Executive parties ‘obliged’ to do all they can to agree budget, O’Neill says

Stormont parties are “obliged” to do all they can to agree a multi-year budget, First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said.

However, DUP leader Gavin Robinson has said there is no point agreeing to a budget which “doesn’t work”, just because it lasts for three years.

Sinn Fein Finance Minister John O’Dowd last week published his proposals for the new three-year spending plan, which have been sent for public consultation, despite not being yet agreed by the rest of the parties in the powersharing coalition.

The plan has been criticised by other parties amid an ongoing disagreement on how funds will be allocated to individual departments.

MLAs returned to Stormont at Monday for the first time since the Christmas break, with the ongoing impasse over the spending plan at the top of their list of priorities.

Ms O’Neill said the budget consultation process would focus minds on what ministers are trying to achieve.

Stormont ministers have not been able to implement a multi-year budget for more than a decade.

Ms O’Neill said: “We’ve been limping year to year.

“Now, there’s an opportunity afforded to us to set a budget that actually allows a bit more longer term planning, and certainly a little more medium term planning for public services.

“At the heart of that budget is about transformation.

“It’s about investing in public services, albeit with the limitations of this place, the limitations in terms of the fiscal levers that are open to us, and also the limitations in terms of policy decisions that are taken in London, and we have to bear the consequences of all of that.”

The Sinn Fein First Minister rejected any suggestion that her party would settle for anything less than a three-year budget.

She said: “I think we all are obliged to really do everything that we can to get to the point where we have a three-year budget.

“There’s not enough money to go around. What we’ve been allocated from London is inadequate.

“We’re pushing back against some of those policy decisions in London. And John (O’Dowd) will use this eight-week consultation to continue to do so.

“All the other parties of the Executive should join us in that endeavour.”

Mr O’Dowd outlined his three-year budget for day-to-day resource spending and a four-year budget for capital investment in infrastructure projects.

It will see £26 billion spent on health provision across the coming three years, including almost £500 million on initiatives to tackle the region’s lengthy waiting lists.

But the budget has been criticised by the DUP, which holds the Education and Communities ministries.

Party leader Mr Robinson said any agreed budget needed to work for people in Northern Ireland.

He said: “There’s no point saying we’ll agree a budget that doesn’t work just because it lasts for three years.

Mr Robinson added: “The opportunity is to have a budget cycle that works for the delivery of public services, that doesn’t compromise on the commitments that this Executive made in the programme for government to deliver for the interests of people in Northern Ireland.

“That’s the objective, and that’s, I hope, the objective that other parties will strive toward as well.”

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said the process to agree a budget would be “incredibly difficult”.

She added: “The way to resolve that is for us behind closed doors, to talk to the Finance Minister, to work through the issues that we’re dealing with, and to find ways of actually trying to work through these problems, rather than treating them as roadblocks and allowing them to stop progress.

“We have got to deliver within our means, but we’ve also got to look at how we can improve our situation financially.”

The SDLP Opposition has said the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council should be given new powers to monitor whether Executive budgets are delivering on the programme for government.

The party’s Stormont leader Matthew O’Toole said: “Last week, we got a ghost budget, a flimsy few pages of unambitious text from John O’Dowd and then some tables.

“The public have no sense what that’s going to mean in terms of getting waiting lists down, delivering on childcare, rescuing our environment.”