DUP JUNIOR minister Jeffrey Donaldson has questioned the feasibility of Gordon Brown’s plan to allow the Stormont Executive to raise a potential extra £1.1 billion (€1.38 billion) for reinvestment over three years.
Mr Donaldson was speaking yesterday at the publication of an updated account of the peace process by Irish Times political correspondent Deaglán de Bréadún, The Far Side of Revenge.
Regarding the British prime minister’s offer to raise to a new limit of £2.2 billion the assets that the Stormont Executive can sell to fund reinvestment, Mr Donaldson said the decision could prove useful.
The British prime minister’s announcement, made at the US-Northern Ireland invest conference in Belfast on Thursday, took Executive Ministers by surprise, reliable Stormont sources said yesterday. “We had no idea this was coming,” said one.
Asked about the feasibility of selling off £2.2 billion in assets at a time of market uncertainty and using the proceeds for infrastructure projects, another said Mr Brown’s offer was not realistic.
Mr Donaldson said the DUP would take the prime minister’s offer at face value and seek an extension if needed.
“In the current climate we have to be realistic in our expectations” he said.
“It may well be difficult to dispose of so many assets in a depressed market. We will do our best with this but if there is a question of not meeting the three-year timeframe because it’s not prudent to dispose of some of the assets in a depressed market, then we will look to the [British] government to extend the period.”
A statement issued by Peter Robinson’s finance department said: “The executive has already set an extremely ambitious target to generate and retain £1.1 billion of asset disposals. Delivering this £1.1 billion figure is going to be a considerable challenge for the executive – more so in today’s environment of depreciating land and property values.
“Moving the limit from £1.1 billion to £2.2 billion is a quantum increase that challenges the boundaries of reasonable expectations. Thus this should not be perceived as a £1 billion cash injection into Northern Ireland.”
Responding to a report that the DUP’s nine Westminster MPs would vote tactically on Gordon Brown’s proposal to introduce new 42-day detention powers for terror suspects, Mr Donaldson said he and his colleagues had yet to decide on the issue.
“We will make a decision based on our perspective coming from a background of over three decades of dealing with terrorism,” he said.
Referring to The Far Side of Revenge, which he launched in Belfast last night, he said: “From a personal perspective I credit Deaglán for best explaining my decision 10 years ago to leave the UUP talks team at the 11th hour on moral grounds.”