The establishment of a climate change commissioner is currently a legal requirement. The Northern Ireland Assembly can change that. It should, and urgently.
Northern Ireland is facing significant funding challenges, yet we need to do so much to invest in and transform public services.
Health waiting lists are unacceptably long. This must change. It requires new ways of working but also funding to tackle.
We need more affordable childcare. Mental health services are under unprecedented pressure. Our small businesses are crying out for support. The list is endless, and we need action.
This requires finding funding at a time where significantly more from the UK government is not a realistic option. This is a time to drive efficiency.
Yet, in the face of this the assembly pushes on with the establishment of yet another quango at a cost of £1million. At a minimum. Every year.
I appealed for the assembly to reconsider. It could support an amendment to remove this time-bound commitment.
This week was a missed opportunity by the SDLP, Alliance, Sinn Fein and the UUP. They all voted to push on ahead.
They tried, wrongfully, to misrepresent our position to be all about climate change cynicism.
Regardless of a view on climate change, there is a strong case to be made that this post is unnecessary and unjustified. Especially when public funding is under such pressure.
The proposal came into the climate change legislation by way of an amendment to the bill. The DUP voted against that amendment, but it proceeded.
Other parties similarly ignored calls to assess whether this would even be an effective or efficient use of public money. Only the TUV joined with the DUP in supporting that.
This role is not needed. It duplicates existing bodies that can give advice. The advisory and scrutiny body in this area is UK-wide climate change committee.
Exactly what is this additional and new NI Commissioner supposed to also do? No other part of the United Kingdom has a climate commissioner. The committee acknowledged in its letter on the commissioner that there was a risk of duplication.
Ironically, those parties who will shout most loudly about action on climate change have created a body, where they didn’t care how effective it will be and there is nothing to suggest they will even heed its advice.
Those same parties ignored the climate change committee’s advice on emissions targets with potentially devastating consequences for our agricultural industry.
Having ignored a UK-wide body, why would they now listen to a local commissioner?
At a time of high levels of budget pressure, and public services crisis, Northern Ireland can't afford more duplication or wasteful spending.
We should be tackling it, not adding to it.
More bureaucracy, even more advice. Yet another quango. More money being spent on layers and layers of people checking on people checking on people.
Not a single advocate of creating this quango has been able to cite how it will help tackle climate change. Instead, it is dressed up in vague terms about “raising awareness” or “holding government to account”.
It seems unlikely that in the face of worldwide debates on climate change that a local commissioner will be a game-changer in terms of public awareness.
Holding government to account is also one of the core functions of MLAs. That went unnoticed in the midst of a virtue signalling frenzy which was a substitute for evidence of tangible benefits that would be delivered.
In the same week this post was voted on, the Northern Ireland Assembly also debated inadequate funding for community and voluntary groups which support our health service.
There is a saying that “to govern is to choose”. In continuing to support the creation of this post, those parties who voted for it have effectively chosen the creation of a quango over funding those community and voluntary groups or many other areas in similar need of funding.
There is currently a judicial review to enforcing the creation of this commissioner. It will have to be done unless the Northern Ireland Assembly acts to legislate. Sadly, there is no sign it is willing to do so.
It is deeply disappointing and incredibly frustrating. Most of all, it is letting down the people of Northern Ireland to whom we are custodians of public funds.
This truly is an act of million-pound madness.