Commenting on the ongoing budget crisis at Stormont TUV leader Jim Allister said:
“The current crisis over Stormont’s budget illustrates that the Belfast Agreement is based on a flawed premise and can never deliver good government for the people of Northern Ireland.
“The failure of the Executive to agree on welfare reform leaves us looking over a financial precipice with Ministers across the political spectrum warning of dire consequence for essential services, particularly when it comes to the Health Service.
“Sinn Fein claim that they are taking a stand against Tory cuts but the reality is that because changes have not been made to the welfare system cuts are having to be made elsewhere. So their claim is nonsense. The simple reality is that a government which cannot keep the street lights on and cannot guarantee the safety of its people due to cuts to frontline services has failed.
“As long as Northern Ireland is lumbered with the unworkable system of mandatory coalition with its inbuilt mutual vetoes which Sinn Fein have used to block everything from welfare reform to the Ulster Aviation Society open day nothing will change and we will lurch from one crisis to the next – which of course is in the interests of Republicans in the long term as they do not want Northern Ireland to even exist!
“It’s time Unionists faced up to the reality that while Stormont with its £50,000 a week hospitality bill and fleet of ministerial cars may be delivering for the political class it isn’t and can’t deliver the good government which Northern Ireland both needs and deserves. Indeed, Sinn Fein is not in government to deliver good government, but to fulfil its mantra that Northern Ireland is a failed political entity. When will that penny finally drop with the DUP and others who keep them in government, while all the time they destroy Northern Ireland from within?”