Sinn Féin and the DUP have been criticized over the failure to agree a final budget for Northern Ireland in the new financial year.
The SDLP said the two parties had been “haggling” over the budget for weeks and that it highlighted Conor Murphy’s “shambolic tenure” in office, while the UUP said it was caused by “internal feuding” between Sinn Féin and the DUP.
Stormont’s Finance Minister Mr Murphy has blamed DUP leader Arlene Foster for blocking the final budget. He said it will affect his department’s ability to make financial plans.
But the DUP said there is a need for movement on significant issues such as the funding of victims’ payments and the commitment to additional police numbers being met.
In a letter to ministers on Wednesday, Mr Murphy said despite his “best endeavors” Ms Foster had not agreed to my Executive paper on the final Budget 2020-21 paper being tabled for Executive consideration.
The Sinn Féin politician said he had presented a draft budget to the Assembly on January 18th and that it was open for public consultation until February 25th.
After that, the minister said he circulated a paper to executive ministers on March 15th setting out his proposals for a final budget and that since then he had made a number of changes to address issues raised by Executive colleagues.
“I fully anticipated that these relatively minor adjustments would be sufficient to achieve Executive agreement to the final Budget position,” he said.
“Although the paper has been agreed by the deputy First Minister, the First Minister has not agreed to the paper being tabled for Executive consideration.
“I am of course extremely concerned that due to the decision not to allow this paper to be considered by the Executive I have, through no fault of my own, been placed in the position of breaching the requirement of the Section 64 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to lay a draft budget before the beginning of the financial year.”
He added that it was also of “grave concern” that the failure to agree a Budget will impact on departments’ ability to plan effectively.