First Minister Michelle O'Neill has rejected the Northern Ireland Secretary's assertion that there is no more money for Stormont, hours after Sir Chris Bryant said there was "very little financial accountability or responsibility" across the Executive.
Speaking on Wednesday after a meeting with the Royal College of Nursing, O'Neill said: "I don't accept Chris Bryant's claim that there's no more money." She described his remarks as "out of touch" and said the Executive would meet that evening to discuss the budget and next steps.
The exchange sharpens a stand-off that has left Northern Ireland without a budget for the 2026/27 financial year since April. Departments are operating under contingency arrangements that allow them to spend up to 95% of the previous year's funding, and Executive ministers say they cannot set a budget without more support from Westminster.
Bryant told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster on Wednesday morning that the UK government would not bring forward money from later years of its offer. "There is no front loading to be done," he said.
He added: "I've made it absolutely clear about 17 times now, both to members of the executive and to others, that there is no additional money beyond the £525m we have set aside for this year."
Bryant went further in his criticism of Stormont ministers. "There is very little financial accountability or responsibility across the whole of the executive," he said. "That's abnormal. There's no local council anywhere in the UK that doesn't have to bring in a balanced budget. That's what the executive is going to have to do."
He said: "You cannot keep overspending willy-nilly and not expect consequences from that. It's just irresponsible."
The UK government's offer, put to the parties in writing on 10 September, is worth slightly above £1.5bn over three years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29. Bryant has described it as his final offer and told party leaders on 24 September that it would not be improved. The offer includes money for public service transformation that the government wants the Executive to match, and the additional funding is not guaranteed beyond three years.
O'Neill, the Sinn Féin vice-president, pointed to earlier occasions on which she said Westminster had ruled out extra money before providing it.
"When we established the Executive back in 2024, they told us there was no more money, and we actually were able to secure additional funding for public services," she said. "Whenever they told us a number of months ago that there was no more money, we've been able to achieve an additional £1.5 billion over the next three years."
She said the Treasury accepted Northern Ireland had been underfunded. "The Treasury accept we've been underfunded, but they want us to keep agreeing to a budget that actually doesn't represent fairness, given the fact that people here pay their taxes," she said.
"People here are entitled to fairness. Public sector workers are entitled to get their pay. We're going to continue this conversation with them, regardless of what he had to say about it earlier on today."
Finance Minister John O'Dowd, also of Sinn Féin, has said the offer falls well short of what is required. He told Radio Ulster earlier this month that the Executive needed about £1.5bn in this financial year alone to meet pressures on public services, and that legal advisers had told him he could not authorise public sector pay awards without a budget.
The pay dispute is already escalating. The RCN opened a strike ballot on Tuesday over the unpaid 2026/27 award for nursing staff, whose counterparts in England and Wales have been awarded a 3.3% uplift.
Bryant has said he can legislate at Westminster to impose a budget if the Executive cannot agree one, and has suggested the end of January is the point at which departments would run out of money under the emergency rules. He instructed officials to consider contingency plans after the deadline for his offer passed earlier this month.
The Executive's evening meeting on Wednesday had not produced a public statement by the time O'Neill's comments were reported.
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