Ulster Unionist Peer Lord Empey has expressed his horror at the Budget shambles which the Executive has got itself into, and has called for an Inquiry.  

Lord Empey said:

“I have been horrified by the recent budget shambles that the Northern Ireland Executive has got itself into, with last minute and in year demands for large Departmental reductions and an 11th hour decision on the draft budget for 2015/16.'

“'It is widely known that in year adjustments are hard to make, and on the scale that has been demanded, verging on the impossible. Certainly they cannot be efficient. Many organisations that deliver government programmes or who rely on funding from Departments have been facing turmoil for months.

“I fully understand that the welfare reductions are a part of this and appreciate the special difficulties that this has created. However, welfare is only a part of the shortfall, indeed little more than one third of it.

“Furthermore, the Executive has known what its financial allocation from the Treasury for 2015/16 was since the June 2013 spending round. The Treasury confirmed this to me in a Parliamentary Answer (attached) on 17th November.

“Never before has the Northern Ireland Executive effectively defaulted and failed to ensure that its expenditure has been kept within agreed limits.

“The very same Executive is always wagging its finger at other organisations that are in receipt of public funds; indeed government Departments regularly investigate outside bodies and severely criticise them if there are accounting failures, and rightly so.

“What kind of an example is Stormont setting to the community when it cannot manage or control its own spending without a crisis? What message does this send out to business or potential investors? 

“The Office of First and deputy First Minister and the Minister of Finance are ultimately responsible for this mess yet they go on as if nothing has happened.

“A lot has happened. For the first time since devolution was restored, Stormont has failed to live within its means, and has had to go cap in hand for a bail out from George Osborne despite being fully aware for many months of the money available to it.

“Even in the darkest days of the political process, when devolution was on and off, the then Executive always managed to balance its books.

“Having reached the situation where Departmental Ministers are being forced to scurry about and find crisis reductions, many of them in year, I believe the time has come for a full scale enquiry into how this situation has been allowed to arise.

“Perhaps the Comptroller and Auditor General should conduct such an Inquiry so the general public can find out what was really going on.”