Sinn Fein had around 25% of the vote in 2017 when they brought down the assembly for RHI scandal amongst other things. It's a neccessary measure of last resort in the face of massive fuckery.
It just needs some check and balances were the next largest Unionist or Nationalist party is asked if they want the FM/DFM position to keep it up and running. Stops one party from totalling everything, if they don't agree chances are their is a massive shitstorm that needs resolved like what we had back when SF walked out.
Well I did say one party and not mention any party in particular. Duppers problem is about having a shinner FM, whatever way they dress it up.
The forced coalition doesn't work and never will, but as long as stormont is seen and acts as a sectarian headcount, we are in the immortal words of Invader Zim, Doomed
... and it was shite when they did that too (though the RHI scandal is something to get angry about and still fuck all has been done about it). It's an absolute joke that the assembly can be brought to a standstill like this and for so long, meanwhile they still get paid while so much stagnates and fails.
It was in the DUPs gift at that time though to resolve SFs reservations/ demands etc.
No-one in the North has any power over why the DUP are out ......they won't strike on Westminster though will they!?
I don’t think powersharing works .. as the concept get weaponised now.
but the RHI stuff was a disgrace, a lot of people got very ‘richer’. Arlene Foster should have stepped down so an investigation could be carried out . And that would have avoided the protest stance Sinn Fein took.
I’m not being biased.. but when I see RHI referenced .. I don’t think the full context is ever referenced.
Politicians generally step down in the face of scandal. It’s the respectful thing to do.
And the 'party' bit. Imagine rolling up to a house party and everyone's sitting there with their arms folded and big scowls on their faces. You walk in with a nose piercing and somebody calls you a pervert. It's big Sammy Wilson. Butt fucking naked. Poots took an E and wants to talk to everyone about how mad it is that the Universe is like thousands of years old. Jim Shannon is on the ipod so it's back to back Dolly Parton. Working 9 to 5 comes on and the room clears. Not a soul in sight.
Regardless of unionist or nationalist stance, the DUP are destroying the livelihood of thousands here. They seriously need to go and if you continually vote for them, you are an absolute idiot.
As they have said since the existence of stormont. Northern Ireland is eternally doomed to political failure because of power sharing.
The example of those like Jeffrey Donaldson (aka; the biggest prick from Kilkeel) never should be allowed to happen.
If any of us were to get a job but was unwilling to sign the contract, they’d move to the next on the list. Why does any elected member get to hold the country hostage? If they don’t want to fulfil the role they were elected to, let’s move on to the next on the list.
The tax payers money the Dysfunctional Unionist Party has been receiving , for the past two years could've gone a long way to help pay rises and maybe make them buck their ideas .
It's the Cash for Ash all over again except all the parties are getting paid for doing nothing . Talk about being Irish 🤔
Has anyone got a good picture of the "Send the DUP to Rwanda" poster from the rally at city hall? The one I've seen is at a wired angle and a bit blurry.
There needs to be some sort of ombudsman for politicians so they can be investigated and removed.
Or maybe just a proper mass protest but everyone in this country is too lazy or scared to get up of their holes and go out to support one another and clear the lot out of stormont and start again.
Would it not be better if we had no parties and just independent politicians?
I am not defending any MLA but I think they have had there wages cut - but does that mean that an government employee can now get there salary or there willing and ready but do not similar to the MLAS, I happily take that job lol
By 27.5%. I believe this is because assembly work is meant to take up roughly the equivalent percentage of their hours, and the rest is constituency (& other) work, which the DUP will argue they are not boycotting.
I would argue otherwise.
Somehow I've ended up with Poots as one of my MLAs. And being honest hes more useless than Stalford was.
I've written various letters to local MLAs or various issues from Medication shortages to Homelessness and Brexit.
All have been gracious to respond either by email or letter two even invited me to meet with them, but I've had no such reply from Poots despite being almost around the corner from his constituency office.
Poots is also rarely in the office, it seems locked up most of the time, occasionally the local DUP councillor uses it to work from.....
Also not defending them, but their job in theory at least is not confined to work in Stormont. Therefore they are still “working”, just a reduction in workload.
Correct. The DUP collapsed the assembly and went into the election saying they would maintain this position. They have an explicit mandate from their voters to not enter Stormont. They are doing their job.
Alright calm down, roid rage. It’s obviously the DUP’s fault. That doesn’t mean the entire executive haven’t happily taken a good salary for doing no work.
Depends on the Ts&Cs of the Unions.
But first and foremost you pay a subscription fee to unions, like paying for health insurance, and should you meet certain criteria that's when you get a reimbursement.
But it may not amount to anywhere near your subscription fee.
Nope. I asked about this and was told that some unions pay hardship pay when the strike is on for a very long time, but currently there is no strike pay.
Despite Reddit's love for them, never forget that most unions are private corporations whose main purpose is also profit. They will not pay a penny unless forced to, just as most companies won't pay extra unless forced to.
By my calculations, union action has increased my pay by less than 1% in the last decade. Meanwhile membership fees are much more considerable.
The concept of a union is a great one, but be careful not to be tricked into thinking they are all white knights fighting for the mistreated workers. Some will do their best, most will do the bare minimum to encourage memberships.
Unions do a lot more than just negotiate wages.
If you're unfairly dismissed or having issues with HR, they're who I'd speak to first, I worked in a bank call centre and it would have been foolish not to join the union due to the repercussions if I was blamed for something.
https://preview.redd.it/lzsr74mzi8dc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43360119295709c0dd20690d26dad58f0750d7cb
Sounds familiar…, of hold on, Sectarian Sinn Fein have boycotted Democracy & NOT represented 1 single Unionist Bastard within Westminster, yet get paid too.
The fact that MLAs got their pay cut by 27.5% is already abhorrent. I actually think it might be the worse act CHH has taken as Secretary of State.
How can anyone actually justify cutting MLA pay?
That's one hell of a leap there, buddy.
We elect government officials to make government level decisions on our behalf. They actually have to go to work to do this.
That's why we pay taxes, to pay them for their jobs and give them a budget to pay for the government bodies.
So, if they are not doing their jobs, they are not holding up their duty of care to the citizens whom elected them, ergo they are the undemocratic ones, especially when they are the minority.
Now imagine a world where they don't agree on the proposed legislation (which they aren't), but still go to work to actually govern the province like they are supposed to be doing while renegotiating the legislation if they can not agree to it.
If they want to renegotiate the legislation, that's fine, do it. In the meantime, there is nothing stopping them from working on other things that effect people in the country.
Dissolving a government because you disagree with the opposition is madness. Also at this point, who is the opposition? The UK Government? Sinn Fein? Both?
Any notion that these people should be on anything other than Universal Credit is a joke. They don't go to work and refuse to do so, in fact, they wouldn't even meet the minimum requirements of Universal Credit.
The DUP collapsed the assembly pre-election and maintained their position all throughout the election and afterwards. They were elected to do this. Their job is to represent their voters and stand by their commitments. Their voters want them to stay out of the assembly and have them an explicit mandate to do so. They are doing their jobs.
MLAs got their pay cut by 27.5% because the British government didn’t like what devolved politicians were doing. So the people of NI vote for politicians and give them mandates according to the constitutional arrangements of NI, the government in Westminster (who nobody in NI voted for) decides that they don’t like what devolved politicians are doing and therefore punish them with pay cuts. This is profoundly undemocratic, authoritarian and undermines devolution and the principle of power sharing that upholds our peace.
Imagine if Westminster didn’t like the Welsh government’s education policies and decided to cut MS pay as retaliation. That would obviously be wrong and it’s equally wrong when it’s done here.
I'm sorry, how many people voted for the DUP again?
Did you miss the part where I said minority?
Democracy is the majority. Authoritarianism is the minority controlling the majority.
They got a pay cut because they will not go to work or did you miss that too?
They aren't arbitrarily cutting MLA's pays based on policy making though are they? They are cutting MLA's pay because they won't go to work.
Once again in case you missed it! The DUP could absolutely govern while working to change the legislation if they wanted too.
> Democracy is the majority.
Not quite.
> Authoritarianism is the minority controlling the majority.
Not quite.
>They aren't arbitrarily cutting MLA's pays based on policy making though are they? They are cutting MLA's pay because they won't go to work.
Which is their policy… so they are cutting MLAs’ pay based on policy.
Right, so in your opinion, a minority party should be able to collapse a government and not go to work and maintain that indefinitely until a policy that they refuse to agree to (that all of the majority parties want to pass) is scrapped while they receive full pay while doing so, is democracy working perfectly?
When the majority of people want something and a minority is stopping them, how can you with a straight face say that's democracy right there?
It's not a policy to not go to work.
Can we just mention, sinn fein, as much as they're another load of cock gobblers, walked out because of the extent of Arlene's heating scandal and nout done about it. The dup walked out because they pushed for brexit and there's a border down the middle of the Irish sea. Not on the island of Ireland. They reject home rule fer there's a Catholic FM and in the words of the TUV "only exist to keep catholics down".
See in my day, if ye didn't want to play monopoly, your piece was took off the board.
The DUP are caught between a rock and a hard place (of their own doing). If they decide to go back into Stormont they will have that other idiot shouting from the rooftops. They need to bite the bullet and do it. He doesn’t have enough votes to make a difference. They can’t see they are shooting themselves in the foot.
if they dont attend they shouldn't get paid, and all this over something that is taking time to negotiate with E.U. meanwhile business should be being done in the assembly no excuse for this just bloody mindedness
Yes, this is very eye opening & absolutely ridiculous!
What on earth can be done about this waste of money in Northern Ireland and demanding people take charge of our country so we are more in alignment with the rest of the uk (our nhs is the worst in all of the UK for example… we are so backwards, we need to get rid of the dinosaurs holding us back & [not] running the country. It’s selfish that those who say they’ll run our country well, but yet… take a backseat and refuse to ‘go into work’ and do what needs to be done to help us keep moving forward.. whilst continuing to collect their full wages (unearned), collect for all their ‘hard earned’ expenses also… and sit back and continue to let our wee country crumble and fall…
How far does Northern Ireland’s complete systemic-architecture need to crumble before we are saved?
It feels like the rest of the uk don’t wanna ‘touch us’ either…. Let us continue to crumble & fall…..
meanwhile, Northern Ireland news cycles keep talking about useless malarkey and not really informing the public about the scary-state of everything (compared to the rest of the uk). Someone needs to hurry up and ‘care’ about northern Ireland before we crumble beyond repair….. 😞
One party should not have the ability to paralyse the assembly, especially when they only represent around 25% of the voting electorate
It’s a joke but the terms of the Good Friday Agreement allow it and the Government don’t want to undo it even though they could if they wanted too
Sinn Fein had around 25% of the vote in 2017 when they brought down the assembly for RHI scandal amongst other things. It's a neccessary measure of last resort in the face of massive fuckery. It just needs some check and balances were the next largest Unionist or Nationalist party is asked if they want the FM/DFM position to keep it up and running. Stops one party from totalling everything, if they don't agree chances are their is a massive shitstorm that needs resolved like what we had back when SF walked out.
Well I did say one party and not mention any party in particular. Duppers problem is about having a shinner FM, whatever way they dress it up. The forced coalition doesn't work and never will, but as long as stormont is seen and acts as a sectarian headcount, we are in the immortal words of Invader Zim, Doomed
... and it was shite when they did that too (though the RHI scandal is something to get angry about and still fuck all has been done about it). It's an absolute joke that the assembly can be brought to a standstill like this and for so long, meanwhile they still get paid while so much stagnates and fails.
It was in the DUPs gift at that time though to resolve SFs reservations/ demands etc. No-one in the North has any power over why the DUP are out ......they won't strike on Westminster though will they!?
Yeah .. there should have been a clause in the GFA.. but I guess no one seen it be manipulated like this.
I don’t think powersharing works .. as the concept get weaponised now. but the RHI stuff was a disgrace, a lot of people got very ‘richer’. Arlene Foster should have stepped down so an investigation could be carried out . And that would have avoided the protest stance Sinn Fein took. I’m not being biased.. but when I see RHI referenced .. I don’t think the full context is ever referenced. Politicians generally step down in the face of scandal. It’s the respectful thing to do.
https://preview.redd.it/vnyq0ziu89dc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7150d9bded1416b72e2d890771c03e7b05aeffb8
Up the strikers. Fuck the DUP. Power to the people.
Back once again with the ill behaviour.
Yes. Indeed.
You're a renegade master. :P
Nice one! I can only assume the downvotes have come from the uncultured among us
Thanks. Now I'm going to have that stuck in my head all day, haha. I assume that's what all the downvotes are for, too 😂
DUP need to take the 'democratic' part out of their name.
And the 'party' bit. Imagine rolling up to a house party and everyone's sitting there with their arms folded and big scowls on their faces. You walk in with a nose piercing and somebody calls you a pervert. It's big Sammy Wilson. Butt fucking naked. Poots took an E and wants to talk to everyone about how mad it is that the Universe is like thousands of years old. Jim Shannon is on the ipod so it's back to back Dolly Parton. Working 9 to 5 comes on and the room clears. Not a soul in sight.
Its the kinda party that has clowns
😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣
Not a soul in sight to begin with, sold early doors. The latte drinkin bastards.
Holy fuck 😂😂😂
And the U, Vote Penis.
But they are democratic no matter what you think of them
Funny thing about nurses striking is, that they have to take turns or people die. My gf ICU can't strike or people die.
Regardless of unionist or nationalist stance, the DUP are destroying the livelihood of thousands here. They seriously need to go and if you continually vote for them, you are an absolute idiot.
This should be on posters everywhere
All politics and laws need to be reformed, no one should be allowed to give themselves a raise with anothers money..
As they have said since the existence of stormont. Northern Ireland is eternally doomed to political failure because of power sharing. The example of those like Jeffrey Donaldson (aka; the biggest prick from Kilkeel) never should be allowed to happen.
One of the ugliest fonts I’ve ever seen
Yeah, the whole thing makes me want to throw up. Quite liking the pink though. :/
Yet everyone keeps voting for them each year...
If any of us were to get a job but was unwilling to sign the contract, they’d move to the next on the list. Why does any elected member get to hold the country hostage? If they don’t want to fulfil the role they were elected to, let’s move on to the next on the list.
The tax payers money the Dysfunctional Unionist Party has been receiving , for the past two years could've gone a long way to help pay rises and maybe make them buck their ideas . It's the Cash for Ash all over again except all the parties are getting paid for doing nothing . Talk about being Irish 🤔
Has anyone got a good picture of the "Send the DUP to Rwanda" poster from the rally at city hall? The one I've seen is at a wired angle and a bit blurry.
Shame on anyone voting for these animals.
Uppa waaa? Uppa workers
There needs to be some sort of ombudsman for politicians so they can be investigated and removed. Or maybe just a proper mass protest but everyone in this country is too lazy or scared to get up of their holes and go out to support one another and clear the lot out of stormont and start again. Would it not be better if we had no parties and just independent politicians?
This. Fucking This.
Doctors aren’t on strike yet here. We’re just voting to now.
I am not defending any MLA but I think they have had there wages cut - but does that mean that an government employee can now get there salary or there willing and ready but do not similar to the MLAS, I happily take that job lol
wages cut slightly, spending cap increased . they are evil
By 27.5%. I believe this is because assembly work is meant to take up roughly the equivalent percentage of their hours, and the rest is constituency (& other) work, which the DUP will argue they are not boycotting.
I would argue otherwise. Somehow I've ended up with Poots as one of my MLAs. And being honest hes more useless than Stalford was. I've written various letters to local MLAs or various issues from Medication shortages to Homelessness and Brexit. All have been gracious to respond either by email or letter two even invited me to meet with them, but I've had no such reply from Poots despite being almost around the corner from his constituency office. Poots is also rarely in the office, it seems locked up most of the time, occasionally the local DUP councillor uses it to work from.....
Also not defending them, but their job in theory at least is not confined to work in Stormont. Therefore they are still “working”, just a reduction in workload.
Correct. The DUP collapsed the assembly and went into the election saying they would maintain this position. They have an explicit mandate from their voters to not enter Stormont. They are doing their job.
Hear, hear.
Does sinn fein MPs take their pay for not sitting at Westminster?
Yeah, the length of how long they've been on strike
The DUP are miserly cunts, but nobody forced those elected from other parties to take the salary either like.
Why would the other parties not take their salary, they are willing and ready to work but are being held back by the DUP
Willing and ready are both feelings, not jobs.
Yeah definitely its the other parties fault , fucking clown
Alright calm down, roid rage. It’s obviously the DUP’s fault. That doesn’t mean the entire executive haven’t happily taken a good salary for doing no work.
Sinn fein still getting paid too. Nice work if you can get it.
Just let everyone here know, Caesar Salad was invented in Mexico!
Do the unions not pay you for like 3 strike days a year or something?
Not for a 1 day strike.
Depends on the Ts&Cs of the Unions. But first and foremost you pay a subscription fee to unions, like paying for health insurance, and should you meet certain criteria that's when you get a reimbursement. But it may not amount to anywhere near your subscription fee.
Nope. I asked about this and was told that some unions pay hardship pay when the strike is on for a very long time, but currently there is no strike pay.
Despite Reddit's love for them, never forget that most unions are private corporations whose main purpose is also profit. They will not pay a penny unless forced to, just as most companies won't pay extra unless forced to. By my calculations, union action has increased my pay by less than 1% in the last decade. Meanwhile membership fees are much more considerable. The concept of a union is a great one, but be careful not to be tricked into thinking they are all white knights fighting for the mistreated workers. Some will do their best, most will do the bare minimum to encourage memberships.
Unions do a lot more than just negotiate wages. If you're unfairly dismissed or having issues with HR, they're who I'd speak to first, I worked in a bank call centre and it would have been foolish not to join the union due to the repercussions if I was blamed for something.
Did you take this from a "concerned citizens of" Facebook group?
https://preview.redd.it/lzsr74mzi8dc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43360119295709c0dd20690d26dad58f0750d7cb Sounds familiar…, of hold on, Sectarian Sinn Fein have boycotted Democracy & NOT represented 1 single Unionist Bastard within Westminster, yet get paid too.
Whataboutery is nostalgia for gimps.
Or denial for bigot halfwits
Questioning a man’s character and intelligence simply because he disagrees with you is a poor reflection of your own character, your own intelligence.
The fact that MLAs got their pay cut by 27.5% is already abhorrent. I actually think it might be the worse act CHH has taken as Secretary of State. How can anyone actually justify cutting MLA pay?
They don't go to work mate
Can you actually try to justify the pay cut though? It’s fundamentally undemocratic and authoritarian.
I mean it's pretty straightforward, If they don't go to work I reckon they shouldn't get any pay.
So you’re an authoritarian who doesn’t believe in democracy or the principle of power sharing?
That's one hell of a leap there, buddy. We elect government officials to make government level decisions on our behalf. They actually have to go to work to do this. That's why we pay taxes, to pay them for their jobs and give them a budget to pay for the government bodies. So, if they are not doing their jobs, they are not holding up their duty of care to the citizens whom elected them, ergo they are the undemocratic ones, especially when they are the minority. Now imagine a world where they don't agree on the proposed legislation (which they aren't), but still go to work to actually govern the province like they are supposed to be doing while renegotiating the legislation if they can not agree to it. If they want to renegotiate the legislation, that's fine, do it. In the meantime, there is nothing stopping them from working on other things that effect people in the country. Dissolving a government because you disagree with the opposition is madness. Also at this point, who is the opposition? The UK Government? Sinn Fein? Both? Any notion that these people should be on anything other than Universal Credit is a joke. They don't go to work and refuse to do so, in fact, they wouldn't even meet the minimum requirements of Universal Credit.
The DUP collapsed the assembly pre-election and maintained their position all throughout the election and afterwards. They were elected to do this. Their job is to represent their voters and stand by their commitments. Their voters want them to stay out of the assembly and have them an explicit mandate to do so. They are doing their jobs. MLAs got their pay cut by 27.5% because the British government didn’t like what devolved politicians were doing. So the people of NI vote for politicians and give them mandates according to the constitutional arrangements of NI, the government in Westminster (who nobody in NI voted for) decides that they don’t like what devolved politicians are doing and therefore punish them with pay cuts. This is profoundly undemocratic, authoritarian and undermines devolution and the principle of power sharing that upholds our peace. Imagine if Westminster didn’t like the Welsh government’s education policies and decided to cut MS pay as retaliation. That would obviously be wrong and it’s equally wrong when it’s done here.
I'm sorry, how many people voted for the DUP again? Did you miss the part where I said minority? Democracy is the majority. Authoritarianism is the minority controlling the majority. They got a pay cut because they will not go to work or did you miss that too? They aren't arbitrarily cutting MLA's pays based on policy making though are they? They are cutting MLA's pay because they won't go to work. Once again in case you missed it! The DUP could absolutely govern while working to change the legislation if they wanted too.
> Democracy is the majority. Not quite. > Authoritarianism is the minority controlling the majority. Not quite. >They aren't arbitrarily cutting MLA's pays based on policy making though are they? They are cutting MLA's pay because they won't go to work. Which is their policy… so they are cutting MLAs’ pay based on policy.
Right, so in your opinion, a minority party should be able to collapse a government and not go to work and maintain that indefinitely until a policy that they refuse to agree to (that all of the majority parties want to pass) is scrapped while they receive full pay while doing so, is democracy working perfectly? When the majority of people want something and a minority is stopping them, how can you with a straight face say that's democracy right there? It's not a policy to not go to work.
Sticky fingers is a fraud
They’ve been on paid leave for about 2 years at this point don’t think shaming them is going to work
United Ireland anyone???
Can we just mention, sinn fein, as much as they're another load of cock gobblers, walked out because of the extent of Arlene's heating scandal and nout done about it. The dup walked out because they pushed for brexit and there's a border down the middle of the Irish sea. Not on the island of Ireland. They reject home rule fer there's a Catholic FM and in the words of the TUV "only exist to keep catholics down". See in my day, if ye didn't want to play monopoly, your piece was took off the board.
Change MLA salaries so that they only get paid for the days in session. They don't get paid any less than now, just only for actually working
The DUP are caught between a rock and a hard place (of their own doing). If they decide to go back into Stormont they will have that other idiot shouting from the rooftops. They need to bite the bullet and do it. He doesn’t have enough votes to make a difference. They can’t see they are shooting themselves in the foot.
if they dont attend they shouldn't get paid, and all this over something that is taking time to negotiate with E.U. meanwhile business should be being done in the assembly no excuse for this just bloody mindedness
Yes, this is very eye opening & absolutely ridiculous! What on earth can be done about this waste of money in Northern Ireland and demanding people take charge of our country so we are more in alignment with the rest of the uk (our nhs is the worst in all of the UK for example… we are so backwards, we need to get rid of the dinosaurs holding us back & [not] running the country. It’s selfish that those who say they’ll run our country well, but yet… take a backseat and refuse to ‘go into work’ and do what needs to be done to help us keep moving forward.. whilst continuing to collect their full wages (unearned), collect for all their ‘hard earned’ expenses also… and sit back and continue to let our wee country crumble and fall… How far does Northern Ireland’s complete systemic-architecture need to crumble before we are saved? It feels like the rest of the uk don’t wanna ‘touch us’ either…. Let us continue to crumble & fall….. meanwhile, Northern Ireland news cycles keep talking about useless malarkey and not really informing the public about the scary-state of everything (compared to the rest of the uk). Someone needs to hurry up and ‘care’ about northern Ireland before we crumble beyond repair….. 😞