Northern Ireland: The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in Northern Ireland has called the UK budget "a missed opportunity to encourage more investment and help competitiveness".
CBI Northern Ireland director Nigel Smyth said: "There are some welcome changes, but most of the business community across Northern Ireland will be disappointed that the opportunity to ease some of the tax and cost burden has not been taken.
"We must also wait to assess the detail in the budget report, as in previous years there have been damaging proposals hidden in the detail."
He welcomed some of the announcements, especially enhanced research and development incentives, increased expenditure on science and increased funding for skills and the further education sector. "But increases to the climate change levy, at a time when energy costs are creating a great deal of pain, are not welcome," he concluded.
The Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) said any boost for education and the "modest steps to fight global warming" were positive. But it said the rest of the package was "dull and technical and did little to excite the voluntary and community sector".
"It was long on irrelevant facts but short on vision. In particular it offered little to fight poverty or promote the sort of enterprise the chancellor said he wanted," said NICVA, which represents the community and voluntary sector.
"If the economy really is doing as well as Mr Brown says, he can afford to do a lot more. It is difficult to identify any initiatives to create a more equal society," said NICVA's director of policy, Frances McCandless.
John Hurson, finance spokesman for the Federation of Small Business, welcomed the fact that there were few changes proposed to the tax regime.
"We would however have welcomed some mention of positive measures for hard-working small business owners . . . The chancellor's statements on employer involvement in further education are welcome. Small businesses need employees that have basic levels of education as well a valuable business skills."
Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin said: "The fact that there is so little in this budget for the North only reinforces the need for local political parties to take responsibility for the future prosperity and wellbeing of this part of Ireland by removing excuses for executive government."
The SDLP agreed, with Seán Farren adding: "The striking thing about this budget, like its predecessors, is how little immediate impact it has on our economy here. We have a massive and dangerous dependency on public-sector spending and we need bold, innovative fiscal measures to help break us out of it.
"We share a land frontier with one of the most successful economies in the world, and without deep, pro-active cross-Border co-operation, that border disrupts and distorts our own economy."
