The Stormont executive has today agreed a draft programme for government.
It prioritises nine areas for policy implementation, including childcare, growing the economy and addressing educational under-attainment.
The long-awaited policy plan, details of which will kept under wraps until revealed to the assembly on Monday, comes seven months after the restoration of the devolved institutions.
Once published, the document will go out for a two-month public consultation, ahead of being formally adopted.
The programme for government will cover the period up to the end of the current assembly mandate in 2027.
It is more than a decade since the executive agreed a programme for government. The last time was for the period 2011-2015, when Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness were first and deputy first ministers, respectively.
Speaking at Stormont Castle this afternoon, First Minister Michelle O’Neill acknowledged that the programme had been agreed under tight financial constraints.
She said the document acknowledged the budgetary challenges.
“I think it is very hopeful and actually is ambitious in terms of what we want to achieve,” she said.
“It also very clearly breaks it down into immediate priorities, and then works towards building scalable investment for the future.”
Opposition leader Mathew O’Toole tweeted: “A programme for government should one belatedly emerge, has to be more than hundreds of pages of officialese and verbiage.
“It needs to have a finite number of clear targets and specific actions for the public to understand.”
