Budget stalemate at Stormont ‘cold comfort’ to workers awaiting pay uplift

Stormont Finance Minister John O’Dowd was pressed over the impasse as the Executive continues to insist on further funding from Westminster.

For months, ministers in Belfast have said they cannot strike a budget for 2026-27 without additional financial support from the Treasury.

The UK Government has offered about £1.5 billion in extra funding over the next three years, with £525 million delivered this year, in an effort to help balance the books, but Stormont’s leaders have said that is not enough.

It is understood the extra funding would be dependent on Stormont committing to raise about £200 million annually of its own revenues.

Last month’s UK Budget allocated a further £131 million of extra funding to Northern Ireland in the current financial year and a total of £270 million across three years.

During ministerial questions for Mr O’Dowd in the Assembly on Monday, SDLP MLA Colin McGrath asked what he was doing to ensure healthcare workers receive their pay award before the end of the calendar year.

It had previously been indicated that it was now too late in the year for the uplift to be paid to workers before Christmas.

Mr O’Dowd said that while pay awards for healthcare workers were a matter for Health Minister Robbie Butler, he recognised that the Executive as a whole has a “collective responsibility” for making sure public sector workers receive the pay awards to which they are entitled.

He said he was “exploring every avenue available to me to enable that to happen”, and was continuing to press Secretary of State Sir Chris Bryant “at every opportunity to secure a fair funding settlement for the Executive”.

Mr McGrath said that was “cold comfort” for thousands of health workers that they will not get their pay rise or back pay this side of Christmas.

“Minister, are you really telling these workers that there is absolutely nothing you can do to help them get the money they are owed, or is it a case that they’re not going to get their pay rises,” he said.

Mr O’Dowd said he was exploring all options open to him.

He said: “We have been first and foremost pressing the British Government for a proper and fair, sustainable funding package for this place to assist us in funding health workers, other public sector workers, in receiving their pay awards. That’s only right and proper.

“I am exploring all options open to me, but first and foremost, it’s a responsibility of the health minister, but as I said in my answer, there is a responsibility on the Executive to support all ministers collectively around the table to ensure public sector workers receive their pay uplift and I will continue to play my part in that.”