Jim Allister QC, MLA has argued that the 2011-12 budget has prioritised political ‘sacred cows’ rather than the needs of the public.

In a speech during a debate on the budget Mr Allister explored how the budget proposed cuts to Health, Education and Roads while continuing to preserve funding for political projects which include; North South Bodies, the North/South Ministerial Council, Special Advisors, Consultants and the Maze Shrine.

Mr Allister further claimed that within the Assembly there was a lack of financial probity and highlighted that the Departments of Finance and Personal and Agriculture had made investments on the premise that land owned at Crossnacreevy could be sold and generate £200 million, in reality it was never worth more than £6 million resulting in a massive gap in the budget.

During the debate Jim Allister stated:

“We all know that the 2011-12 Budget is part of a four-year budgetary plan. We also know, because we have been told it often enough, that things will get tougher, particularly in years 2, 3 and 4. It is bad enough that we do not know where we are going with policy and strategy, but, in the Budget, there is no attempt whatsoever to prepare for the tougher times that are coming in years 2, 3 and 4, when the cuts will inevitably begin to really bite.

"Some people talk about elephants in the room, but in this room, rather than elephants, we have sacred cows. In the governmental arrangements that presently pertain in Northern Ireland, it does not matter how wasteful, useless, unnecessary and pointless those sacred cows are; you spend the money on them because they are part of the architecture that keeps this place together. The Minister knows in his heart that, in the circum­stances in which he has been constrained to operate, it is absolute folly to pour £400 million into, for example, the multiple, useless North/South bodies when we are looking for money to deal with tuition fees, to keep hospitals going and to employ new teachers. Yet, because they are the sacred cows of this political dispensation, they are beyond the reach of being culled and beyond the reach of the waste that is endemic in their being dealt with.

"Indeed, the Budget contains proposals that are far from cutting. It contains proposals that more should be spent on, for example, the North/South Ministerial Council. The out-turn figure in 2009-2010 was £712 million. The resource figure that is now proposed in 2011-12 is an increase of almost 50%. When we are cutting back on schools, hospitals, road maintenance and road gritting, we will find extra money for that body. Why is that? It is because it is one of the sacred cows of these establishments.

"This Budget also has the money to pay special advisers, and what a cloister of secrecy prevails there. We are not allowed to know how much public money in this Budget Bill goes to any individual special adviser, someone with access to the upper echelons and confidence of government.

"The Budget contains money for consultants. The amount of money devoted to consultants was unbelievable during the last Assembly. Why do we employ senior civil servants on generous salaries who are experts in many of their fields if every time we ask them a hard question, they say, “Let’s bring in a consultant”?

"The Programme for Government told us that job creation and building the economy were the irremovable top priority, yet we come to a DETI budget that, when it comes to laying the groundwork for an rolling programme of attracting foreign investment, has its budget slashed by 64%. However, when I look at the capital budget of the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, I find that budget to be, in effect, ring-fenced and that £20 million-plus is ring-fenced for the Maze project. Why? We come back to the sacred cows, Mr Deputy Speaker. Another sacred cow.

"I speak of waste. I look back to the expenditure that is flowing through here on sports: GAA, soccer and rugby. When we are faced with hospital and school closures, one does have to ask whether it is right to prioritise and say that the GAA should get £61 million, and because it should get £61 million, football should get £61 million, although not in the four-year term — some of it on the never-never — even though it did not really ask for that much.

"What is it that drives the economic financial priorities of the Executive that they think that that is the correct adjustment of the spending priorities? Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time, it is clear that the essential driver is politics and not probity in finance. It goes on in that vein.

"There is much in this Budget to raise concerns, but I return to the point that I started with. If we are serious about saying to the greater public, “You must tighten your belt, and you must ready yourself for harder times”, this House needs to lead by example in its structures, in its architecture and in how it addresses waste. If we need to save hundreds of millions of pounds and more, why are we wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on matters such as the useless North/South bodies and the Maze project when we cannot find money for new factories?”