Michelle O’Neill says Keir Starmer ‘got it wrong’ on Northern Ireland funding

Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill said Sir Keir Starmer has “got it wrong” in relation to funding for the region.

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said funding the region was “complicated”, but that Westminster had already provided a “great deal of support” to the powersharing Executive.

Deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly said that while funding amounts had increased for Northern Ireland, demand for public services in the region had also increased.

The comments were made after a meeting in Belfast of the East-West Council, which was established as part of the deal which saw powersharing in Northern Ireland return in 2024.

Budgetary talks, barriers to east-west trade, and other matters were discussed – while Donald Trump’s scrapped tariffs over Greenland were not, according to Mr Benn.

“Clearly, had we met yesterday, we might have had a slightly different discussion,” he told reporters.

Ms O’Neill has called for Westminster to provide the first multi-year budget for Stormont in more than a decade to help meet the demand for public services such as healthcare and education.

“The reality is, whilst we often hear the Treasury and Hilary Benn himself speak about how we’ve had record allocation of funding, that ignores the reality of that we’re dealing with years of underfunding and that we’re trying to build services up from a very low ebb,” she said.

“What I want the British government to focus on is the fact that we need additional funding to get to a juncture where we can get a three-year budget.”

She said this would be “complicated” and said the Executive had work to do to achieve it, but said the Treasury needed to provide additional funding to allow them to “turn a tanker in terms of transformation”.

She added: “The British government have underfunded us, and I make the case again to Hillary Benn today, to Keir Starmer directly, that he’s got it wrong when it comes to funding here.

“We have been underfunded for well over a decade. We can’t fix all of that within one year or two years of a new Executive.

“What we need for them to do is step up, actually put more money into public services here, allow us to invest in health and education.

“But just to tell us to get on with it isn’t good enough and it doesn’t wash and we won’t accept it.”

Ms Little-Pengelly said they needed to work collaboratively with the Treasury, and not in a way where “the Treasury makes demands and we simply respond to them”.

She said that while the potential overspend “sounds significant”, it was “comparatively small” compared to the overall budget.

She added: “As the First Minister said, while the Secretary of State may reference record levels of spending, we are facing record levels of demand, demand in education, special educational needs in relation to the health service.

“Our pay bill has never been higher because of inflationary increases, our energy bills, other issues right across government that impact government just as it impacts on hard-pressed households right across Northern Ireland.”

She said they had made the point “directly” to the Prime Minister and Mr Benn that it would take time to put Northern Ireland’s finances on a “sustainable footing”.

She added: “We are prepared to play our role in doing what we can to drive efficiency within each and every department, to use that transformation right through everything from AI to digital, right through to changing the way that we do business within the public sector in order to create that efficiency and better services. But that will take time, that requires support.”

Mr Benn said the meeting was “very successful”, but said the budget situation is “clearly very difficult”.

“Any prospect of there not being a balanced budget will be a source of concern to all of us,” he told reporters.

“But I would just point out that all governments all around the world, in Westminster, here in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, has to deal with difficult choices about how it’s going to spend its money, how it’s going to raise revenue.

“When we come into public life, we have a responsibility to balance the books and to produce a balanced budget, and I hope very much that that is what the Executive is going to be able to do.

“But it is difficult and it is challenging, and our job is to continue to work with the Executive and to support them in any extent that we can.

“But we’ve given a great deal of support already – in the form of that record Spending Review settlement, the extra money in the budget and funding just above the level of need.

“So with more funding than happens in England – and Northern Ireland, of course, has greater needs – that does provide an opportunity but doesn’t mean that anyone can escape from choices that have to be made about how the money is going to be spent.”

Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said he was pleased to speak at the meeting about how funds allocated during the autumn budget were being used to make arrangements around the Windsor Framework “as accessible and as easy for businesses to navigate as possible”.