Debate contribution: Regional Balance
Debate contribution by Dr Caoimhe Archibald on .
- MLA
- Dr Caoimhe Archibald
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 14 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Regional Balance
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5685551
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for his question. Regional balance is one of my Department's four priorities. We have done considerable work to advance regional balance within the mandate. The key plank of that has been the subregional economic plan, which saw the formation of local economic partnerships (LEPs) across all 11 council areas. All the LEPs have now got their action plans in place and are starting to deliver their programmes. At a higher level, we have the city and growth deals that are progressing across the four particular areas. They are at different stages of delivery, but we are beginning to see their benefits rolling out, particularly in the Belfast region city deal and the Derry and Strabane District Council city deal, where the DNA Museum is at an advanced stage of construction. Those are important elements in progressing our regional balance. There are other pieces of work, including the tourism vision and action plan and the social enterprise action plan, where we have particular sectors of our economy that are really strongly distributed across the region, and we seek to build upon that. I am under no illusions, however, that regional balance is a long-term project to redress the imbalances that have been caused by decades of underinvestment outside greater Belfast, and that it will take time for us to see other areas uplifted. We have already begun to deliver on that progress.
235 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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