Overend welcomes additional funds to combat dissidents

MID Ulster MLA Sandra Overend has welcomed additional funding to tackle the threat from dissident terrorists.
Sandra OverendSandra Overend
Sandra Overend

Mrs Overend, the UUP’s economic spokesperson was responding to Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review by the Chancellor George Osborne.

“The Chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review plans for 2015/16 confirmed that Northern Ireland will receive £9.6bn. The plans, taken in conjunction with the announcements earlier this month of an economic package with London, mean that the Assembly has done as well as could reasonably have been expected,” she said.

“The reality is that Stormont faces long term, if gradual, reductions in public spending which won’t change with the election of a Labour government.

“There is welcome news that there will be an additional £100 million of capital borrowing capability for the Northern Ireland Executive over two years in 2014-15 and 2015-16 and this is expected to help fund shared future projects in housing and education.”

“I obviously welcome the news that there will be an additional £31m of funding for the PSNI, primarily to tackle the on-going republican terrorist threat. I cannot help but wish that Northern Ireland was in a better situation so that this money could be put to other uses, in terms of hospitals, schools and job creation.”