Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. If you don't mind I will now read out an essay written by one of the over-paid advisers that my party, just like all the parties in this assembly, employs to give me something to say on any topic whether I know anything about it or not. In case people don't know that I didn't write this myself I will read it out haltingly like one of those books about Dick and Dora I had in school all those years ago. Amazingly, when I have finished reading every word out carefully, people will describe this performance as a 'speech'. Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle."
If you're lucky you won't have endured any of these embarrassing displays at Stormont. You probably avoided reading the edited versions in the local press too. Even luckier, you're spared any repetition until September 10. Spare a thought though for poor Jim Fitzpatrick and Mark Devenport – not only did they have to keep straight faces as the assembly members stumbled through their 'speeches' but they also had to sit through the stupefying procession of mediocrity each day as the BBC fulfilled its obligation as a public service broadcaster.
There is nothing to distinguish the spear-carriers in any party except that Sinn Féin members insist on beginning and ending their readings with the oul cupla focal.
Why do they do this? For some the answer is that the oul cupla focal is all they have. Others perhaps are following the Irish saying that however bad your Irish is, it's better than speaking English.
If that's the reason then read your 'speech' out in Irish.
There's no shortage of translators up there. They could even type it out phonetically for you.
It can't be true for everyone however. Barry McElduff could happily prattle away all day in Irish. Indeed he even asked Ian Paisley a question in Irish to which Paisley not unnaturally replied, "It's hard to answer a question when you don't know what it is."
There's a simple solution to that dilemma. Have simultaneous translation equipment laid on as in the European Parliament, the UN and several other assemblies in Europe – in Belgium, for example, or Switzerland. It may never be used except for McElduff or Caitriona Ruane whose Irish is passable but let's eliminate the cringe-inducing cupla focal.
We have had a speech to the assembly in what has come to be called 'Ulster-Scots'.
Even more cringe-inducing but at least it was more than seven words and it did have the advantage that no simultaneous translation was required since Ulster-Scots is just someone adopting the accent and limited vocabulary of an uneducated person from Co Antrim or north Co Down.
If Sinn Féin assembly members are going to speak Irish, then let them deliver a 'speech' in Irish and not literally pay lip service to the language by trotting out 'Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle' twice every reading.
Which brings us back to the main point. Surprisingly the assembly has adopted the practice of the Dail of allowing members to read in a monotone from a script.
In Westminster anyone trying to do that would immediately be faced with a barrage of shouts of 'reading!' Plodding through a script shows you're not thinking.
True, in the case of many assembly members we know that would be an impossible requirement, but a requirement to speak from a few notes would not only demonstrate the ability to think, or not, as the case may be, it would also dramatically shorten the contributions and liven them up.
A couple of sessions in June on health matters produced a mind-numbing set of readings followed by a response from the health minister in his trademark sepulchral tones. By the end it was obvious some officials had lost the will to live.
The assembly members are all so dull, self-important and obsequious that the assembly has been as lively as a morgue or a waxworks like the US Senate where humanoids can read the Washington phone directory into the record. If it wasn't for Sinn Féin's cupla focal how could you tell they were not all in the same party?
Is that the real reason they do it?
