Killing Time

Today the Assembly entered the grind of so-called normal politics, and having been constrained for so long by suspension and dissolution, the renewed Assembly burst into life with no less than four motions on, applying to rejoin the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, gender equality, trains and Irish Americans.
If you had drawn up a wish list of topics to be tackled on the first day of Assembly debate, how many people’s list would have matched this eclectic mix?
In reality the majority of today was a time-killing exercise which gave a number of the Assembly’s new-comers the chance to exercise their vocal cords. It will not be until the Executive starts to generate legislation (and they are not scheduled to meet again until Thursday week) that the wheels of governance finally get up to speed.
Regardless, this time-killing day had its moments to break up the tedium, and here are some of the, well, maybe not memorable, but less forgettable ones:
Nationalists stepped aside and let their unionist counterparts have a free run in applying to rejoin the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. The SDLP supported the move, and Sinn Féin kept quiet, neither technically supporting it nor forcing a vote on the matter.
Seeing the motion's obstruction-free passage through the House, the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson chanced his arm by calling on nationalists to urge the South to join the Commonwealth, but tongue biting was the order of the day for the SDLP and Sinn Féin.
Next up was a Sinn Féin motion to establish an all-party working group to discuss concerns on the under representation of women in the Assembly.
This was countered by an amendment by the DUPs Michelle McIlveen who insisted that the shortfall was already being addressed by the OFMDFM’s Gender Equality Strategy and that the investigations of any such party would amount to duplication of work.
The issue was settled by a vote with the DUP ammendment scraping through by the narrowest of margins, leaving the nationalists to rue the bum-free seats on the Speaker’s left.
The final debate of the day concerned Irish immigrants in the States, who have either outstayed their welcome, or were never welcomed in the first place, known as the ‘undocumented Irish’.
The parties expressed their sympathy towards the plight suffered by some in the States who were unable to return home without jeopordising all they had across the Atlantic, but they differed on expressing support for the US based, Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.
The SDLP tabled a motion calling on the Assembly to support the campaign by the lobby group but after a protracted debate divided down traditional nationalist-unionist lines, a DUP amendment, basically rendering the original motion defunct was carried - again by a single vote.
It is a little early to say if it will be a regular feature of this blog, but the "put-down of the day" goes to the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long. Following the newly elected UUP Lagan Valley MLA, Basil McRea's, first speech in the House on the under-representation of women debate, the East Belfast representative quipped, “It is a rather sad state of affairs when the only maidens on the Ulster Unionist benches are their maiden speakers.”