The ‘valuable scrutiny' into what the NI Executive is actually doing remains largely hidden behind the lavish Stormont curtains

Belfast Telegraph

28-04-2025

Our MLAs are turning up for work after so many years of inaction. The wheels of government, we're led to believe, are in motion. All smiles and photo opportunities.
But try to ask The Executive Office what exactly it's doing, well, that's when the smiles disappear and the struggles to actually get to grips with the task in hand become all too clear.
A government is not in place to showcase all things bright and beautiful.
It is there to make the hard decisions that affect all our everyday lives.
And not all of them will be popular.
For a year and a few months, the current Stormont Executive has been living in the honeymoon of a partnership rekindled – a partnership where outward appearances seem to be more important than answering the tough questions when those answers are sought.
A keeping up of appearances, perhaps a belief behind the Stormont facade that if people are shown how everything is running smoothly then they will believe that to be so.
A good old Yellow Pages mentality. 'We don't just help with the nasty things in life like a blocked drain. We're there for the nice things too.'
There for the nice things in life they may be, but they are supposed to be there to help with the nasty things too...
But try to ask relevant questions on the more contentious issues and you're often met by a wall of silence, and an 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say nothing at all' attitude, as if that will make the ills go away.
It's as though those in the house on the hill are happy to sweep everything they don't wish to engage in under the carpet.
The Executive Office has 10 dedicated press officers. A major part of that role is answering queries from the media, either through direct responses or by providing information through freedom of information requests.
But rather than providing a window for information to flow through, questions to be answered, the 'valuable scrutiny' of what the Executive is actually doing remains largely hidden behind the lavish Stormont curtains.
Even our MLAs who seek to question the Office are finding answers tough to come by.
Some of the queries naturally need some research before the answers can be provided. It's never going to be an 'ask a question get an immediate answer' situation.
Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw is the chair of the Executive Committee at Stormont. It's supposed to be the main scrutiny body for the Executive Office.
But they, like the media, do not always get the answers they seek. And how can they scrutinise the workings of the top level of government if they too are ignored when they seek clarity?
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics programme earlier this month she said it is 'not acceptable' that responses to questions from the committee are not always being provided and there is 'a real silence on so many fronts'.
The silence over so many questions will only add to suspicions that there's something behind all those smiling images that some would rather the watching public would rather not see or hear of — and if it remains behind that wall of silence, we'll all move on and pretend that everything's okay forever.
A spokesperson for The Executive Office said: 'Ministers endeavour to ensure all Assembly questions, committee correspondence and media queries are answered within the appropriate timeframe.'
At least an answer was forthcoming.
Endeavour they might. That doesn't mean they always do.
While those asking the questions might not like the answers they receive, they at least deserve the response.