These were the two most prominent issues raised on the doors of South Belfast yesterday to campaigning politicians aiming to return to the Stormont Assembly in early May.
In an election where the DUP is seeking to make the Northern Ireland Protocol a red line issue for reentering the Executive, according to RTÉ, unionist voters are not resonating with the messaging. Speaking to residents, they echoed O’Toole’s comments, saying that they were seeing issues with acute hospital care, with one healthcare worker saying that the issue is a simple one: that there just aren’t enough beds, or healthcare workers to tend to them. She tells O’Toole that there need to be short-term solutions implemented to address these issues before a wider reform of the health service.
When asked about his chances in the election itself, O’Toole said that South Belfast was a good area for the SDLP, with a strong result in the 2019 Westminster election, which saw former MLA Clare Hanna elected as MP. O’Toole replaced Hanna in her vacated seat and is now fighting his first election. Given the seriousness of the situation, we just think: Get in, get it all passed and get £200 out to everybody.
She adds that this “isn’t a new phenomenon” and that she had seen the same issue raised in previous elections, but that it is reinforced through Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We have an untapped resource for solar, for wind and for tidal power here. We haven’t got the political will to implement and to build the infrastructure needed, and that will bring down people’s cost of living,” she says.
Bailey tells her that one of the last pieces of legislation to pass through Stormont before it was dissolved was a bill on safe access zones outside abortion clinics. While she says that she has had a positive reception at the doors, she says people in Belfast are disillusioned with politics at the moment.
It kicks off just down the road in Knock Eden Drive, an estate on the edge of the constituency, which borders Belfast East. However, he does say that the election across the country is unpredictable but especially so in South Belfast. “On the doors, it’s not coming up. Even in areas where I would expect politics to be more divisive, the Protocol isn’t coming up.
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Source: IrishMirror - 🏆 4. / 98 Read more »