Stormont in jeopardy as welfare Bill is blocked

The Northern Assembly last night blocked the final passage of the welfare Bill, triggering a potential crisis that could bring down the Stormont institutions.

Despite a warning by DUP Minister for Finance Arlene Foster that rejection of the welfare proposals would create an unsustainable £604 million (€854 million) deficit in the Stormont budget, Sinn Féin, with the support of the SDLP and the single Green member, Steven Agnew, used a blocking mechanism to veto the bill.

They signed a cross-community petition of concern which meant that the Bill could only be carried by a majority of both nationalists and unionists endorsing the welfare changes. In the chamber, 58 MLAs supported the Bill while 39 voted against. However, as a majority of both unionists and nationalists did not support the bill it fell.

Ms Foster warned that such would be the unsustainable state of the North’s budget that circumstances could be created where the British government “will be forced to intervene”.

United front

In the absence of agreement, the DUP wants Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers to take over responsibility for welfare from the Executive. She, however, is reluctant to go down this route at present.

Ms Villiers previously warned that if the welfare dispute was not settled then the entire Stormont House Agreement, providing £2 billion in grants and loan-raising powers and covering issues such as the Executive budget, corporation tax, public service reform and how to deal with the past, would be placed in “jeopardy”.

The Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, called for a united front to resist the welfare cuts.

“This is a time when the Executive parties need to stand together to defend our public services, particularly in health, education and welfare. We need to stand up for the people who elect us, rather than acting in the interests of a Tory elite,” he said.

Fiscal powers

“We need an immediate negotiation with the British government for a budget which protects our public services and for fiscal powers that give us control over our economy,” he added.

Ms Foster, however, accused Sinn Féin of opposing welfare reform at the diktat of the party’s electoral ambitions in the Republic. “Their Dublin bosses cracked the whip and the Sinn Féin Assembly team flipped,” she said.

Ms Foster added that Sinn Féin opposition to the Bill was "just cheap, self-serving party political posturing and frankly it is pathetic … just to look like tough guys to the rest of the electorate in Northern Ireland and indeed to look like tough guys to the electorate in the Republic of Ireland".

The DUP pressed ahead with the final stage of the Bill despite concerns that it would precipitate a crisis that would jeopardise the Executive and Assembly.

There was some speculation that the cardiac illness of DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson might allow for the debate to be postponed.

However, the DUP social development Minister Mervyn Storey said in the Assembly chamber that the debate must proceed. "The time for talking is now over."