The Executive’s failure to rebalance Northern Ireland’s economy is “causing us to lag behind, when it comes to creating jobs”, according to NI Conservatives’ economy spokesman, Johnny Andrews.
“The Conservatives’ long-term economic plan has got an unprecedented number of people into work in Great Britain, with 1 million more jobs now than before the recession started”, Johnny explained. “Yet, in Northern Ireland, we have recouped less than half the jobs which were lost during the downturn, as highlighted in a recent report by the Ulster Bank. It’s clear that our economy is lagging behind and that the Executive needs to take immediate action. That has to start with facing up to implementing welfare reform and getting on with rebalancing from the public to the private sector.
“The Conservative Party in Northern Ireland believes that we should reform welfare, not only because it is absolutely necessary to balance the budget, but also because it is the right thing to do and it can help people out of poverty and into jobs. We’re also quite clear that there’s a critical need to start making the public sector more efficient, to save front-line services and to help rebalance the economy. During the recession, both the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland took the opportunity to make their business environments more competitive, with the result that they turned things around. It’s about time Northern Ireland parties got on with this hard work, rather than constantly ducking the big issues.”