Letter: Leaders must not spend time objecting to change and improvement just because it is change in their own area
A letter from Tom Ekin:
Surely we don’t need more examples of our leaders’ unwillingness to understand the issues which NI needs and to have the courage to agree to fix them and the ability to ensure that they are fixed.
The latest include the removal of car parking charges at hospitals, say £7.5m per year. Once they are gone the car park slots will be filled by sundry people who have little to do with the hospitals, as apparently was the case in the past.
I don’t know how that £7.5m per year was used in the past, but it might just have been used to reduce other deficits – but we don’t know the details other than it’s a populist give away.
The A5 upgrade is again being held up by our populist opinion and legal point scoring. How many £millions and lives will these delays cost?
There are lots of clever people objecting to and employed to object to and delay projects which are useful for the community as a whole, the costs of which are never publicised.
Our community needs strong purposeful leadership at a higher level than what we have had to accept for decades. The Lough Neagh degrading, the Mobuoy illegal poisonous dumping, the stalled York Street Interchange (over £20m spent and no progress), the NHS improvements severely curtailed to the detriment of everyone.
The Draft Programme for Government produced nothing of substantial value - we need to change gear. Will the executive produce a series of measurable goals which they will complete successfully by the end of this mandate?
Each minister should be tasked with this. Each party must not spend time objecting to change and improvement just because it is change in their own area.
I notice that only one party stood aside from one set of protests against reform and improvement of hospitals. There is a dead hand of bureaucracy and political cowardice in addressing the costly waste of money and lives.
Tom Ekin, Belfast BT9