Debate contribution: Budget (No. 2) Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Connie Egan on 9 June 2025.

MLA

Ms Connie Egan

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

9 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Question for Urgent Oral Answer

Heading

Budget (No. 2) Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4997706

Read the official Assembly record

Text

In my role as the Alliance representative on the Justice Committee, I will make some short remarks regarding the Department of Justice's financial position. The Bill indicates a positive allocation for the Department of Justice, which has been underfunded to a significant degree over the past decade. In this year's Budget, the Department of Justice received the third-largest non-ring-fenced resource departmental expenditure limit alongside £100 million in capital spend. That reflects what I know to be the work that is ongoing in the Department to ensure that the Finance Minister and his predecessor have an understanding that the services that Justice funds, whether they are courts, prisons, police or support for victims and witnesses, are incredibly vital public services that deserve our attention alongside the likes of health and education. Aside from Justice's core budget, I welcome the additional £5 million of investment in creating safer communities, as driven by our shared goals in the Programme for Government, and an additional £23 million of funding for justice-related transformation. Those moneys will go towards speeding up and transforming our criminal justice system so that we can provide quicker resolutions for victims and invest in electronic tagging to provide real-time monitoring of offenders. All the funding will contribute to the Justice Minister's plans to deliver effective services for victims, keep our streets safe and make access to justice easier, faster and more effective for everyone. Funding for the PSNI has been much discussed recently in the Chamber. The Minister's commitment to stabilising the police is demonstrated through the fact that the PSNI currently receives approximately 65% of the Department's core budget, alongside the vast majority of the additional safer communities funding. It is to be welcomed that the PSNI recovery business case has been approved as being value for money. The Minister and her officials continue to engage with the Department of Finance and the wider Executive to ensure that the funding needed to fulfil the ambitions of that plan is provided. This year's positive budget outcome does not change the fact that our justice system has been grossly underfunded for a number of years. While Stormont's block grant has increased by 66% in 14 years to 2025-26, DOJ's budget has grown by just over 25%. As a proportion of the total block grant, the Justice budget is now smaller than it was in 2011, despite the growing demands being placed on our prisons, courts, police service and other parts of the justice system. For example, the complexity of modern cases due not least to the mass and importance of digital evidence can make those cases harder and longer to investigate and process through the courts. Our prison population has risen, and many people arrive with complex or undiagnosed needs. Lack of capacity in health and social services means that the justice system is unfortunately becoming the place of last resort for people who should be supported by other public services instead. The costs of legacy systems have never been properly reflected in our devolved funding model. While critical to providing truth and justice for victims and survivors, they are, undoubtedly, on the capacity of the contemporary justice system. Those are just some examples of the extra demands. We need to reverse the historic underfunding to fully address them. This year's Budget is a welcome one, but it must be the beginning to build something better on a sustained, long-term basis. Before I wrap up, I will say that it is positive to see the Budget and have a Programme for Government that states:

"A central role of government is to protect its citizens."

Now we have to get on with the hard work of delivery. We need continuity, and we need multi-year Budgets to allow for planning. We need transformation so that the public know that they can trust us to deliver for them.

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

Assessment

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Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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