The Northern Ireland Conservatives’ chairman, Irwin Armstrong, has slammed the Executive for failing to spend £23.9m of its 2011 capital investment budget.
“Thousands of people have lost their jobs in construction and yet £23.9m which the Executive had agreed to invest in capital programmes remains unspent, which deprives the local economy of almost £100 million, as it is widely accepted that every £1 invested in construction creates almost £3 in the wider economy.
“It is one of the best ways of stimulating the economy and sustaining and creating jobs. People are sitting on the dole today because of the poor management of ministers in the Executive”
Mr Armstrong comments followed a Ministerial Statement to the Assembly by Sammy Wilson
He also said that John O’Dowd’s much trumpeted ‘£120m extra for schools’, which was announced last week, is a sleight of hand.
“This executive is all smoke and mirrors. It managed its budget poorly and now proposes to re-allocate £30m which it had planned, and failed, to spend elsewhere, to the schools budget. More importantly there is absolutely no budgeted provision of the order of £15m and £75m for the following years. Where will that money come from? Which services will be cut and which monies will go unspent?”
Ministerial Statement http://www.dfpni.gov.uk/2011-12-january-monitoring-round-statement.pdf
John O’Dowd statement http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/index/media-centre/news-departments/news-de/news-de-120112-odowd-welcomes-120million.htm