Chris Lyttle, Client Director, Brown O’Connor
The Alliance Party 55th annual conference in Belfast on Saturday will present an opportunity for members to reflect on one year of a restored Executive and Assembly for which they were mandated to send a significantly increased team of Ministers and MLAs at the last Assembly Election.
A rise from 8 to 17 MLAs and vote share up from 9.1% to 13.5% signalled a breakthrough that made Alliance the third biggest party in Northern Ireland and challenged the established political status quo to recognise the increasing number of people designating as ‘other’ in Northern Ireland.
The conference is scheduled to consider delivery in government with contributions from Party Leader and Justice Minister Naomi Long MLA and Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir MLA and a panel discussion chaired by Alliance MLA for North Antrim Sian Mulholland that will include the history making Alliance MP for Lagan Valley Sorcha Eastwood. Fringe events will cover policy interventions on Health & Social Care, Water Infrastructure and Housing and Higher and Integrated Education.
The Justice Minister is likely to reference the prioritisation of Safer Communities and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls in the Programme for Government, the production of a Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy and Action Plan in collaboration with the Department of Health and the initiation of an Access to Justice Programme as examples of this delivery.
Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir MLA may point to delivery of the Sustainable Agriculture Programme, implementation of a Lough Neagh Action Plan to address the ecological crisis in waterways, publication of Northern Ireland’s first Environmental Improvement Plan and carbon reduction budgets for net zero by 2040, £3.5m in support of fishing and £7.9m for rural community organisations and micro businesses.
A key longstanding priority for Alliance is institutional reform and it is likely that a new approach to Executive formation, an end to vetoes, and the removal of MLA designations will be advocated as a pathway toward the political stability that the party suggests is needed to facilitate long-term economic planning and transformation of public services in a state of financial and operational crisis.
For now, however, the Executive is a multi-party mandatory coalition and it remains to be seen if Alliance can persuade government partners of the merits of such reforms. The publication of the first Executive agreed Programme for Government since 2011-2015 will be cause for some optimism that the collective responsibility and leadership needed to transform public services and deliver peace and prosperity for everyone in Northern Ireland can be achieved.