Aontú Newry and Armagh representative Róisín Mulgrew has pledged that, if elected as an MLA next May, she will donate the latest increase in MLA salary to local charity Head Injury Support — saying politicians cannot credibly demand higher pay while communities are still waiting for basic services and major projects to be delivered.
Under the new determination, the basic MLA salary is due to increase from £67,200 to £69,216 from the first sitting of the new Assembly following the election.
Ms Mulgrew said:
“If the people of Newry and Armagh honour me with their trust and elect me to represent them at Stormont, I will donate this latest pay increase to Head Injury Support. I hope other candidates will consider making a similar commitment.
Head Injury Support holds a very special place in my heart. The work they do for people living with acquired brain injuries, and for their families, is absolutely fantastic. For too long volunteers and charities have been left to fill gaps that should be addressed by government. I can think of far better uses for this additional money than adding it to an MLA’s pay packet.
I believe people should be properly paid for hard work and responsibility. But in any other walk of life, particularly in business, high pay is expected to come with high performance. You deliver results. You meet targets. You are accountable for your performance.
So before another increase in MLA salaries, the public are entitled to ask a very straightforward question: where are the results?
Is Casement Park delivered? Is the A5 delivered? Has the promised expansion of Magee been delivered? These are major promises that people have heard about year after year, yet they remain -promises.
Or let’s bring it home to Newry. Have our local MLAs – one of whom is the infrastructure minister – arrested the tragic decline of Newry City centre, and Hill Street in particular? Have we dealt with the potholes and deteriorating roads people encounter every day? Have we solved the chronic congestion around Fiveways?
No, no and no. Yet somehow another pay rise for MLAs is ready to go.
Making the case that Stormont has demonstrated the kind of performance that merits higher pay is at best laughable. For families waiting on services, motorists sitting in perennial traffic, residents dealing with sewage outside their homes and communities waiting years for promised infrastructure, it is insulting.
This isn’t about saying elected representatives shouldn’t be paid properly. It is about accountability. With public money should come public responsibility, and with high pay should come high performance.
I want politics to operate with the same basic expectation that applies everywhere else: judge us on what we deliver, not what we promise.
If I am blessed to be elected in May, I will be asking people to judge me by exactly that standard.”
ENDS