Northern Ireland budget plan sees £4 billion in cuts

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's government has agreed budget plans to raise nearly 1 billion pounds in new revenue to help offset 4 billion pounds in spending cuts over the next four years.

The province needs to overhaul its finances after the government introduced drastic public spending cuts in October.

The province's finance minister Sammy Wilson unveiled the budget on Wednesday after ministers agreed the draft late on Tuesday. It is due to be ratified in parliament next February.

"I believe this is the day that the executive came of age. We have proved that we can take difficult decisions, we have proved that we can reach agreement and we have proved that we can work together for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland," Wilson said.

A sell-off of publicly owned assets will raise 540 million pounds over the next four years.

The draft budget envisages a two-year freeze on pay rises for 12,000 civil servants earning more than 21,000 pounds a year. Doctors, nurses, police and prison officers will also have their pay frozen or restricted under national agreements.

Northern Ireland relies on public service employment more than any other region in Britain. It accounts for nearly one in three jobs against nearly one in five for the country as a whole.

Wilson scrapped a freeze on household rate rises from April, increasing over the next four years in line with inflation and introduced a tax on plastic bags.

Expenditure on health and social services will rise slightly while spending on policing and justice has been ringfenced amid a rise in attacks by dissident nationalist groups, who oppose a 1998 peace process with Britain and want to see the province united with the Republic of Ireland.

(Reporting by Ian Graham; editing by Yara Bayoumy)