Debate contribution: Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Spring Supplementary Estimates 2024-25

Debate contribution by Ms Connie Egan on 17 February 2025.

MLA

Ms Connie Egan

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

17 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Spring Supplementary Estimates 2024-25

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4803032

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I congratulate the Minister on his new role and wish him well in it. I will make a few short remarks on the Supply resolutions in my capacity as the Alliance Party's spokesperson on justice. From the beginning, this financial year was marked as challenging — a time for tough decisions, stringent, sustainable spending and leadership to attempt the impossible task of balancing our books. When the institutions came back a little over a year ago, last February, Executive parties stood together and pledged that we would show the public that we could be responsible, sustainable and responsive with our moneys to facilitate and deliver successful public services for the constituents whom we serve. After stop-start government, a tumultuous austerity agenda based in Westminster and costs that fell victim to inflation, leadership needed to be shown: leadership that was not about the most popular decisions but about doing what we could, thinking ahead and delivering to meet our people's core needs. I am proud that Alliance has not shied away from that task in our Departments. I will confine my remarks to the justice portfolio, as my colleague Eóin Tennyson picked up on issues relating to DAERA. In preparation for the votes on these motions, the Committee of Justice received a timely update via the 2024-25 spring Supplementary Estimates memorandum detailing the Department of Justice's mission and the main components of spending throughout the financial year, alongside comparisons with the 2024-25 Main Estimates and the final out-turn from 2023-24. Additionally, departmental officials came before the Committee to speak to those matters and to the draft Budget for 2025-26. The Department's mission is:

“to work in partnership to create a fair, just and safe community where we respect the law and each other”.

A key aspect that I will focus on is "partnership", as so much of what the Department of Justice does is part of a multi-agency and cross-departmental response to create sustainable operations in public service. Justice picks up the pieces and fills in the gaps where other Departments fall behind. It is one of the highest-spending Departments in resource terms for a reason: the responsibilities that it holds. Justice's spring Supplementary Estimates memorandum underlined the key drivers of spending changes since the 2024-25 Main Estimates. I draw out for attention the outstanding exceptional pressures in the region of £227 million that the Department faces, which relate mainly to the PSNI data breach, the McCloud pensions remedy and the settlement of holiday pay claims. It is unclear when those will crystallise, but it is clear that they cannot be absorbed into the Department's general Budget allocation. A solution must be found in collaboration with the Finance Minister. During a year in which the Executive looked to renegotiate our financial package from Westminster, Alliance's Justice Minister, Naomi Long, leaned into the mission at hand and ensured sustainable and responsible spending by a Department that has been historically underfunded. The Department of Justice funds access to justice, building safer communities, our Prison Service, reducing offending rates, support for our Courts and Tribunals Service and the PSNI. It deals with prevention, protection and the aftermath of much of what we deal with as a society. That is all vital work. Much of the work in the Department of Justice is demand-led, whether that is from the growing prison population or legal aid allocations. We accept that, and the Justice funding must reflect that. We in the Chamber often warn against duplication and advocate for cross-departmental working and multi-agency approaches that are victim-centred and trauma-informed. Justice is central to the solutions, acting where others will not: it comes into contact with the most vulnerable in our society and works to protect them. I hope that everyone in the Chamber will recognise two things: the essential work of the Department and the fact that its services are stretched. To see that, all you need to do is look at the backlog in the courts system or the ongoing pressures on policing. My party and I will vote in favour of the motions. I look forward to engaging in Budget debates in the future — a future in which Justice must be prioritised so that we can continue to protect and support the people whom we are here to serve.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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