High farce as NI Assembly debates and votes on pandemic law which has already been repealed

For months, the Executive has been using its power to put in place coronavirus restrictions without first securing the approval of the legislature and has been then refusing to bring that legislation to MLAs for weeks after the law is in place.

This afternoon the Assembly debated for the first time the regulations which put in place the current partial lockdown across Northern Ireland which have been in place for more than three weeks.

MLAs were only allowed to debate those regulations three and a half days before they expire.

But an even greater absurdity took place in the Assembly chamber. When that quasi-lockdown legislation was considered by the Assembly today it was debated alongside three other sets of regulations.

One of those pieces of legislation – which put in place localised restrictions for the Derry and Strabane Council area on October 5 – had already been repealed without ever having been debated or approved by the democratically-elected legislature.

That means that MLAs were debating and voting on a piece of legislation which in legal terms no longer exists on the statute book and so the Assembly vote on whether to approve or reject the legislation was meaningless.

On top of that surreal situation, they did so as the Executive was locked in debate about whether to extend the current restrictions, end them or alter them – a decision which is likely to see further legislation which would become law this weekend but is unlikely to be debated until close to Christmas.

DUP junior minister Gordon Lyons, who was representing the Executive, admitted that what was happening was “less than acceptable” but said that “this was the process that members had agreed to” at the start of the pandemic.

He said: “It’s very much right that members get the opportunity to do that [debate and vote] as early as possible. However, under the current system there are a number of measures that have to be taken first – they have to go to the Examiner of Statutory Rules, they need to go to the committee, they then need to go to the business committee to get time on the floor.”

He said that he understood why the Assembly’s cross-party Health Committee had written to Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill asking them to find a faster way of allowing them to debate legislation and committed that they would “review” the situation in an effort to speed it up.

MLAs queued up to criticise the situation. SDLP MLA Colin McGrath, chairman of the department charged with scrutinising the first and deputy first ministers’ department, said it was “unacceptable” that announcements were being “trailed on TV” rather than the Assembly being able to scrutinise them.

He said: “This is irresponsible government and it needs to be knocked on the head.”He added: “It can seem quite silly that we will approve amendment number nine and then immediately change them seconds later by approving amendment number 10. It is silly.”

Colm Gildernew, the Sinn Fein chairman of the Health Committee, also said that the way in which the regulations were being made was problematic for scrutiny.

Alliance’s Paula Bradshaw said it was an “oddity” that they were “debating regulations that are out of date”.

TUV leader Jim Allister said: “It has to be said that there’s something inherently farcical about this debate in the sense that we are debating regulations where the first one, number eight, has been already superseded, number nine about to run out, and yet this is the opportunity for the Assembly to say whether it consents or not to horses that have already bolted in terms of legislation.”

However, UUP leader Steve AIken defended the delay in bringing the regulations to the chamber saying that in the current unusual circumstances “whatever we do, we must do it to defeat covid”.

He also criticised senior Sinn Féin figures’ attendance at Bobby Storey’s huge funeral and, by allusion, to DUP MP Sammy Wilson’s criticism of some of the measures, arguing that both were undermining efforts to tackle the virus.

UUP MLA Alan Chambers said that “to delay to meet normal bureaucratic standards could mean more lives could be lost. I don’t like this situation, but I would not wish that any demand from myself or my party to deliberately delay implementation of any regulations would result in any further loss of life.”

DUP MLA Jonny Buckley said: “The public will be as bewildered as I am that here we are...some three weeks in, some four days before these regulations come out of place that here we are only debating them now.

“That is something that I would like to see addressed by the junior minister here today.”

However, away from debate about the absurdity of the process, the chamber heard some detailed discussion from multiple perspectives – including some thoughtful and personal contributions – about the wider question of how the Executive should respond to the pandemic.

Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson appealed for covid-deniers to stop sending her material, saying that two of her friends are currently in intensive care with the virus.

Alluding to the unease within the DUP at the regulations being supported by the party’s Executive ministers, Mr Buckley said he was “still as sceptical and critical today [of the regulations] as the day they were introduced”.

He said that “lockdown is not sustainable” and that while he supported targeted restrictions in local areas such as Londonderry where the evidence supported that, he would not support the blanket restrictions put in place across Northern Ireland.

In evidence of some cross-party consensus, Sinn Fein’s Pat Sheehan said: “To an extent, I’m in agreement with Jonathan Buckley - Jonathan doesn’t want a lockdown; I don’t want a lockdown. Let’s think of some other way of tackling this and let’s look to international best practice because others have been much more successful than we have been”

However, Mr Buckley’s DUP colleague Gary Middleton said that when the Executive takes a decision “it is important that we unite around that decision publicly”.

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said that “once again it is ridiculous in the extreme that we are discussing these regulations in this chamber in the weeks after they were brought in”.

He asked why the Assembly could not hold emergency sittings to debate the regulations as they are made, and urged the Executive to put in place more robust restrictions.

However, DUP MLA Christopher Stalford said: “I’m mindful that decisions are being made, every single one of us here in this room, our incomes won’t be affected by these decisions  because we’re public sector workers. So it’s easy for us to stand up as the previous speaker did and say ‘lock it down, lock it down, lock it down’ because it’s not us who will be damaged economically in terms of our income by that approach”.

DUP MLA Pam Cmaeron urged the Executive to give “timely notice” to businesses facing changes to restrictions and said that First Minister shared that position.

After almost four hours of debate, MLAs unanimously passed all four sets of regulations.

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