Conor Murphy
Newry and Armagh · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“More detailed consultations with individual childcare providers and parents are taking place this month and into February. The group agreed that the research would conclude in March 2025. The work is on schedule; there has been no delay. Childcare is an excellent example of various Departments coming together to deliver for our people.”
“The Bill looks at the issue of flexible working, but at every meeting that we have had with employers, we have made a point of talking to them about the need for them to be flexible, particularly in relation to women who are returning to the workforce, and to offer people arrangements that entice them back to the workforce and give them t…”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion. <BR /> <BR />Although the Department of Education leads on childcare, it is a priority for the Executive as a whole. When setting the Budget for this financial year, the Executive earmarked an additional £25 million for childcare.”
“As a matter of fact, I publicly launched the scheme and the courses in the Met last summer. My officials are also working with our six further education colleges to develop childcare microcourses for future delivery. <BR /> <BR />I also offered to assist Minister Givan's Department as required.”
“The group identified the need to better understand the business models for childcare, what type of support is needed to ensure the sector's financial viability and how support should be targeted. Given my Department's business expertise, we volunteered to take that work forward.”
“No tensions or obstacles have been placed in the way of any of that work, and I hope that that continues to be the case, because the issues are much more important than party political exchanges across the Chamber. We will continue to work in that manner.”
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“As I said in response to previous questions, we have seven years now and just short of £1 billion or €1·1 billion. That has the capacity to have an enormous impact for communities on the ground in border areas, across the Six Counties generally and in the border counties in the South. <BR /> <BR />It is very much to be welcomed. With the loss of other European funding that a lot of communities, organisations and social enterprises depended on to provide skills, jobs and programmes for people, PEACE PLUS is the only funding from Europe that we have left to which ordinary community groups and other projects on the ground can apply, so it is hugely important that it continues to play a role. I look forward to the next seven years to see many more community projects getting support through that fund.”
“It is a consequence of EU funding, and I hope that, under the PEACE PLUS funding that we have, projects such as that can continue to be supported because they are vital to our future.”
“I had an opportunity to visit Cuilcagh for the first time last week. I was impressed not just by the beauty of the place but by the work that is going on there. That was a consequence of an EU-funded programme that was shared by the North, the South and Scotland. When we were there, we talked to people from the South, and, by Zoom, to a guy from Aberdeen who was doing a lot of the technical research required for saving and restoring boglands and wetlands here. <BR /> <BR />The potential of those lands for storing carbon and making sure that there is a reduction in carbon emissions is huge, besides the fact that they need to be restored. There is ongoing work, and that requires collaboration with farmers who have access to and ownership of the land. It is a hugely impressive project.”
“No. Unfortunately, not. The Treasury always keeps its cards very close to its chest on those matters. They do not want us to make their announcements for them ahead of 27 October. We have no clarity, but we met the Treasury Minister, along with representatives from Scotland and Wales. We pressed him on a number of issues of common interest. Obviously, we hope for the best possible outcome from the spending review.”
“The Treasury is in the middle of the spending review, and the outcome of that will be known at the end of the month. He has promised to come back to the matter very quickly on the other side of that, but we reserve the right to examine legal options if that dispute resolution process with the Treasury does not work.”
“I met the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury in London last week. We have had an ongoing discussion and potential dispute with the Treasury on the funding. It is no secret that the Executive have an agreed position that the British Government, having developed the policy for the victims' payments, legislated for that and brought it through under their statement of funding policy and procedures, have a responsibility to fund it. To ensure that the scheme can get up and running and that victims are paid in the here and now, the Executive have agreed to cover the cost, but we reserve the right to press the Treasury to meet its obligations. I continue to do that. I had a good conversation with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about that.”
“To break that down, a point that I made to my Executive colleagues is that we are setting the Budget for the next Executive. None of us may be in the position that we are currently in when that Budget comes into play. In that sense, I asked people to set aside their departmental interests and to look at the broader interest of what will continue to be a very limited Budget. However, at least that Budget gives us a chance to plan on a three-year basis. There is an opportunity to set priorities. There is an opportunity, however painful that might be for Departments, to set the necessary resources to meet those priorities, and that involves the Executive working together as a team without focusing on the internal priorities of their Departments.”
“Obviously, we will talk to all Departments ahead of the multi-year Budget. We had a high-level planning session about a number of themes, with health being the number one theme for the Executive. We are looking at other issues such as anti-poverty, vulnerable people and the green growth agenda, which will include retrofit. I am sure that the Department for Communities will make propositions about that when it comes to put its case for the three-year Budget.”
“We have to operate on the advice that we get. The advice that we get is that that is the case. I know that it has gone to the Committee as well. It will come to the scrutiny of the House, and, if people have a different argument to make, that is the place to make it. Of course, the policy and legislative proposal can be scrutinised as it goes through the Assembly. Certainly, the advice that I have received is that people are confident that it ensures ongoing protection for workers.”
“We have been communicating with all Ministers, particularly those affected. The Minister of Justice will have some employees in her Department who will be affected by the outcome, so yes, we have been consulting all Executive colleagues about it.”
“The Executive subcommittee reported back to the Executive in, I think, April. In fact, I think that it was earlier. It was perhaps nine months ago. I do not have control over what papers are allowed on to the Executive agenda. The subcommittee, however, did its work in good time and presented to the Executive. The report did not get on to the agenda until the week before last, and it was published, eventually. We have continued working on a range of issues from the response, such as codes and Civil Service reform, and I want to see those matters progressed as quickly as possible.”
“I want to ensure that we continue with the reform programme arising from the lessons learned from RHI and bring reform forward so that we have a better system and can ensure that such a scheme can never again be conceived, operated, developed and conducted in the same manner as the RHI was.”
“The RHI inquiry report has finally been through Executive clearance. The Member will know that the subcommittee met for some time when the Executive were reformed. All parties in the Executive were involved in the subcommittee that produced the report that deals with the recommendations. We therefore now have an agreed corporate response from the Executive. It was published on 6 October. The corporate response looks at issues relating to the codes and the strengthening of accountability and transparency, as well as at broader issues of Civil Service performance and recruitment. <BR /> <BR />The response has therefore been published.”
“I am happy to provide the Executive with the information and to facilitate the reduction from each Department, if that is the way in which the Executive want to go, but it is a call that they will have to make, and I will be there to support them if that is the call that they want to make.”
“I will indeed, a LeasCheann Comhairle. <BR /> <BR />The Member's party failed to stop the cut in Westminster. It has lectured us about being where it counts, when it counts, but it did not count for the SDLP over in Westminster. It has now tried to impose the problem not on the Executive but on Sinn Féin as a political party. If the Executive, who take the decisions on the issue, want to deal with the issue of the universal credit uplift, they will need to do so on a long-term basis. Otherwise, his proposition will bring the people whom he professes to be here speaking on behalf of back to a cliff edge within a short number of months. It is a call that the Executive are going to have to make.”
“If you will allow me to finish my answer —.”
“The uplift in universal credit was brought in by the British Government. He knows that, I assume. His party failed to stop its withdrawal in Westminster, although it has lectured us about being where —.”
“Those are calls that the Executive will have to make. I know that the Member and perhaps his party colleagues are more interested in a headline than a solution, but it is not simply a matter of my making a bid. It is about the Executive deciding whether we have the funds to continue to undo the damage that the Tories are doing to ordinary citizens across Britain and here. Scotland faces the same dilemma, as does Wales. Those are issues that the Executive are going to have to face, not only in this monitoring round but in setting the three-year Budget.”
“<BR /> <BR />I want to see a solution, if the Executive are willing to do it, that not only deals with the issue over the next number of months but, if the Executive want to continue on this programme and not create the cliff edge in accordance with the Member's motion, puts in the three-year Budget a programme to meet thes cost in full. In a number of years, that could go up as far as £200 million a year.”
“I remind the Member that, when we were dealing with the issue of welfare reductions and putting forward the argument for a welfare mitigation fund, we were on our own among the Executive parties. The other four parties, including the Member's, had agreed to a process of dealing with welfare reform without mitigations. I also remind him that, when the first Budget was put together to put in the mitigation funds for welfare cuts, his party voted against that Budget. I further remind him that the proposition that he has put forward in his party's motion will create another cliff edge on this matter within a short number of months, when people will be faced with exactly the same issue.”
“As I said, we are expecting a fund to be put in place in England, and we expect a Barnett consequential from that. I will be arguing that we ring-fence that to meet whatever requirements there are here.”
“It is a question of whether the mechanism will apply only to the individual tenant, to multiple owners or to facility owners. These issues are currently being worked through in London by the new Department there that is dealing with it, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which has the unfortunate acronym of DLUHC. It has all of the necessary facilities in the one Department, while here the responsibilities are spread across a number of Departments. We in the Department of Finance have been engaging very closely with that Department, and we will continue to engage to get information and a sense of how it is intended to roll out the fund in England and where the lines, if you like, will be drawn between not only various materials but various occupying circumstances. We intend to take advice from that.”
“When our call for evidence is complete, we will have a sense of what the actual issues are here and what might be required to fix them, but I will certainly be asking the Executive to ring-fence that Barnett funding so that it can be put to that use.”
“I have met some of the residents, or certainly some of the building operators from those apartments. Given the experience in Britain, the priority has been buildings 18 metres-plus with ACM cladding. They are deemed to be at the highest risk, and that is why the priority has been there. The Department of Finance does not have an overall role for this, but we have stepped up in this instance to operate the fund for that ACM cladding. <BR /> <BR />I did engage with Minister Gove, who has taken over the Department in London with responsibility for this, when I was over last week. We are expecting a further funding to roll out as a consequence of looking at other cladding issues, and the Executive will receive their Barnett consequential of that.”
“The public call for evidence of unsafe aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding on properties over 18 metres high was launched on 21 September. To date, my Department has received one application for the remediation of ACM cladding. This is being assessed against the eligibility criteria for the £1 million ACM remediation fund. The public call is also open to high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding to ascertain the extent of the issue here. When this is known, I will bring the information to the Executive for their consideration of a non-ACM fund. The call for evidence will remain open until 31 October.”
“The funding will go to the Department for Communities to be allocated. I have no doubt that the Communities Ministers will be looking to that project as part of the Budget process, which we will get into in the next couple of weeks.”
“It is not a case of making bids. This is not a monitoring round, where people come forward with bids. The money is already there, this year, to do the work that is needed. Once all the necessary clearances are there, it is ready to be spent. <BR /> <BR />The question is about the forthcoming Budget and Budget discussions, which have only just begun. We have not got the final amount. We will not know until the end of this month how much money is in that Budget. I have no doubt that the Communities Minister will assess the business case for Casement and make sure that the required case is put forward. It is, as I have said, an Executive flagship project. It is not simply a responsibility of the Department for Communities; the Executive have agreed that this is a priority project.”
“The Casement Park project is part of the regional stadia programme, which is separate from the subregional stadia programme for soccer. Executive flagship programmes have been awarded priority, ring-fenced funding in recent Budgets. Funding for flagship programmes has, therefore, been separate and distinct from other departmental budgets. I have no doubt that the Minister for Communities is looking at the business case for Casement Park. The Executive recognise that it is a flagship project, and those projects are dealt with somewhat separately from other funding projects.”
“Some £36·2 million was committed to the programme, and that commitment remains in place. As we all know, the cost of building has gone up very substantially. We hope that it will begin to level out or perhaps even come back down. This is a substantial figure, but it is to be spread out across all the facilities that might need it. We could always be doing with more. From my engagement with her, I know that the Minister for Communities is very keen to get as much money into these programmes as she can. She is very keen to support soccer, in this instance, and other sports. I have no doubt that she will make a strong argument for it in the Budget discussions.”
“The Minister for Communities raised the matter of funding for the subregional stadia programme for soccer at a bilateral meeting with me on 16 September. I am aware that the Minister is progressing that issue, and I anticipate its forming part of the discussion on the upcoming multi-year Budget.”
“I encourage groups to access the information and ensure that they know how to access the funding and make the appropriate applications.”
“A range of pillars is attached to it. I encourage people to engage with the SEUPB and the programme. There will be a variety of delivery mechanisms. Some of the money will be delivered directly to community groups, and some will be delivered through councils. It is a very substantial fund. It is almost double what we previously had. It is over seven years. We expect some of the pillars to be rolled out early next year, when there will be a call for at least some of them. It will then progress into the full programme. Many community groups have been involved in the consultation. The issues of accessibility and reduction of bureaucracy and red tape have been very much to the fore, and I have raised them with the SEUPB.”
“The contrary is the case. I heard the First Minister lauding the fact that there are health-related funds associated with the PEACE PLUS funding and saying that that is one of the reasons that they allowed it to be put on last Thursday's agenda, which was not the correct meeting for PEACE PLUS to be approved. Clearly, it is a very substantial fund with very generous contributions from all the contributors to it. <BR /> <BR />The fund can do some valuable work on the ground for communities. As I say, we will meet on Friday. We want to make sure that the processes are right. We now have the funding package in place. Any interference in that serves only to the detriment of all our citizens.”
“<BR /> <BR />This Friday's meeting is scheduled to go ahead. It is scheduled to deal with other matters relating to the SEUPB and the roll-out of PEACE PLUS, although not with the approval for the programme, which is thankfully now in place. These meetings are necessary in order to make sure that the programmes can operate smoothly and become more and more accessible to ordinary communities on the ground, which is something that other people asked about.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I said, the funding is only a couple of million pounds short of £1 billion, and it will be spread over seven years. It is a huge funding programme that will benefit communities right across the North, whether they are along peace lines, in rural border communities, whether the funding is capital or resource, and whether they are communities in the six border counties in the South. The potential is enormous. To continue to interfere with that is essentially to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. It would absolutely risk the roll-out of the programme, which is based on a per-year spend. If it is delayed, anything that is lost in the first year will go back to where it came from. It is not kept for continuation of use, so the ongoing boycott will continue to damage that situation.”
“The Member may know that the meeting that is intended to deal with the programme, which was agreed by the Executive as part of our schedule of North/South sectoral meetings, is due to take place this Friday. That is the SEUPB sectoral meeting. In the expectation that the DUP was going to continue its boycott and in order to ensure that the required Executive approval was in place for the paper, I asked the Executive to take the paper by urgent procedure. I also asked the Health Minister to bring it to his meeting of the health and food safety body in order to ensure that that North/South meeting, which was going ahead, was able to provide the necessary clearance. I thank the Health Minister for doing that by putting it on his agenda and ensuring that there was clearance for the paper.”
“The budget for PEACE PLUS has now been confirmed at almost £1 billion. The Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) produced a final draft cooperation programme document, which the Executive approved under urgent procedures last Wednesday. The North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) agreement was obtained on Thursday 14 October 2021 at the health and food safety meeting. Irish Government approval is also in place. The programme will now be submitted to the European Commission for its consideration and approval. It is hoped that all the necessary approvals will be in place in order to allow the SEUPB to open the programme for calls in early 2022.”
“There is this institution, North/South arrangements and east-west arrangements, and most parties want to operate them fully for the benefit of all citizens and in faithful observance of the agreement. Interference with those arrangements only serves to disrupt potential investment and arrangements between the Governments, North and South, that would make sure that we get the best benefit for all our citizens. Those things are built on the premise of mutual benefit. When you disrupt them, you undo the benefit for the citizens that the DUP claims to represent.”
“Regardless of our political outlook or the current nonsense that is going on in relation to the protocol, it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that whatever limited funds we have — we always recognise that we have limited funds — we make maximum use of them for the benefit of all the citizens that we represent here and right across the island. Therefore, when other funding is available, be that PEACE PLUS or the Shared Island Fund, we must cooperate and collaborate as best we can. There is a willingness from the South to do the same and to get the maximum benefit for citizens right across Ireland. <BR /> <BR />North/South arrangements are a component part of the three strands of the Good Friday Agreement.”
“I am very keen to do that in order to make sure that our Executive programmes and the funding that we have can be enhanced through engagement with other sources of funding, be that the PEACE PLUS or the Shared Island Fund, and that we maximise the potential for cross-border infrastructure, which has suffered from a lack of investment for decades.”
“I am not sure who the Member is referring to when he talks about latecomers to the party when it comes to the idea of a park in Newry. I am sure that he will articulate that at some stage. <BR /> <BR />I have engaged very frequently with the Department of the Taoiseach and others who run the Shared Island Fund. I want to bring a prospectus from that to the Executive in order to make sure that the Executive, and the Infrastructure Minister in particular, have an opportunity to engage with that so that the plans that the Executive have, with the limited capital pot that we have, can add maximum value when they are being used across the island. We want to hook up with the national development plan and the Shared Island Fund, which is a component part of that.”
“The park will be in a very strategic location along that route, and it has that all-island component to it. I know that the Member has already had some dialogue with the people who operate the Shared Island Fund. I hope that that is a fruitful proposition in the use of that fund, which, hopefully, will complement Newry, Mourne and Down District Council's pursuit of funding in that regard.”
“I thank the Member for her question. I know that she has been very keen on this particular project as a key component of the overall Newry regeneration proposition, some of which is coming through the city deal proposals. It is hoped that another major staging post for those proposals will be announced in the not-too-distant future. Of course, the bid for the complementary fund will be assessed with other bids across the North, with the exception of the north-west city deal. The complementary fund applies right across the North, and I welcome that the council has put in a bid for that. <BR /> <BR />I am aware, as is the Member, of the strategic location of the proposed park in Newry, with the greenway linkage from Carlingford right to Portadown, if you take the towpath in as well.”
“<BR /> <BR />I hope to meet Minister McGrath later this month to discuss further how the national development plan will be delivered and how the Executive might usefully engage at the strategic level with its delivery and that of the Shared Island Fund alongside our own investment plans.”
“This is an Irish Government initiative, with further details published on 4 October 2021 as part of the national development plan. The plan includes significant references to a number of major strategic investment initiatives, including the PEACE PLUS programme, the economic corridor and the strategic rail review. <BR /> <BR />Some €500 million in capital funding has been made available for the Shared Island Fund as part of the national development plan. The key criteria for the fund will include delivery of all-Ireland benefits. I am also aware that, over the past year or so, the Irish Government have announced that the fund will provide funding for a number of projects in the border region.”
“For those reasons, we need to take a long, hard look at each of them, as well as ensuring that the advocacy that you talk about continues, be that in a Department or through this institution.”
“It will be for each Department to assess their arm's-length bodies' accountability, affordability and range of functions and how those relate to the Department. Each Department will obviously have a different set. I have no doubt that some of them perform good functions, but this question has to be asked: do those functions continue to be required in a devolved scenario where you have a functioning Assembly and Committees for each Department? Bear it in mind that many of those bodies were set up during, as I say, the period of direct rule in order to provide some veneer of local democratic input into decision-making by NIO Ministers. There is not only a cost attached to them but an accountability and responsibility deficit in their relationship with Departments and, through those Departments, to this institution.”
“We have given them a template for conducting a review. We expect that to be with us early in the new year. We will push ahead with legislation to facilitate that. Each Department has a responsibility for its bodies, so I cannot set a target for everyone. I am firmly of the view that we have substantially more bodies than we need. They are a product not of devolved government but of direct rule government, and we need to address them.”
“As the Member knows, that commitment was part of the NDNA agreement, which brought the Executive back into being. That process has been long talked about over many years by many Executives. Most of the arm's-length bodies are a product of direct rule over those years, and there is a strong case for a reduction in their number. When the parties agreed 'New Decade, New Approach', they recognised that there was a need not only to review but to rationalise and reduce the number. Quite a number of them are surplus to requirements and could be brought back into Departments, merged or have their functions dealt with in another way. That would provide more transparency and democracy and give the House more influence over those bodies than is currently the case. I am keen for that to go ahead. We have engaged with the Departments on it.”
“That is one among a suite of policies, if you like, to try to bring the necessary skills into the Civil Service, to change the age profile of Civil Service staff, which is much too high, and to ensure that we have an influx from, as I say, all sectors, genders and regions in order to make sure that the Civil Service is balanced and represents the broad swathe of the population.”