Summer recess

After two months of work over the past five years MLAs are taking a well earned summer break. There will be no posts on this blog during the Assembly’s summer recess. Posts will start again when it reconvenes. Look out for the StormontWatch link repapering on the Socialist Democracy homepage.

Robinson slams "sickies"

If the new Stormont regime has dominant themes beyond sectarianism and Sinn Fein capitulation, it is corruption, arrogance and class hatred. All of these elements are summed up by Peter Robinson, DUP Finance minister. His end of term report at the end of July, just before the MLAs treat themselves to a long holiday from their largely imaginary duties were suspended for a long holiday, was to attack civil servants for having too many ‘sickies’.

This is rich beyond richness. The Robinson family is a byword for nepotism, running Castlereagh council as a private fiefdom. Robinson and the DUP had no difficulty in ‘being on the sick’ while they boycotted Stormont until they got the sectarian deal that suited them, drawing full pay for the duration.

Meanwhile the gang on the Hill have managed to pay themselves £720,000 in expenses in just two months!

As if to underline the class nature of the regime, 300 water workers were quietly sacked in the background as the new Parliament opened.

Anyone planning to write a satire about the folks on the Hill should drop the idea now. You won’t be able to outdo the real-life farce set to resume at the end of the summer!