Stormont House Agreement

Conference expresses its concern at a number of core elements of the Stormont House Agreement (SHA) which was agreed by the main political parties in  Northern Ireland in December 2014. Conference recognises the need to strengthen the peace process and for this reason opposes the financial and economic measures which are contrary to the interests of workers and working class communities and calls on the Executive Council to pursue a robust policy of exposing the unacceptability of these financial and economic measures adopted by the NI Executive parties. Congress Conference understands the resources that are available via the NI Block Grant have been severely reduced over a 5 year period by decisions taken at Westminster. However, it is clear that a number of the financial and economic measures adopted by the NI Executive have not been imposed by Westminster and are the result of decisions taken by the NI Executive itself. In particular Conference rejects: The decision to seek the devolution of Corporation Tax to Northern Ireland which will boost the profits of private sector businesses and detrimentally impact on public servicejobs and public services with no guarantee of additional high quality jobs. Any plans to privatise public service functions or sell off important economic assets such as Translink, Belfast Harbour or NI Water. The planned use of around £700m borrowed under the Reinvestment and Reform Initiative to run down public services and public sector employment through a programme of redundancies of between 20,000 and 30,000 public servants. Conference expresses its support for those unions which participated in the public service strike on the 13th March 2015 and pledges its ongoing support for those unions engaged in strike action and action short of strike action as part of the campaign to reverse the attacks on workers and communities in Northern Ireland.