1 December 2025
The Finance Minister must publish the long-promised Executive multi-year budget this year, SDLP Leader of the Opposition Matthew O’Toole MLA has said.
In response to a question from the SDLP, John O’Dowd said today that he would be sharing a draft multi-year budget with Executive colleagues before the end of the year – but failed to commit to publishing the document for consultation, despite the requirement for 12 weeks of consultation before the end of the financial year.
The SDLP pressed the Finance Minister to deliver the multi-year budget urgently in order to give certainty on the funding of public services, but also to set out plans for greater fiscal devolution to the north given his well-publicised complaints about UK budget choices.
South Belfast MLA Matthew O’Toole said:
“The Assembly heard today that the Finance Minister only commits to circulate a multi-year budget to the Executive before Christmas. This is not good enough. The Minister has been promising a multi-year budget since the return of Stormont, and the Executive received its multi-year spending allocations from the Treasury in June. But it now appears he will not get it over the line before Christmas. And there is no guarantee that his Executive colleagues will back it. What then?
“There will have to be a public consultation before this budget comes to the Assembly and time is rapidly running out for it to be in place for the next financial year. Yet again this Minister and this Executive have left an issue of real importance to the eleventh hour. Amid all the complaints about UK Government choices, many of which the Opposition shares, we had expected the Minister to be moving quickly to publish a multi-yea budget with options for raising extra revenue and more fiscal devolution. Apparently not.
“A multi-year budget is essential to addressing the challenges facing Northern Ireland. Everything from reforming our health service, progressing major infrastructure projects and protecting our environment depends on it, and it is difficult to have confidence in the Executive or the Minister to deliver it.”