Northern Ireland homeowners are to see their bills for public services increase dramatically.
Northern Secretary Peter Hain, who yesterday published his draft budget for the next three years, said the domestic regional rate must rise by 19 per cent next year.
In 2007 domestic ratepayers will face a smaller regional increase of 6 per cent, said Mr Hain, but this will be to compensate for another new bill which will then also confront people in the North - water charges.
Mr Hain defended these increases against political criticism, stating that with the 19 per cent increase the amounts householders contribute to local public services in the North will be much less than 60 per cent of the average in England. "That gap will need to be revisited in the future if we want to maintain local public services at the same level as elsewhere," he warned.
When the regional bill and the rate set by local councils are combined, it is expected that the overall rates' bill increase in the North will be 12-13 per cent.
Mr Hain said the increases mean a rise in rates of around £1 a week for the average domestic rates bill, but would raise an additional £20 million annually. "This will help meet the costs of the new priority funding packages for children and young people, science and skills and the environment and energy," he said. Sinn Féin Assembly group leader John O'Dowd said local politicians should be making the budget decisions, not direct rule ministers.
DUP MP Nigel Dodds said it was unacceptable for the British government to argue that "Northern Ireland's ratepayers need to be brought into line with their counterparts in Great Britain when workers here earn approximately 20 per cent less than people in England, and also have to endure some of the highest energy, insurance and petrol prices in the whole of the UK".
SDLP MLA Margaret Ritchie said the 19 per cent regional rate increase was "clearly designed to teach us the lesson that the direct rulers intend to get money out of us one way or another to pay for their own neglect of our infrastructure".