The Green Party NI will:

• Oppose cuts to frontline health services and increase investment in mental health services.
• End academic selection and ensure that all children have access to integrated education.
• Ensure a greater focus on tackling domestic and sexual violence and abuse in the justice system.
• Commit to long-term strategic investment for artists and the arts sector.
• Deliver a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights and continue to fight inequalities based on gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class.
• Increase transparency around donations to political parties.
• Introduce a properly calculated living wage, support the reintroduction of the Universal Credit uplift, and roll out a four-day week for public sector workers.
• Invest in renewable electricity and ban all forms of fossil fuel extraction.
• Introduce rent controls and strengthen renters’ rights against rogue landlords.
• Expand public transport and invest in cycling infrastructure.
• Establish an independent Environmental Protection Agency.
• Move towards a more sustainable model of food production that gets the balance right between food, climate and nature.
• Prohibit the hunting of wild mammals with dogs.

We are in Code Red for Humanity. The very cultural and economic systems we have created to live by are threatening to wipe us out. Traditional politics continues its pursuit of rampant neo-liberal economics and consumerism, failing to engage with the urgent transition we need.

The Greens understand how deep, how radical and how urgent the changes we need to make are. We need system change, not climate change.

The cost-of-living crisis, driven by the profiteering of big oil corporations and heightened by geopolitical insecurity, cannot be solved without addressing our economy’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Greens first called on the Executive to ban fracking and fossil fuel extraction over a decade ago. Despite our repeated calls, the traditional parties failed to act. This persistent failure on many environmental issues has left us with a shameful record.

Northern Ireland has achieved the lowest emissions reductions in the UK. Our per-capita emissions are the highest of any part of these islands. Every year, over seven million tonnes of raw sewage is dumped into our waterways. Every single one of our rivers, lakes and coastal waters has failed to meet basic quality standards. Northern Ireland’s dirty air kills 800 people a year. Yet the traditional parties fail to act.

Whilst the parties of government fail to govern, Greens have been driving the legislative agenda at Stormont. We have secured the passage of the Climate Change Bill, the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill, and the Domestic Abuse (Safe Leave) Bill.

As people struggle to heat or eat, Stormont has failed to protect those most impacted. Hundreds of millions of pounds of emergency funding have been left unspent by the traditional parties, who have prioritised manufacturing crises over addressing the crises we already face.

We are in the midst of a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, a waiting list crisis, a mental health crisis. And of course, the impact of the climate crisis is only becoming more obvious. These are the issues that need our attention, and these are the issues the Green Party NI is committed to delivering on.

In this election campaign, traditional parties have tried to shape the debate along the usual lines of division and mistrust. But as they try to drag debate into the past, the electorate are moving forward.

It’s time to move beyond the traditional politics of division.

It's time to tackle the waiting list crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis and the climate crisis.

It’s time Stormont delivered for Northern Ireland.

Clare Bailey

Leader, Green Party Northern Ireland

The traditional parties have failed our public services, not delivering the long-promised multi-year budget to provide our schools and hospitals with the long-term financial certainty they need. As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, we need to ensure that people and communities are given the investment and resources needed to rebuild and recover.

Time and again, traditional parties have shown us that they are not equipped to deal with crisis. The politics of deadlock and division will not address the cost-of-living crisis, the waiting list crisis and the housing crisis.

It’s time to pay our healthcare workers a fair wage. It’s time to put victims and survivors at the heart of the reform of our justice system. It’s time to end the segregation of our schools, and to invest in our arts sector. It’s time to put people back at the heart of decision-making.

It’s time for politicians to deliver on the issues that matter.

The pandemic has exposed the damage to our health service caused by systemic funding cuts and the Executive's failure to properly reform our health service. As we face growing health inequalities, staff shortages and a mental health crisis, our health service is held together by underpaid workers who are stretched to the limit and starved of resources.

As health service reform strategies gather dust following years of inaction from the Executive, hundreds of thousands languish on waiting lists, people struggle to access dental care, and ordinary people suffer the effects of a chronic shortage of GPs.

It’s time to end the crisis facing our healthcare system.

The Green Party NI will:

• Work with the healthcare sector at all levels to identify priority reforms and resources.
• Oppose cuts to frontline health services, increase investment in mental health services, and resist any further outsourcing of services.
• Oppose any attempts to privatise healthcare services.
• Ensure that all health service staff have fair pay and working conditions with meaningful consultation on all changes to contracts.
• Support better integrated and more accessible healthcare - from GP to hospital.
• Retain free prescriptions for all.
• Treat drug addiction as a health issue and advocate for the decriminalisation of drugs. We will support the introduction of drug testing facilities and safe injection rooms.
• Ensure free, safe, legal and local access to reproductive healthcare, including the full commissioning of abortion services, accessible without harassment.
• Seek an independent review of the provision of support for older people at home. Ensure that such a review examines the rights of carers, both paid and unpaid.
• Introduce the urgently needed Clean Air Strategy and mandate the use of air quality monitors outside hospitals. Air quality standards must be raised to be in line with World Health Organisation guidelines.
• Deliver health education in schools and support increased physical education and time outdoors from an early age.
• Promote health through the provision of safe walking and cycling routes, public parks and green spaces that are accessible to all. Leisure centres should be brought back into local authority ownership to ensure continued affordability.
• Seek an independent public inquiry to examine the NI Executive’s pandemic response and to prepare for the future.
• Support dignity in dying.

How we educate our children reflects how we want our society to be. Our education system segregates pupils based on religious and class background. This is unsustainable if we want to build a more integrated society.

It’s time to end segregation. It’s time to invest in education. It’s time to end the marketisation of higher education.

The Green Party will:

• End academic selection.
• Ensure that all children have access to integrated education.
• Support the provision of Irish-medium education within the integrated sector.
• Increase investment in early years education. Introduce a universal provision of Sure Start.
• Increase the school starting age to six years old in line with other European countries. Introduce a flexible school starting age, giving parents the option to defer the start of their children’s schooling.
• Increase service provision for special education needs and require a statutory post-18 plan. Services to be put in place for all young people with special education needs.
• Introduce free nutritious school meals for all children in P1 to P3. Introduce mandatory cooking and nutrition classes to the curriculum.
• Encourage the development of GCSE and A-Levels in sign language. Introduce sign language classes in all primary schools.
• Require the introduction of mandatory, comprehensive and inclusive Relationships and Sexuality Education.
• Introduce stand-alone Critical Thinking Skills and Information Literacy to the curriculum of all schools to combat the rise of misinformation.
• Support the abolition of tuition fees, oppose any attempt to raise tuition fees, and continue to support the end of the marketisation of higher education.
• Support legislation to grant student unions legal and financial protections similar to those in the rest of the United Kingdom.

We have a strong record on delivering criminal justice reform to strengthen protections for victims and survivors of crime. The Green Party NI has ensured that victims and survivors of domestic abuse now have access to legal aid, and that there will be stronger sentencing thresholds where children have been negatively impacted by domestic abuse.

Justice policy should focus on crime prevention and the reduction of re-offending. It’s time to prioritise cost-effective early intervention, which is crucial to tackling the causes of crime.

The Green Party will:

• Ensure a greater focus on tackling domestic and sexual violence and abuse, including the provision of additional statutory support for victims. We will support and introduce a robust and funded strategy to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls and seek to change legislation in line with the Gillen Review recommendations.
• Update hate crime legislation to include misogyny and age-related crimes and ensure greater protections against disability hate crime.
• Oppose any attempt by the UK Government to introduce an amnesty for conflict-related cases.
• Raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 in line with UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recommendations and implement the outstanding recommendations of the Youth Justice Review 2011.
• Implement Criminal Justice Inspection NI recommendations into Child Sexual Exploitation and the use of Care and Supervision Units in prisons. We will implement RQIA recommendations on prisoner and prison officer mental health.
• Expand the legal aid system and ensure that those who need access to justice and representation have it.
• Focus on community safety, reducing crime and the fear of crime. Further invest in restorative justice, including the new Adult Restorative Justice Strategy.

The Green Party NI has always led the way on equality issues in Northern Ireland, advocating for the decriminalisation of abortion and marriage equality long before the traditional parties.

Much progress has been made in recent years, but much more remains to be achieved. Disabled people cannot get married or cohabit without running the risk of losing their benefits. LGBTQI+ couples struggle to access fertility treatments. And transgender healthcare is next to non-existent, with unsustainable waiting lists.

It’s time to ensure Stormont protects human rights and delivers social justice for all in Northern Ireland.

The Green Party NI will:

• Deliver a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights.
• Support a comprehensive Irish Language Act, including a strategy for the preservation and growth of the Irish language.
• Support the introduction of a Sign Language Bill for Northern Ireland.
• Ensure that LGBTQI+ relationships have access to the full rights and benefits currently enjoyed by heterosexual couples.
• Ban ‘conversion therapy’ in Northern Ireland.
• Update the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to provide transgender and non-binary people in Northern Ireland with gender recognition processes based on self-declaration.
• Update and implement the Racial Equality Strategy.
• Deliver a Refugee Integration Strategy for Northern Ireland and commit to a Crisis Fund to ensure no asylum seeker is reduced to destitution.
• Fully implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
• Ensure that all policies are fully compliant with the Istanbul Convention.
• Implement mandatory gender pay gap reporting in line with the rest of the UK.
• Ensure that the Children’s Services Co-Operation Act 2015 is fully implemented.

Northern Ireland’s arts sector is a vibrant scene but it has been neglected by the Executive for too long. Art has the ability to create spaces for all people to explore and engage with ideas new and old. This allows potential to foster a sense of understanding beyond individual boundaries.

Many of those working in the arts sector are freelancers or self-employed, and the pandemic has been a very difficult time for them. It’s time to invest in our arts sector and ensure that artists and creatives are given the support they need to thrive as they rebuild from the pandemic.

The Green Party NI will:

• Embed the arts in all aspects of the Programme for Government.
• Commit to multi-annual statutory support and long-term strategic investment for artists and the arts sector at both local and Executive level.
• Develop ‘art contract clauses’ similar to ‘community benefit clauses’ for multi-million pound film and screen projects, to ensure that money and investment finds its way to the grassroots arts scene.
• Contribute to the revival of town centres by repurposing commercial properties into low carbon art spaces such as studios, cinemas and venues.
• Through investment and a targeted workforce development plan, ensure that we can create a thriving sector, particularly for young people in the performing arts and broader creative industries.
• Support public ownership and regeneration of historical buildings, using them for arts, culture and tourism.
• Ensure that artists are central to the global promotion of Northern Ireland.

It’s time for genuine grassroots democracy. For too long the traditional political parties have made the rules to suit their own agenda of division, at the expense of the people of Northern Ireland. It’s time to move to a citizens’ assembly model of democracy.

The Green Party NI will continue to lead by example on transparency by voluntarily publishing all donations we receive above £500. We have nothing to hide. We’re not funded by big business or corporate interests. It’s time that other political parties were as open as us.

The Green Party will:

• Continue to push for the UK Government to lower the legal voting age to 16.
• Deliver reforms and implement a strategy to achieve substantive gender balance in politics and public life.
• Ensure greater support and safeguards for women from abuse, threats and harassment in public office, including seeking action from social media providers and effective and responsive policing.
• Call on the UK Government to immediately publish information about all political party donations exceeding £7,500 received between 2011 and 2017, and lower the threshold so that all future donations over £500 are published.
• Remove community designation in the Assembly.
• Introduce a legal duty to co-operate that requires government departments and bodies to work together on cross-departmental issues and that reduces silos.
• Fully implement the outstanding recommendations from the RHI Inquiry report.
• Increase the powers of the Assembly Commissioner for Standards to investigate alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code of Conduct and report the outcome of any investigation and recommendations to the Assembly and the public.

The Green Party NI has secured Northern Ireland’s first ever climate change legislation.

The Green Party NI’s leadership has ensured that the Climate Change Bill contains a net-zero target, an independent Climate Commissioner, soil and biodiversity targets, and a just transition. We have also ensured that the Bill is one of the first ever pieces of gender-proofed climate legislation in the world. The Bill sets out ambition beyond anything Northern Ireland has seen before. We must make rapid progress this decade. It’s time to deliver what Stormont has committed to.

The transition to net-zero will unlock opportunities for everyone across Northern Ireland. A Just Transition will require the transformation of our economy to build a fairer society. It’s time to invest in high-quality jobs, housing and public services. It’s time to bring power back to the people most affected by pollution and inequality. It’s time to build wealth in our communities.

Real climate action will create a better and fairer society for all. It’s time for a Green New Deal.

The climate crisis is the biggest crisis facing humanity and our planet. Climate breakdown is not just a crisis of the future, but an ongoing crisis which is devastating lives across the world right now.

Northern Ireland’s environmental record is shameful. We are the twelfth worst region in the world for biodiversity loss, every single one of our waterways fails to meet basic ‘good’ standards, and 800 people a year die from dirty air.

The Green Party NI has secured Northern Ireland’s first ever climate legislation. It's time to deliver on its commitments

The Green Party will:

• Establish an independent Environmental Protection Agency separate from government departments which is responsible for implementing, maintaining and enforcing environmental law including regulation of air, water and land and monitoring the state of the natural environment.
• Declare the Rights of Nature, ensuring that these rights are to the fore as we move to a net-zero future.
• Reform the Planning Act 2011 to ensure it is fit for purpose. Introduce Equal Rights of Appeal in planning. Improve tree preservation by creating automatic protection of trees.
• Implement a comprehensive and socially just Waste Reduction Strategy following the reduce, reuse, recycle model, and focussing on producer responsibility.
• Work with local authorities to identify appropriate land for reforestation and fund native broadleaf woodland creation where nature and recreation are prioritised. We will increase the overall planting of trees to 2,500 hectares a year by 2035.
• Encourage the planting of protective forests bordering rivers and lakes to protect water quality and as part of an integrated flood prevention and mitigation strategy.
• Implement an immediate cessation of all peat extraction on public land. Ban new or extended peat excavation, ban the importation of peat products, and implement a scheme for peatland restoration. Bring nitrogen deposition levels under control to enable peatland restoration to carbon sequestration status.
• Impose a moratorium for planning approvals on any project which proposes to increase ammonia pollution until such time as ammonia levels in Northern Ireland are legally compliant.
• Introduce a complete ban on the use of glyphosate-based herbicides including in local authorities.
• Promote the retention of hedgerows and their enhancement with appropriate species and the protection of existing mature broadleaf trees.
• Fully implement an ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas around the coast of Northern Ireland to act as ‘no-take’ reserves, closed to commercial fishing and other extractive activities.
• Advocate public rights of access to the countryside and coast of Northern Ireland. We will also support the protection of urban green spaces.
• Back the creation of national parks in Northern Ireland.

The Green Party NI stands for a Just Transition where no-one is left behind. Tackling climate change must go hand in hand with tackling inequality and strengthening workers’ rights and opportunity. The Green Party NI will ensure that Northern Ireland maximises every opportunity from its unique position following the UK’s exit from the EU.

It’s time to guarantee protections for workers whose industries are set to change in response to the climate crisis. It’s time to improve conditions for workers through flexible working patterns and increased working from home. It’s time to recognise the caring economy.

The Green Party NI will:

• Introduce a properly calculated living wage, as outlined by the Living Wage Foundation.
• Support the reintroduction of the Universal Credit uplift and ensure that those remaining on older benefits are not left behind.
• Roll out a four-day week for public sector workers.
• Introduce a Basic Income pilot for young people leaving care, paid for by lifting the rates cap.
• Ensure that we will no longer face “cliff edges” every few years with respect to welfare reform mitigations.
• End labour exploitation by ensuring that all migrant workers can access support agencies. Support lifting the ban on asylum seekers working in Northern Ireland.
• Continue to oppose “zero-hours” contracts and any push to move workers into the self-employed category in order to avoid employer responsibilities.
• Ban fire-and-rehire practices and ensure there are repercussions for employers who engage in such practices.
• Support and strengthen trade unions and the right to collective bargaining. Support the reform of anti-union legislation.
• Increase funding for proper skills training and paid apprenticeships across industries. Create targets for paid apprenticeships to ensure gender balance. Work to address barriers to access, such as childcare and transport.
• Promote and encourage employers to implement family- and carer-friendly working policies such as childcare leave, working from home, the right to switch off outside working hours, a day-one right to sick pay, maternity leave, shared parental leave, and paid family leave across all sectors.
• Introduce a full childcare strategy that will meet the needs of working parents.
• Continue to oppose cutting Corporation Tax below the UK-wide rate. Support more progressive forms of taxation.

Housing is a human right. Everybody has the right to a good quality home, interdependent with green spaces, local amenities and public transport.

The housing crisis continues to worsen. Waiting lists for social housing get longer while supply of housing dwindles. Housing has become unaffordable - to buy and to rent - for large parts of the population. The Five Party Executive has wasted too many opportunities to ensure decent living conditions.

It’s time for an urgent programme of house building. It’s time for assistance for private renters, including rent caps and proper standards for rental properties. It’s time to address the housing crisis.

The Green Party NI will:

• Introduce rent controls and longer tenancies, and strengthen renters’ rights.
• Deliver at least 2,500 energy efficient social housing units per year to meet lifelong living needs.
• Provide funding and incentives for the means-tested retrofitting of all private and social housing.
• Fast-track apprenticeship programmes to train the workers required to adequately retrofit our housing stock.
• Support the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to borrow the necessary funds to build the social housing that we need.
• Develop measures to bring empty and vacant housing back into use.
• Create a landlord registration scheme that requires private landlords to maintain adequate standards in rental properties under the supervision of local authorities.
• Increase the Supporting People budget, and support the SmartMove NI model for private rentals.

Northern Ireland needs a green energy revolution. Properly harnessed, our wind, waves, tides and sun can meet our energy needs affordably and sustainably.

It’s time to move away from fossil fuels and polluting industries and build a new system. It’s time to invest in renewables and create well-paid green jobs. It’s time to build a world-class renewable energy industry right here in Northern Ireland.

It’s time to ensure that everybody lives in a warm home and that fuel poverty becomes a thing of the past. It’s time to ensure that every person has access to renewable energy supplies that are affordable, clean, sustainable and secure.

The Green Party will:

• Move to end Northern Ireland’s dependence on fossil fuels quickly, investing in renewable electricity.
• Provide more financial support to households in fuel poverty.
• Ban all types of fossil fuel extraction and cease the granting of exploration licences including those for precious metals.
• End the development of the natural gas grid and focus on the electrification of heating and transport on our route to a net-zero future.
• Incentivise energy conservation, insulation and retrofitting to renewable energy sources in domestic, public and commercial planning policy.
• Ensure that large-scale renewable projects engage with and benefit local communities, including ‘community benefit’ payments for onshore wind.
• Develop grid technology to support the growth of renewable sources of energy to tackle intermittency and increase development of interconnectors to continental Europe, ensuring supply during periods of low production.
• Continue to campaign for divestment from fossil fuel industries, including all public sector pensions and investments from the financial sector.
• Ensure all new public buildings are energy efficient and decarbonised, with all existing public buildings being modernised and refurbished to meet the same standard.
• Support the use of Green Hydrogen to replace existing uses for fossil fuels.
• Advocate for smart metering in domestic and business properties.
• Introduce a new, responsibly-run and environmentally-focused renewable heat incentive scheme that reflects lessons learned about the mistakes of the past and the successful schemes run in other European countries.
• Support small-scale, local and co-operative schemes, especially community-owned and state owned schemes, ensuring any privately owned renewable installations are sensitive to the environment and heritage of the area.

Poor quality transport increases congestion, pollution, stress and the risk of accidents. Northern Ireland’s public transport network is underfunded and underdeveloped.

Accessible and affordable public transport is important for sustainability and for social and economic equality. Not everyone who works can afford a car, and people with disabilities are often excluded from transport services.

It’s time to achieve an interconnected public transport network that provides a viable alternative to private transport for every journey. It’s time for a public transport network that serves rural areas and meets the accessibility needs of people with disabilities. It’s time for public transport to work for the public good.

The Green Party will:

• Continue to phase out the current bus fleet to be replaced by electric- and hydrogen-powered vehicles and begin the electrification of rail.
• Expand public transport, especially in rural areas and explore reopening railway connections, to ensure that towns and cities across NI are adequately serviced and connected to each other.
• Retain free public transport for people over 60 and seek to extend it to all under 22.
• Ensure that by 2032 at the latest, every new car and van sold in NI is zero-emission.
• Make walking and cycling a realistic and safe alternative to the car through the creation of segregated cycle lanes and the expansion and connection of greenways.
• Increase pedestrianised areas and one-way systems in town centres.
• Introduce a default 20mph speed limit in residential areas and around schools and widen no-parking areas around schools.
• Suspend new road building projects with a focus on better maintenance of existing road infrastructure and the introduction of wildlife corridors.

Agriculture will be a major player in the transition to net-zero, and large- and small-scale farmers are part of the climate solution. Farming can simultaneously provide improved water and soil quality, flood mitigation and nature restoration, all while supporting a more productive and resilient food system. 

If we get the balance between food, climate and nature right, we can ensure that farming is environmentally and financially sustainable into the future.

It’s time to secure the future of farming and the environment so that future generations can survive and thrive.

The Green Party NI will:

• Move towards a sustainable model of food production that protects the environment, improves animal welfare and puts more money in the pockets of farmers, ensuring that Just Transition principles are upheld.
• Prioritise building resilient local food economies over export driven markets. Develop a strategy to phase out factory farming using an animal rights based approach.
• Support farm payment criteria which incentivise small farmers, environmental protection, emission reductions, and animal welfare and rewards public goods such as rewilding and peatland restoration.
• Encourage organic alternatives to minimise the use of harmful substances in the treatment of crops and animals by farmers and growers. Ensure that farmers seeking to transition to organic farming have adequate financial and advice-based support.
• Encourage and support the farming industry to produce a wider range of food produce, to reduce travel costs and protect supply lines.
• Promote the development of local supply polyculture, permaculture and community-controlled, nature-based, social farming models.
• Ban the routine adding of antibiotics to animal feed.
• Require supermarkets to offer surplus food to food banks and promote food waste reduction schemes such as ‘Too Good to Go’.

The Green Party NI has led the way in campaigning against animal cruelty. Animals should be protected from maltreatment and abuse at the hands of humans. All animals must be treated humanely and with respect for their natural behaviours and needs.

The Green Party NI will:

• Prohibit the hunting of wild mammals with dogs, prohibit trail hunting and terrier work and work to end all other bloodsports. We will ban the sale, possession and use of snares.
• Extend the ban on live animal exports in Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
• Introduce tighter regulations on animal transport, including a maximum limit of eight hours travelling before a mandatory rest of at least one hour.
• Introduce mandatory CCTV in slaughterhouses.
• Increase welfare standards for farmed animals.
• Introduce Lucy’s Law to Northern Ireland and update in line with the Justice for Reggie campaign.
• Uphold the principles of the Welfare of Animals Act.
• Prohibit the import and export of all fur.
• Oppose any attempt to introduce a badger cull.