20 October 2025
The SDLP Opposition has formally written to the Finance Minister John O’Dowd to ask him to facilitate his civil servants providing costings for the official Opposition’s alternative Budget ideas, as takes place in the Republic.
With the Executive’s first multi-year Budget in more than a decade coming before the end of the year, it is critical to ensure the most rigorous possible scrutiny of Executive plans and Opposition alternatives.
In Dublin, Government civil servants provide Opposition parties with official and confidential costings of their proposals, something which Sinn Féin availed of in preparing their own alternative Budget document earlier this month. This approach is different from that followed in Whitehall, where Opposition policies are often costed using highly politicised assumptions from Special Advisors and Ministers.
Both the Finance Minister and First Minister have challenged the SDLP Opposition at Stormont to provide more detail on their alternative plans. Despite the official Opposition publishing a series of alternative proposals, it has no access to official costings, unlike in the South, limiting their ability to provide detailed policy costings.
SDLP Leader of the Opposition Matthew O’Toole MLA said:
“This proposal should be a no-brainer for the Finance Minister and First Minister. Their party enjoys access to official costings from civil servants in Dublin to provide detailed Alternative Budget documents and other proposals. It’s time for them to open the books in the north and let the Opposition here have the same rights as the Opposition in Dublin.
"Sinn Féin ministers in the north have regularly challenged the SDLP Opposition to provide more detail on our alternatives, ignoring the many detailed and constructive proposals we have released in the past 20 months – often much more detailed than those of the Executive itself.
“So they should have no issue in offering the SDLP Opposition the same access to official costings that Sinn Féin and other Opposition parties in the Dáil enjoy. Our role as official Opposition has proven to be a step change in improving accountability in the north.
“Standards of decision making and policy debate are woeful at Stormont, but it doesn’t have to be this way. As the official Opposition we are working to demand better for our people and access to the same support and official costing as in the South is an obvious step towards improving our politics. I trust the Finance Minister and Executive parties will agree it speedily and in advance of the multi-year Budget later this year.”