SDLP Foyle MLA Mark H Durkan
From addressing the housing emergency to the growing gaps in the welfare safety net, Mr Durkan argued that Minister Lyons’ polished words won’t hide the harsh reality of the Executive’s broken promises.
The MLA for Foyle said: “This is not a budget to be celebrated. It is a budget that confirms the Executive’s complicity in a deepening housing emergency and failure to adequately address the damage caused by welfare reform.
“The statement from the Communities Minister today shows that our most vulnerable have once again been short-changed.
“We are in the grip of a housing emergency yet the investment in social housing welcomed today will allow for less than half the Programme for Government’s own housing targets. At a time when we need more funding for social housing, we’re getting less.
“Meanwhile, 49,000 homeless households are left in limbo, children are growing up in hotels and B&Bs and the growing reliance on costly temporary accommodation isn’t being addressed
“Buying powers for the Housing Executive is a welcome step but this is one link in a much longer chain. Where is the strategy to bring empty homes back into use? Where is the ambition to accelerate social housing delivery?
“And on welfare? Minister Lyons’ fixation on benefit fraud continues, which is miniscule in the wide scheme of things.
“Yet there is nothing here about rebuilding the shattered welfare safety net or supporting the growing number of households driven into poverty by welfare reform.
“The Executive promised action on mitigating the cruel two-child rule and other measures proposed by the Welfare Reform Mitigations Review Panel.
“Where are those mitigations? Where is the urgency to tackle growing rates of child poverty? This budget doesn’t answer those questions, it dodges them.
“Housing targets have not been met, welfare promises haven’t been delivered and vulnerable people are being left to fall through the cracks, again.”
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