NI secretary 'playing fast and loose' with public, says O'Neill

The secretary of state is "playing fast and loose" with the public, Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill has said.

On Wednesday, he asked civil servants to set out options for revenue raising, such as water charges and tuition fees.

The Stormont parties held talks with the head of the civil service, Jayne Brady.

Meanwhile, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said if the move is an attempt to apply pressure on his party to return to Stormont "it is not working".

NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris had to set a budget for this financial year as there is no functioning government in Northern Ireland.

In a letter to permanent secretaries yesterday, he said Stormont's future finances needed to be put on a "surer footing".

He has imposed a deadline of the end of this month for the information to be provided.

Sinn Féin vice-president Ms O'Neill suggested Chris Heaton-Harris was "sabre-rattling" and that there was "no excuse" for not forming an executive.

Sir Jeffrey described the move as unhelpful and said Mr Heaton-Harris has a responsibility to make the case to treasury about the pressure on public services.

He also insisted the government is well aware of the DUP concerns on the protocol which needs to be addressed before his party returns to Stormont.

Alliance MLA Andrew Muir said the last thing people in Northern Ireland needed are extra charges heaped on them through revenue raising measures.

He said a financial package is needed to rebuild public services and that is what the parties should be focused on,

He also said the public should not be kept in the dark about the DUPs talks with the government, adding that if legislation with affects people in Northern Ireland is coming his party should be informed.

Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken questioned why Mr Heaton- Harris had asked civil servants to scope out revenue raising measures.

He said the information he is asking for has been gathered before by a Stormont committee and is "freely available".

Chris Heaton-Harris's latest intervention may have been designed to put the heat back on the DUP, but the parties have given it an ice-cold response.

If, as the secretary of state claims, it is about putting our finances on a stable footing, he has yet to spell out who might end up taking the tough decisions.

Most of the parties are firmly against introducing water charges and it is unlikely an executive would agree to it any time soon.

The parties also argue that the way Northern Ireland is funded from London needs to be overhauled first, before looking at taxing the public further.

That might be a factor in future talks with the government if there is a move to get Stormont restored - but we are still no closer to knowing when that might be.

Last month, Ms Brady said budget pressures had been compounded by a "governance gap" and it was revealed that the Stormont parties believed they would need at least £1bn of extra funding to manage budget pressures in a future executive.

Mr Heaton-Harris has previously raised the prospect of introducing revenue-raising measures like water charges and prescription charges but has, so far, held back from implementing them.

The government has also asked civil servants to provide advice and figures on potential revenue generated by other measures including:

SDLP assembly member Matthew O'Toole said the DUP's boycott of devolved government in Northern Ireland had given the UK government the "power to make these decisions".

"They (the DUP) are the ones whose boycott is giving a Tory secretary of state the ability to threaten austerity measures on people in Northern Ireland," he said.

Mr Heaton-Harris told permanent secretaries that they should seek to provide an initial response with information by 30 June, with a fuller return by the end of July.

He said he hoped this would allow preparation for a "robust set of options" for a future executive to consider.

Northern Ireland has been without a functioning power-sharing government since February 2022, when the DUP withdrew from the executive due to its protest over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland.

The party is facing pressure to return to government but has insisted it will not do so until the government legislates for further changes on the trade arrangements.