20/04/2011

Alliance Manifesto Backs Water Charges

The Alliance Party has launched their election manifesto this week in Belfast.

The 150-page manifesto, which the party claims is the "most comprehensive and ambitious" ever produced in Northern Ireland, calls for a new Department for the Economy to be set up while reducing the overall number of departments from 12 to eight.

The party also announced it is in favour of the introduction of water charges in Northern Ireland as long as they are "fair".

Not having water charges means deeper cuts in public services, it said.

Alliance Party leader David Ford (pictured) claimed: "This is not a manifesto of changes that we want others to deliver.

"It's a manifesto of changes that we want to deliver."

Other pledges in the Alliance Party manifesto include cutting the number of MLAs to 80, opposing "unfair" increases in student tuition fees, promoting a cross-party working group to discuss and agree major reforms within the health service, having 20% of children in integrated schools and 40% in mixed schools by 2020 and introducing a lower rate of corporation tax.

(JG/BMcC)

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