Ulster Unionist Finance spokesperson, Philip Smith MLA, has said that following today’s emergency debate on the consequences of last week’s EU referendum it is clear that the NI Executive has no plan to manage this result.
Philip Smith said:
“The Bank of England and the Treasury had contingency plans that were implemented on Friday to help reduce market volatility and uncertainty. In contrast and unbelievably the NI Executive appears to have no plan in place - no Plan B, no contingency, no reassurance for business, no leadership.
“Both Joint First Ministers said on Friday that there was no contingency plan. The deputy First Minister could only add more uncertainty with a proposal for an unnecessary and unwinnable border poll. He would be better employed providing reassurance and confidence by working with his Executive colleagues to produce an emergency plan to manage the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland.
“The bottom line is that a UK wide referendum vote was taken, a decision was made, and we now need to move forward as a United Kingdom, to obtain the best deal for our country. The NI Executive cannot continue to stick its collective head in the sand and ignore this fundamental change to our economy and politics. We need leadership and reassurance for business and investors. We need to plan how we will fill the many large holes in funding that the withdrawal of EU funding will create. Otherwise it will be yet another failure of political leadership.”