing people’s lives.”

The party has two backbench MLAs – Ms Bailey and Rachel Woods who represents North Down.

They have brought three Bills before the

Assembly this mandate – a Climate Bill, legislation on safe zones outside women’s health and abortion services and leave for domestic abuse victims.

Ms Bailey withdrew her Climate Bill after changes to Edwin Poots’ Climate Bill and said she’s hopeful the latter two will pass before this term ends.

While celebrating wins on amendments to climate legislation, she also slammed Sinn Fein, the UUP and SDLP for “speaking out of both sides of their mouths” and allowing methane to be split from our net-zero reduction target.

She added: “We have less than eight years left in the global carbon budget and that gives us a two thirds chance of staying under the critical threshold of 1.5 of global warming.

“What is right is not always popular and with less then eight years left to avoid catastrophic climate change, traditional parties have decided that votes and lobbyists are more important than fully addressing the code red for humanity and atlas of human suffering that the IPCC have given us. It’s climate breakdown that’s the defining issue of our time.”

The party also discussed Stormont’s failure to deliver on health, poverty, justice, clean air, land and water and sex education in the past 24 years.

MLA Rachel Wood spoke about her work on the justice committee around stalking and domestic violence ahead of a panel on gendered justice.

Meanwhile, Ms Bailey says the news she’s now facing Edwin Poots in the fight for a South Belfast Assembly seat was “a bit of a surprise”.

She said: “It’s going to be interesting.”

We want a system that can cope with the issues facing people’s lives CLARE BAILEY LEADER OF THE GREEN PARTY NI YESTERDAY