16/04/2014 BBC Newsline

Korean ferry capsized. That's all from

Good evening. The headlines on BBC Newsline. A reprieve for four

residential care homes that were earmarked for closure. I'm live in

Dublin, where within the last hour former Anglo-Irish bank boss Sean

Fitzpatrick has been cleared of fraud charges. The Secretary of

State calls for a fresh approach to dealing with the past. As a display

of remembering quilts dedicated to people killed in the Troubles is

opened, I get reaction from some victims groups to those comments.

Criticism of the sentence given to a woman who stole tens of thousands of

pounds from people wanting to buy holiday homes in Spain. She never

sold me the apartment, she had taken my money and given me false

contracts. And we may have lost the sunshine. But there's still some

good dry spells in forecast. Relief for many families tonight as several

residential care homes which were earmarked for closure have now been

told they will remain open. The Health Minister, Edwin Poots,

visited residents this afternoon in the Northern and Western Health

Trust areas. Marie-Louise Connolly is with me now. What can you tell

us? The health minister visited for residential care homes and into

Health Trust areas, Westlands, Pinewood and Rosedale residential

homes in Antrim. In each care home, he told residents that it was his

wish that they should stay there for as long as they so wished and as

long as was physically possible. He told staff it was his wish that they

should retain their jobs. There was no relation in two of them and the

research a public outcry because last year, one year ago, care homes

were told there was a very strong possibility that they would close.

There were protests and we also met some residents and families who

said, whereas where they meant to go if they were to close? You can see

on the screens, we attended factory and there we met a woman whose

mother turned 100 last week and told me they are so happy and so relieved

that her mother will get to stay where she wants for the rest of her

life. What about the other homes? We do not know and because alteration

process ended in March and my understanding is the Minister will

receive this report and he will deliver the rest of the news to the

other care homes in due course but the big question is, will any of

these care homes take any new admissions? That is the big

question. If they do not, there is no change to the policy. Thank you

very much indeed. The former chairman of Anglo-Irish Bank has

been found not guilty of illegally supporting the bank's share price.

The verdict came late this afternoon. Our business and

economics editor, John Campbell, joins us from Dublin. Sean

Fitzpatrick too many people is simply the most hated man in Dublin.

He ran Anglo-Irish Bank and when it went bust it cost taxpayers 30

billion euros and played a major part in the events leading to the

bailout and disgrace of the country. He leaves the court an innocent man

and he has been fined not guilty of involvement in this illegal share

support scheme, closely linked to permanent as this ban Sean Quinn. --

Fermanagh is this man. In the middle of 2008, the bank had a problem,

Sean Quinn had taken a complicated financial bet which meant he and a

flight controls 25% of the bank shares. His bed had gone

horrendously wrong and he was sitting on huge and growing losses.

There was the prospect of his shares being dumped in the market which

would cause the share price to collapse. When the chairman, Sean

Fitzpatrick, was told about the bed, he was horrified. The bank was big

response was to get customers to buy the Quinn shares. A process managed

by the Executive's Pat William. The bank lent the investors the money to

buy the shares and did so on very favourable terms. Loans were also

provided to members of the Quinn family to take up some of those

shares. The deal had the desired effect and Anglo-Irish Bank

staggered on for a few more months. The prosecution said the arrangement

was a breach of company law. It prevents the firm lending to a

customer with the intention of affecting the share price. The judge

told the jury they could only deliver a guilty verdict if they

were sure the loans had not been made in the ordinary course of the

business. Mr Fitzpatrick's barrister argued his client's knowledge and

understanding of the scheme was limited. Mr Fitzpatrick left the

court tonight a very relieved man and he thanked his family and the

Jerry and we heard a little more of what he had to say. I would simply

ask that courtesy extended to me and my family during this trial by the

media will be maintained. And the privacy of my family, which has been

intruded on in the last six years, will cease. There are still two

defendants in this case? You saw those earlier men, Pat William and

William McAteer, they are also on trial facing a total of 16 charges

and the judge said he would take a majority verdict from the jury and

they have been considering their verdict for almost four days. They

will return in the morning to consider the verdicts in terms of

these two men tomorrow morning. Thank you. Is there too much focus

on killings carried out by the state in the past and not enough on those

committed by paramilitaries? The Secretary of State thinks so but her

views have started a major political debate. Unionists have reacted

favourably but nationalists have accused her of interfering. Here's

our political correspondent, Gareth Gordon Northern Ireland's past

continues to infect the present. Policing and justice are making it

harder for politicians to agree so the Secretary of State says it is

time for a new approach. More focus on the role of paramilitaries and

less on that of state forces. It was meant to provide some reassurance

for those who are anxious about the process, potentially being

one-sided. To say that actually, this is a real opportunity to create

a process which is subjective, Alan stands transparent and accountable

and which is historically accurate. She outlined ideas for an audience

which included for church leaders but news had got out and waiting for

her some people whose relatives were among ten shot dead by soldiers in

West Belfast in 1971. Why should she single anybody out? It has to go

across the board. Her view find favour with unionists. What you do

is you make all innocent victims become and at the moment, those

victims of paramilitary groups feel they are ignored and forgotten

whereas other cases are brought to the fore, millions of pounds spent

on investigating the police and the army, so let us have the same

Spotlight but onto the vast majority of cases where paramilitaries were

involved on both sides of the committee. The balance is wrong. We

look to the state and what the state aid rather than to the causes of the

conflict and the real cause is that some people decided they wanted to

undermine and destroy the state through terrorism, bombs and

bullets. Among nationalists there is great concern. I find it

extraordinary that she would interfere in such a way as to say,

do not look at the past in an objective way, victims and survivors

as individuals, but she isn't struck from her point of view that they

must have bigger emphasis on what she would call paramilitary

killings. The distance between both opinions will be difficult to

bridge. For Theresa Villiers or anybody else. The Secretary of State

says this is her attempt to move politics in Northern Ireland onwards

but what represents progress from one side, in this case unionists, is

seen as a step backwards by nationalists. An event organised by

victims groups has taken place at Belfast City Hall and Donna Trainer

is there. This is the opening evening of Remembering Quilt is,

full of square is dedicated to people killed during the Troubles.

Victims of paramilitary violence and state violence. I will speak to

victims groups for their reaction to the Secretary of State's comments

but first, the Commissioner for victims and survivors, Kathryn

Stone, who announced she was stepping down from her post. She had

intended to stay for four years and she is stepping down after 18

months, moving to another post in England. She spoke to BBC Newsline.

There is a lot of work to do, there is a lot of things that can continue

to be done by the commission, supported by the victim 's Forum and

is a work programme in place and that will continue. With the new

Commissioner. This has been a very challenging role but very important

and a role but I feel uniquely privileged to have played a very

small part in. Kathryn Stone. Mark Thomson, what is your reaction to

the legacy she leaves behind? I think she did a lot around services,

there is a lot of evidence for that. She sided with groups and the

victims and she did good work. That said, I wish you well. As any

Commissioner, given with the definitions of the past, the

contentious and of the governments and the parties cannot sort that, we

cannot expect a handful of victims to do that. I wish you well, she has

done good work and we need to move on. Do you think that role for

victims and survivors is tenable? I do not know, history suggests not.

Given me hard for commissioners and then Kathryn Stone and I think she

was the right appointment at that time but if you ask about her

legacy, she did not finish. I do not know why she felt the need to

resign. I wish well. I still think there is a role for a champion for

victims and survivors. It is finding the right person. That is the big

question. What about the Commons today by the Secretary of State for

more proportionate approach to the wrongdoings of paramilitaries and

less on what the state did? I think there has to be balanced, at the end

of the day, wherever wrongdoings were committed, whether paramilitary

or the British state, or the Irish state, these things need to be

looked at and investigated and I think there needs to be a process

and one of the things we really suffer from here is that there has

been no real joined up thinking in terms of this and we had two major

consultations and nothing has happened and it is time to get back

around the table and work out how we can go forward because the most

important thing is we have a society which is peaceful and just and fair

and we can take that forward together and I think that means that

everybody and those affected by the conflict must other cases look at.

There is a perception among victims that the focus is too much on state

violence and there are thousands of people who need their concerns

addressed? Of course. But Theresa Villiers, that statement is at odds

with the reality in communities, loyalists and republicans are being

pursued and arrested and taken to holding centres whilst state

forces, British soldiers and people in the civil service, who made

policies such as collusion, and cover that up, they are not being

investigated so those comments do not reflect reality and I think it

is highly political and I think there are obligations that the state

has in terms of addressing killings they have been involved in and they

have not done that and we have lived with impunity and they have still

not been addressed. But we need to find a process for everyone equally

and across the board and the Haass talks or the framework for that.

Thank you very much for your comments. Victims groups can share

opinions and they can differ. Consensus really is as far away as

ever on a process for victims. A high-profile republican accused of

murdering 29 people in the Omagh bomb was being sought by police for

five years, the High Court heard today. Prosecutors claim that Seamus

Daly had been living under the radar close to the border before being

arrested last week in Newry. Julian Fowler reports. Seamus Daly faces 29

counts of murder and other charges connected to the Omagh bomb and an

attempted bomb attack in Lisburn in 1998. Today he sought bail from the

High Court. He has denied any involvement. He was named as a

suspect in a BBC Panorama programme. Today, a judge was told that a

former business associate, Denis O'Connor, is a pivotal prosecution

witness. He says he spoke to Seamus Daly on a mobile phone believed to

have been used by the bomb team that travelled to Omagh. Cell-site

analysis also allegedly links him to the earlier bomb plot in Lisburn. A

prosecution lawyer confirmed that the information was not new but that

police had been trying to find Daly for five years. A defence lawyer

said Seamus Daly had been living a normal family life in Jonesborough

in South Armagh for nearly three years. He said there was no new

evidence and that over the last 14 years this had undoubtedly been

analysed and conclusions reached previously that it was insufficient

to bring a prosecution, and nothing has changed from that. The judge

pointed to Daly's decision not to appear at any stage of the civil

case which found him and three others liable for Omagh bomb.

Refusing bail, he said the prosecution had established a

reasonable suspicion. A group of people from here who were swindled

out of thousands of pounds in a Spanish property fraud say they're

unhappy about the sentence given to the woman who took their money.

Bernadette McGeary from Carntall Road in Dungannon was given a

two-year suspended sentence last week after admitting eight counts of

theft. Kevin Magee reports. These men's dreams of buying holiday homes

in the sun have been shattered. Donaghmore businessman Chris Faloon

handed over ?48,000 as a part payment for a property he thought

he'd bought in Spain. But when he came to inspect it he couldn't

believe his eyes. I got into the building and went to the left, up to

where my penthouse was supposed to be, I'd knocked the door and

outcomes as Spaniard. I said, what is happening? And he looked at me, I

said, do you live your? He said yes. Do you own this? Yes, I boarded 12

months ago. -- bought it. He was one of eight people who Bernadette

McGeary from Dungannon admitted stealing from at a court hearing

last week into a property scam she ran on the Costa Blanca. Another who

alleges he lost money says he asked him to go to Spain to meet her when

he raised concerns. The two flights were organised by Bernadette McGeary

to speak to people to get the money back and that led to add her not

turning up in Spain and at one stage I was left for hours on the street

waiting for her to appear and she never did. The money Bernadette

McGeary took as never been recovered. According to the

authorities here, it disappeared in the Spanish property crash. And no

one who lost money will get a penny back. Sentencing her, the judge said

she had a clear record and there was no evidence that McGeary - seen here

in Spain - had gained a lavish lifestyle from the fraud. But today,

one of the victims criticised the two-year suspended sentence. I have

mixed emotions. At one moment you are angry, the next you feel

cheated. By the court service. Someone steals ?200,000. And they

get a slap on the wrist? It does not make sense. If I went into a bag and

store that money, what would happen to me? Or Tesco's? And still from

the shelves? What would happen to me? I would go to jail. Those

affected by the scam say they want to warn others thinking of buying

property abroad to use only a reputable, well- established

company. The local economy continues on the road to recovery, according

to new figures, which also record another fall in unemployment. The

improving business climate is being felt at one of Northern Ireland's

best-known companies, Ulster Carpets, which is investing ?30

million in its operation in Portadown. Here's our business

correspondent, Julian O'Neill. Carpets made here travel all over

the world. From casinos in Las Vegas to hotels in Paris. The business is

about to invest ?30 million rebuilding its entire factory.

Ulster Carpets hope it will be a springboard to further growth of the

kind which has already led to new jobs. This will grab primarily is to

protect. It is taking a very long-term look at where we need to

be and that is securing the jobs we already have. In the last year, we

have added around 40 jobs on the back of very strong export market.

This family business employs 250 people and has seen good times and

bad. So, too, has the broader economy. But today did bring some

encouraging data. Local unemployment dropped by 700 last month. The total

number claiming jobless benefit is now 57000. Our unemployment rate of

7.7%, though, remains above the UK average. Other statistics showed a

recent rise in economic activity. The overall Northern Ireland Economy

Editor 2013 on the up, with a third successive quarter of growth.

Generally, the economy is back to read was in 2010, which are still

below the peak in 2007. But it's a move in the right direction. And

Ulster Carpets see positive signs. The home market in retail, even

though it is much smaller than it was, we have seen in the last six

months of very strong pick-up and we have been increasing production in

that area. For the first time in six years, people have got used to such

tough times and we never thought we would see the light of the last six

months have seen a marked improvement. This is a 75-year-old

business about to modernise. The knock-down and rebuild will be

gradual - a bit like Northern Ireland's recovery. Benfield

football club has warned supporters that all variations of the Billy

boys songs are deemed unacceptable. It said if a song is aired at

matches in the future it would lead to severe unit of sanctions. --

Billy Boys. Last year's spring blizzard didn't only cause problems

for farmers in the Glens of Antrim, it wiped out access to a key tourist

attraction in Glenariff Forest Park - the waterfall walk. It's been

closed for over a year but now after ?100,000 of work it's once again

open to the public and there are plans to further enhance visitor

facilities in the area. Here's David Maxwell. Tonnes of snow wreaked

havoc on the landscape last year. After the blizzard, the priority was

to help people and livestock. But once the thaw setting, this

committee realised access to its major tourist asset had been

destroyed. The waterfall walk is what many came here for. But torn

apart by heavy snow, it had to be closed. One of the trees beside here

had punched a hole through the decking and unfortunately it was not

a case of replacing the wooden boards, underneath it had

destabilised the foundations and you can see that in several places where

the concrete foundations were completely pushed away. They had to

be rebuilt. These waterfall is or in a landscape which is inspired tales

of fairies and ghosts. But restoring public public access has taken time

and cost ?100,000. The difficulty is walking up the path, you cannot get

at it from anywhere, and you have to carry everything. Then we are also

in the river, we are dealing with the current, and we had a very wet

winter. That played havoc with the work. They work on site to three

months but the walkway has been closed for one year. During that

time, many pathways which were once hazardous have been replaced. The

work as part of an investment programme to improve the tourist

offering in the Glens of Antrim. It is repaired and that is great but we

are looking forward to further developments here, with the new

visitor centre and exhibition rooms and a caravan park. A one-stop shop.

The ?750,000 that has been set aside for the development of that caravan

and camping site means it should be complete by next summer and a new

visitor experience should be opened within the next five years. Looking

lovely. The High Cross in Downpatrick stood outside the

cathedral for over a century until December, when it was removed for

preservation. Today, a replica took its place, just in time for Easter.

Louise Cullen reports. It's not easy lifting a tonne weight into place.

And it's important to know which way it should face. The scenes on the

stone tell the story of Christianity, culminating in the

crucifixion and resurrection, seen at the top of the cross. A lot of

work has gone into making this stone look 1000 years old. It is a

scripture cross and it has very special symbols on it. Stories from

the presentation in the temple right through to the crucifixion and

Testament scenes from Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, through to the last

judgement. It tells the entire story of biblical history, really. The

original cross has been ravaged by the elements in its 1100-year life.

This replica is made from the same stone but the carving methods are a

little bit different. Tenth century stonemasons would have painstakingly

carved the biblical images by hand and although it's an exact copy,

this cross wasn't touched by a human being. We had to scan this and the

computer was able to reconstruct the drawing and it was able to create it

through computerised abilities. It was a time cross, it was lower down

the street and was outside the cathedral for over 100 years. A

resident came up as are putting it back up and said it was great to see

the cross back. People are very proud to have a piece of history on

their doorstep. Safely packed away in Down County Museum, the original

will be the centre of a new exhibition telling the story of

Downpatrick's Christian roots. The hope is, like its predecessor, this

stone will stand for another 1000 years.

Sunshine in Downpatrick. Let's get the weather forecast. Some eastern

areas did get whiteness but generally, the cloud has been piling

in. Still very picturesque with those daffodils. Every look the

satellite, cloud has been edging into the north and west with showers

were western Scotland trailing in parts of Northern Ireland through

today and there is a risk of more of those this evening, initially moving

into the North and West and pushing eastwards but fragmenting as they do

so. They will eventually move away so by the end of the night it is

largely dry and mild flows between six and eight degrees. We are left

with a legacy of cloud for a good part of tomorrow, still some showers

on the scene but perhaps not many first thing. They will drift into

the north and west and as a day progresses, a few of those will come

further inland. Light as well scattered, and staying mainly dry

but we have quite indivisible north-westerly breeze tomorrow so

even in those dry slots it will feel chilly temperatures are around 11 or

12 degrees. Tomorrow evening, things look cheery, it will be cold but it

will be brighter to end the day as a cloud clears away to the south and

we are left with clear spells through tomorrow night and that

means it is going to be very cold one, temperatures getting close to

freezing so quite a bit of grass frost around and there is a risk of

some mist and fog patches. Cold start for Good Friday but a fine

day, dry with sunshine and particularly for eastern areas

because we have high pressure and it looks like it will hold well into

the weekend. England and Wales, low-pressure moving in to bring wet,

uncertainties about the position at this point but it looks like we will

avoid the worst of that and it will stay largely fine and dry. Good

news. Our late summary is at 10:25pm. You can keep in contact

with us via Facebook and Twitter. From BBC Newsline - goodnight.