CAJ report is flawed and laden with groundless and emotional partisan baggage, says McCrea
Ulster Unionist Lagan Valley MLA Basil McCrea said today that the currently used template for measuring inequality – the Committee on the Administration of Justice’s September 2006 report (CAJ) – was flawed.
Mr McCrea said the report’s conclusions about economic inactivity were way off the mark. Speaking after the debate in the Assembly he said,
“If you get the questions wrong to begin with you will not get the right answer, nor get to the heart of the matter.
It is utter tripe to talk about inequality when you look at all the facts that come out that actually stack against it. If the facts don’t fit the argument, you have no argument. Yet the Assembly is carrying on regardless, using this Committee Report from 2006 as the benchmark and template for measuring inequality despite the Housing Executive pointing out numerous flaws with it and University studies showing that its premise and conclusions are also flawed.
If we are to have a proper debate on matters of equality it helps if the debate is grounded in rational fact, not partisan conjecture.
I believe we need to go back to the drawing board and find an agreed template so that we can properly begin to tackle issues of inequality in the Assembly and at Executive level free of the emotional and groundless political baggage that the CAJ report currently carries with it.”