Northern Ireland’s Public Services at Breaking Point Due to Chronic Underfunding, Says UK Committee Report

LONDON – April 7, 2025 — A new report by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has delivered a stark warning about the deteriorating state of public services in Northern Ireland, citing chronic underfunding as a key factor undermining healthcare, education, and policing across the region.

The committee’s findings describe a system under severe strain, with emergency departments facing unprecedented delays, mental health needs far outpacing those in other parts of the United Kingdom, and long-standing issues in special education support. Hospital waiting times are now among the worst in the UK, and the region has previously held the world record for antidepressant prescriptions per capita.

The report highlights that some children with special educational needs are waiting over a year for access to essential services, while patients regularly endure waits of more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments. Mental health provision, in particular, is in crisis, with needs reported to be 40% higher than elsewhere in the UK.

Law enforcement is also suffering. Despite Northern Ireland’s unique challenges—such as cross-community recruitment and efforts to dismantle residual paramilitary influence—the Police Service of Northern Ireland has operated on a static budget since 2010. The Law Society of Northern Ireland warned the committee that the region’s public services are “at risk of collapse.”

Dr. Stephen Farry, a former Member of Parliament and now Co-Director of Ulster University’s Strategic Policy Unit, emphasized the scale of the issue, urging policymakers in Westminster to recognize the disparity in service quality compared to Great Britain. “The sheer scale of the crisis is that much greater,” he told the committee.

Committee Chair Tonia Antoniazzi echoed this concern, stating: “The crisis afflicting public services in Northern Ireland has gone on for far too long. The crippling effects of underfunding are impinging on the daily lives of people across all communities. The current ‘hand-to-mouth’ approach to funding is unsustainable—too little, too late.”

The committee has called on the UK government to allocate funding for the 2026–2027 fiscal year based on Northern Ireland’s actual needs. While the region receives the highest public spending per capita in the UK, it also raises the lowest revenue, making it heavily dependent on the “block grant” provided under the Barnett formula—a mechanism that allocates funding to devolved administrations in proportion to spending changes in England.

In recognition of the exceptional strain on public services, the UK government previously increased Northern Ireland’s funding allocation to £124 per head. The report notes that further research is under way to determine whether an additional uplift is necessary.

“During our predecessor committee’s inquiry in 2023–24, it heard that the funding and delivery of public services in Northern Ireland were under enormous pressure,” the report states. “One year on, little appears to have changed.”

When devolved power-sharing resumed in 2024 after a two-year suspension, the UK government provided a £3.3 billion financial package to support public services. However, the Stormont Executive was also encouraged to increase its own revenue generation—an endeavour the committee now acknowledges as “politically difficult,” given the region’s limited fiscal levers.

The committee’s report underscores the urgent need for a long-term, sustainable funding model tailored to Northern Ireland’s unique social, economic, and historical context. Without decisive intervention, it warns, the collapse of vital public services is no longer a distant threat—but an imminent reality.