THE NORTHERN Ireland Executive has found an extra £450 million (€523 million) to spend on key public services over the next four years, Minister for Finance Sammy Wilson said in his final statement on the North’s next budget.
Mr Wilson said the Executive had agreed on new revenue-raising initiatives, cost-cutting and stringent saving-programmes which will deliver a multimillion pound windfall to boost the North’s public finances.
The main winners are the Department of Health, which will receive an additional £120 million, with a further £69 million emerging from “an internal reclassification” between 2011 and 2015.
The Executive has also agreed an additional £154 million to fund education and will allocate a further £40 million in capital investment for use by the Department of Education.
More than £250 million has been transferred from current expenditure allocations to fund capital investment projects, which Mr Wilson said reflected the importance local political leaders have placed on “growing the economy” and continuing to invest for the long term.
In a sometimes heated address to the Assembly yesterday, he outlined how the Department of Employment and Learning and Regional Development will receive additional funding of £51 million and £107 million respectively.
The Minister disclosed that the Department of Enterprise will enjoy a £2 million supplement to its budget over the period 2011-2012.
But while extra cash had been made available to boost essential services, Mr Wilson said the reality was that, because of the fiscal environment throughout the UK there was “less money available to spend” in the North over the next four years.
“As I said back in December when releasing the draft budget, we have received no favours from the UK spending review, which has resulted in a loss of £4 billion over the spending review period,” he told the Assembly. “The UK national administration, supported by their electoral partners in the Ulster Unionist Party, has imposed a very tough spending review settlement on Northern Ireland.”
Mr Wilson said the priority for the Executive was to create a climate conducive to economic growth by “investing in skills, employment and infrastructure while preserving the integrity of healthcare provision” in the North.
He said the final budget reflected the Executive’s determination to find new ways to fund its spending priorities for local people.
Since the draft budget was published in December, there has been a drive to collect property rates, which has boosted the public coffers.
A new levy will be imposed on large out-of-town shopping centres to help fund extra rates relief for small businesses.
The Executive has also taken advantage of the Invest to Save Fund, which will generate £25 million a year to spend.
Mr Wilson said the final budget had been delivered “free of any selfish political interests”. But he believes that some opposition to the budget has been engineered for “cynical political purposes”.
“Some Ministers simply could not take yes for an answer,” he added.
