CRAIGAVON: A lengthy boycott of devolved government in Northern Ireland will stretch into 2024 after talks to end the impasse stalled Tuesday, with frustration mounting over political dysfunction and crumbling public services.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) withdrew from the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in February 2022, forcing its mothballing because of post-Brexit trading rules it said undermined the region’s place in the wider United Kingdom.
But the resultant cuts in central funding from London have led to a decay in vital everyday public services such as hospitals, road maintenance and education.
Rolling strikes during the year by public transport staff, nurses and teachers demanding long held up pay increases have fuelled growing discontent, with potentially more walkouts to come in January.
Anger over the impasse is acute at hospitals in the province, where waiting times for treatment and surgery are the longest in the country.
“Nothing seems to function properly in this country,” Leonard Shields, 82, told AFP outside Craigavon hospital west of Belfast.
“It’s a disgrace there is no local government here for almost two years, I should have regular checks but haven’t been called up in ages,” said the pensioner from Annalong who suffers from colitis.
“Politicians need to get back to work,” Trevor Johnstone, a 34-year-old businessman shopping for Christmas presents, told AFP at a taxi queue in Belfast during the latest bus and train strike. But while the inconvenience was “annoying”, he said he sympathised with the workers’ demands.
