Speeches by Robinson.

“I have already answered. This process is engaged with the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, and that process should continue.”

“Again, you interrupt. Chair, in fairness, I am here to give evidence. The Democratic Unionist Party position is this: the ARC is engaged in this discussion and is continuing in its work. I regret the fact that it has been said that there is consensus on reform, but that we sit outside that. I have indicated in the past…”

“When I sat on Belfast city council, it used to be that 95% of everything we did was agreed, unseen and unheard, and the 5% that anyone talked about was the disagreements. That is sometimes true of the Executive as well. We stood on a manifesto pledge of delivering £1 billion for health, and we did it in the first two y…”

“And we have one.”

“In the past.”

“He has asked me that question already, so I have engaged in that discussion with him. I repeated what I said to you: we can happily engage in those discussions, but that the AERC is engaged in that work currently, that we do not believe there should be any à la carte or fundamental change to the consensus aspiration me…”

“I think I gave you an option. It is not an aspect of reform necessarily, but I believe it would be useful to have a coalition agreement in advance of an Executive being established. I think you can construct such a thing through agreement when you see manifestos in advance of elections. I understand that you will be en…”

“There are a couple of things I want to respond to. It is not the wrong attitude when I suggest, for example, that a change to titles will not make a fundamental impact on delivery. I do that because you will hear people continually point to frustrations with delivery of Government, and then suggest that that is the cat…”

“My response to that is twofold, Chair. The first is that it will make no practical, material difference to the litany of issues that Jon Burrows outlined. It will not deliver water infrastructure in Ahoghill, so I think you need to be very careful about why it is being asked for. My second response is that we cannot ha…”

“First, I question that the good will is there. The lack of delivery that we have seen comes out of a lack of willingness to constructively work together or to recognise that the fact that we have a system that has protections built within it, but that should lead to engagement, consensus and agreement about what can be…”

“As you know, a Budget can be singular, or it can be annual. At the moment, it is outrageous that we do not have one at all. I am not sure that it is a constraint that is necessary, in this instance. You will have manifestos from each party. Some will be in the future Executive and some may not be, but you will know wha…”

“Good morning, Chair; thank you for having me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give evidence to the Committee and for completing a bit of parliamentary trivia, as I am the first member of a Committee to give evidence twice over a decade. We have achieved something at least.”

“I think I gave you an option. It is not an aspect of reform necessarily, but I believe it would be useful to have a coalition agreement in advance of an Executive being established. I think you can construct such a thing through agreement when you see manifestos in advance of elections. I understand that you will be en…”

“I think about some of the reflections of the witnesses already. It is all too easy to forget that in Northern Ireland, we have an important system of government and a Government of necessity. If you were to compare and contrast it with Westminster, you would have a Cabinet with Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal De…”

“I know that some very hard-working MLAs would not like that categorisation.”

“I do not think you can do this with an à la carte approach. The strand 1 protections—the strand 1 requirements about cross-community consent—are at the heart of our system. Setting aside the ability to bring the majority of both designations with you is not something that you should fear; it is something that should be…”

“I am making the point to you, and you can accept it or not, that somebody wishing to change the law may wish to engage with colleagues, reach consensus and understand why there is resistance and, furthermore, challenge the attitude that infected this process, because a decision seemed to be reached that would get a maj…”

“You have heard me say in this Committee a number of times that I get frustrated when people talk about vetoes and blocks. Because that is the end of the process, when people have failed to engage or compromise, and want to inject majoritarianism in a system that by necessity requires consensus. If you take just this we…”

“Well, I have, and you have to hear, rather than assume.”

“They would not like it at all. The truth is that you will have people of differing reflections and recollections. You will have people who were happy that a stand was taken on a constitutional position, and on something that, by the way, did not have the consent of the people of Northern Ireland—a decision taken over t…”