Debate contribution: Budget 2025-26

Debate contribution by Ms Claire Sugden on 19 May 2025.

MLA

Ms Claire Sugden

Party at the time

Independent

Date

19 May 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget 2025-26

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4968722

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Budget is more of the same that I have seen in my 11 years as an MLA, only with tighter margins and bigger consequences. Of course, there is a job to be done in keeping services ticking over. People still need hospital appointments, classrooms still need teachers, and the police still need to be on our streets. I do not underestimate the challenge of delivering day-to-day services with a limited budget. However, if all that we are doing is keeping things ticking over, we will never fix what is broken. We are haemorrhaging money while trying to keep a lid on a system that cracked years ago. We are firefighting, not reforming; reacting, not planning; and surviving, not transforming. Firefighting, reacting and surviving are necessary to keep services going, but transforming is about turning off the tap to a sink that we are trying to empty. All of that comes not just at a financial cost but at a human cost. It is a cost paid by the people whom we represent in longer waiting times, reduced access, poor outcomes and greater inequality. Those are consequences of a system that is out of step with the people whom it is meant to serve. We are told that there is no bottomless pit of money — we have heard that from a number of Ministers today — but that makes it all the more important that we start spending our money wisely. We need to think upstream. We need to shift our mindset from one of short-term crisis management to one of long-term investment in prevention and better outcomes. We — the Government that I was a part of — started doing that in 2016, but then that Government collapsed for three years. We should not underestimate the problems that we see in our public services from not having government for a sustained period. We are not, however, seeing any evidence of that shift. Although the funding that is set aside for transformation is welcome, it feels like an afterthought. It is fragmented and lacks coherence. We have heard little about where it is going, what it is achieving or how it fits into any wider plan. If there is a long-term vision for transforming public services, it certainly is not being communicated — maybe this Government just do not know how to do that. The Budget shows once again the limits of our system of governance. We talk about power-sharing, but, in practice, it is shared-out government, with Departments pulling in different directions, Ministers protecting their silos and little incentive or pressure to genuinely collaborate. Transformation will not happen unless we govern differently. That means embedding an outcomes-based model that holds Departments to account not just for what they spend but for what they deliver. It means designing services around people, not structures. It means working across portfolios to tackle the complex interconnected issues that do not fit neatly into one Department, such as health inequalities, educational underachievement and economic inactivity, for which three things alone we need Departments. Crucially, it means recognising the role of the community and voluntary sector, which does a huge amount of the heavy lifting in Northern Ireland. In every part of our region, community organisations deliver front-line support, often with limited and insecure funding. They pick up the pieces where statutory services fall short. They know their communities and innovate out of necessity, yet their role is seen as optional and something to be funded, "If we can", when, in reality, they are essential partners in delivering public services and achieving social outcomes. It is not acceptable, sustainable or fair to expect the community sector to plug the gaps indefinitely. If we are serious about prevention, early intervention and building resilient communities, the community sector must be resourced properly and built into the strategic planning of government, rather than being treated as an afterthought. The public deserve more than a Budget that just scrapes by. They deserve better than underpowered strategies and disconnected spending plans. They are entitled to effective, timely and dignified public services. We cannot allow mediocrity to become the standard. Without reform, however, that is exactly where we are heading. Yes, we need to keep the wheels turning for everyday public services, but we also need to be honest about where we are going. Right now, it feels like we are going round in circles, spending just enough to get through the year but never addressing why we are at breaking point year after year. This is not about criticising individual Departments and their Ministers; it is about the need for genuine structural reform, collective accountability across all Departments and Ministers and a clear, shared purpose that puts people, not process, at the centre of our public services. I know that I say all that in vain. I know that the Budget will pass and that, this time next year, I will be making the same speech. If we do not genuinely change how we do things, we will face the same issues and be making the same points while wondering why nothing has changed.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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