SINN Féin ministers have been diplomatically restrained about the growth in UK defence spending in Northern Ireland.

They do not like it, for obvious republican reasons, but nor have they openly objected to it, given the state of the world.

This truce appears to be breaking down as the party experiments with a butter over guns line on public spending.

The £50 million Northern Ireland Defence Growth Deal launched by the government this week was criticised by Sinn Féin MLA and former minister Deirdre Hargey for “investing in war that kills civilians in other parts of the world”.

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“If there is £50m to be invested, that should be invested into our public services,” she said.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill was a little more diplomatic, adding that she should would prefer it had been invested “in a different way”.

That would be fair enough if the sum involved could make any difference to public services.

There are five defence growth deals across the UK, each worth £50m. Northern Ireland is getting one because of its defence cluster in Belfast.

Had Westminster allocated the £250m total to public services, Stormont’s share via the Barnett formula would be £9m, an amount the Executive spends every four hours – or including benefits, every three hours.

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As a condition of the £400m emergency loan the Executive received in February, the Treasury demanded to conduct a so-called open book review, combing through the finances of every Stormont department.

It has concluded that the Executive would have an extra £3.3 billion to spend every year if it ended populist giveaways and over-staffing in the public sector.

This has horrified Sinn Féin and the DUP. Emma Little-Pengelly described the review as “preposterous” for expecting that sum to be “raised every........

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