Debate contribution: Budget 2025-26: Reports
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 8 April 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Committee Business
- Heading
- Budget 2025-26: Reports
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4919935
Read the official Assembly record
Text
So far, this has been a very useful debate. For someone who sits on the Finance Committee, it has been useful to hear from all the other realms of governance in this place and to hear Chairs of all the other Committees speak on their purview and responsibilities in their departmental scrutiny roles.
It is fair and true to say that the Northern Ireland Assembly will get more money than it has ever got, both in cash terms and real terms. It is also fair to say that we are living in a tighter and more constrained environment with our finances. There are a number of reasons for that. I do not know how many Budget cycles I have lived through now, but we always seem to talk about the same issue. We say that we do not get enough money and that we have too many bids for the money that we have, so we cannot meet demand. We are a devolved region. Some people might want fiscal powers, but I certainly do not, because I do not think that the parties in this place would use those powers appropriately for our people. I am quite content with the Assembly's not having fiscal powers. What options are left for us? The options that are left are to make sure that we are as effective and efficient a government as possible. I can say quite clearly, given the evidence that I have gathered and from what I have seen in my experiences here, that we are not efficient and not effective. We are definitely not efficient and effective enough. There is much more that we can do to make sure that we are efficient and effective. We are wasteful. If the private sector is wasteful, it goes bust. If the public sector is wasteful, it bids for more money.
I absolutely agree with the Member. That is the type of strategic thought process that we should be encountering, not because we are in a tight and constrained fiscal place but because we should have been doing it years ago. We should have been making more of our efficiencies and effectiveness way back when we had more money, so to speak. I will not pick on the Member for his intervention, but look at agriculture. Look at the money that we spend every year on bovine TB. However, we do not address bovine TB; we test for it. All that we ever do in this place is test for bovine TB. We do not eradicate it, and the measures that we have in place do nothing to eradicate it. We measure it. We measure the scale of bovine TB. That is all that we do. We keep doing it year in, year out. Do we expect another outcome? Of course we do not. That would be madness. Not only that, but look at our Health Department. Some 50% of our Budget is spent on Health, and we have hospitals that cannot even be opened years after they have been built. They are lying empty. How did we get to that place? We have thousands of people languishing on waiting lists in pain. We have the built form of a state-of-the-art hospital that cannot even be opened. Even more, however, and this is part of the problem with the process, is how we should scrutinise that. How do we effectively scrutinise that? We have a report here from the Finance Committee that says more about what is missing than what is in it. Through no fault of its own, the Health Committee did not submit to that report because the Department could not get its act together to give adequate information to the Committee. There is a breakdown in scrutiny. What type of breakdown is it? It is a 50% of our Budget breakdown in scrutiny — 50% — and then we wonder why we have problems. We wonder why we are not effective or efficient. How can we be effective and efficient? How can we measure the effectiveness of government if we cannot even get the information that we require to scrutinise the Departments appropriately?
694 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.89).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.89 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.87 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.13 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
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