Damien Harris, Northern Ireland Labour Representation Committee.

Q: “How would assist working class families struggling to pay their bills?”

A: “There are many ways Labour could help the majority of families who find themselves struggling between wage packets. However we will not form the next executive and the policies that will be enacted by the Northern Ireland Executive post May will yet again disproportionately hit low income families and increase the burden on those who can least afford it. Welfare cuts and huge cuts to our public services will see the current problems compounded and deepened. We offer a voice of opposition and scrutiny to a Northern Ireland Executive that has failed to defend or protect our citizens.”


There are clear policy alternatives to the race to the bottom consensus around austerity, the effects of which are shrinking and retarding our local economy not growing it. Labour would deliver a living wage, mass social housing construction, rent control and regulation of private landlords and price control on many essential index areas like energy, transport, oil, insurance. a local public investment bank could fund real world job creation. We must put a Labour voice into the assembly to give voice to this alternative and oppose the politics of failure.”

Q: “How will you address the issues facing many GP practices in this country?”


A: “This a massive problem that has been decades in the making. There is a retention and recruitment crisis and gaps are often filled by less than cost effect locums. Privately funded partnerships are in financial problems often leading to the demise of surgeries. The shift toward primary care has lead to a massive increase in complex workload,while this shift has not seen an adequate rise in service funding.

So GPs' rising workload is exacerbated by huge levels of paperwork and administration. We seek to deliver real funding boasts toward care in the community and GP practices to deliver workable GP patient ratios. To use Pharmacists to deliver medicine management and deal with long-term non progressive cases. More GPs with more time and a rebuilding of clinical authority.”

Q: “How will you assist victims of the Troubles?”


A: “This is an area where no politician can offer a truly comprehensive solution, the hard fact is some questions, some problems are unanswerable. The hurt remains, the injuries are unhealed and justice can never be truly delivered. We of Labour can only offer a commitment to build an inclusive, equal, tolerant society where difference is celebrated and new forms of community and culture can flourish in a shared and progressive way. We seek to end segregation of communities and education. We want to build a society that values all citizens and offers prosperity and opportunity to all. The best legacy or monument to those victims of the past is a reconciled society where such injury will never again be felt. We want to live a future that they were denied.”

Q: “What will you do to tackle sectarianism and division within our community?”


Northern Ireland has to move to a post sectarian stage and that is what Labour exists to do. We cannot do that while the dominant political parties exist to represent only one community. How many representatives of the Protestant tradition are elected public representatives of Sinn Fein or the DUP and how many Catholics occupy those positions in the DUP and UUP?
It still suits them to pretend politics is about whether Northern Ireland should be united with the Republic or stay with the United Kingdom. But this issue can be decided at any time be a referendum. While these parties are dominant we will not move from being a community which sees itself organised on sectarian lines.

The younger generation is impatient with this; building up the support of the Labour Party and other non-sectarian is one way of tackling sectarianism. But other things such as integrated education, community bodies, trade unions and anything else that brings people together at work and leisure on things were they have shared interests. We are lucky in having such rich and varied cultures and sports to chose from. This rich heritage should be for sharing not dividing.”

Q: “How will you create jobs and investment in Fermanagh-south Tyrone?”

“Fermanagh-south Tyrone has three resources which in combination are unbeatable: its people; its scenery and its natural resources.
 

People and scenery make it a major tourist destination as well as an attractive place in which to live and work offering a splendid quality of life as a home in which to bring up children."


Its natural resources and low population density support both agriculture and renewable energy.
We would: Campaign to make us the first zero carbon county/local authority in Northern Ireland. Councils would have new powers of borrowing and these should be used to develop both biomass and more wind, solar and hydro power through co-operative bodies in which residents could have a stake and which would encourage private sector participation.

The promotion of the idea of an Ecological Enterprise Zone. There isn’t one in Northern Ireland and Fermanagh is the ideal place to put one. Enterprise Zones work on the basis of attracting new businesses because of certain tax concessions, for example a rates holiday for 10 years. An Ecological Enterprise Zone would operate on the basis of being run entirely on businesses being carbon neutral. It could have an educational, skills and research component.”