Ms Claire Hanna:

I appreciate Professor FitzGerald's clarification. My comment was not to say that the cheque was infinite or that Northern Ireland had all the public spending it needed. The core services are funded, but Northern Ireland does not deal with the same environment as the South, where if someone makes a disastrous public policy decision, there are no resources to pay for the core services. The two experiences that Professor FitzGerald outlined illustrate that. It is not that the cheque is blank, but it does keep coming.