NICVA welcomes progress and new Northern Ireland Executive

NICVA Chief Executive Seamus McAleavey said:

“The last 3 years have been characterised by stagnation, little prioritisation of policy issues and a general degradation of services across the board.

Our expectation of this new Executive is that they will act in a collegiate way with a single purpose to tackle our problems, social and economic and particularly in health and education.

NICVA and voluntary and community organisations as well as the other social partners in Trades Unions, Private and Farming sectors stand ready to work in partnership with government to improve opportunities and services for citizens here.

We wish all the new Ministers well and in particular look forward to working with Deirdre Hargey Minister for Communities who has lead responsibility for Government, Voluntary and Community sector relations”.

Finally, “NICVA know the challenges facing the Executive are difficult on all fronts but we are both optimistic and realistic in our assessment and that the transformation of many services will be difficult and will take considerable time and effort.  The new Programme for Government needs to map out that journey and be the guiding strategy for the improvement needed”.