Pat Cullen contradicts Sinn Fein position on health budget - and defends plan to represent Fermanagh from leafy South Belfast

Michelle O’Neill has previously defended the budget saying that health had been prioritised – and describing previous health minister Robin Swann’s rejection of the budget as disappointing.

Sinn Fein had argued that they would like more money from the Treasury, but have not argued that a larger percentage of the available budget should go to health. It would have been in the gift of the party’s finance minister to propose to the Executive a bigger slice of the cake for health, and for the Sinn Fein ministers to accept less for their departments to fund it – but that did not happen.

Instead, the percentage going to health decreased. The Department of Health said the NI budgetary process for this year began with Health accounting for 53.8% of the Executive’s baseline budget – with the new budget reducing the share to 51.2%. The NI Fiscal Council said the budget allocation for Health represents “the first time that its share of the total allocation to NI departments has fallen over the period covered by an NI budget”, outside Covid-19.

Former RCN chief executive Pat Cullen on the picket line last year. The Sinn Fein candidate appears to have contradicted the party line on health service funding in Northern Ireland. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

However Ms Cullen, former head of the Royal College of Nursing union, now says the percentage of the budget being spent on health is not enough.

Asked about the health minister’s rejection of the budget, Pat Cullen told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme “I don’t think it’s just the finance minister’s health budget, it’s the Executive decisions – the collective decisions. 50% of the budget went to health. Are we saying that’s enough? Absolutely not. But don’t forget, for a decade, this… constituency and many others have been starved of finance and investment by a Tory government”.

UUP candidate in the constituency Diana Armstrong told the News Letter: “As a former nurse and union leader, of course it should be clear to Ms Cullen that the current health service is ‘absolutely not enough’.

“It’s a shame that instead of advocating for more money for our hospitals and our dedicated nurses, doctors and other essential health care workers, she is standing for a party that has failed our NHS, voted for a near £200m cut to the health service, and would only deliver an empty seat in Westminster - and an empty seat cannot deliver for the people of FST”.

The Sinn Fein candidate has also claimed she would be able to represent the Fermanagh South Tyrone constituency effectively from South Belfast.

At the weekend, republican rivals Aontú compared Ms Cullen to an absentee landlord after the News Letter revealed she lives in a wealthy neighbourhood in South Belfast and appears to have no plans to relocate to the constituency she intends to represent.

Peadar Tóibín, Leader of Aontú, said it was surprising that SF “could not find a candidate that lives in Fermanagh South Tyrone.

“I think its unfair on local SF members to parachute a candidate from over 2 hours away. Its really important that MPs are close to the people that they are supposed to represent.

“In the past we had absentee land lords, now it seems we have absentee MPs”.

Questioned on the issue by the BBC’s Sarah Brett during an election debate, Pat Cullen said “Look. For this past three years I’ve lived in Belfast and I’ve represented half a million nurses, through from Aberdeen, through to London, into...North England right through to Cardiff, Bristol, everywhere else.

“What I’ve done is make sure that I turn up at every table that’s available to me and keep the pressure on the Tory government and whatever British government will come into place to make sure that the people for Fermanagh South Tyrone are represented at those tables.

“I will turn up, I will be available, I will speak up and I will make sure that their voice is heard loud and clear. And that I deliver for those people”.