ARichTeaBiscuit finished off her re-election campaign in typical fashion, with the Sinn Féin politician addressing a crowd of supporters in the region.

“Hello there,

When I started this campaign I said that I was looking forward to travelling across the region and listening to your concerns, both about the past, present and future and I have to say that I have been wholly impressed with your response, as thanks to your amazing outreach with our campaign team I have been able to speak to a large group of people.

Of course, such an extensive campaign has also been quite exhausting, as travel combined with long days is guaranteed to be quite a tiring combination, however, as someone that comes from a working background in both education and retail I still have quite a bit of energy to give a speech to you today closing our efforts.

Today, as I noted about the concerns of the past, present and future I would like to spend some time talking on each of these issues and how Sinn Féin can resolve these issues in a constructive manner within the Executive, somewhat apt giving the ghosts of christmas past, present and future but sadly the budget doesn’t exactly stretch to ghosts.

Firstly, the past. I have spoken to quite a few people who are concerned about how the petition of concern system can be used in the past, as in the last term we saw it misused in quite an absurd manner in regards to fast food advertising regulation which sparked the collapse of the Executive, of course, it was fixed rather shortly, however, it does create some concerns and I understand why this was an issue that was brought up by people that I spoke to.

Sinn Féin understands that a petition of concern is meant to be used for serious issues that concern community tensions and human rights, it is a rather extreme tool that wasn’t designed to be used in such a flippant and irresponsible manner, and it is therefore no surprise that a majority of parties in Northern Ireland also agree that change needs to be made. Unfortunately, the Ulster Workers’ Party seem rather unconvinced on this issues, it is hard to understand their reasoning for backing away from such reform, although perhaps their belief that they’ll score a majority with their wretched CUA alliance makes them more frightened of this change, however, it does underscore a perfect reason for getting behind Sinn Féin and denying CUA this harmful majority.

Furthermore, the same can be said for the CUA approach to our justice system, if they had their way then all ongoing prosecutions into crimes committed by the British military in Northern Ireland would stop and all future cases would be blocked from happening, now this is an issue I don’t spend a lot of time talking about, however, it is quite clear that this isn’t justice and is being done purely to appease right-wing extremists, unacceptable. Sinn Féin will fight against this with every fibre of our being, again another reason for you to pledge your support behind us in the election.

Secondly, we have the present. As I noted earlier the Ulster Workers’ Party misused the petition of concern system in the last assembly term and they antagonised their Executive partners by relentlessly attacking them in the press and putting forward ridiculously sectarian motions which showed no respect for the Nationalist community, and now on this they’ve been joined by their comrades in the Ulster Unionist Party as part of this pathetic CUA, an alliance which has resulted in some rather absurd post accusing both C!NI and Alliance of being secret Nationalists, as if we are in some game of Northern Irish among us.

In all of this mess, Sinn Féin have worked incredibly hard to work responsibly and maturely in the best interests of Northern Ireland. We have submitted legislation to promote tourism and assist in the development of local knowledge by creating free museums and partially covering for the costs of exhibits, we have worked to fix broken legislation by submitting amendments to the clean energy bill and we have helped kill irresponsible legislation such as the drunk driving bill which would have put the Northern Irish people at risk.

Thirdly, we come to the future which is a bit of an amalgamation of both the past and future. If you look at both cases then you will see two setting themes, as by extending your support to Sinn Féin and giving us strong representation in the Assembly you can both ensure we have the strength to ensure that the UWP and UUP don’t blockade needed reforms and we can ensure that terrible legislation isn’t passed or at least said legislation can be amended to a more acceptable format.

It has been a pleasure speaking with you all today and throughout the election campaign, together we can achieve great things, so remember on polling day grab your friends and family and vote Sinn Féin, thank you.”