Debate contribution: Rates (Regional Rates) Order (Northern Ireland) 2025

Debate contribution by Mr John O'Dowd on 10 March 2025.

MLA

Mr John O'Dowd

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

10 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Rates (Regional Rates) Order (Northern Ireland) 2025

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4840947

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank the Members who contributed to this important debate. A range of interesting but, perhaps, not always accurate views was expressed. The key to these matters is what we do with every pound that we raise through rates increases. It is never popular to come into a political Chamber and say, "I support a rates increase" or "I support a tax increase", but you have to put that in the context of what you want to achieve through those increases. The increases that the Executive and I propose will raise an additional £42·6 million. A total of over £700 million will be raised through the regional rate, and well over £1 billion will be raised through the regional rate and local councils' rates. Let us look at the regional rate and put the additional £42·6 million in context. With every £1 million that we raise, we can employ 25 to 30 teachers, 25 to 30 nurses, 40 classroom assistants or 40 auxiliary workers. We can start closing the gap in childcare. Last year, we invested £25 million in childcare. Next year, we propose to invest £50 million in childcare through the Budget and £5 million through the June monitoring round. You can achieve none of those things if the regional rate remains static. You can make grandiose speeches and lambast the Executive. You can do all those things, but here is the reality: you will not have raised a single penny or increased investment in education, health, childcare or any other important matters that relate to our citizens' needs. Mr O'Toole set out the Committee process. I welcome the Committee's work on the matter, and I note that it supported the order, albeit Mr O'Toole and Mr Carroll oppose it. Mr O'Toole went on to tell us about all the bad things that the Executive were doing and what they should and should not be doing. Nowhere in his speech, however, did I pick up on what the Opposition would do. If Mr O'Toole were standing in my place today, I wonder what the regional rate would be. Would it be 5% across the board? Would it be 4%, 2% or 1%, or would it be 0%? Nowhere did he tell me what it would be.

I will let you in in a moment. He went on to tell us what is not in the Programme for Government or in this document or that proposal or the other. I put on record now that I am happy to sit down with you, Mr O'Toole, and work with you in a constructive manner on any proposals that you have on revenue raising or on the revenue or finance issues that relate to my Department. I will work with you constructively. What I find bewildering is the constant negativity about what the Executive should or should not be doing in the absence of any proposals on what you would do.

I am not objecting to your opposition; I am objecting to your style of opposition. I am objecting to the absence of alternatives. The Opposition in the South have to offer up an alternative Budget. They offer up an alternative Programme for Government. They offer up alternatives. I am asking you for the alternative. Today you are going to vote against £42·6 million extra going into the public finances, so the question is this: what are you going to cut from the Budget? The Budget is predicated on that additional money going into it. What are you going to cut off it? Mr Carroll said that there was no proposal today for an increase in public-sector pay. You are wrong, Mr Carroll — absolutely wrong. Where do you think the £42·6 million is going? It is going into public services. In order to deliver public services, you need public workers. Public service workers have received pay increases over the past number of years, and there are proposals on the table for further pay increases. My first meeting as Finance Minister, by the way, was with the unions. I look forward to sitting down with the unions and others to discuss how we move forward in a three-year or four-year Budget and ensure that public-sector workers are properly and fairly paid in that period. He talked about the other punishments that the Executive are going to impose on working-class communities. I am going to continue to invest in public services, just like the Executive did last week. We allocated £61 million to Health for multidisciplinary teams; £27·5 million to the Department of Education for special educational needs; £20 million and £2·9 million to Justice; and £15 million to the Department for Infrastructure's urban drainage programme and £3 million for its proposals on transforming planning. All those are for the benefit of the public. As I said, I have no difficulty with there being an Opposition in the Chamber; in fact, I think that it could bring value, but it has to bring alternatives.

All rating policies are under review and will be over the next number of years. A saying that is very true, particularly when you are working in the Department of Finance, is that every action that you take has a positive and a negative reaction.

If I take action in one area of rating, what impact will that have on the sector in which I take that action? It may have a negative or a positive impact.

Whether I agree with some of the policies or international connections of some of those companies, all of them provide employment here. Every one of them is putting a salary into a home. All companies support workers' families and communities. When we talk, quite rightly, about workers, we need to support the businesses that provide the employment and ensure that they treat those workers fairly. I will not make decisions without fully understanding their implications for the broader rates base and the broader economy and their impact on workers' families and communities. I again recommend the order to the House. I believe that we are presenting a fair rates increase for businesses and domestic customers. I accept that no one likes to place further burdens on taxpayers, but the challenge from taxpayers will rightly be this: what difference will it make to public services? We all have a collective responsibility — more so in the Executive, I accept — to ensure that our public services improve.

1,081 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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