Stormont’s 2021 budget is insult: PBP

THE Stormont budget is “insulting” to people, an MLA has said.

People Before Profit’s Gerry Carroll hit out after the budget, published in January, was debated in the Assembly yesterday.

In January Finance Minister Conor Murphy warned it was “difficult and effectively a standstill” on the previous year, blaming the Treasury for not delivering enough support.

Mr Carroll said: “In the midst of a pandemic that has caused so much hardship and pain, the Stormont Executive have responded with a budget that is insulting to people here.

“Ministers claim this is a ‘standstill’ budget, but in reality it is one riddled with reductions in services that doesn’t meet the needs of a population emerging from a once-in-a-generation crisis.”

He said there was “an urgent need for the Executive to shift its economic priority to one that makes the wealthy pay their way”.

“For a decade all the major parties clamoured to have corporation tax devolved and reduced, now they need to argue and press for the wealthy to shoulder the cost of this pandemic and the outworkings from it,” he added.