2 Ministers vote against budget, 1 missing…

Interesting for cross border pol watchers that Sinn Fein is backing a cuts budget in Northern Ireland, whilst criticising the new coalition in the Republic for implementing Fianna Fail’s austerity focused four year plan. [See important caveat by IrishActuary on Twitter].

Just as interesting though is the way the so-called Manditory Coalition seems to be bursting apart at the seams, with the UUP Minister voting against, and Alex Attwood apparently missing in action…

Margaret Ritchie:

“Devolution was supposed to be about local decision making improving lives,” she said.

“DUP/Sinn Féin have rail-roaded through a budget for the next four years which simply reflected what has been handed down from London. There has been no real attempt to prevent the £4bn of Tory cuts.

“This will cause job losses and hardship for a lot of people and the SDLP believe we could have done more to stop it.”

I suppose asking four parties to share equally in the pain was too much to ask. However it remains to be seen whether the electorate will buy the dissenting judgement of the two minor parties, or take Sammy Wilson’s view that it’s little more than a cynical ploy…

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.