Deirdre Hargey is currently a Sinn Féin MLA for South Belfast and has been Minister for Communities since January 2020. Deirdre was co-opted into the seat when Máirtín Ó Muilleoir stood down as MLA.

Deidre sat down with South Belfast News to speak about her background as a community activist, her record as Minister for Communities during the Covid-19 pandemic and her hopes and plans for South Belfast in the future.

Speaking on her appointment as MLA and becoming Minister for Communities Deirdre said: “It was a whirlwind, Máirtín said he would be standing down, so I was approached by the party to co-opt his place. Within a week in January 2020 I finished my last council meeting on the Monday night. I was co-opted on the Tuesday. The deal to get the institutions up and running came in on Thursday and Friday and on the Saturday morning I was asked to be Minister for Communities.

“By March we were hit with the biggest global health pandemic of our lifetime. It’s been a hectic period, and you have to learn quickly and on your feet.

“When I came into the ministerial post, it was the right department for me as I’ve been a community activist since I was 12 or 13 here in the Market. The department fitted with what I’ve a passion for, which is building communities, building the infrastructure of communities and lifting the aspirations of everybody. I wanted to focus on poverty and inequality.”

Deirdre said her department rose to the challenge to tackle the problems brought up by the pandemic and brought in measures to help mitigate the problems that arose from it.

“During the pandemic we made a real push to get out 500,000 food parcels across the North, to get people prescriptions and worked with community groups and established the emergency leadership group to help people who were having difficulties. We also worked through all 11 councils to help people who needed essential support.

“We announced flexibilities for people needing assistance, and got emergency legislation passed so that people who were receiving assistance were able to get it without having to go to their face-to-face meetings because that was no longer possible. We brought in emergency legislation to stop evictions and we extended that legislation until later this year. We delivered over £320 million in financial support to individual households. We brought in the heating payments in December 2020 and this year the £200 payment to individuals and households to help with the cost-of-living crisis.”

Deirdre said an issue which is very close to her heart, and also one of Sinn Féin’s key policy proposals, is the building of new housing. She has promised to continue with the shakeup of the housing sector, to ensure that the Housing Executive can build more homes, with an aim to build a minimum of 100,000 new homes,

“Our Housing Executive here is removed from political interference and it works according to need and one thing we want to change is to allow the housing authority to be able to borrow money so they can increase their housing stock and get new homes built. We want the Housing Executive to be able to borrow money against their assets in the same way local councils do, which means they can pay these back over long periods of time and provide housing for people who need it. The Housing Executive were also having to pay millions of pounds in corporation tax to the British government, and we’ve been able to reach an agreement to stop that, so the money that would have gone to the government in Westminster will now be reinvested in here, meaning they will have far more money to get building and provide housing. We want to increase public housing and to ensure it’s kept for the public and under public control. Once we get the Housing Executive on a good financial footing, we can begin to build new homes and 100,000 is the minimum amount of homes we want to see built, we would like to see far more to cope with the housing shortages.”

Deirdre also explained that the party currently have plans to tackle inequality in the private housing sector and are seeking a mandate to implement the second part of their proposals to crack down on rogue landlords.

“We also brought forward one part of our private rent sector bill, to ensure there are electrical checks, carbon monoxide checks, that landlords can’t increase the rent more than once a year. The next part is rent controls, and stopping letting agents charging fees, and greater enforcement for rogue landlords and estate agents who charge these to people.”

On the cost-of-living, Deirdre said there are plans to tackle the crisis on a short-term basis, but the party are also working on plans which will seek to help in the long-term by ensuring a fairer distribution of wealth and offering incentives to companies to pay workers a living wage.

 “The big issue is cost of living. We are going to deal with this in the short term through financial support to people. With the £300 million currently unspent in the Executive at the moment we want to give every household across the North £260 as an immediate payment. 

"We want to introduce social value measures for companies who bid for government contracts, so if you pay your workers a living wage, and they have workplace rights and freedoms, you will have a higher social value, and be more likely to get government contracts. This will ensure people are being paid properly for their work, and work towards a fairer distribution of wealth. In my own department I initiated a pay rise for our workers and backdated payments to ensure a pay uplift, sick pay and leave. There is also more to be done, and by tackling these issues in the long run we can reduce and help to eradicate poverty.”

Deirdre explained how environmental concerns in South Belfast are also tied in with the cost-of-living. She's determined to ensure the retro-fitting of social housing to ensure it's properly insulated, and to expand greenways and schemes to alleviate flooding in an area which is at great risk of flooding.

 “We want to see retro-fitting of housing, to ensure heat stays in. This keeps fuel costs down and helps the environment, and creates jobs, so it’s three things we want to see happen.

 “South Belfast has a big flood risk, and this impacts residents who have seen their insurance go up because of the risk of flooding. We want to improve walls and infrastructure to help with any tidal surges, as we are surrounded here by the River Lagan. Our communities are taking the lead in enhancing our biodiversity, and improving our sewage and water infrastructure, so we want to work with them to implement plans that will mitigate the impact of climate change.”

Speaking on health issues, Deirdre reiterated Sinn Féin’s pledge to invest £1 billion pounds in the health service and to focus on mental health and preventative health measures.

“We want to overhaul the health service, as at the moment it is near collapse. We are proposing putting £1 billion into the NHS and improving existing services, as well as expanding mental health services and focusing on preventative health measures. By improving greenways and cycle routes we help the environment and also people’s health in general. These are things we want to look at and we want to work with sporting bodies to implement this.”

On the Protocol, Deirdre said that collapsing Stormont was not the way forward and the only way things have been achieved is by working together.

“People saw what we achieved working together in our last mandate. We passed bills on climate change, period poverty, integrated education, binning the bedroom tax. People have been left wanting to see more of that and that can only happen if we work together, and collapsing Stormont does not benefit ordinary people in any way. There are issues we can work out with the Protocol, but only by working together.

"We have no authority to change it in Stormont. It’s an agreement between the British Government and the EU that they signed. What we can do is work out where the disagreements lie and present the case to the British Government, but collapsing Stormont benefits no-one and it just hampers the work we’re trying to achieve for ordinary people.

“I’ve been honoured to serve South Belfast. I want to continue delivering change to people that lifts up all of our people, and to give hope to people. We’re 24 years into a peace process, and it’s through dialogue and hard work that we sustain that.”