Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government believes, in respect of the budget announcement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, that the people of Northern are entitled to a functioning Assembly and Executive and to be fully represented by the politicians they elected in May of last year. In recent weeks we have seen cuts to services which will affect the people of Northern Ireland adversely. The budget places difficult decisions in the hands of civil servants and we believe that it is vital that an Executive is in place as soon as possible so it can make the right decisions that respond to the needs of people North of the Border.

As Deputy Tóibín pointed out, Northern Ireland is facing an economic, social and fiscal crisis and this is further evidence when one sees the contrast between the UK's budgetary position and ours that we have made the right choices economically and have a much better economic model. We have full employment, rising levels of public expenditure every year, rising incomes and we have a budget surplus. The biggest threat to that would be any fundamental change to our economic policy or our European policy and I hope that does not happen in this country.

See this speech in context