Date 20 November 2006

PN 01/06

COMMITTEE MEETS TO IDENTIFY FUTURE ISSUES

The Programme For Government Committee met for the first time today in Parliament Buildings and identified a number of priorities that need to be addressed by a future Executive. The way forward on these will be discussed in detail at the next meeting.

The Committee agreed that:-

• The water reform legislation should be deferred, and that the public services funding gap caused by this deferment and the capital backlog be paid for by Government as additional funding;
• As the financial package proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was grossly insufficient, further work would be undertaken on the development of an economic package and another meeting would be sought with the Chancellor; and
• Scoping work would be done on the establishment of sub-groups.

In his letter of 17 November 2006 to the Speaker of the Assembly, the Secretary of State gave an undertaking that officials from the relevant Departments will be made available to the Committee and this was confirmed today by Nigel Hamilton, Head of the Civil Service, when he addressed the Committee.

Francie Molloy, who chaired today’s meeting, said ‘This was a positive start to some very important work and the Committee looks forward to getting on with the job.’

NOTES TO THE EDITOR:

The Programme for Government Committee was first referred to in Annex D to the St Andrew’s Agreement. The initial meeting, planned for 17 October 2006, failed to take place.

On 17 November 2006 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Rt Hon Peter Hain MP, wrote to Mrs Eileen Bell, Speaker of the Assembly, to direct that a Committee should be established to consider the priorities for a new Executive and to make preparations for restoration. The Secretary of State directed that the Committee should be chaired by the deputy presiding officers, Mr Jim Wells and Mr Francie Molloy and meet on Monday, 20 November 2006.

The Committee has provisionally agreed to meet on a weekly basis on Mondays at noon.

Information about today’s meeting can be obtained from the Clerk to the Committee.

Ms Nuala Dunwoody
Clerk Assistant
Clerk to the Committee on the Preparation for Government
Parliament Buildings
Belfast

028 90 418321