It is questionable whether local parties and the media can be up to the avalanche of issues to be dealt with. EU legislation alone could bury anyone. I've seen obviously overburdened party policy officers fail to get to terms with the big issues at consultation events. Not having had local legislators for a long time, lobbying may not have developed enough to drive policy innovation and differentiation. The local parties have very meagre resources to employ specialists, and the recruitment of MLAs from local councillors may not have helped to raise sights either.

A party list electoral system could help get policy heads into the assembly and out of the much more secure advocacy related jobs in the voluntary, business, and academic sectors.

We are too fond, addicted even, to political back seat driving. i.e. Whinging.

I was really fed up that there was not a single mention that I could detect on the national stadium. Aside from one response out of about half a dozen letters I sent. (For anyone interested the one man who did respond was Tom Ekin who was Lord Mayor at the time.)

A number of the parties launched issue themed leaflets e.g. crime so I don't know where the media producer gets the 'There was no issue stuff' from.

To clarify, I quoted a instance when the media ran a series on issues that the parties as a whole failed to respond to. You can't run a programme on the content of a policy document.

The report here is by no means comprehensive, but I think it's fair to say that the upshot was that: "both sides [were] claiming the other is not listening".

It is very difficult for a party to go on about local issues when the local governance issue has yet to be solved.

Voter: What about water charges?
Party: We're against them
Voter: What are you going to do about it?
Party: Nothing because there's nothing we can do because we have no power to change this decision.

One small thing,
National stadium Beano? Are you trying to claim this new stadium for the Northern Ireland football team on its own?

Using loaded terms like that could be considered an effort to alienate the GAA and IRFU, who already have national stadiums of their own, from the project.

It is going to be the National Stadium is it not? Maybe not for GAA (if they ever use it) or Ulster Rugby, but certainly for the Northern Irelkand National football team.