Assembly Presiding Officer:  No-Confidence Motion

Part of the debate – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 11:45 am on 1 February 1999.

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Photo of Mr Denis Haughey Mr Denis Haughey Social Democratic and Labour Party 11:45, 1 February 1999

I am sticking entirely to the relevance of the debate. The debate is on whether we should have confidence in the Presiding Officer, and that is affected by whether he made a reasonable judgement on this occasion. Did this party have an opportunity to make an input into the debate. I am pointing out it did, and that it did not avail of it. I have listed the Members who made contributions — Mr Watson, Mr Carrick, Mr Boyd, Mr Roche. All those members of the anti-Agreement family had opportunities to speak, although they dealt almost exclusively with matters that were not before the House at all.

To argue that they did not get an opportunity to deal with the matter in question is clearly wrong and absurd especially in circumstances where almost none of what they had to say was relevant. I quote Initial Standing Order 2(1):

"The Presiding Officer’s ruling shall be final on all questions of procedure and order."

If I have any criticism of the Initial Presiding Officer it is that he showed a little too much indulgence to the codology, the guffawing, the sniggering, the catcalling, the schoolboy, schoolyard antics of the DUP and associated anti-agreement parties. They assert that this is a vital matter affecting everybody, but then rush to the door. The previous day Ulster was being sold out — a shameful betrayal — and they were behaving as though they were at the movies. There was laughter, guffawing and sniggering of a kind and duration that few of us have had the misfortune to see in the past.

Mr Robinson referred to the Committee to Advise the Presiding Officer. He is calling for the rule and the rubric to be quoted word by word. Where do the rules give CAPO the right to determine and regulate the business of the House? CAPO’s role is to advise the Initial Presiding Officer, and that is clearly laid down in the regulations that established CAPO. Its decision to allocate two or three days to this debate was indicative — not imperative. Those who are shamming and crying that they did not get an opportunity to make their views known had that opportunity but did not bother to deal with the issue that was before the House. The Initial Presiding Officer’s ruling was entirely valid, appropriate, and intelligent, and I support it to the hilt.