Editorial: Northern Ireland has been avoiding sensible debate about how best to budget in a time of financial pressure

​All over the news, locally and nationally, there are indications of financial pressures or even crises.

​On page 6 today we report on educational leaders who have written to the secretary of state, Chris Heaton-Harris, saying that the sector needs urgent extra funds.

Beside it is a story about the legal obligation on Stormont to consult the views of a civic forum, of which few people have heard but which is meant to comprise representatives of sectors across Northern Ireland (thus NI, with all its layers of government, its endless judicial reviews, its quangos and third sector bodies, needs yet more decision makers).

On page 8 there is a story about doctors and nurses and other health leaders making their own plea to Mr Heaton-Harris.

Underpinning almost all of these demands for government support is a demand for more money, often alongside an implication of public mean-spiritedness.

Rarely is there a mention of all the inefficiencies in NI. Not only is education segregated, in some respects it is becoming more so as Irish language schools are launched with lower intakes than schools that are forced to close.

Stormont has stubbornly refused to implement health reform, and its politicians instead protest at any attempts to bring about the better NHS that experts have been pleading them to approve.

It has handed out free prescriptions regardless of individual ability to pay, it has cut the age at which people get free transport in a time of rising life expectancy, and it (alongside councils) has dispensed vast amounts of money to community groups and cultural events, the tracking of which would be a full-time job.

Barely anyone in authority so much as cites counter arguments to greater funding demands, such the fact that NI is already exempt from paying water charges, or the extraordinarily generous public sector pensions that, even if only slightly trimmed, could release vast sums for services.

NI is a society of huge potential yet currently acts like one that is incapable of sensible debate about how to stay solvent in a time of financial pressure.