I have just noticed that our great political commentators from both wings of our sectarian divide have had a eureka moment and have concluded that Stormont does not work. This has been true for at least a decade and a half, and in fact, it goes back to 1998 when this oxymoronic political structure was referred to as a “mandatory coalition”, a sort of forced marriage. When people were lauding the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, I wrote a counter-narrative in the Newsletter called “Celebrating 25 Years of Inertia”. The Belfast Agreement stopped the sectarian killing on our streets, for which we are all grateful, but in reality, it simply took the conflict from our streets into Stormont.
This system of governance, both at Stormont and at the local level, is unsustainable. If the electorate cannot see, after 25 years, that we, as a society, are over-governed and under-served, then they are clearly not voters, but rather ostriches. A system of governance that embeds narrow identity politics, unionist versus nationalists, Catholics versus Protestants and loyalty to the union versus the drive to a 32-county New Ireland, where the word new remains undefined. A system of governance that has failed to bring people together based on values underpinned by the principle of social cohesion, and where incompetence and ineptitude flourish.
We have 1 MLA for every 21000 of the population, which is 90 in total, while Scotland has 1 MSP for every 44,000 of the population, which is 174. We have 11 councils, one for every 190,000 of the population, while Manchester City Council serves a population of 620,000. On that basis alone, we need three. We have one civil servant for every 70 of the population, while the rest of the UK has 1 for 115. I recently had a conversation with someone who has moved from the private sector to a similar job in the civil service. When asked what was new about the culture in the civil service, the answer was “Having to learn to work really, really slowly.”Our so-called Chief Executives of local councils can earn up to £180,000 p.a., with 51 senior positions earning well over £100,000 per annum, according to the Belfast Telegraph. These councils indulge themselves in vanity projects such as Belfast Stories, costing some £120 million, yet fail to deal with the eyesore at the centre of Belfast, referred to as Tribeca. A ridiculous £150,000 was spent on Lord Mayor portraits. £2.0 million will be the cost of implementing BCC’s new Irish language policy, and finally, approval was given for a new HQ for Newry and Mourne Council, costing £17.0 million. In addition, all councils prevail over a planning system where those who administer it act like goalkeepers rather than facilitators.
What is clear is that the intellectual capital on the Hill is lacking, exacerbated by a system that fails to lay out a vision for our collective futures. Joined-up government and joined-up thinking are beyond council officials and our Stormont Ministers. These ministers sadly include intellectual giants such as Paul Givan, Liz Kimmins, John O’Dowd, and Gordon Lyons, with the rest not far behind. All our ministers speak with one voice when it comes to failing public services like water infrastructure, education, and the NHS, that is, blame the Brits, “it’s not our fault, gov.” Matthew O’Toole from the Sad Democratic and Lacklustre Party calls for further fiscal devolution, my short response to that is “you cannot be serious”, especially when Stormont fails to explain to the electorate the need for water rates and to get on and raise the cap on rates from £400,000 to say £600,000 which would raise an additional £4,000,000 a year, it’s called progressive taxation. An average £400 per annum water rates charge on our 700,000 households would raise £280,000,000 per annum to fix and invest in vital water infrastructure. This would be hypothecated and reported on an annualised basis.
Our attachment to an apartheid education structure costs an additional £226 million per annum, according to research by Ulster University, which includes 50,000 empty classroom spaces. This does not consider if our schools are giving our kids the tools to navigate a complex geopolitical world, which includes AI and the future of work. The NHS is in crisis, even though we spend £250 more per capita than England; we have more people on disability benefits, spend 40% more on drugs per capita than England, which relates to£100 per person. Across an entire range of statistics, we are way behind England, from waiting lists for elective surgery running into hundreds of thousands to health outcomes. These figures are not mine, but rather from the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council, and O’Toole wants more fiscal devolution. We also have 6 health and social care trusts: that is 1 for every 315,000 of the population. England has 42 integrated care systems, which is 1 for 1,250,000 of the population.
The reality is we now live in a complex world, which includes challenges around AI and the climate crisis. Today, for every retiree, there are 3 people working; by the early 2040’s that will be down to 2, and that does not consider how AI will disrupt the labour market. What we can say is that this Stormont mandatory coalition must end. It is inhabited by those who lack competence, intellectual capital, and vision to navigate our community through an age of disruption and rapid technological change. A serious debate is needed about the structure of a new system of governance that should be more engaging, accountable, and future-focused, where there will be an electoral price to be paid for political ineptitude.
The guru of identity politics, Colin Harvey, needs to give it a rest or change the record when it comes to his monotonous diatribes about Irish unification facilitated by the Irish (NOT) News. At an end of 2025, in an Irish (NOT) News article about unification, Harvey said this: “Those living in the north, particularly people experiencing the harsh socio-economic realities of inherited structural disadvantage, do not have the luxury of endless abstract speculation”. Who is he talking about? Is it working-class Billy and Seamus? Of course it’s not. Yet again, he is just playing divisive identity politics and grubby ethnonationalism. The Irish News and its current editor have embraced a professor who uses gobbledegook dressed up as some sort of political, social, intellectual, and academic insight. Harvey needs to take my earlier advice and allow our excuse for public representatives, at the very least, to focus on our working-class constituents, for example, to ensure that we do not end up with a two-tier health care system.
We have middle-ground parties that make electoral failure a virtue, i.e. we are the opposition yet fail miserably to embrace social democratic values, the UUP a unionism not just lost but lost in translation and finally the Alliance Party, who I describe as the picket fence party, who rarely take a stance on anything, by wanting to be all things, to all people all of the time.
Ireland’s Future is an excuse for a think tank that does not respond to thoughtful critics, and the SDLP’s New Ireland Commission, launched in 2021, has a 32-member panel that has contributed next to nothing to a serious debate about Irish unification. Please note that the board of Microsoft have 12 members and the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade had 6. Just before I am branded as a unionist, I’m not, but I will not sacrifice the needs of the working people and future generations in this province to maintain a political system that is failing us all or for an ill-defined notion of creating some economic, political and social utopia called a 32-county Ireland. The system is broken, a system set up for two tribes and dominated by two political tribes with no vision. Surely this is not acceptable. I will say to the coming generation, “Get on Your Bike”, or use the best political weapon for change, your vote and political activism, because “the greatest threat to your future is your failure to engage in shaping your future”.
Good to be back, Happy and Healthy New Year to All.
Suneil Sharma
4th January 2026
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