Assembly passes controversial Budget

The Northern Ireland Assembly has today passed a hard-hitting budget dealing with billions in cuts from London, but ministers were left divided over the controversial financial plan.

The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the SDLP, junior partners in the Executive dominated by the DUP and Sinn Féin, opposed the Budget.

The package followed a £4bn (€4.65m) cut in the block grant from Westminster and was voted through by the DUP, Sinn Féin and the Alliance party, after claims they had off-set the reductions by identifying more than £1bn (€1.16bn) of revenue-raising schemes.

But after seven hours of rancorous debate at Stormont, the DUP and Sinn Féin accused the two breakaway parties of playing politics ahead of the May 5 Assembly election.

DUP leader Peter Robinson said it was clear from the start there would not be an all-party agreement over the Budget vote.

"When we had the health minister coming in late, leaving early and saying nothing in between it became very clear that the Ulster Unionists were never going to sign up to the budget," he said.

"When we had the posturing of the SDLP and the phoney documents that they brought out which had no substance in reality, it was very clear that they were not going to sign up to a budget."

The UUP holds two ministerial seats in the 15-member Assembly Executive, while the SDLP holds one ministerial portfolio.

And while the parties' ministers opposed the Budget plan, they said they would stop short of walking out of government.

Final Budget plans earmarked another £432m (€503.26m) for key public services in Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Unionists and SDLP have opposed reallocations which will see health and education handed extra money because they believed the review does not go far enough.

UUP Health Minister Michael McGimpsey has said the health service could go bankrupt if more money was not allocated. He had been pressing for an extra £200m (€233m) for every year of the four-year Budget.

Ulster Unionist finance spokesman David McNarry tabled an amendment which sought to channel extra money towards health and criticised the current plans.

"They are not proposals for a budget in a real sense but proposals based entirely on statements of intent which are in themselves based on wing-and-prayer assumptions, assumptions which cannot be stood over, which are not proven to be deliverable and have been effectively cut to ribbons by a growing list of notable economists and other bodies such as Age NI, the Royal College of Nurses, the Construction Employers' Federation, the CBI and NIPSA."

The Strangford MLA said there should have been a programme for government to confirm agreed priorities.

"So this is budgeting on the hoof," he said.

"Ownership of the cuts belongs only to the DUP and Sinn Féin parties in this house."

SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie said: "The DUP/Sinn Féin authors of this budget have taken a completely defeatist approach when it comes to cuts.

"They tell us that London has handed us a settlement, complete with £4bn (€4.65m) in cuts, and there is nothing we can do to mitigate it, even over four whole years.

"I am sorry but that is not good enough for the SDLP. Our people deserve better."

She said the budget was "lazy and unimaginative" and accused the DUP of "ostrich economics".

She took a swipe at Sinn Féin's political strategy in the Republic, where its opposition to major cuts has formed part of its recent election success.

"The position of the party can be summarised as: in the North, green Tory; in the South, different story."

Her comments came as the strengthened Sinn Féin team of 14 Dáil representatives was taking its seats in Dublin at the start of the new term following the recent general election.

At Stormont, Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin, said the SDLP had stood in the Westminster general election on a promise to fight the cuts in the House of Commons, but had failed.

He added: "The Budget Review Group exists, it comprises ministers of every party that is represented on the Executive.

"I think the record of the contribution, if that's the correct word, of the SDLP and the Unionist Party to the Budget Review Group process will demonstrate that they have not added one pound note to the budget proposals that are in front of us today.

"They have sought to divide where others have sought to develop a collective approach."

He said it was a huge task to plug the £4bn (€4.65m) in cuts to the North's block grant from London, but said the budget provided a "credible beginning" to what would be a long-term task.

The Alliance Party's Stephen Farry said his party wanted to be constructive.

"I believe that the positions of the UUP and SDLP are utterly unsustainable.

"They are the parties that perhaps claim the most about the Executive being dysfunctional, but today they stand exposed as the parties that are making the Executive most dysfunctional."

The Green Party's Brian Wilson said he opposed the budget, while independent Dawn Purvis expressed concern at the impact cuts would have on the most vulnerable in society.