Debate contribution: Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Debate contribution by Mr Declan Kearney on 5 May 2026.

MLA: Mr Declan Kearney
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 5 May 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Voluntary and Community Sector Funding
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5525118

Text

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
Repeated warnings about what Brexit would mean to us here in the North were scoffed at by the DUP and their fellow Brexiteers. It is not for the first or the last time that we are debating one of the consequences of that disastrous decision. Predictably the British Government have now reneged on their promise to replace that lost EU funding. As a result, as other Members have said, the community and voluntary sector, on which so many rely in our society for services and employment, including in some of our most disadvantaged areas, has been left to carry the brunt. As colleagues have said this evening, the local growth fund reduced day-to-day funding from £25 million to £9·2 million per annum from April this year. The British Government have designed a scheme, which is based on a 70:30 capital/resource split. I agree with those who pointed out that that is an ill-conceived model, which again demonstrates that the British Government neither understand nor care about the uniqueness of this place. As he outlined, the Minister has addressed the need for a bespoke arrangement in the North. However, that has simply been dismissed. Decisions taken in Westminster will rarely be taken in the interests of our region and that is underlined by the institutionalised resistance to developing the sustainable public funding model that we require for the region. The current Labour Government have instead continued with the same negative economic and political policy approach that they inherited from the Tories. There is no getting away from the reality that although the British Government can choose to increase by £13·4 billion between now and 2028 military spending on weapons of mass destruction and a war economy, they claim that they have nothing more to invest in community resilience and locally-led services here.
At the same time, as fuel and energy prices soar for ordinary consumers, British Government policy allows big oil conglomerates to continue to generate unprecedented profits.
The loss of funding that we are debating will have the most — the worst — impact on our most vulnerable communities. It will impact on the youth employment services that provide vital support for people seeking education, training and employment. It will disenfranchise disabled people who rely on specialist employment supports at a time when we have a skills shortage in our economy. It will impact on community-based mental health and well-being services that provide some mitigations for an already stretched and underfunded health service. As others have commented, our third sector has become integral to the delivery of public services when those services break down here. Action Mental Health estimates that it will no longer be able to help 900 people who have accessed its services. The proposed cut in funding will also result in well over 400 front-line job losses across various services and groups. While it is essential that we highlight those disastrous consequences, the SDLP motion plumbs the depths of political cynicism by trying to attribute to the Executive responsibility for the crisis in our community and voluntary sector. Perhaps deflection from the British Government's neglect of and contempt for this place and people here is the SDLP's new big idea, or maybe it is just another disguise for its failure to influence the British Government's decisions while it sits on the British Labour Party Benches at Westminster, where the decisions are being made. Whatever the truth, the SDLP has, characteristically and once again, got the wrong end of the stick. That is unfortunate, because, if it had not done so, we might have avoided the amendments to the motion and removed some of the edge from the discussion. Our immediate collective focus must be on pressing for a change in British Government policy on that priority funding. Once again, the challenge that has been presented to us brings centre stage the failure of existing constitutional arrangements. It underlines why Irish unity and rejoining the European Union provide the only realistic prospect of sustainably meeting the needs of all our citizens.

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

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