NI parties give qualified support to budget proposals

Following the budget announcement this morning, all the north's main political parties voiced their broad support for public service investment provision, but were less sanguine on the detail – particularly over the introduction of water charges.

The SDLP's former finance minister Sean Farren said there must now be no delay in implementing infrastructure proposals.

"However," he said, "in stating his intention to introduce water charges at this stage, Ian Pearson is putting the cart before the horse – his putting the outcome ahead of the process. Northern Ireland has its own circumstances which must be taken into account when looking at the financing of the water service.

"We need a full, open and inclusive consultation of the entire issue of the future structure of the water service. It is more than simply a question of charges."

Sinn Fein's Mid-Ulster assembly member Francie Molloy accused the NIO finance minister Ian Pearson of "playing a dangerous numbers game".

"On closer examination of Ian Pearson's claims of delivering £2 billion of 'new additional money', it is cleat that he is playing a dangerous numbers game that will affect the future of every man, woman and child living in the north," he said.

Mr Molloy claimed that the £750 million mentioned was only a target figure which depended on the input from private investment. Of the £400 million earmarked for Rates and Re-Investment, the introduction of water charges would render this sum, he said, as "not so much new money as new taxes on which there has been little debate".

The £158 million was "definitely not new money" as this is sourced from the Executive budget, Mr Molloy said.

He added: "This hype is not so much about new money as about New Labour spin. I think people would prefer budgets to be open and transparent not clouded with telephone numbers and disinformation."

The UUP on the other hand said it would "not be bound by the new budget".

The party's finance spokesperson Roy Beggs Jnr said: "What I am doing today is welcoming those elements of the budget which our ministers championed, but also setting down a clear marker that we will not be bound by Mr Pearson's spending plans.

"All of this indicates the undesirability of direct rule. Direct rule ministers have no ties to our community and it is evident from what we now see that they have failed to fulfil their commitments to consult in detail with assembly members."

(GMcG)