Northern Ireland’s cash-hungry health service is to get an extra £72 million as a result of in-year budget reallocations announced on Wednesday by the Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.
A total of £175million will be reallocated to various government departments under the June Monitoring Round, with the largest proportion going to health and social care services.
The redistribution of existing budget resources will also see an additional £30 million available for education, while £28 million has been allocated to key infrastructure projects including flood prevention, roads schemes/maintenance and Waterways Ireland.
Mr Ó Muilleoir said despite the “Westminster austerity agenda” no department would suffer cuts to their funding budgets in the latest monitoring round.
“The pressures in our health service are well documented and an additional £72 million funding will go a considerable way to help addressing these issues. It brings the total additional funding provided to health this year to £200 million and is evidence of the Executive’s commitment to protecting our health service.”
Boost
The North’s Health Minister has welcomed the cash boost for her department and said the funding will “address a range of front line pressures”.
The Minister said that part of the additional funding has been provided for ICT capital for projects such as providing system support for the hearing screening programme for new born babies and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service 999 response system.
Other reallocations announced by the Finance Minister also include a £20 million injection for skills, primarily for the further education sector while the Department for Communities will also receive £8.3million to help finance key pressure points from welfare advice centres to maternity grants and funeral loans.
Meanwhile the Department of Justice has also been allocated £3 million and the Department of Agriculture has received £1.5 million and £1.3million has also been relocated to the Department for the Economy to finance the HMS Caroline project.
Bloated
But the deputy chairperson of the Assembly’s Finance Committee Claire Hanna has questioned some of the reallocations in the June Monitoring Round including the redistribution of £26.2million to the Executive Office.
Ms Hanna said, “Even after the joint First Ministers dropped almost all duties from their bloated department, the Finance Minister has included a £26.2million increase for them while offering schools not even enough to address a looming financial crisis.
“The £20 million schools have been allocated will not even cover their bill for “inescapable pressures” of employee national insurance contributions which is estimated to be over £21million. When added to other cuts made to schools in this budget means the Finance Minister has, in real terms, left schools £11million out of pocket.”
