Why is OFM/DFM receiving more than our Health Service? - asks UUP Finance Spokesperson
Following today’s publication of the Draft Budget, Ulster Unionist Finance Spokesperson Roy Beggs MLA has questioned the Finance Minister’s decision to give a much greater increase to the budget of the DUP-Sinn Fein Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister than that given to the Department of Health.
Mr. Beggs said, “Today’s Draft Budget follows the Finance Minister’s recent statement in which he warned of the need to take ‘difficult and challenging decisions’. Now we know what he meant by difficult and challenging decisions – increasing the budget for OFMDFM by 5.9% over the next 3 years, while giving the Department of Health a mere 3.8% increase. It is staggering to think that the DUP-Sinn Fein Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is receiving greater priority than our National Health Service. That this is occurring at a time when health expenditure in the rest of the UK is rising at a significantly greater level will only increase the unacceptable disparity between health care in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the UK.
“It is also puzzling that the Draft Programme for Government says that it is giving priority to ‘personal health and well-being’ and goes on to recognise that a ‘strong economy requires a healthy … population’. If this is so, why has OFMDFM received a much greater budget increase than our National Health Service? If the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and the Finance Minister, had a genuine commitment to our National Health Service it is obvious that they would not have made the choice to pass by the NHS and increase the budget of their favoured department – OFMDFM.
“Under the last Devolved Administration, the OFMDFM budget was £32m – now, under this Draft Budget, it has become £73.9m. Quite clearly, the Finance Minister has judged that the ‘difficult and challenging decisions’ do not apply to OFMDFM – and that it is much more appropriate for the consequences of difficult decisions to be experienced by the NHS.
“Over the coming weeks both in the Assembly and in its Committees, the Ulster Unionist Party will continue to subject this Draft Budget to careful scrutiny. A budget that gives priority to OFMDFM over the National Health Service is not a budget that puts the needs of Northern Ireland first”.