Stormont opposition leader Matthew O'Toole slams Executive parties over 'meaningless Assembly motions'

Matthew O’Toole of the SDLP said significant Assembly time was being wasted by the votes, while the Executive fails to get to grips with a number of issues facing Northern Ireland.

Motions can be brought forward by MLAs and be voted on to gather the mood of the chamber on any issue – but they have no legal weight and politicians have been accused of grandstanding and virtue-signalling on important issues, without delivering any tangible results.

The South Belfast MLA said: “Yet again this week we are seeing Executive parties bringing forward meaningless motions in the Assembly instead of focusing on issues like the crisis within our public services. On Monday we had a debate on dynamic pricing from Sinn Féin which made no direct call on their own Economy Minister who is the one responsible for doing something about it. That’s where the focus of this motion should have been.

“Today we see a motion from Alliance on removing barriers to green growth, the only mention in that of their AERA Minister is to praise him for something not yet delivered. These motions are totally unserious and won’t deliver a hill of beans in any meaningful way.

“These are the same parties who have used the limited remainder of the Assembly term as cover for their weak Programme for Government and not bringing forward robust legislative proposals.

“That they can waste day after day of Assembly business on these motions show that time is not the problem, it’s Executive and Ministerial will.

“Motions are an important part of the work of the Assembly, but they cannot be a box ticking or hollow exercise for parties to virtue signal about issues in their quest for positive media coverage. When we are facing so many issues that the Executive are failing to deal with it’s frankly insulting to the public that Assembly time is being squandered in this manner.”

In April Mr O’Toole said the public would be forgiven for thinking that those motions “had some kind of legal effect”.