Debate contribution: Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 5 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

5 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5525095

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Opposition for tabling this important motion, and I am happy to support it. The slow collapse of our community and voluntary sector has been nothing short of catastrophic. The local growth fund fiasco is the latest iteration in more than a decade of underfunding and cuts. It is the predictable result of political choices being made in Westminster and political choices not being made in Stormont. From 1 April, as we have heard, funding for community-based employment support programmes was slashed by 64%. That has affected over 11,000 people who have lost access to vital support, and around 400 front-line workers are predicted to lose their jobs. As we have heard, organisations that have spent years building trusted relationships with the most marginalised in our society — people with disabilities, women returning to work and young people furthest from any prospect of work — have been stripped of essential funding. Services that took years to design and build have been dismantled overnight. Those services are not an optional nice-to-have; they are essential social infrastructure. They are what stands between thousands of people and complete isolation from the economy and public life. When those services go, the expertise of workers goes with it. Networks disintegrate, and trust is lost. Westminster made its choice in the form of a 70:30 split between capital and revenue. That completely disregarded the North's labour market and service needs and the fact that local charities that deliver front-line employment and inclusion support rely heavily on revenue funding. Despite months of letters, representations and joint Executive statements, the British Government made it clear that they had no intention of changing course, so we have long known where they stand. The harder question for some is where the Executive stand and where they have stood, because, last month, the Executive found an additional £19 million for home heating oil support. I welcome that — it was the right thing to do — but it also demonstrates something really important, which is that, when there is political will, funding can be found to mitigate the disastrous decisions coming out of Westminster. The Executive proved that. The question must be asked, although some may not like it being asked, why the same political will could not be summoned when it came to vital front-line services for some of our most marginalised people. Why was it there for home heating oil but not for the 11,000 people who are losing their only route into employment? As was touched on, there is something deeply obscene about the fact that, on the exact same day as charity workers were handed redundancy notices, a £14,000 pay increase for MLAs came into effect. The four big parties and the SDLP found £1·2 million for a 27% pay rise for themselves. I have said this many times and will repeat it: last year, the Executive handed out £76 million in rates breaks to big multinational corporations Moy Park, Caterpillar, Coca-Cola, Thales and many others. Money was found. It is always found when the right people ask for it. The £15·8 million needed to plug the gap is and was entirely within the Executive's reach and remit. The multi-year Budget is the test. Ring-fencing that funding is not complicated: it requires political will and an acceptance of responsibility. In the past, the Finance Minister has put himself out there as a defender of big capital and multinational corporations, but he could have found the money for those organisations. The Executive cannot claim ignorance. The sector has been warning them about the cliff edge for years, through the transition from the European social fund to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and now this. At every stage, we have seen the same pattern: late funding decisions and chaotic timelines that show contempt for the organisations that provide, on a shoestring budget, life-enhancing and life-saving services that ought to be provided by the state. Working-class communities did not create the crisis. The young people who rely on those services, disabled people, carers and young people with nowhere else to turn did not create it. They should not be left to pay for it. I support the motion, but words in the Chamber mean nothing without the money in the Budget. I hope that the Finance Minister will confirm that that money will be allocated today. Significant damage has already been done, but the Minister and the wider Executive could step in now and save what is left of those jobs and services.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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