NI Health Service To Receive Additional £72m Funding

An additional £72 million funding has been allocated for the health service in Northern Ireland, the Finance Minister has announced.

Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir also confirmed an extra £30m for education, £28m for infrastructure and £20m for skills in the June Monitoring Round.

Minister Ó Muilleoir said: "The pressures in our health service are well documented and an additional £72m funding will go a considerable way to help addressing these issues. It brings the total additional funding provided to health this year to £200m and is evidence of the Executive's commitment to protecting our health service.

"It is important that we invest in education and up-skilling our workforce as we seek to grow our economy. An additional £20m in this monitoring round will go towards supporting that skills agenda and an additional £30m is allocated to education, which is a crucial investment in our young people."

However, Deputy Chairperson of the Finance Committee, Claire Hanna MLA, criticised the Finance Minister for the allocation of £26.2m.

She said: "Even after the Joint First Ministers dropped almost all duties from their bloated department, the Finance Minister has included a £26.2m increase for them while offering schools not even enough to address a looming financial crisis.

"The £20m schools that have been allocated will not even cover their bill for 'inescapable pressures' of employee national insurance contributions which is estimated to be over £21m. When added to other cuts made to schools in this budget means the Finance Minister has, in real terms, left schools £11m out of pocket.

"The Assembly was given less than an hour to scrutinise a 37-page document. The Finance Minister said that this was all part of new streamlined government. The SDLP has repeatedly proposed reform of the budgetary process but this can't come at the expense of transparency and accountability. Just last week, the Joint First Ministers entirely bypassed the Assembly in publishing the recent paramilitary report in their rush to get in front of the TV cameras."

(CD/JP)