Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly are Northern Ireland’s most popular political leaders, according to the latest LucidTalk poll. The Sinn Féin First Minister and DUP Deputy First Minister were rated positively by 53 per cent and 52 per cent of respondents respectively.
However, Stormont’s rising star is Sinn Féin Minister of Finance Caoimhe Archibald, although it is a little early for polls to pick this up, four months into her first executive job.
In April, Archibald produced a draft one-year budget, which is difficult enough even during a Stormont honeymoon period. Her party predecessor, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, failed to do so throughout the nine-month executive of 2016 — and he had plenty of money. Today, Stormont faces a financial shortfall for the first time since the Belfast Agreement, due to two lengthy collapses and a determination by the UK Treasury to impose fiscal discipline.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Finance announced a new agreement between the Executive and treasury on how Stormont is funded
The UUP’s sole Minister, Robin Swann, holds the poisoned chalice of health, which consumes half the Executive’s budget. His party has accused Archibald of avoiding tough choices by denying Swann a 14 per cent increase he had warned was essential. Swann still received an inflation-beating 6.4 per cent. The only department to suffer a cut was Archibald’s own.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Finance announced a new agreement between the Executive and treasury on how Stormont is funded. This “interim fiscal framework” pins down promises London made in advance of February’s restoration of devolution. Extra money has been backdated, a future “cliff edge” has been smoothed off and arrangements have been formalised to improve the deal as Stormont delivers reform.
Archibald led the negotiations and publicised the outcome with technocratic aplomb — a performance that might have been expected from the SNP at its height a decade ago. The deal recommits Stormont to finding £113 million (€133 million) through higher taxes or spending cuts, a relatively small sum that had nevertheless become contentious. Sinn Féin may have kicked that can down the road but it is taking responsibility for the can.
Remarkably, all this kudos was meant to go to the DUP. The unionist party was expected to take the finance portfolio but chose the Department of Education instead, breaking an understanding with Sinn Féin at the last possible moment.
The DUP had been working on a new fiscal framework for several years, steered by deputy leader Gavin Robinson, leader since the resignation in March of Jeffrey Donaldson
Archibald had presumably been lined up for education: she is a molecular biologist, not an economist, although she also has a postgraduate business qualification. Her party’s economic vision was to be delivered through an industrial strategy at the Department for the Economy.
The DUP had been working on a new fiscal framework for several years, steered by deputy leader Gavin Robinson, leader since the resignation in March of Jeffrey Donaldson. The framework introduces a “fiscal floor”, guaranteeing public spending per head at 124 per cent the level in England. This was the DUP’s big idea to move on from its Brexit disasters. It has never explained why it abandoned the plan on the cusp of success. Cold feet at the financial challenges ahead must be a large part of the reason. The Department of Education offers a softer option of crowd-pleasing announcements and culture-war grandstanding. Perhaps the DUP thought it was handing Archibald a poisoned chalice. Now she is waving it around like a victory cup.
There are no solo runs in Sinn Féin. The Renewable Heat Incentive inquiry revealed that Ó Muilleoir sought permission for ministerial decisions from an unelected party officer. The Covid inquiry, which concluded its Belfast hearings last week, heard evidence suggesting nothing has changed.
The sudden discontent Sinn Féin is facing in the Republic will hardly be mollified by pointing to the niceties of devolutionary accounting
So Sinn Féin’s embrace of the Department of Finance shows how fully it is committed to responsible leadership at Stormont, or certainly to conveying that impression. The paradox for republicans of making Northern Ireland work turns out to be resolved once republicans are in charge.
This is a message the party wants to send to voters North and South, demonstrating to the Republic it can be trusted in office. A one-year budget and some can-kicking will take it up until the next Irish general election fairly painlessly. If it needs to continue the demonstration until the subsequent election, Sinn Féin will have to seriously confront Stormont’s financial difficulties through the rest of this Assembly mandate and most of another. Polls suggest a longer wait for office in the Republic is increasingly possible; Archibald’s budget and framework deal are signs the party is prepared for the long haul.
But how many southern voters will notice? Stormont’s inner workings are obscure even to most people North of the Border. Conversely, any tax rises or spending cuts will be held over Sinn Féin by its opponents. The sudden discontent the party is facing in the Republic will hardly be mollified by pointing to the niceties of devolutionary accounting.
If Sinn Féin does not gain recognition and electoral reward, a stance of responsible government will be difficult to sustain.