Seamus was the guest on the first edition of Stormont Today last night.  The new programme replaces Stormont Live - which, in its old post lunchtime slot, rumbled away in the background of the offices of politicos and policy people all across Northern Ireland.  It now runs after Newsnight at 11.20 and I enjoyed watching it from the sofa rather than the desk. I liked the new format and have always been a fan of Jim Fitzpatrick - he seems to want to get to the heart of the matter and asks the right questions.  However I did choke on my mint tea at how Jim introduced Seamus and our work on public expenditure cuts.  He mentioned something about us suggesting the cuts might be a good idea. The truth is that we don't think that at all. But we think they are inevitable, we are worried that they will hit the voluntary and community sector disproportionately and that means that vulnerable people, families and communities will bear the brunt of all this.

In NICVA we have seen this coming from late 2008 when the government made the decision to respond to the financial crisis by propping up the banks and making the people pay.  You and I might disagree with that decision and feel angry at the unfairness of it, but it’s done.  And now we have to live with the consequences and try and make the most of a bad situation. That’s not to say there aren’t alternatives and at a UK level there may be a case for trying to persuade the Coalition government to think again. 

But the reality for Northern Ireland is very different – our government does not have its hands on the fiscal levers necessary to change the direction of travel on this. The Executive is discussing the idea of making a special case for Northern Ireland to the Treasury and it’s only right that they should –it has worked in the past and it’s up to them to get the best deal possible.  But I’m not sure the Coalition government will give them as sympathic a hearing as Labour. At the end of the day the Treasury will hand Northern Ireland a cheque on the 22 October and it will be a smaller cheque than ever before.   The Executive need to work together to decide how to spend that cheque.  Speaking at question time yesterday the deputy First Minister said the Executive were united and would be ‘knuckling down’ to dealing with this issue.  A Ministerial subgroup on the budget has been formed and its due to meet ‘soon’ – I would suggest that ‘soon’ can’t come soon enough.  At the beginning of the financial crisis around the credit crunch OFMdFM pulled together a cross sectoral advisory group to help inform government and come up with some recommendations.  Technically that group still exists, and it might be time for it to meet soon too.