I agree 100% with my right hon. Friend. I do not necessarily hold to speaking Irish, but I am not going to be against those who want to learn it and speak it. But there should be fairness and equality in the funding of these cultural issues, and political direction is needed in this area for the following year’s budget.
I appreciate that there were Departments that did not make their full spend. If other Departments were to come before the Assembly, they would have to qualify their accounts because of the overspend; there would probably be a vote on account associated with the overspend of some Departments. Some should probably have learnt a lesson and been a little bit more prudent in
their accounting. I appreciate that there were negotiations about the spring statement last week, and Departments will have had some input. We want to see political direction to ensure that the spend is made to benefit the whole of Northern Ireland for the year 2018-19.
I, for one, am sad that we are here to discuss this. It will be worse when we are having to discuss the budget in June, because each and every one of us will have our own pet project that we will want to include in the debate, and we might well drag it out for longer than it should go on. However, I hope that the message from today’s debate is going out loud and clear: we are here because one party failed to deliver a budget in 2017-18. As a consequence, all the blame should be laid at the house of Sinn Féin over what it has caused Northern Ireland to suffer in the past year.
4.30 pm