Letter: Northern Ireland won’t make beneficial progress unless we have more efficient delivery of our services
A letter from Tom Ekin:
The competence of our public and political services/systems is open to question.
The recent stopping of the removal of the Boyne Bridge apparently for non-compliance with the planners' requirements; the stopping of the Dalradian (gold mining) enquiry due to one of the main parties not having been informed; the long term blockage of the main motorway artery by the ‘clot’ at York Street.
All these cost the taxpayer millions of pounds and the government doesn’t appear to have the vision, stamina or courage to solve or prevent problems.
For a bit of history, there has been a renewed crossing point at the area of the Boyne Bridge about every 70 years since the 1600s to meet the requirements of the day.
Werner Heubek, the legendary leader of bus transport, was talking about the bottleneck at the bridge about 40 years ago; the gold mining project has been on the go for years, and the York Street arterial blockage has had over £20m spent on it over decades and been stopped by two successive ministers.
We don’t clear out the people who stop progress and good practice, we don’t stop the destructive practices, which are often well known by the powers that be, such as illegal dumping or waterway pollution. We promote them, we pay them, give them nice pensions and meanwhile the problems accumulate.
We know that democracy is a defective tool, but we seem to have various definitions. Most of us think it is governing by the majority of people, not just the majority of one party only.
Evidence seems to show that a majority of people in NI support a move towards integrated education, as it supported continuance of the assembly, but one party acts otherwise.
Northern Ireland won’t make effective and beneficial progress unless we have more efficient delivery of our services by the private sector, public servants and politicians. It is too easy to pretend that we are efficient and forward looking.
Statistics tell us that we are less productive than most other countries.
We need a change in attitude and increased positivity - how about some minister saying that loud and clear?
Tom Ekin, Belfast BT9