NI budget: Danny Kennedy criticised by Arlene Foster on £12m DRD overspend

Finance Minister Arlene Foster has criticised a Northern Ireland Executive colleague for overspending.

She said it was "extremely disappointing" that Regional Development Minister Danny Kennedy went £12m over budget last year.

Mrs Foster, in a document released on June monitoring, said Mr Kennedy had relied on receiving additional money for day-to-day spending.

That money "did not materialise" due to the executive's budget pressures.

She said "very serious issues" are facing Stormont and she will circulate a paper within the executive "in the near future".

But funding cuts of £39m as a result of the chancellor's budget in March will not be felt immediately.

She said the executive has agreed to defer that reduction in the block grant until the 2016-17 financial year.

Plans to reduce the number of Stormont departments from 12 to nine are moving forward.

"While a bill has not yet been introduced in the assembly it is important that work is progressed to ensure the restructuring can be implemented," Mrs Foster said.

She added the changes will have an impact on next year's budget talks.

"With the change to a nine-department structure planned for a few weeks into the 2016-17 financial year, the executive has now agreed that the budget should be conducted on the new departmental structure.

"The executive has agreed that preparatory work in relation to this can commence over the summer months."

But Ulster Unionist MLA Adrian Cochrane-Watson accused Mrs Foster of "playing party politics".

He said the "technical overspend" by Mr Kennedy was the result of £40m being lost from his departmental budget in the last two years.

He added: "If anything DRD made greater savings than any other department.

"We are now at the end of the third week in July and Arlene Foster still has not sorted out June monitoring, at the same time she is returning nearly £300,000 per day to Westminster for failing to resolve welfare reform."