Debate contribution: Executive Budget
Debate contribution by Ms Michelle O'Neill on .
- MLA
- Ms Michelle O'Neill
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 19 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Executive Budget
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5795609
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Everything that we are doing right now is to get a Budget over the line. We have continued to make advances, but it is still not enough; it does not cut it. The challenges that we face, particularly in this financial year, are really acute and really stark. We all want to get enough funding on the table to allow us to pay our public-sector workers and get a balanced Budget. As it stands, however, the figures do not and cannot add up because of the structural weaknesses due to underfunding and the failure of Westminster to step in and give us a proper and fair funding envelope. We pay our taxes, and we pay into the system, so we should be rewarded accordingly in terms of public services. When we compare our arrangement with those in Scotland and Wales, the difference between us and Wales is £1 billion, and the difference between us and Scotland is £3 billion. That is how stark the situation is. We ask not for preferential treatment but for fairness, and I will continue to make that case. I do not want us to be in a position where anybody else is setting our Budget. I want us to set our Budget, but it needs to be the right one.
215 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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