Debate contribution: PEACE PLUS Funding

Debate contribution by Mr Declan Kearney on 13 April 2026.

MLA: Mr Declan Kearney
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 13 April 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: PEACE PLUS Funding
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5484007

Text

I beg to move
Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
The European Union has played a pivotal role in securing the success of the Good Friday Agreement. Since the original Peace I funding of 1995, financial support from the EU has underpinned the progress of our peace process. Since 2021, over £1·1 billion in PEACE PLUS funding has been invested in the Six Counties and border counties. Significant investments across every council district in the North and the region along the border have ensured socio-economic regeneration and transformation. Those programmes have empowered and supported young people and vulnerable groups and promoted peacebuilding and inclusion work across our society. PEACE PLUS programmes targeted at health and well-being projects and at stimulating local enterprise have provided a vital lifeline for some of our most disadvantaged urban and rural neighbourhoods. In my constituency of South Antrim, for instance, we have benefited from the PEACE PLUS change maker funding programme, with a recent allocation of £4·4 million to Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council that is specifically to fund community-building activities and infrastructure projects aimed at promoting well-being and reconciliation. In late 2025, my Sinn Féin colleague Kathleen Funchion MEP drew attention to the uncertainty of post-2027 PEACE PLUS funding. Current EU budgetary proposals infer that, from 2028, PEACE PLUS will be delivered only through allocations from the British and Irish Governments, with no proposed central allocation from the European Union. That is a significant change and will have serious consequences for the continuity of available funding for PEACE PLUS programmes. Between 2021 and 2027, the EU contribution to PEACE PLUS funding totalled approximately €235 million, which was allocated through the European regional development fund (ERDF). The loss of such a quantum will have hugely negative implications for this region. It will create even deeper uncertainty for the community-based groups that have helped to drive forward our peace process. That third sector of our economy has already been abandoned by successive British Governments, who have failed to live up to their spoken commitment to replace all European funding in the aftermath of the Brexit debacle. British Government policy on the North has resulted in a 64% cut to funding for our community and voluntary sector. The result has been thousands of jobs, as well as critical services on which many of our citizens rely, being jeopardised. The threat of further loss of investment in the delivery of vital community-led services, which include working with victims and survivors of our conflict, employment training opportunities, support for our young people and interventions in our most disadvantaged areas, must be addressed urgently. An amendment tabled by Sinn Féin MEP Kathleen Funchion has been adopted by the EU Regional Development Committee, which is calling for the central Brussels-funded allocation of PEACE PLUS to be reinstated immediately. A letter from Irish MEPs across all parties to the vice president of the European Commission reiterated that it was crucial to retain central Brussels funding for the PEACE PLUS programme post 2028. Of course, the challenge of maintaining that financial support underlines the importance of this region having political representation in European Union institutions, particularly when they are making hugely consequential decisions about this place. This potential crisis is another example of how the democratic deficit caused by Brexit has left us vulnerable and exposed, yet pragmatic solutions, such as having EU observer status or opening a European Union office in Belfast, continue to be opposed by some in political unionism. Those representatives seem never to miss an opportunity to cut off their nose to spite their face. They then manufacture preposterous justifications for their opposition, including that such initiatives represent existential threats to the constitutional status quo. That is nonsense. Instead, work is being taken forward by Sinn Féin MEPs to address the potential funding crisis. The peace and political processes are, as we know, still works in progress, but the wrecker's agenda pursued by some in the Assembly and the incessant attempts to disrupt political stability in the North by raking up our past political conflict illustrate that reality. Now is not the time to cut programmes that have been central to the transformation that we have all enjoyed. At a time when the world is increasingly threatened by war and geopolitical instability and even the European Union is increasingly moving towards increased militarisation, investing in peace must take precedence over funding war. It is imperative that we send a united voice from the Assembly to those in the European Commission and Parliament who will be paying attention to this evening's debate about the importance of continuing full PEACE PLUS funding. At this time, we need political consensus in the Assembly on calling on the European Union, the British Government and the Irish Government to remain fully committed to funding the post-2028 period and to helping us to open up the next phase of our peace process, which should be based on national reconciliation and reunification.

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

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