SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has responded to the draft Programme for Government Framework which was published today.
The Foyle MLA said: “This document confirms our doubts around the DUP and Sinn Fein’s Programme for Government process and makes clear why we could not sign up to it.
“There are many words but no commitments. The fact they managed to spread it over one hundred pages may be this document’s only impressive feature.
“It is welcome that the Executive have shown a willingness to consult with stakeholders but this process cannot be used as a smokescreen to disguise a document that is unprecedented in its ambiguity.
“Our people need much more than the vague aspirations and concept. They need hard targets and deliverable outcomes.
“A disabled person whose welfare payments have been reduced by the DUP and Sinn Fein may find a certain irony that more detail and evidence is demanded of them to receive benefits than has been delivered by this executive in preparation for the next five years.
“Where are their targets to reduce child poverty? It is criminal that this document doesn’t mention it.
“Where are the proposals to tackle the crisis facing our health service?
“They have not said where their promised extra £1billion is coming from or where it will be spent.
“Where is the plan to end the forced emigration of our young people, to create high skilled jobs and end the economic partition of our people through lack of investment in areas like West Belfast and Derry?
“This Programme for Government is more about keeping ambition and expectations low at a time when people’s needs are great,” he added.