23/11/2015 BBC Newsline

Good evening. Here on

In an unusual move today Sinn Fein assembly members joined others

in giving a round of applause to Peter Robinson at the end of his

Last week Mr Robinson said he intended to retire as DUP leader

and First Minister, early in the New Year.

Here's our political correspondent Gareth Gordon.

Questions to the First Minister. He is not retiring quite yet, but

after seven and a half years this was Peter Robinson's final question

Time. Peter Robinson transcends three

generations of my family. My grandfather was a founding member

like him. I think him for the legacy he has left us, and left Northern

Ireland more secure than ever in the union.

It was enough to make even a politician blush.

I'm grateful for the comments. It has been something of a surreal

experience, is almost as if one were dead and listening to the obituary,

but I am still I hope very much alive.

The reference to three generations is another way I suppose of saying,

Peter, you're very old! Thank you very much, time is up,

best wishes, First Minister. From the DUP benches, began a round

of applause. Then a standing ovation, joined by

Sinn Fein, that brought the Ulster Unionists.

The Commons is tonight debating a bill which will transfer

the implementation of welfare reforms from the Assembly

The move was part of the 'Fresh Start' deal announced

by the DUP, Sinn Fein and the two governments last week.

The bill is expected to be passed by MPs later tonight and will be

The SDLP's Mark Durkan criticised the way the bill was

From Sinn Fein, we now have a Parliamentary procedure where things

were rushed through in the Assembly the other day, and that is the

Assembly's legislative consent motion, and now the rights of

tabling amendments with a view to them being voted upon are being

suppressed by this programme motion. We have to get a move on with

implementation. We do not want the agreement to suffer the same fate as

the Stormont house agreement where implementation became stalled at an

early stage. We know -- we have to do all we can to move forward with

implementation. Within the last few minutes the Bill

has just been passed. You can hear more tomorrow morning

on BBC Radio Stoke. -- Ulster.

Pupils at a school in Omagh were sent home early today

when it was discovered there'd been break-in overnight.

Drumragh Integrated College was extensively damaged by the thieves.

Our south west reporter Julian Fowler has more.

Two men armed with a Stech hammer and cruel barb look into the school

last night, they smashed doors and ransacked offices.

The thieves cut through a fence and broke the glass and an external

door. They also cut the telephone line and

put the alarm system out of action, smashing the external sirens.

The break-in was discovered when staff arrived this morning. The 650

pupils returned up as normal had to be sent home.

Some of those young people would be a level and GCSE students who needed

to come in and work this morning on controlled assessment.

We had a parents evening scheduled. -- parents' evening.

The selfish inconvenience of all this is breathtaking really.

Classrooms full of computer equipment were left untouched, and

for all the damage caused, that was taken.

As forests we know, no pupil's work has been cut -- touched.

-- as far as we know. As for as we know, they must have

been looking for money. But we keep no money on site, so it

is a pointless exercise but it has caused a lot of disruption and

inconvenience for a lot of people. The police are examining CCTV

footage and have appealed for anyone who noticed suspicious activity

around the school at the weekend to contact them.

Work is now under way to reconnect the phone lines and repair of the

damage. This girl is expected to reopen to

pupils tomorrow. With a security lockdown continuing

in Brussels, people there who are from Northern Ireland have been

describing the atmosphere. The Belgian capital is

on the highest level of terror Soldiers on the streets, the Metro

closed. The main square deserted. Brussels went into lockdown as raids

were carried out across the city. As detectives continue their hunt for

the suspect in the Paris attacks, the police and army presence is to

be strengthened further. This man is wondering how long it will last. --

this man who works in Brussels. We are on the third day of a

security alert, people have been advised not to go to work. We had an

announcement from the police late last night to say that they had

conducted a major police operation in the city centre but we have no

more news as to when -- if things will return to normal.

It is quite unnerving. In my neighbourhood, about a ten minute

walk from the city centre, there was about a five-minute walk away from a

place a large police operation this evening, and the police cordoned off

a number of streets and conducted a number of roads, so during that

background I could hear police sirens and helicopters flying

overhead. During the operation 16 people were

arrested in 22 raids. For a Belgian now living in Belfast

far from home, seeing the capital city at the highest terror alert is

-- is hard. The last time you would have seen an

armed police presence in the streets of Brussels would have been at a

time when there were a lot of tensions between the two main

communities of Belgium, namely the Flemish and the wallowing.

But he believes the situation is not unexpected.

There has been a lot of problems in Belgium brewing for many years, many

decades, and whenever I heard it mentioned that some of the

terrorists came from the area, part of me was not surprised.

Belgian remains under alert. The DUP MP Ian Paisley is to make

a donation to charity as part of a settlement reached in

defamation proceedings brought by She brought defamation proceedings

against Mr Paisley over an interview he gave

about the closure of Gallagher's The High Court has been told that

a man facing trial for burglary offences claimed his electronic

ankle tag was chewed off by his dog. Jamie Toland of Slemish Way

in Lisburn is accused of removing Now here's Angie Phillips with

the weather forecast. After a cold weekend and a frosty

start in places again this morning, you will find temperatures less cold

as we go through the rest of the week, unfortunately it will be

pretty unsettled at times. Quite the last Tory wins at times as well.

Tonight, after a brief lull in the wind we will see it picking up

during the night, bringing quite a few showers. But no frost in the

forecast. A blustery day tomorrow, and from the word go there are going

to be showers, quite a few rattling in on that blustery wind to

Northwest wind. They are also edging across the topic of Ireland and

western Scotland. -- the Republic of all. The best of any drier, brighter

weather for eastern Scotland, the east and south-east of England once

rain clears, and temperatures are little bit up in those south-eastern

parts compared to yesterday. For more than all come the afternoon,

temperatures get up to around 9 degrees, but that gusty wind will

make it feel colder. Still plenty of showers rattling through, which at

times could lead to more prolonged spells of rain. The best of any

drier spells towards -- sports towards the South East. Still some

showers on Wednesday, but easing. Another wet and windy spell on

Friday. We will be back at 6:25am in the

morning. Good night.