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<\/p>\nThe UK Government \u201cdon\u2019t get it\u201d when it comes to funding Northern Ireland properly, Michelle O\u2019Neill has claimed.<\/p>\n
The First Minister said if the region received funding at the same level of need as Scotland, Stormont ministers would have an additional \u00a33 billion of spending power.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Neill said she would \u201cunapologetically\u201d continue to make the case to the Treasury for extra resources.<\/p>\n
Stormont ministers have consistently warned of serious funding challenges facing their departments.<\/p>\n
After the Executive exceeded its budget in the last financial year, the UK Government allocated \u00a3400 million from reserves to deal with overspend pressures in health and education.<\/p>\n
The money has to be repaid over the next three years and the Treasury conducted an \u201copen-book exercise\u201d looking at the Executive budget.<\/p>\n
The Treasury report said Stormont ministers could make decisions which would unlock up to \u00a33.3 billion in additional spending power each year.<\/p>\n
The report examined a number of options which could \u201cimprove the sustainability of the Northern Ireland budget\u201d, including revenue-raising steps, pay issues and efficiencies.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Neill told the Press Association: \u201cI think it is pretty clear that the British Government don\u2019t get it because for years we\u2019ve been making the exact same argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact is the starting point here is that we are under-funded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe participated with that open book review because we knew it would make our case in terms of the fact that, relatively speaking, when you compare the funding that Scotland achieve and what Wales achieve compared to our starting point, there\u2019s a distinct unfairness there.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo give you a really good practical example, if we\u2019re funded to the same tune as Wales, we would have \u00a31.1 billion in additional funding.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re funded to the same tune as they are in Scotland above their level of need, we would have \u00a33 billion in additional funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sinn Fein vice-president said the \u201cfundamental unfairness\u201d in how Northern Ireland has been funded had been going on for decades.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cAnd then build upon the years of austerity, Brexit and the real-life implications of that means that it\u2019s a very, very challenging financial position for this Executive to be in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat being said, I could have wrote those recommendations that were in the open book review from the Treasury.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery predictable. They\u2019re in the Fiscal Council\u2019s work that has been done previously. They\u2019re very unrealistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I took them down, I could dissect many of them bit by bit, because they\u2019re not comparing like for like. They\u2019re comparing charges in England versus charges here.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd these things are distinctly different, it is apples and oranges in many ways in terms of what they\u2019re trying to do a direct comparison upon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly have previously called for a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer to discuss budget challenges in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
However, she rejected the argument that the Executive is continually going to the UK Government \u201cwith a begging bowl\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI\u2019m not apologetic for that, because I want fairness.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople here pay their taxes, businesses here pay their VAT, they\u2019re entitled to investment in their public services in return.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the sheer scale of the level of underfunding in comparable terms to Scotland and Wales is really stark.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, that\u2019s the starting point in which we collectively as a four-party Executive make the case to the Treasury for a proper funding model.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Neill said people in the region also needed a package from the UK Government to deal with cost-of-living pressures.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cPeople need help to get them through these tough times with energy costs, fuel costs, inflation going through the roof, everything that people are contending with.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are getting it hard and they need our support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK Government \u201cdon\u2019t get it\u201d when it comes to funding Northern Ireland properly, Michelle O\u2019Neill has claimed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[922,1434,1144,11528,520,11191,12330,16,15],"class_list":["post-912261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-emma-little-pengelly","tag-michelle-oneill","tag-northern-ireland","tag-sinn-fein","tag-sir-keir-starmer","tag-stormont","tag-treasury","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116451453809340771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912261","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=912261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}