Newry Armagh Sinn Féin Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Ritchie's incompetence resulted in massive under spend - Boylan

Published: 17 December, 2008

Sinn Féin MLA for Newry and Armagh, Cathal Boylan has slammed Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie's incompetence after it emerged that she failed to allocate almost £40 million of DSD budget .

Mr. Boylan said:

"It is astounding to listen to Margaret Ritchie making whinging allegations that she was hard done by and that everyone ganged up on her. Margaret Ritchie's biggest liability is her own incompetence. Her Department for Social Development rather than having its budget raided, was so inept at managing its budget and prioritising spending that it recorded an under spend of £38.7 million over the last quarter - a figure far higher than any other Department.

"As with all other Departments that recorded under spends it was agreed that these finances would be surrendered to the Finance Minister for reallocation. Thankfully, that money has now been reallocated by the Executive with some of it targeted to help fund the fuel poverty initiative, which in itself is a DSD responsibility.

"However, I think that a lot of people will be surprised to learn that a Minister who has persisted in crying poverty in her Department as justification for slashing funding to the community and voluntary sector was unable to direct almost £40 million of her budget to deliver on the pledges that she is consistently grabbing headlines on.

"I think many people will be more surprised to learn that a Minister who argued that if the Executive gave her the money she would build 1500 social houses this year failed to do so and had to return almost £40 million of her budget.

"She cried; 'give me the money and I'll build the houses'. Well, with Sinn Féin's support she received the money early this year - where are the houses?

"Margaret Ritchie has claimed that her budget was raided to pay for the fuel poverty measures. That simply isn't true. She voluntarily returned this money because she failed to spend it in the period for which it was allocated and was reallocated on that basis with her support.

"It is clear that despite the crisis in the community sector and the thousands on the homeless list - the Minister was not up to the job of project prioritising and the people who suffered are the people the Minister now claims to champion - those in need of social housing and urgent home repairs.

"The things that stand out in this situation are Margaret Ritchie's incompetence and her propensity to blame everyone else when things begin to go pear shaped for her"