Diana Armstrong rejects Pat Cullen's claim SF are strong on health - saying UUP won't walk away like O'Neill

Diana Armstrong was responding to comments by the former nursing union boss – now a Sinn Fein candidate – in the Impartial Reporter newspaper this week.

Pat Cullen said “when I look at what Michelle O'Neill and Mary Lou McDonald and others within Sinn Fein are delivering it naturally coalesces with what I believe and it's really, really strong leadership that's being provided”.

She also said she discussed with Michelle O'Neill Sinn Fein's “focus on the need to ensure our public services have the funding and investment that they require”.

Sinn Fein recently defended the Executive’s decision to cut health service funding – prompting the previous health minister Robin Swann to vote against Stormont’s budget.

Diana Armstrong told the News Letter that Pat Cullen’s comments “may fit the Sinn Fein narrative, but upon closer analysis it’s clear Sinn Fein have constantly failed to offer the political leadership and courage needed to make tough decisions for our health service.

“When Sinn Fein last held the very challenging health portfolio, then Health Minister Michelle O’Neill walked away and abandoned it in 2017 - something the Ulster Unionist Party will not do. Unlike Sinn Fein, my party, through Robin Swann, has shown dedicated leadership to our health service including during a global pandemic and the rebuilding of our NHS in its aftermath.

“Only last month Sinn Fein voted to slash the Health budget by £184 million - a far cry from the ‘funding and investment’ that Cullen claims Sinn Fein have delivered. I’m proud to say that the Ulster Unionist Party strongly opposed these detrimental cuts, voting against them in both the Executive and the Assembly.

“The healthcare workers and patients of Fermanagh & South Tyrone, and all of Northern Ireland, deserve to be heard and listened to in Parliament. An empty seat in Westminster, which is the reality of a vote for Pat Cullen, is not going to be a voice for anybody.

“An empty seat cannot deliver for our health service and our dedicated health care workers, an empty seat cannot deliver further investment or funding we vitally need. Only representation can deliver, I will stand up for our NHS and be the active voice for our healthcare workers at Westminster to deliver funding it needs”.

In her brief tenure as health minister before Sinn Fein collapsed the Executive, Ms O’Neill awarded healthcare staff a 1% pay rise. It was far short of what unions – including Pat Cullen’s Royal College of Nursing – said would be acceptable.

In a 2016 letter to the NHS Pay Review Body, Michelle O’Neill said “The NI Executive has endorsed the principle of adherence to the UK Government’s public sector pay policy and, therefore, any proposals will be constrained by HM Treasury’s calls for continued pay restraint and indeed the continuing challenges within HSC”.

The News Letter posed a series of questions to Pat Cullen through the Sinn Fein press office on Thursday relating to her comments on her new party’s leadership on health. We asked:

- Does this strong leadership include Michelle O'Neill's brief tenure in the health department, where Sinn Fein left the health service rudderless and refused to return to government until an Irish Language Act had been delivered?

- In your view, was an Irish Language Act more important than nurses' pay or health service reform?

- Did you believe, as a nurse, that Michelle O'Neill's 1% pay award in July 2016 - which did not restore pay parity with staff in Great Britain - was “really strong leadership”?

- Did you agree with health minister Michelle O'Neill's position in 2016 of endorsing the conservative government's public sector pay policy?

To date there has been no response.

In the same interview with the Impartial Reporter, Pat Cullen also defended Sinn Fein’s abstentionist policy. Diana Armstrong will focus on the constituency being represented again in Parliament.

​