Dr. Alasdair McDonnell:

Has the Northern Ireland Executive evolved any strategy to deal with the overall Brexit situation, or do we have to wait and see? I am not trying to trap Mr. Ó Muilleoir. With the DUP situation, is it possible to get some sort of coherent strategy which we can all row in behind? I want to talk about minimising or reducing the damage Brexit will do to everyone regardless of politics, class, creed or anything else. It is important not just along the Border. While the Border accord is important to all of us, several projects in and around Belfast are suffering as a result of a hold-up.

I am baffled by this because in my opinion the break point for Britain leaving Europe is either June 2019, at the time of the next European elections, or June 2020, when the budget ends. Britain is committed to contributing to a budget until June 2020 and, therefore, extracting the benefits for Northern Ireland and elsewhere. If there is a problem, we need to know about it and we need to be lobbying and shouting. I was gutted last week when I went to visit Mencap, a voluntary organisation that has managed to set up a massive programme subcontracting support services for two, three and four year olds with learning disabilities. It looks after approximately 100 of them yet it has lost or stands to lose £1 million of its funding. It requires £4 million to exist and it is losing 25% of its funding. Is it the British Government doing this? What is the reason for the stall because, on paper, we are tied to Europe for at least another two or three years? Is this just people being fussy, difficult or guarded? Where is the obstacle? Is it a political decision that is taken in London to screw everything up?