Budget director had fears over Sinn Féin Finance Minister’s approach

Mike Brennan, the Department of Finance’s then budget director, made the candid comments in an internal email which has been released thanks to the RHI Inquiry.

In the August 2016 email to his permanent secretary, David Sterling, Mr Brennan – who has since been promoted to permanent secretary of the Department for the Economy – said: “I fear that our minister is asking the impossible re 2017-18 ‘no cuts’. The worry is that as time progresses it will be very difficult to actually implement some of the additional revenue raising measures (other than a Rates hike) as we will probably need regulations etc (eg students entering in the new academic year would probably need to be told in next few weeks about any potential fees increase etc).

“The minister also needs to realise that it isn’t as simple as living within whatever budget envelope we get from HMT in 2017-18. Other factors outside of the funding settlement will need to be addressed...we will revisit draft presentation we had prepared a few months ago and hold but we will have to make a number of heroic assumptions. Since I prepared that presentation we have even greater levels of uncertainty and not all driven by BREXIT.”

Mr Ó Muilleoir has long been criticised by the DUP for failing to bring a budget forward in 2016 or early 2017. In further documentation released by the inquiry, it is clear that he missed his own department’s timetable for the budget and that if he had met that timetable the budget process should have been published before Stormont fell.

The document – which was drawn up by officials to assist the minister in answering questions – shows that there should have been a written Assembly statement on December 19 and the budget document should have been laid in the Assembly on January 9, which did not happen before the last Assembly sitting on January 24.

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