Debate contribution: Budget 2025-26

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 19 May 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

19 May 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget 2025-26

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4968730

Read the official Assembly record

Text

It would be fair to describe this Budget as another year of crisis management: another year of what were once winter pressures in our emergency departments but are now pressures felt 365 days a year; another year of a housing waiting list that is growing whilst private rents soar and landlords evict tenants into homelessness; and another year of toxic algae spreading across Lough Neagh and our waterways like a disease. This is another cruel, punishing Budget for working-class people, and I will vote against it. I urge all Executive parties that complain about Westminster austerity to do the same and refuse to do Keir Starmer's economic bidding. It looks like health and social care trusts are expected to generate hundreds of millions of pounds in savings — otherwise known as cuts — this year. The Northern Ireland Confederation for Health and Social Care (NICON) described the cuts as:

"counter strategic and a risk to patient safety",

but the Executive plough on. In practice, that will look like pay deals for workers that are lower than those implemented in Britain, reduced funding for the community and voluntary sector, a restriction of domiciliary care packages and fewer care home beds. The Budget announcement made in April by the Finance Minister did bring some welcome news, with increased funding for tackling health waiting lists. However, plans to increase our reliance on private hospitals to clear waiting list backlogs are nothing more than stealth privatisation, and the reimbursement scheme will pay back patients who can afford to pay up front for private treatment south of the border. That is effectively a subsidy for private hospitals in the South. Apart from the madness of strengthening the private sector at the expense of the NHS, most of the £215 million ring-fenced to tackle waiting lists is not even extra money. Some £165 million has already been ring-fenced in the Department's general allocation, which the Department says will intensify the need for Health and Social Care to make further savings to live within its means. Presumably, the Minister's plans to tackle waiting lists will be funded by cuts to vital services such as domiciliary care packages. That simply means that more people will be stuck in our hospitals, unable to go home with an appropriate care package in place, which means more people waiting in corridors in A&E for a hospital bed to become available, more patients sitting in ambulances waiting to get into A&E and more people in a state of medical emergency waiting for an ambulance that will take hours or days to arrive. Is that one of the "catastrophic cuts" on which the Minister will refuse to sign off? Any investment in tackling waiting lists that relies on making cuts or efficiency savings elsewhere in the system is a recipe for complete disaster. An extra £100 million for housing in the Budget means around 1,000 new social homes this year. That falls far short of the Department's target of 2,000 per year. The Department's equality impact assessment states that the constrained capital budget for housing will have a disproportionate impact on almost all section 75 equality groups. That should come as no surprise; the housing crisis does not discriminate. Migrants are victims of it as well — something that the Members who tabled tomorrow's motion would do well to remember. More and more working-class families are waiting for social housing, because they cannot afford private rents of £1,000 or more a month in Belfast. In the meantime, they are sofa-surfing or living out of suitcases in temporary accommodation, far from work, school, friends and family. The Executive could take measures that would require minimal investment, including rent controls and a no-fault eviction ban, but maybe the cost of upsetting landlords is just too great to bear. No doubt the Department will be allocated more money for social housing in dribs and drabs through monitoring rounds, but that is no way to fund a social housing development programme that is supposed to prioritise the building of social housing on the basis of need. I will turn to social security. At least 35,000 people in the North will be impacted on by the Labour Government's cuts to personal independence payment (PIP) and universal credit. There is no money in the Budget to mitigate those inhumane costs, never mind the two-child limit, which affects nearly one in five children in my constituency. Our health and social care services, our social security system and the wider economy will all suffer as a result of the tens of thousands of people being forced into poverty, destitution and unemployment, but that is another problem for another day under this Budget. As long as the Executive are content for Westminster to hold the purse strings as our public services crumble, there is no time to take a step back and think about whether the rich should finally start paying their fair share. The Department of Education has a legal duty to encourage and facilitate the development of Irish-medium education. Tá mé iontach buartha faoin scéala faoi Bhunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh. Cheadaigh an Roinn iarratas ar rang breise naíscoile, ach dúradh leis an scoil ó shin gur rith maoiniú chiste Pathway as. Cead agat spás breise bheith agat do dhaoine óga, ach ní mhaoineoidh muidne é. Tá sin go huile is go hiomlán scannalach. Iarraim ar an Aire Airgeadais agus ar a chuid feidhmeannach aird a dhíriú ar an cheist sin go luath, in éineacht le feidhmeannaigh na Roinne Oideachais. £4.4 milliún an buiséad a bhí ag ciste Pathway anuraidh. Gealltar £4.2 milliún i mbuiséad Stormont don chomórtas gailf, the Open, i bPort Rois i mbliana. Beidh neart daoine ag cur na ceiste: an léiriú é sin ar thosaíochtaí polaitíochta an Choiste Feidhmiúcháin? Ar ndóigh, sin gan trácht a dhéanamh ar an drochbhail atá ar neart Gaelscoileanna ar fud an Tuaiscirt. Beidh neart daoine ag cur na ceiste: cad é an mhaith Aire Airgeadais nó Céad-Aire ó Shinn Féin ann má tá drochbhail ar scoileanna, in aineoinn iarrachtaí na n-oibrithe atá iontu? Tá Gaelscoil an Lonnáin, atá i mo thoghcheantar féin, suite i láthair atá as dáta agus nach bhfuil fóirsteánach. Iarraim ar an Aire Airgeadais an maoiniú a chur ar fáil le go dtig leo suíomh nua agus scoil nua bheith acu.

In recent months, there has been political consensus that, rather than punishing the poor, we should find more progressive ways of raising revenue for our public services. Despite that, the war on the poor continues unabated. Ordinary people are being hammered by a 5% increase to the regional rate this year, with absolutely no improvement in the delivery of services to justify it. Young people face possible tuition fee hikes of more than £1,000 a year. The Sinn Féin Economy Minister refused to rule that out the other day; I hope that the Sinn Féin Finance Minister will not refuse to rule it out today. Students already pay extortionate rents —.

OK. Thank you.

1,166 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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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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