Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:00 pm on 15 April 2024.
Matthew O'Toole
Social Democratic and Labour Party
3:00,
15 April 2024
Minister, the state of the health service in general, specifically the length of waiting lists, is probably the single biggest example and crystallisation of chaos in public services and the thing that most of the public in Northern Ireland want dealt with most quickly. It has to be at the core of a Programme for Government, but we heard from the First Minister and, indeed, from the deputy First Minister today that there does not seem to be any great hurry in the production of a Programme for Government.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
