It would be reckless of Stormont to increase borrowing

Jim Allister MLA, the TUV leader, and Paula Bradshaw, the Alliance MLA, are right to sound the alarm about the Executive heaping further debt on society.

Stormont is accomplished at spending like there is no tomorrow. It has put in place a raft of freebies, such as free prescriptions and cutting the age at which people get free travel to 60 (in an age of rising life expectancy).

At the same time, politicians from across the spectrum have opposed sensible cost saving measures such as rationalised hospital provision.

Stormont has ruled out water charges and capped the level at which rates rise (so that the biggest and most expensive houses pay the same as more modest houses that are valued at the cap).

There has been an almost complete reluctance to move away from such populism. 
It would be madness, in that environment, to increase borrowing just because Sinn Fein is looking over its shoulder at People Before Profit.

Mairtin O’Muilleoir talks about combating austerity, which sounds noble and generous. But it is not generous to spend other people’s money without any sense of prudence, or to heap more debt on to the government debt pile, that will one day have to be paid for by the children of today.

Jim Allister is one of the most forensic MLAs when it comes to examination of facts. It is welcome that he now has a place on a committee as important as finance.

Alliance is one of the only parties that has begun to show fiscal responsibility. As the recent election results showed, it is no vote winner. But it does not seem to be a vote loser either.

That such politicians are willing to scrutinise reckless expenditure is an important feature of the new Assembly.