Assembly Standing Orders

Part of the debate – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 9:00 pm on 14 December 1999.

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Photo of Michelle Gildernew Michelle Gildernew Sinn Féin 9:00, 14 December 1999

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I do not want to repeat what my Colleague Mr Conor Murphy has already said. However, I have to put on record my disappointment at events in the House tonight.

The Assembly has moved from our position in the Good Friday Agreement, which suggested that we have a dedicated Department of Equality, to talking about and rejecting the suggestion that we have a dedicated junior Minister for equality. It has moved from talking about and rejecting a standing committee to scrutinise equality, human rights and community relations to lumping the equality unit into the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, where it will be swallowed up entirely.

Inequality, discrimination, community relations and human rights have now been shifted again, and we must question the agenda which is driving the debate in the House tonight. The inequalities which have existed for years were what prompted me to enter politics in the first place, and I am disgusted that every attempt to scrutinise the delivery of equality in our society is being thwarted. Go raibh maith agat.