Michelle Gildernew

DARD budget to be cut by 18% over four years

Pete Baker on September 7, 2010, 2:48 pm | Readers 15

A couple of points to note from the BBC report on comments by a Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture senior civil servant to the NI Assembly committee. The 18% budget cut over the next four years matches the earlier reported cut of 17.2% in the budget of the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure. Then there’s this The department official said no assumptions were being made about where cuts will be made and whether jobs will be lost. He also revealed a …

“there was good news and bad news…”

Pete Baker on August 4, 2010, 2:33 pm | Readers 5

The still-Northern Ireland Finance Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, won’t be making a formal statement to the Assembly until September, but he’s written to MLAs to inform them of the NI Executive’s decisions about this year’s additional cuts in departmental budgets. From the Belfast Telegraph report In a letter penned to MLAs he said: “The main issue facing the Executive in this round was how best to address the £127.8m reduction in funding arising as a consequence of the announcement made by …