This week has added yet more entries to the already bulging and well thumbed catalogue of haplessness which afflicts our public services. Stormont seems impotent to fix these problems, despite the immense frustration and expense they pile on to the already overburdened backs of citizens and taxpayers.
Traffic jams in and around Belfast city centre and the latest disclosures about the delays at a new maternity hospital are but two examples of the malaise.
On November 22 the Department for Infrastructure announced what it ambitiously described as a “series of mitigations” to ease the traffic problems.
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Yet if anything, things have got worse. Although it is unusual for the council to be able to take the moral high ground when it comes to aspects of the state of the city centre, a series of councillors have this week been fully justified in criticising John O’Dowd’s department about the gridlock.
Thursday evening was particularly dreadful. The department said that crashes on the M1 and M2 were to blame, along with a broken traffic light at Ormeau Avenue and a Disney on Ice event.
As even Mickey Mouse would realise, it points to the poverty of our infrastructure that a collision on one of our motorways can cause ripples that block the city centre. Large scale events at the SSE Arena are hardly a new thing, and routinely cause serious traffic problems. Why is there no plan to manage this entirely predictable set of circumstances?
And although it is open to parody that a Stormont department couldn’t promptly fix lights at a crucial junction, that doesn’t explain why, for example, police officers weren’t deployed to direct traffic.
As even Mickey Mouse would realise, it points to the poverty of our infrastructure that a collision on one of our motorways can cause ripples that block the city centre
Encouraging wider use of public transport is of little help when the bus does not come because it is also stuck in traffic. That is hardly a compelling alternative to the car.
Read more: Infrastructure Minister to Belfast: ‘What are you complaining about?’
It is bizarre that the opening of a £340 million bus and train station has made the travel experience of so many people around Belfast actively worse. John O’Dowd needs to urgently get on top of the crisis if he isn’t to become known as Stormont’s minister for congestion and bottlenecks.
Read more: Belfast gridlock: John O’Dowd needs to get a move on - The Irish News view
Meanwhile, the saga of delay and expense at the regional maternity hospital has entered another cycle. Belfast trust told Stormont’s health committee that in a “worst-case scenario” it will cost £9m and take up to four years to fix water pipes. That means the vitally needed hospital could open a scandalous 13 years late.
It is another indictment of how the public are being let down by the sector that is meant to serve us all, and which ministers are responsible for. It’s time for them to get into gear.
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