An agreement by the DUP and Sinn Féin to cut department budgets at Stormont will be a “kick in the teeth for hard-working people in Northern Ireland”, according to NI Conservatives’ spokesman, Mark Brotherston.
“The Executive failed to reach agreement on welfare reform and, after the usual panic and crisis talks, it has cobbled together a half-baked deal to cover its budget shortfall”, Mark explained. “This means that services aimed at hard-working people in Northern Ireland will be cut. Ministers at Stormont have once again shown that they are incapable of discharging the most basic responsibilities of government.”
“The rest of the UK will benefit from welfare reform, which is already helping far more people back into work, protecting the vulnerable and providing fairness for tax-payers. People in the rest of the UK will be given a hand-up out of poverty, while Stormont condemns more generations of people in Northern Ireland to a bleak life of dependency on benefits. Meanwhile, the Executive hasn’t the faintest idea how it will pay to maintain its failed welfare system in the long-term and will lurch from budget crisis to budget crisis, making it up and cutting services willy-nilly as it goes along.”
“The people of Northern Ireland deserve much, much more. They deserve a proper, functioning Executive, which is prepared to take responsibility and make tough decisions, when necessary. They deserve ministers who are prepared to tell the truth, rather than simply telling people what they want to hear. That’s the kind of leadership which Conservatives have been providing, as we deliver for Northern Ireland at Westminster, but it is sadly lacking with the current Executive parties at Stormont.”