{"id":1167184,"date":"2026-08-24T19:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T19:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1167184\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T19:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T19:36:21","slug":"chris-bryant-bored-of-stormont-budget-sticking-plaster-approach-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1167184\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Bryant \u2018bored\u2019 of Stormont budget \u2018sticking plaster\u2019 approach \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Northern Ireland Secretary has said he is \u201cbored\u201d with the \u201csticking plaster\u201d approach to Stormont\u2019s finance problems.<\/p>\n

Sir Chris Bryant said he is in talks with parties and aiming to \u201cget to a place where we have a multi-year budget\u201d.<\/p>\n

The power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland is still to agree a budget for the current financial year, with departments operating on contingency budgets since April.<\/p>\n

Stormont ministers signed a collective letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham calling for \u201ca fair funding envelope\u201d saying the current level of finance from London \u201cdoes not provide a sufficient basis to fund public services\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>\"Were<\/a>\"FinanceFinance Minister John O\u2019Dowd, senator Conor Murphy and Minister for the Economy Caoimhe Archibald met Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant (Oliver McVeigh\/PA) <\/p>\n

In January this year, Sinn F\u00e9in Finance Minister John O\u2019Dowd unveiled a draft three-year budget but it was not agreed by other executive parties, highlighting \u201cmassive impacts\u201d to public services with available funding.<\/p>\n

The UK Treasury has stepped in multiple times in the past to provide one-off payments or loans to Stormont to overcome budgetary issues, most recently with a \u00a3400 million reserve claim to be repaid over three years.<\/p>\n

Asked by reporters in Dublin if Mr Burnham would be visiting Northern Ireland with news of additional financial support for Stormont, Sir Chris said: \u201cWe need to make sure that Stormont gets to a budget, a settled budget,<\/p>\n

\u201cNot just for this year, because I\u2019m bored with this kind of sticking plaster issue of, we pour a little bit more cash in every year when there are troubles \u2013 we need to get to a several-year settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be having discussions with people later on this week and then again next week to get to a place where we have a multi-year budget and we sort out the financial pressures that the Stormont government has got.\u201d<\/p>\n

He later said: \u201cI think it would be a good idea if Northern Ireland were to look at some self-help, as it were, in terms of revenue-raising as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Welsh MP. My constituency is in the South Wales valleys and we have to do quite a lot of raising our own revenue in Wales, and those are some of the issues that I want to talk through with the Executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in devolution. I think decisions are best made by those closest to those who are most affected by those decisions, but a degree of financial discipline is important in Northern Ireland, as it is anywhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, also, where there are real significant financial pressures in the Northern Ireland budget, I do want to be able to come and help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northern Ireland Secretary has said he is \u201cbored\u201d with the \u201csticking plaster\u201d approach to Stormont\u2019s finance problems.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1167185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[15458,1144,13136,11528,316819,11191,316820,16,316821,15],"class_list":["post-1167184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-irish","tag-northern-ireland","tag-republic-of-ireland","tag-sinn-fein","tag-sir-chris-bryant","tag-stormont","tag-stormont-budget-negotiations","tag-uk","tag-uk-treasury","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117152175077226518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1167185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}