Jenny Palmer MLA delivered her Maiden Speech in the Assembly Chamber on Monday 6 June 2016.
Mrs Palmer said:
“I am extremely proud to have been elected to the Assembly to represent Lagan Valley. I grew up there, raised my children there and am a proud resident of the area.
“I served for 11 years on Lisburn City Council and the new Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council. In my time as a councillor, I chaired committees on environmental services and economic development. I worked as the chair of Peace III and the chair of Comet INTERREG to deliver EU funding to communities and to business. I have seen excellent progress in the Lisburn and greater Lagan Valley area over the last 18 years, but it has also been the site of a number of shameful failures under previous Governments. As the Ulster Unionist spokesperson for infrastructure and a member of the official Opposition, I will ensure that the Government are held to account in this mandate. While I hope that we will see significant progress over the next five years, I am increasingly concerned that infrastructure will be a series of vanity projects and undelivered strategies.
“A significant cause of concern for me is the lack of meaningful targets in the Programme for Government. While the PFG promises to connect people and opportunities through our infrastructure — an ideal we can all agree on — there is scarce detail on how that will be achieved. The PFG is so vague that the Minister could deliver only negligible improvement and still technically deliver what was promised. I look forward with interest and no small degree of trepidation to seeing what the Minister intends to deliver.
“As a spokesperson for the Opposition, it is my role not only to critique but to suggest what we should do instead. In that vein, allow me to suggest a few key projects that I hope the Minister and the Executive can commit to.
“The success of the Balmoral show is an inspiration to the rest of the country. The recent announcement that it is to open for four days in 2017 is welcome and is a source of immeasurable pride to my constituency. However, the chaos surrounding the roads into the show is also a source of shame. Year after year, we read the miserable reports of traffic jams, parking bedlam and wasted opportunities due in no small part to the disgraceful lack of progress at the Maze site. Simply put, the infrastructure for that world-beating show and venue must be improved. Better planning of roads and targeted improvements, such as an M1/Balmoral link road, could solve the issue. Additionally, any Members who travel via Sprucefield will be aware of the extremely poor connections to Belfast that inevitably result in long delays and tailbacks.
“With no progress on the Sprucefield bypass, the Knockmore link road is also important to the development of the area, and I am pleased that Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council has taken important steps to invest in its delivery with the Department and developers. Those projects are important if we ever want to spread the success of the economy beyond the greater Belfast area. Our poor road infrastructure is discouraging investment in general, but it hits the outer parts of the country particularly hard.
“It is highly unlikely that all phases of the A5 will be completed within the time frame, so the budget will not be spent. Over £100 million will be surplus. We must ensure that all small projects are identified to improve our road, rail and river network. They do not have to be multibillion-pound, decade-long quagmires. With smart, targeted funding, we can drastically improve travel times. I hope that the Minister can agree that progress will not be delayed simply due to a lack of interest or political will. It is also vital that this Government leverage the expertise and knowledge of civic society as a whole.
“In the Fresh Start Agreement, the two parties in government promised to deliver a compact civic advisory panel. It is utterly imperative that the forum contains experts from the world of business and infrastructure. In addition to being an excellent venue to encourage new faces into politics, the forum must be well placed to suggest infrastructure improvements and critique ministerial decisions. It must not become a talking shop for yes-men. I hope that the Executive demonstrate courage in appointing true experts who can not only advise on major projects such as the York Street interchange and the A5/A6 but, crucially, suggest smaller, more targeted improvements that will make a major impact.
“One of the improvements must be the decentralisation of government administration away from Belfast. The worrying trend in Northern Ireland of offices such as the DVLA being relocated to Wales must be reversed. I want to see all Departments, particularly the Department for Infrastructure, leading the way in spreading the administration across Northern Ireland plc. Improving Internet connectivity is another key indicator in the PFG document, but, again, we need to see what concrete, costed commitment the Executive will make. We do not need to reinvent the wheel for that, but I argue that we need a sea change from the approach of the previous Executive. The Minister need look no further than my constituency to recognise in the Resurgam Trust in Lisburn the model of how the Department can foster community-led improvements to infrastructure and support the third sector in sustainable business. That project and others must be allowed to develop in a sustainable way, so I also call for an end to the unnecessary and nerve-wracking process of annual bidding and the introduction of service-level agreements to sustain community partnerships.
“In conclusion, I want to work in this mandate to be a constructive member of the Opposition. I do not intend to be easy on the Minister or the Department, but I hope to be a source of alternative options rather than of a simple critique. I do not intend to be Mrs No, but, as certain members of the party to my left can tell you, I do not bow easily. The Minister can expect the same tenacity in my role here.”