PAULA Bradshaw has been an MLA in South Belfast for the Alliance Party since 2016 and is running again with colleague and current Lord Mayor of Belfast Kate Nicholl to contest two seats in the constituency.

Speaking with South Belfast News, Paula explained how the campaign was going so far and what the biggest issues were on the ground.

“The campaign has been going really well. We’ve had really good responses and results so far,” she said.

Paula said her work as Alliance Health spokesperson had meant that people were speaking with her a lot about issues with the health service, from waiting lists, to difficulty managing with health conditions.

“People speak with me a lot about health concerns, particularly people who are elderly. They’re conscious about if they have one condition, what if they develop another and how they can manage that through the health service. They’re worried about future complications, or if something was to happen to their partners, and concerns that if we don’t arrest the issues in the health service, it’s making people very worried for their future.

“People are concerned with waiting lists, and the difficulty seeing their GP. Our ‘Fighting Fit’ policy paper and our ideas for the health service are part of our core ideas and plans for the future, particularly for me as Health spokesperson, and our policies have been really resonating with people.”

She said the cost of living crisis was also overlapping with other issues and creating more worries for people in the area.

“We’re seeing a big overlap between people affected by their health and the cost of living crisis and also with families who have children with special educational needs and people who are full-time carers. People who are at home, who will use heating, are being greatly affected by rising energy prices and food bills.

“We’ve developed three policy proposals to tackle these issues, the Fighting Fit health policy, our cost of living proposals and the Green New Deal. It’s a crystal ball moment whether we’ll see a functioning Executive after this election but for our party we want to have our two Alliance candidates in South Belfast elected and add to Naomi Long’s team. We think this will be the breakthrough year for the Alliance Party to develop a strong centre-ground, cross-community bloc in the Assembly. We want to challenge the DUP and Sinn Féin to get around the table and to collectively deliver for everyone who lives here.”

Paula believes the next Executive has a lot of work to focus on, if it comes back, and she said more work needs to be done to ensure access to abortion services, strengthening climate change proposals and toughening up animal welfare legislation.

 “We think the Climate Change Bill could be strengthened, and we want to come back to it to see what we can do. We want to see active, sustainable travel too. We want to come back to the hunting with dogs issue too, and would like to see that banned as well as other issues with animal welfare. Abortion services is an issue that just has to be dealt with. Time and again the courts have told the Department of Health to get on with it, and it’s not something I’m going to just let go. It’s an equality issue for women and in the new mandate I want to see the commissioning of these services.”

Paula said more work needs to be done to deal with issues of identity and to ensure legislation is passed that is inclusive for all and will sort out chronic issues with identity, flags and traditions.

“Another issue we want to move on is the FICT report (Flags, Identity, Culture and Traditions), as flags on lampposts and bonfires are an issue in South Belfast so we want to see more movement on that. We want to see the Office of Culture and Identity, part of the New Decade, New Approach, which we wish to see established, and also see movement on Irish language rights as well as the Ulster-Scots language too. It’ll be for the betterment of everyone in South Belfast if we move on and get on with that important piece of work.”

Questioned on why the Alliance Party recently voted down the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, when it was followed a few weeks later by the crisis caused by P&O firing workers en masse, Paula said the party were not against the bill, but believed it did not have enough time to properly scrutinise the legislation proposals.

“We weren’t opposed to the bill per se, there were some elements which we thought were retrospective steps, and it was presented so late in the mandate that we didn’t think there was enough time to properly scrutinise it. It wasn’t that we were opposed to it, but there was just too much to scrutinise in such little time.”

Finally, Paula said that if she receives another mandate she will be looking forward to continuing her ongoing work with victims of historic and institutional abuse.

“I very much want to move forward with the work into the Mother and Baby Homes and to help victims of these homes and victims of all forms of historical, clerical and institutional abuse.”