Editorial: MLAs have never looked seriously at how Stormont can raise revenue

​​The 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement and the calls to return to Stormont have dove-tailed with warnings of the budget shortfall. There is thus much talk about the great pain that people are experiencing due to the suspension of the assembly, which implies that the absence of devolution is the main cause of our crises.

The absence of proper government is a scandal, as it was in the three years when Sinn Fein collapsed Stormont until its ransom of an Irish language act was paid. But the scandal is the failure of London to step in and administer governance, as is necessary at times of stalemate caused by a highly abnormal system such as mandatory coalition. It is outrageous that civil servants are expected to take major political decisions.

But the chorus calling for the return of Stormont in the face of budgetary crisis misleading in another way: it implies that MLAs handled such matters well. The very opposite is the case. They ducked almost all difficult decisions and only ever called for more UK funding. Stormont dispensed free prescriptions to all, even those who could afford it, and lowered the age of free public transport in an age of rising life expectancy.

A briefing paper, see by the PA news agency, shows that officials believe that revenue-raising measures such as water charges and higher tuition fees should be a focus of future budgets. But note how, over 25 years, Stormont was barely able to debate such notions itself.

The dysfunctionality is not just Orange-Green but also a system in which there is near unanimity on the approach to finances, which is to ask for ever more, and howl at any proposals to make NI solvent. This is not to say that anyone should be pleading for water charges, etc. But rather to say that if Stormont can’t even examine such ideas then it is impossible to blame its absence for financial woes.