Brexit: Loss of EU funding 'could seriously affect NI economy'

Stormont's Department for the Economy has warned that the loss of EU funding could have seriously negative consequences for its services.

The department received substantial grants from an EU fund, the ERDF.

That funding will no longer be available as a result of Brexit and has not been fully replaced by the UK government.

Assembly members were told one consequence could be cutting apprenticeships by 50%.

Sharon Hetherington, the department's finance director, was setting out the potential effects of Stormont's three-year draft budget.

Her presentation outlined how over the next three years more than £100m in core funding which would have come from the EU will no longer be available.

That is more than double the approximately £45m cash increase the department is getting from Stormont funds.

She said: "Department funding will decline during the budget because of the lack of replacement structural funding for core services."

She added that skills and innovation programmes would feel the worst effects and that are "no soft options to balance the books".

Aside from cuts to apprenticeships, other options being considered are cutting the number of university places and slowing down the roll out of city deals.

SDLP economy and Brexit spokesperson Matthew O'Toole said the numbers were "shocking."

"We already knew Brexit was terrible for the Northern Ireland economy, but today at the Assembly economy committee, civil servants laid bare devastating scale of EU funding loss for things like apprenticeships and skills," he said.

"The department is losing more than £100m in core funding from the EU, which dwarves the entire increase in the department's budget the next three years."