The recent return of power sharing in Northern Ireland following a two-year deadlock will be marked with a visit by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to Stormont. The pair will meet with Northern Ireland’s political leaders, including First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly. They are also set to hold bilateral talks during their visit. The Northern Ireland Executive recently wrote to Mr Sunak requesting urgent talks about long-term funding stability to deliver public services.
The Executive is made up of ministers who make policy and decisions. Northern Ireland’s funding model was named the executive’s number one priority by Ms O’Neill who recently made history by becoming Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister. The Prime Minister’s trip to Belfast follows the recent deal struck with Mr Sunak’s government, which included the passing of new legislation at Westminster, that convinced the Democratic Unionist Party to end its boycott over post-Brexit trade rules and re-enter Northern Ireland’s institutions.
In the letter to the Prime Minister, the Executive called for a new funding model that offers “long-term sustainability,” adding that this will only happen “through joint working and delivery from both your government and the executive.” However, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris said the funding package was “fair and generous.” Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said, “Anything that we do when it comes to public sector funding has to be based on facts and numbers rather than theory, so I am sure there will be lots of conversations based on this, but I would like to think they would be based on factual figures.”
During his two-day trip, Mr Sunak will travel to Parliament Buildings at Stormont to meet with party leaders and new ministers in the restored Executive. His engagements will involve speaking to a “broad range of people from across Northern Ireland including those delivering public services, those supported by them, and their families.” This marks his seventh trip to Northern Ireland since entering Number 10.
The return of power-sharing followed months of negotiations involving the government and Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party, the DUP, which withdrew from power-sharing in February 2022 in protest at post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland agreed between the UK and EU. The recent deal with Number 10, however, pleased the DUP who announced their readiness to return to government after more changes are implemented, which culminated in the restoration of the power-sharing institutions on Saturday, two years to the day since the DUP walked out of the Executive
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