‘SDLP will fight education cuts,’ insists Bradley | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

‘SDLP will fight education cuts,’ insists Bradley

SDLP MLA for Newry and Armagh Dominic Bradley has said that the SDLP will stand by schools in their opposition to the savage education cuts being proposed in the draft budget.

SDLP MLA Dominic Bradley

Commenting on the situation Bradley said, “These cuts were proposed as a result of the Draft Budget 2015-2016 agreed by the Executive on 31st October 2014.

“The SDLP’s Minister of Environment, Mark H Durkan, was the only Executive Minister to vote against the Draft Budget because it will not serve the needs of the people of Northern Ireland.

“The SDLP highly commends the extraordinarily hard work that teachers and school staff undertake. The SDLP strongly believes that education, after the family,  is the most important building block of our society and economy.

“However schools in Northern Ireland are already on shaky financial ground and these cuts will move them onto the shifting sand. These cuts are all the more insulting given the £17 million wasted on the now defunct Education and Skills Authority Bill,” he insisted.

“As SDLP Education spokesperson, I have consistently defended the interests of schools and our young people at Committee level and in the Assembly as has our current spokesperson,  Seán Rogers MLA, and our other representatives and we will continue to do so.

“The SDLP is in the process of responding to the overall Draft Budget consultation and that of the Department of Education and you can be assured that we will make a strong case for schools . We would strongly encourage schools and the public to voice their concerns in a response to the consultation.

“The consultation is available at: http://www.deni.gov.uk/news/news-de-251114-department-of-education.htm and on the Department of Finance website   http://www.dfpni.gov.uk/index/about-dfp/consultation-zone.htm

Bradley added, “The SDLP will continue to oppose the cuts at committee, Assembly, and Executive level and we will continue to fight the Tory cuts in the current on-going talks process.”

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Posted by on Dec 19 2014. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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