NI Conservatives’ finance spokesman, Harry Cullen, has accused the social development minister of “bare-faced cheek”, after Nelson McCausland described an £18 million overspend by the Housing Executive as “a scandal”.
“It would be easy to forget, given the minister’s supposed outrage, that the department he has led for almost 3 years is responsible for overseeing the Housing Executive”, Harry explained. “Nelson McCausland and his predecessor, Alex Attwood, clearly have huge questions to answer about the regimes which they oversaw and which, in turn, overspent the money.”
“Mr McCausland has spoken about holding housing executive officials and civil servants to account for this ‘scandal’. That’s hardly surprising. Despite the endemic waste, inefficiency and unaccountability he and his colleagues have presided over across the executive departments, no minister ever steps forward to take responsibility.”
“Whether it was Conor Murphy and the complete shambles at Northern Ireland Water, successive Sinn Féin minister’s mishandling of European funds at the Department of Agriculture, the ongoing shambles in education or Sammy Wilson - the minister ultimately responsible for the entire culture of waste at Stormont - the blame has always been shifted elsewhere. It’s high time the executive stopped making excuses and started taking responsibility for the departments it runs.”