2 September 2026
SDLP Leader of the Opposition Matthew O'Toole MLA has written to organisations delivering public services across Northern Ireland asking them to speak out about cuts to services, staffing and projects caused by the Executive's continuing failure to agree a Budget.
Mr O'Toole said organisations delivering public services had been left to make hugely difficult decisions in the absence of political leadership and urged those affected to share information with the Stormont Opposition on the uncertainty created and difficult decisions they were facing, anonymously if necessary.
The letter asks whether services have been shut, projects stopped, staff laid off or vacancies left unfilled, as well as what communication organisations have received from the Executive after a summer without agreement on a Budget. Since 1 August, the Executive has been legally able to spend only 95 per cent of last year's Budget.
Matthew O'Toole MLA said:
"The Executive has managed to turn its own failure to agree a Budget into a crisis that everyone else is expected to manage. Public servants are being left to hold services together and make awful decisions while ministers tour the airwaves explaining why none of this is their or their party's responsibility.
"We know services are being cut, staff are being laid off and projects are being delayed or cancelled. What we now need to expose is the full scale of the damage. What services have been lost? What jobs have gone? What decisions are being put off because ministers have failed to do their most basic job and agree a Budget?
"That is why I am asking people on the front line of our public services to tell us what is happening - anonymously if they need to. The Executive cannot be allowed to keep this crisis conveniently abstract while organisations across the North are left to quietly pick up the pieces.
"There is a legitimate argument to be had with the UK Government about Northern Ireland's funding settlement, and we have never shied away from making it. But wanting a better deal from Westminster cannot excuse the extraordinary irresponsibility of an Executive that refuses to agree its own Budget.
"Ministers want the power, the titles and the departments, but when it comes to taking difficult decisions or accepting responsibility, they suddenly become powerless bystanders. Our job as the Opposition is to expose the consequences of that failure, and that is exactly what we intend to do."