Stormont Assembly member salaries slashed amid push for powersharing deal

Thursday 6 September 2018 at 5:30pm

Karen Bradley is to hold talks with the local political parties in the next few weeks about re-establishing formal powersharing negotiation (PA) Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

Stormont Assembly members’ pay will be slashed by more than £13,000 as the Government announced renewed efforts to restore devolved power-sharing between the warring political parties.

Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley imposed the substantial salary cut with the Assembly in cold-storage for a record-breaking 20 months and said public representatives were not performing all their functions.

The legislature in Belfast has not sat since early last year in a row over identity issues like the Irish language, which has prevented the appointment of ministers.

Repeated negotiations convened by the British and Irish governments have failed to persuade former coalition partners the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein to reconcile their differences but fresh talks are due within weeks.

Thousands recently took to the streets across Northern Ireland in social media-inspired rallies to say they deserved better from political leaders, while the business community and the judiciary has expressed frustration.

Mrs Bradley told Parliament: “While Assembly members continue to perform valuable constituency functions, it is clear that during any such interim period they will not be performing the full range of their legislative functions.

“So, in parallel, I will take the steps necessary to reduce Assembly members’ salaries in line with the recommendations made by Trevor Reaney.”

Mrs Bradley’s predecessor as Northern Ireland secretary, James Brokenshire, commissioned former Assembly chief executive Mr Reaney to examine the controversial issue of paying Assembly members.

He recommended the 27.5% cut, a move that would take the standard salary rate of £49,500 down to £35,888 in two stages, beginning in November, with a further cut three months later.

Many members of the Assembly would be willing to return to Stormont but Sinn Fein representatives will not while red line issues around what it terms equality rights, like the Irish language, remain unaddressed.

In a wide-ranging statement on efforts to restore powersharing, Mrs Bradley said she had has also decided not to call new Stormont elections and will bring forward legislation to allow civil servants to make decisions in the absence of ministers as public reforms like improving the efficiency of the electricity network across Ireland have stalled.

She is to hold talks with the local political parties in the next few weeks about re-establishing formal powersharing negotiations and has not ruled out appointing an external mediator to help break the deadlock.

Public services have suffered because no ministers are in place to make major decisions.

Controversial issues like provision of abortion or same-sex marriage have not been tackled in the absence of an Assembly.

The Assembly collapsed after Sinn Fein walked out of the ministerial Executive in a row about an overspending taxpayer-funded green energy scheme around 600 days ago.

Mrs Bradley’s intervention came as the former minister who oversaw the project, Jonathan Bell, told a public inquiry he had been briefed against as a “monster who had to be put to sleep”.

Mr Bell has previously claimed he was overruled by DUP advisers when he tried to close the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme.

Democratic Unionist leader and former Stormont first minister Arlene Foster said: “It is deeply frustrating and utterly careless that Sinn Fein has decided to block government for almost 600 days.

“Ultimately, Northern Ireland needs a ministerial decision-making mechanism which respects democracy.”

Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O’Neill said: “The reduction in MLA pay should have been introduced months ago.

“Sinn Fein told Karen Bradley that on several occasions but it is clear she was reluctant to move because of resistance from the DUP.

“That position has now become untenable and it is right that wages are finally being reduced.”