Debate contribution: Public Finances

Debate contribution by Mrs Sinéad Ennis on 6 February 2024.

MLA: Mrs Sinéad Ennis
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 6 February 2024
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Public Finances
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4255921

Text

I beg to move
It is a relief, and we are delighted, that we have been able to achieve all-party support for the motion. I am sure that I speak for us all when I say that we are relieved to be back in the Chamber doing the job that we were elected to do and working together to support workers and families. All parties today speak with one voice to ensure that the Executive have the resources that they need to deliver effective public services. Our public services have been devastated by a decade of Tory cuts and austerity. The money now available from the Treasury does not compensate for the funding that has been stripped from our public services, and that is totally unacceptable. I was struck by the absolute irony of the Secretary of State's suggestion that we should focus on delivering public services, when his Government are solely responsible for the underfunding of and the damage done to those public services. If we are to cut waiting lists across our health service, make childcare affordable, improve special educational needs services for children and young people and give public-sector workers the pay rise that they are absolutely entitled to, we need the finances to deliver that. The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, heard that message yesterday during his engagement with the Assembly parties. The £3·3 billion funding package on the table will bring short-term relief to Executive Departments, but it falls far short of what we are entitled to and what is required to efficiently run public services, delivered on the basis of objective need. Just before Christmas, the British Secretary of State conceded that we have been underfunded for many years. That is an important and telling admission.
I thank the Member for his intervention. I remind him and everyone else in the Chamber that today is a day for party unity. We are here to talk about the shortfall in our funding package. That is what we need to focus on, and that is what I expect everybody's remarks to follow.
I will not give way, sorry. I will just finish, if you will allow me. Just before Christmas, the British Secretary of State conceded that we have been underfunded for many years. As I said, that is an important and telling admission. It needs to be followed by action and funding to address the underfunding and serious problems in our health service that that has created. It is time for a fresh look at the model of how we are funded. That is the conversation that Executive Ministers will collectively have with the British Treasury in the coming days. That must come in the form of a new fiscal framework that delivers effective public services that meet the needs of people here, instead of one that results in an endless cycle of financial crises. As I mentioned earlier — I will probably finish on this point — the irony will not be lost on anybody that, yesterday, we had a British Prime Minister and Secretary of State telling other people that they should not be talking about a border poll but be focused on public finances. My response to Mr Sunak and Mr Heaton-Harris is this: how about you take your own advice? The audacity of a Tory Government to tell anyone else to focus on public services when they have made it the hallmark of their time in Government to gut public services and bring our health service to the point of collapse.
My response to him is this: take your own advice. Give us what we need. Stop gaslighting us about our public finances. Give us what we need to effectively fund our Departments and public services and to rescue our public services, because that is what they need. I am delighted that all parties across the Chamber have been united in signing the letter that will go to the British Treasury and that they have supported the motion today. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.

678 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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