Northern Ireland grinds to halt amid massive strike action – what’s going on?
Teachers, nurses, bus and train drivers, police staff and civil servants are among up to 170,000 public sector workers walking out in Northern Ireland in one of the largest strikes ever seen in the province.
Northern Ireland will largely grind to a halt as the workers, from 16 different unions, take to picket lines in protest at pay and conditions.
Parades and rallies will take place across the region including in towns and cities such as Belfast, Derry/Londonderry, Enniskillen and Omagh.
Schools will be shut, buses and trains will be cancelled and a greatly reduced health service will operate, with all but emergency procedures likely to be cancelled.
With sub-zero temperatures across Northern Ireland, there will be no gritting of almost all non-motorway roads, and drivers are being warned not to drive unless absolutely necessary.
Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said strikes will be “disruptive for people across Northern Ireland”.
So, what’s behind this huge level of disruption?
Unions say the wage increases received by their counterparts elsewhere in the UK in recent years have not been matched in Northern Ireland – and the statistics seem to bear that out.
For example, the starting salary for a teacher in NI is £24,137, far behind the £32,317 wage in Scotland, with salaries of £30,742 in Wales and £30,000 in England.
Pay for nurses and civil servants similarly lag behind the rest of the UK.
Of course, Northern Ireland’s dysfunctional political landscape is copping most of the blame.
Buses will be cancelled
Wednesday saw the seventh failed attempt to restore the Assembly and Executive at Stormont as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) stubbornly refuses to participate over its post-Brexit trading concerns.
In the absence of the devolved government – gone almost two years – departments say they can’t make new pay offers.
The UK government – in the form of Mr Heaton-Harris – has dangled a £3.3bn carrot for the parties to get back to work at Stormont, including almost £600m to resolve pay claims.
But he says he doesn’t have the power to release the funds without the Executive returning – a claim many angry workers simply don’t believe.
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“I am deeply disappointed that the significant funding offer from the UK government to address such issues has not been taken up,” he said.
“This package has been on the table since before Christmas and will remain there, available on day one for an incoming Northern Ireland Executive.”
There is huge frustration at both local and national politicians here; and that will be manifested at freezing picket lines in what’s being billed as the biggest strike in Northern Ireland’s history.
Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.
Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse
A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.
Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.
Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.
She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.
Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.
Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.
Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child
In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.
Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.
Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.
Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’
But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.
Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.
He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.
Victim awarded £10 compensation
Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.
Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.
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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.
Hundreds of millions paid to victims
The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.
In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.
But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.
For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.
“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.
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