SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has said the collapse in January 2017 of the DUP/Sinn Féin coalition was the product of a deeper malaise over the course of a decade of failure. The Foyle MLA said: ”
“The old truism tells us that peace is not simply the absence of violence – however for a year now the inability of the DUP and Sinn Féin to govern has ended in them selling the failure that peace means the absence of power.
“A key triumph of the Good Friday institutions meant finally putting an end to the cycle of violence which had torn this island apart.
“However, its ongoing purpose was designed to place power, authority and responsibility in the hands of local people in a local government.
“After 10 years in Government, the joint record of the Sinn Féin/DUP coalition shows incompetence in government and a complete abdication of the responsibility that comes with power.
“More and more people have come to the realisation that the moment of collapse last January was the product of a deeper malaise over the course of a decade of failure.
“That 10 year period tells a story of DUP intransigence and Sinn Féin weakness.
“The uncomfortable truth for both Sinn Féin and the DUP is that despite holding power they didn’t deliver on economic rights, on health transformation, on higher education, on poverty or on equality issues.
“Instead they delivered financial scandals, dragged their heels on all the major economic and social issues and offered little of the creative governing delivered by the devolved powers in Scotland.
“Of course Sinn Féin now contend that these are precisely some of the reasons why they walked out – but they still have no explanation as to why they allowed the DUP to run rings around them in Government for 10 long years.
“This was their failed status quo – they were in it together.
“That long failure now threatens to freely and fully hand power back to a hard Brexit, extreme Tory/DUP government at a moment when we are faced with mounting problems in our health and education services.
“As I said in the New Year, I’m only too aware that people never fell in love with devolution but I think it’s inevitable that we will all come to loathe direct rule.
“The New Year and the anniversary of last January’s collapse must return us all to the realisation that the fundamental purpose of politics is to wield governmental power for common good.
“The job of politics, the job of any serious politician, is not simply to voice views and eternally protest – the job is to create and deliver change.
“It remains little known that in the hours before the effective collapse of the Executive, Alex Attwood had just been selected to lead a cross-party bill to enact equal marriage legislation in Northern Ireland.
“They were about to lodge the legislation with the Speaker when the news of the collapse broke.
“The absence of a Government and Assembly meant that this progress towards equality didn’t happen and those rights remain denied. This is but one example of the powerlessness that remains due to the absence of a local Assembly.
“After one year the equation remains simple – no government means no power and no power means no change. It’s now time to change that year-long reality of stalemate and powerlessness,” added the SDLP leader
