The British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown are due to visit Northern Ireland on Thursday, May 2.

It is expected that they will announce a two-pronged initiative designed to support the devolved powers invested in the Stormont Assembly.

Recent media speculation predicts that Mr Blair will announce the handing over of major portions of Crown property to Stormont in order to help fund public spending programmes. This could include areas like the Maze Prison and Ebrington barracks in County Derry. These prime real estate sites could be sold off and bring in millions to the Executive to spend on other public services.

It is also predicted that Mr Brown will announce Stormont will have the power to borrow money from the UK Treasury.

These loans, it is thought would go some way towards addressing the urgent spending requirements in health, roads and local government infrastructure.

However, Alliance leader David Ford has said that these proposals are unlikely to address the long-term funding needs of Northern Ireland.

Mr Ford said: "It appears that the Chancellor will announce a medium-term low interest loan to deal with some of the backlog of expenditure needed to bring services here up to date.

“However welcome, it is not acceptable for a loan to have to be paid back by increasing the unfair taxes that are the rates. It also appears that the Government is ducking the need for urgent reform of the Barnett formula, which is long out of date.

“We need a system which fairly allocates funds across the UK on the basis of need,” he said.

Meanwhile Foyle MP John Hume is to have a private meeting with Mr Brown to discuss student finance and the price of petrol.

The former SDLP leader said: “I will be asking the chancellor to give priority to increasing levels of student finance so that student poverty can be tackled. If he does that, more money will come to the Northern Ireland executive.”

He also said the different levels of tax would be discussed and its specific impact on garage and filling stations, hundreds of which have closed in recent years due to high petrol prices.

Mr Hume said: “The impact of taxation in Britain is different to the impact in the north of Ireland because of our land border with the Republic of Ireland. The Republic is now an area of low taxation in Europe. Ultimately in order to create a level playing field in Ireland, the different circumstances of Northern Ireland with regard to taxation need to be taken into account.”

(AMcE)