Sinn Féin’s Caoimhe Archibald is to become Stormont’s economy minister in a reshuffle prompted by the election of Conor Murphy to the Seanad.
Party leader Mary Lou McDonald announced the shake-up of ministers in the powersharing Executive which will also see Newry and Armagh MLA Liz Kimmins become the new minister for infrastructure.
Ms Archibald will leave her role as finance minister to replace Mr Murphy as economy minister.
Infrastructure minister John O’Dowd will be moved to finance with Ms Kimmins replacing him in the infrastructure role.
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Ms Kimmins formerly chaired the health committee. That role will now be taken on by MLA Philip McGuigan.
Mr Murphy stood down after he was elected to the Seanad in the early hours of Monday morning.
During a visit to Stormont on Monday, Ms McDonald said: “We are very pleased and very confident in the team that will now, a year on, continue with the very important work in the Executive and with the wider Assembly team. And, of course, as part of an all-Ireland team.
“We reshuffled our front bench down in Dublin last week, so we now have virtually all of the posts filled.
“Team Sinn Féin is now ready to get up and go at it again.”
The Sinn Fein leader was asked about the reason for moving Ms Archibald from the finance portfolio, where she had led negotiations with the Treasury over increased funding for the region amid budget pressures within Stormont departments.
Ms McDonald said: “I think she has done an outstanding job in that portfolio and she will be outstanding in the ministry of the economy.
“If you talk to people outside of politics they would all agree that Caoimhe Archibald is a very appropriate and capable person to take on this brief.
“John O’Dowd will take up in the finance brief where Caoimhe left off.
“There is a big negotiation to be had.
“This is an all of Executive and all-party effort because this place is under-funded, the British government has recognised that, so there has to be an ongoing effort, ongoing pressure on the Treasury to correct that.”
Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill said she believed the reshuffle would re-energise the party.
“I think it shows a vote of confidence in the team that we have. We have very clear plans across all of our three departments.
“We now have an opportunity with Conor moving on to the Seanad that we have an opportunity to promote another minister to come forward and I am delighted that Liz Kimmins is stepping forward into that role.”
Meanwhile, Ms O’Neill said the case for a “proper funding model” for Northern Ireland will continue to be brought to the UK government.
She said Labour has been “more engaged” with the devolved institutions than the Conservatives, but described a cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners as “crass”.
Ministers in the devolved powersharing institution have long argued that public services in Northern Ireland are not being funded adequately.
When Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister last year, one of his first acts was to visit Stormont and to promise a “reset” in relations with the devolved institutions.
Ms O’Neill said Stormont’s Minister for Finance Caoimhe Archibald had been “leading the charge” to make the case to the treasury for an improved funding model. “We are not asking for anything special and unique, we are asking for what the public are entitled to, which is to have good funded public services,” she said.
“They pay their taxes, they pay their national insurance and in turn should have their public services invested in.
“Because of that effort we’ve seen an additional almost £500,000,000 invested into our public services.”
Ms O’Neill added: “Over the course of last year there have been a lot of changes, leadership changes as a direct result of the Westminster election, a Labour government now leading in London.
“They talk a lot about reset and some of that works, but I think there is a lot more to be done in terms of how we are funded and that case continues to be made.
“I have to say I fundamentally disagree with the approach of some of those early decisions of this Labour government, particularly targeting the elderly when it came to the winter fuel payment. I think that was a very crass way to deal with the challenges they say they inherited.
“I think there were better ways in which they could have conducted themselves.
“Some of this is still a work in progress in terms of relationships, but certainly the Labour government are more engaged than their predecessors.”
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said aid provided by Westminster to Northern Ireland in the wake of Storm Éowyn was a good example of the east-west relationship working well.
“Look over the course of the last week, that is evidence of the very strong working relationships that we have,” the Democratic Unionist Party minster said.
“For example, when we requested that additional help and support to recover from the storm. Significant amount of damage, hundreds of thousands of people off electricity.
“They did respond to that and I think we have seen some of those improvements in terms of that responsiveness. But we need that investment in our public services, we need that investment right across the United Kingdom.
“But we also recognise it is a very difficult fiscal environment and that is a large part of what we are able to do, or what we can’t do.” - PA
