There will be “no financial package on the table” to encourage the DUP to return to government in Northern Ireland, the Northern Secretary has said.
In a speech at the British Irish Association’s annual conference in Oxford at the weekend, Chris Heaton-Harris said that in the past the “so-called solution” to a Northern Ireland problem had been to “throw money at it and hope it will go away” and this pattern could not be repeated.
“The problems facing Northern Ireland cannot be fixed with a sticking-plaster funding settlement, which would not do anything to address the structural problems that have been building for years,” he said.
Instead, he urged the leaders of the Northern parties to “work with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to agree a sustainable and credible Programme for Government that will allow an incoming Executive to take action from day one.”
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The amount required to address the North’s funding crisis is estimated at about £1 billion, and it is understood that if the Executive were in place the UK Treasury would be more likely to consider a financial rescue package.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday following the latest in a series of weekly meetings between the Northern parties and the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Jayne Brady, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said work would continue to “discuss a plan on the key priorities that may form the basis of a programme for government if and when the Executive is restored.”
Northern Ireland has been without a functioning Executive or Assembly for more than a year, after the DUP quit the Stormont institutions in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements.
In a report published on Monday, the independent think tank Pivotal says the political deadlock at Stormont has led to a “governance gap” with vulnerable people “bearing the brunt of public service decay”.
It highlights the axing of so-called “holiday hunger” payments to more than 96,000 children entitled to free school meals earlier this year and a mental health and counselling programme for primary schoolchildren also losing funding.
It says the North’s health service faces a shortfall of £732 million at a time when its waiting lists continue to be the worst in the NHS and refers to a “lack of progress” in planned health service reform leading to rising costs. It also notes that policing accounts for around 60 per cent of the Department of Justice’s budget, but PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne said balancing the books might be impossible.
“Northern Ireland’s governance gap is the worst of all worlds. Civil servants are technically in charge of running departments, but their powers remain limited and uncertain,” said Ann Watt, director of Pivotal.
“The ongoing collapse of the institutions is a huge concern and is exacerbating all our problems. While budgets would still be tight if an Executive had been in place over the last 18 months, the lack of leadership and the inability to make major decisions is undeniably harming Northern Ireland.”
In his speech, Mr Heaton-Harris emphasised his “extreme disappointment and frustration” at the ongoing political stalemate and urged a swift restoration of the Stormont institutions, saying there was “no real excuse” for further delay.
Describing the changes agreed between the EU and the UK in the Windsor Framework earlier this year as “a big win for unionism and for every person and business in Northern Ireland,” Mr Heaton-Harris said “more clarity was required and more clarity has been given”, and whilst there was “a bit more work to do” discussions had continued through the summer and “moved forward in a positive direction.”
These, he said, did not include reopening the Windsor Framework, “nor do they include conversations about money.”
