‘Tough choices’ in Stormont budget below level sought by every department

Stormont’s powersharing executive has agreed a £14.5 billion (€16.9 billion) budget for Northern Ireland in what has been described as a “difficult” spending plan with no department receiving the level of funding it sought.

Finance minister Caoimhe Archibald announced her draft budget for the 2024-2025 financial year on Thursday following a lengthy Executive meeting.

Allocations across nine devolved government departments involved “tough choices”, she said.

An additional £2.1 billion was allocated to capital projects.

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While the Department of Health received more than half the total amount, at £7.76 billion, the Ulster Unionist Party’s (UUP) Executive minister, health minister Robin Swann, voted against the budget and said it fell well short of what is needed.

Spiralling waiting lists, pay settlements, GP services and domiciliary care packages will all be affected by the shortfall, he said.

UUP leader Doug Beattie warned that Mr Swann “cannot deliver” and hit out at other party leaders who pledged to “make a health a priority” following Stormont’s restoration two months ago.

He branded that agreed budget as “unacceptable” and vowed to “continue the fight”.

“The health minister can’t stand over it and I as a party leader can’t stand over it,” Mr Beattie told reporters at Stormont.

Education received the second largest share at £2.87 billion, which includes £25 million towards a childcare strategy.

Unlike England, where working parents of two-year-olds get 15 hours of free childcare per week during term time under a new government scheme, there is no free childcare provision in Northern Ireland.

Education minister Paul Givan previously told the Assembly that a fully funded early learning and childcare strategy could cost up to £400 million a year.

The department of justice was allocated £1.26 billion.

Executive flagship capital projects such as the A6, the redevelopment of Casement Park and the new mother and children’s hospital on the Royal Hospital Belfast site, will receive £180 million.

Ms Archibald said the “stark reality” was that demand from ministerial departments “far outstrips the funding available many times over”.

She called on the UK government to review the overall public spending settlement for Northern Ireland.

“I recognise these allocations won’t provide sufficient funding for departments to do everything they want – that is regrettable for all Executive ministers,” she said.

“Since devolution was restored, we have been really clear this was always going to be a difficult budget. No department has received the level of funding it has bid for. As an Executive, we have had to make tough choices and prioritise the funding envelope we have.”

First Minister Michelle O’Neill insisted that health had been prioritised while Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said agreeing a budget was “the responsible thing to do”.

Ms Little-Pengelly said if Mr Swann had received what he asked for “it would have consumed the entirety of what additional was available for the budget.”

“There are other issues of key importance, special educational needs including broader education, justice. There are competing priorities,” she said.

Leader of the opposition, SDLP MLA, Matthew O’Toole, said the executive had to “do better than this” and called for a “clear plan” for rescuing the health service and prioritising key issues like childcare.

Following the executive’s approval, a budget bill has to brought before the Northern Ireland Assembly, which sets the legal limit of departmental expenditure.

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