{"id":546078,"date":"2026-04-23T08:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546078\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:16:09","slug":"ni-politics-michelle-oneill-questions-need-for-50m-ni-defence-sector-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546078\/","title":{"rendered":"NI politics: Michelle O&#8217;Neill questions need for \u00a350m NI defence sector investment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Northern Ireland Defence Growth deal, launched by the UK government, will result in extra money being invested in tech companies and start ups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is a collaboration between the Ministry of Defence, local companies and Queen&#8217;s University Belfast and is also aimed at helping students develop skills in engineering and technology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">O&#8217;Neill was criticised by unionists for failing to attend the launch of the new Growth Deal in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the time, the first minister was engaged in a series of media interviews ahead of the Sinn F\u00e9in Ard Fheis in Belfast at the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t agree with this policy choice in London &#8211; choosing weapons of war over people and investing in people &#8211; but I do not blame any company here for wanting to have their share or creating jobs or employment,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northern Ireland Defence Growth deal, launched by the UK government, will result in extra money being invested&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-546078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}