NI should not get extra powers until we prove we can use the powers we have

The recent interim Independent Fiscal Commission report to the Assembly suggests giving some tax varying powers to Northern Ireland.

In theory this may be a good thing, but we should get no extra responsibilities until we prove we can run NI with the powers which we do have.

To list all the inadequacies would drive us mad. How many examples do we need? Education under performs.

After years from the Bengoa Health report, has anything happened to improve our health service performance?

Why do we still send boat loads of our rubbish round the world, when a solution was available a decade ago?

Why has Casement Park Stadium not been built? Windsor Park and Ravenhill were completed years ago, from the same starting point. Why talk about better infrastructure when the York Street Interchange has been stymied several times, this costs several million pounds per year? Why no proper investigation and retribution for obvious breaches of legal, moral, business standards by elected MLAs and public servants?

Why don’t we have the courage to have a proper, non sectarian, functioning Assembly.

Visitors come to see how well we are working after the Good Friday Agreement but see the reality of how little we have progressed. We need to use existing tools to more effectively run NI and not more tools.

Tom Ekin, Belfast BT9

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