Tuesday 05 May 2020
Green Party NI MLA Rachel Woods will call on the Executive to build something better than before during a debate on the NI Budget in the Assembly later today.
The MLA for North Down said: “This is a budget for an unprecedented public health crisis - I’m urging the Executive to build something better than what went before.
“The recovery must be a green recovery. There can be no return to an economic model premised on the relentless pursuit of GDP and debt fuelled over consumption.
“Rather, we must make a just transition towards a low carbon economy. This means a Green New Deal and the creation of new jobs in the emerging technologies and industries that will help us deal with climate breakdown.
“This Assembly must deliver a Green Recovery that protects public service jobs and rejects austerity. Austerity has been a abject disaster for so many across our society with the bill for the 2008 bankers bail out forced upon those who could least afford it.
“This pandemic has laid bare the fragility of our economic system but also the importance of a properly funded health and social care system.
“This pandemic has been horrible in so many ways. It has cost lives, jobs and robbed us of contact with our loved ones. But, Covid-19 has afforded us an opportunity to re-evaluate, to reimagineand to build back better than before.”
ENDS
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