Durkan to distribute €107m across Assembly departments

More than £66 million sterling (€107.5 million) in government spending has been reallocated, the North's Minister for Finance has announced.

Mr Mark Durkan told the Assembly the money had become available as part of the September monitoring round of public expenditure.

Mr Durkan said £44.2 million in savings had been declared by departments in September while a further £21.7 million had been held over from a similar exercise in July.

The Minister said this money, £33 million of which would be allocated immediately, would go to improve services in a number of areas. He warned, however, against the growth of "a dependency culture" whereby departments came to rely on such reallocations.

The department that benefited most from the reallocation was the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety which received a total of £14.3 million.

This included £8 million to meet increased staff and drugs costs as well as £3.8 million to replace cancer-treating equipment at the Royal and Belvoir hospitals in Belfast.

Members welcomed the extra funding for health but claimed it did not go far enough.

Mr Kieran McCarthy of the Alliance party complained the Minister was holding back £11.9 million of the extra funds for the Department of Arts, Culture and Leisure.

"Surely now would be the time to put this extra funding into health when all our people are crying out for reduced waiting times, cancer care, nursing and community care," he said.

The Department of Education and Learning was the other major beneficiary with an extra £10 million going into its coffers.

Mr Durkan said an extra £2.5 million would go to pay larger than expected pay increases for lecturers in further education.

An extra £6 million would go to fund an increased demand for the government-funded "individual learning account" scheme.

The Department of Agriculture is to get an extra £1 million to help cover the costs of foot-and-mouth.