"It will be a good Christmas present for the people of Northern Ireland," a beaming Sammy Wilson told the assembly just 32 days ago. Last week, as the reality of deep cuts sank in, that seemed like a lifetime ago.
The finance minister is an ebullient, can-do sort of person and naturally he put the best gloss on things when he announced his draft budget on December 15. The executive, he pronounced, had passed the test of agreeing a budget "with flying colours".
Despite the recession, Wilson had found enough spare cash to be able to suspend water rates for a further four years, at an estimated cost of £500m a year. Another £800m was produced to renew sports facilities and for job-creation measures.
To be fair, Wilson had warned that public spending cuts would hurt Northern Ireland more than other regions, and that the details would be announced later by other departments. Yet the main cuts he flagged up were seemingly painless, and at the expense of anonymous public bodies, such as Belfast Harbour Commissioners and housing associations. Even a plastic bag levy of 15p seemed reasonable.
Last week, the attractive wrapping was stripped away from Wilson's parcel and the impact on services was revealed. The detail came so thick and fast that most people had trouble absorbing it. The small print will sink in over the consultation period, which has been reduced from two months to five weeks because departments took their time making unpopular decisions in the forlorn hope of a reprieve.
Departments have suffered another blow. In a move that mimics Stormont's raids on the cash reserves of the harbour commission and housing associations, the Treasury has, as Wilson put it, "swiped" £300m from year-on-year savings. Under the previous government, Northern Ireland was allowed to "roll over" any money that it didn't spend in one financial year, and some departments used this to "save up" for items such as school computers.
Now the rules have been changed "at the stroke of a pen", as Wilson put it.
To make matters worse, the door to Downing Street is now closed to Northern Ireland ministers seeking cash from David Cameron. Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, it was always open. When the cuts were first mooted last October, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness demanded an "urgent meeting" with the prime minister to ask for more money – Cameron hasn't been able to find time in his diary yet.
Owen Paterson, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, came close to rubbing salt in the wound last week. "David Cameron expects people to do the job," he told the Shropshire Star. "He doesn't want to be his own Northern Ireland secretary, so it has been a bit of a learning curve, I think, for Northern Ireland politicians to find they can't go galloping off to Downing Street if they can't get their way from me."
Paterson points out that he has cut the Northern Ireland Office budget by 25% and has stopped using an executive jet to commute to England, at a saving of £6,000 a trip.
So Stormont ministers have to come up with revenue-raising measures. Proposals so far include increased rent for public-sector tenants, an above-inflation hike in public transport and parking charges, and higher parking fines imposed by a reduced number of traffic wardens. That all takes the shine off the nonsensical decision to forgo water charges for another four years.
While the Scottish and Welsh assemblies were able to mitigate the effect of higher tuition fees on students, Stormont is to push ahead with higher fees. There are also hints that prescription charges will return.
Increased charges are one thing; cuts in services another. Fire stations are likely to be closed and a new training facility for firefighters may not be completed. There will be no new school buildings for four years, and it is proposed that investment in the water infrastructure be reduced, though it is mainly comprised of cast-iron pipes, with a few wooden ones thrown in.
The North's road system, pitted by potholes, was an investment priority; now it, too, is to suffer. The main impact will be on the health service, which represents about 40% of Stormont's budget, largely because of the ageing population.
Health spending was supposed to be ringfenced, as it is elsewhere in the UK, where per capita spending is already higher. Now it emerges that there is an estimated £800m shortfall in the health and social services budget.
Michael McGimpsey, the health minister, has proposed savings that will involve hospital bed closures, longer waiting lists, closed wings in hospital, withholding certain drugs from new patients, cuts in home care for the elderly, and not completing new buildings to save running costs. There will be 4,000 job losses and some of the cuts will make the system less efficient. For instance, cutting home-care packages will result in longer stays in hospital, further reducing the number of available beds.
A cancer centre in Derry's Altnagelvin, considered a priority a few months ago, may not be completed because there is no money to equip it or employ staff. As a result, patients from the Bogside face a round trip of 150 miles to get radiotherapy in Belfast, and they will have to pay for overnight accommodation, effectively pricing some out of the market.
So far, the reaction of the DUP and Sinn Féin to McGimpsey's proposals has been unsympathetic. Some accuse the health minister of exaggerating problems to get resources diverted to his department. "Attempting to whip up public fear is deeply irresponsible and reckless," said the DUP's Simon Hamilton. Others are point-scoring by highlighting the UUP's support for the Tories at the election.
There is another explanation. The big parties managed to announce most of the giveaway elements of the budget, leaving the brunt of the cuts to the SDLP and UUP, whom they hope to wipe out in the May elections. DUP ministers have, for instance, taken credit for the abolition of water rates and other revenue-reducing measures. McGimpsey is left to manage health spending, while Alex Attwood of the SDLP is forced to increase rents. Nelson McCausland of the DUP gives money to stadiums for soccer, rugby and GAA while it falls to Danny Kennedy of the UUP to raise university tuition fees.
The big parties also pursue hobby-horse projects. The translation of assembly business into Irish and Ulster Scots may be followed by the erection of street signs in these languages, in a project overseen by Sinn Féin's Conor Murphy. The cost of segregated facilities – £1 billion a year for education alone, according to Oxford Economics – has not been tackled, possibly because it would put strains on the DUP/Sinn Féin detente.
There are already rumblings in the smaller parties that being in government as junior partners is not to their liking. Nobody is publicly talking about pulling out – yet. In private, they wonder if the game is worth the candle.
