31/03/2016 BBC Newsline

Two, 11 o'clock in Scotland. That is it from us, now on

Good evening and welcome to BBC Newsline.

The Irish President has pulled out of attending a dinner

at Belfast City Hall to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising.

Michael D Higgins said he didn't want to become 'embroiled

This is a copy of the invitation that was sent out for the event

from the Belfast Lord Mayor and City Council

with President Higgins as the guest of honour.

The DUP has been accused of scuppering the dinner

The party says it has no objection to the event going ahead

BBC Newsline's Mark Simpson has more.

Michael D Higgins was at the centre of Easter raising, directions at

Dublin at the weekend. Next we can convert the Irish President was due

to come to Belfast as guest of honour at a City Hall dinner to mark

the rising. Unionists and oppose the idea of the dinner on it was

included in a cross-party agreement which allowed events like the Ulster

covenant and battle of the Somme centenary is to go ahead to. But the

DUP recently announced they would not be attending next week's Easter

Rising dinner and today, Michael D Higgins pulled out. The SDLP and the

Alliance party accused the DUP of breaking a cross-party agreement.

All parties agreed to support, even if one councillor, for none of them

to attend is a snob and it is disrespectful to the significant

proportion of the population have Belfast. I think it is very

disappointing for the city and I think it is unfortunate that of the

party politics coming up to the election is very much the case of

this age. It is disappointing. In a statement this afternoon, a

spokesperson for Michael D Higgins said that the President accepted the

invitation... The President has no option other than to withdraw. So

what do the DUP say? The accusation is that you have backed up in a

cross-party deal. Did you? No, we did not. There was agreement that

this event could take place but there was no obligation on people to

go to the event, you can't force people to go to an event they don't

want to. Do you blame the DUP for the Irish President pulling out? I

think Michael D Higgins has made his own decision. I did it is clear. I

think it is varied disappointing. This is the room where next week's

dinner is supposed to take place. In spite of the controversy over who is

going and who is not going, organisers say it will still go

ahead. There have been calls for an inquiry

looking at child sexual abuse to consider the case of a doctor

who worked in Belfast in the 1970s. Dr Morris Fraser was the senior

psychiatric registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital

at the time and continued to practice despite convictions

for abusing children. A new study says failures

by the authorities should be investigated by the Goddard inquiry

which is looking at sex abuse cases David Maxwell's report begins

with a recording of I think one must look at the way

these children have grown up and the way they have grown up into separate

communities. Born and socialised into two different nationalists or

Protestant ideologies. Doctor Morris Fraser enjoyed a high profile. He

was along the way back an expert. He was flexing his own lifelong damage.

One of his victims now lives in the darts Texas. He had a camera, he

started taking shots. He said not to worry, he's a doctor. I see no

psychoactive registrar, Fraser was based at the Royal Victoria

Hospital. In 1972, he was convicted of abusing a 13-year-old boy from

Belfast in London. But the conviction was not reported to his

employees by police. Allowing Fraser to continue working with children at

the Royal. A year later, he was arrested in New York and convicted

and abusing several children in America. This time, the casemate

headlights and Fraser was suspended from his Belfast post. The new study

published today called into question why it took so long for the

authorities to act. Doctor Morris Fraser was left imposed freehold

year after he is convicted of various serious offence. They did

not inform the Royal Victoria Hospital but they were employing a

child abuser. I charred bees are who had abused children to a number of

different issues. He was a serial paedophile and this is well known to

the authorities. Today, a law firm says it plans to use the information

in the new study as part of its action against the authorities over

the notorious East Belfast institution. The General medical

Council investigated Fraser between 1973 and 1975. Despite the publicity

around his conviction, it allowed him to continue practising with no

stated restrictions. Today, the General medical Council said that 40

years ago, the GMC was a very different organisation. The key

question in all of this is why was this doctor are allowed to continue

practising here at the Royal? Even though he had been convicted of

child abuse. Was he being protected by the authorities for some reason?

This new study suggests the case of Doctor Morris Fraser requires

further examination, if they call backed by others. Even at this

stage, after a long time, we would appeal for victims of sexual abuse

to come forward and seek the help they need. They will have suffered

over many years in silence but help is still available and we would urge

them to come forward. If they continue to practice medicine for

several decades. In 1994, he featured in a BBC documentary about

abuse. The past is behind me and I'm saying absolutely nothing more. In

1992, he was convicted of having a distributing child pornography. He

was jailed for a year. He was last believed to have been living in

Europe. The BBC hasn't been able to contact him today.

40 people are set to lose their jobs in Antrim.

The IT firm Fujitsu says it is closing its maintenance

The Japanese firm employs more than 800 people in Northern Ireland.

It says the work in Antrim will transfer to Belfast

and Solihull in England and that it will offer relocation

and redeployment opportunities to the workers.

Thousands of fans of the pop group Little Mix were left disappointed

today when their two concerts in Belfast were cancelled

Organisers said one of the band was too ill to perform.

The group was due to play a matinee and an evening show at the SSE Arena

and the cancellation was announced after the doors had opened

When news broke, it spread quickly. Some had travelled quite the

distance to see the girl band. The little ones are all devastated. How

much are you out of pocket? Properly a couple of hundred pounds. So they

are crying all day. What has management said to you about this?

Got a text at quarter past two to save them cancelled. Too late to

cancel the hotel, no option to stay in Belfast. The reason for the

cancellation? Jesy was sick. Where you angry when you heard? Yes, I was

upset because it is my first concert. This is what they are

missing. Here is Jesy. I couldn't stop crying earlier on, I was

devastated. It is your 16th birthday, what are you going to do

this evening? All of our plans were to come down and see Little Mix and

stay in a hotel so, that was fun to be for my birthday so now,

basically, it's not going to happen. Because Jesy is sick. I think they

could have announced earlier than 1:20pm that the consul wasn't going

to go ahead and not only Stacey, but there were thousands of other fans

standing outside today and every single one of them were devastated

and very angry parents. There must be something in the water, it is not

the first time a band has cancelled at the last minute. Who can forget

the scenes when one direction pulled the plug when one of them fell ill

last year? The organising of the Little Mix Giggs is asking people to

hang onto that it is because they hope to make a further announcement

on possible we said to them. Last month,

Northern Ireland has failed to meet its target times

for treating patients urgently referred for suspected cancer.

The target is for 95% of patients to be seen within 62 days.

But Department of Health figures for the final quarter of last year

show just over 70% of patients started treatment

A cancer charity says the system here needs reformed.

Northern Ireland requires a comprehensive Cancer plan, with the

only part of the United Kingdom that hasn't got one doesn't plan to

release one over the next 60 days or so. We believe other compounds

Cancer plan would allow the Department, the board, etc, to

define the specifics that they want to tackle, identify how to go about

doing that, put money against that and have all of that laid out

clearly over a five-year period, rather than just reacting to things

when there is a problem. The chairman and vice chairman

of Sport NI stood down today. Chairman Brian Henning resigned

after just over three The Sports Minister Caral Ni Chuilin

has appointed their interim replacements in Brian Delaney

and Dr Catherine O'Mullan. The move comes following an internal

investigation of Sport NI after concerns were

raised by its employees. A third of staff said they had

been subjected to bullying, Last year, nine members of the board

resigned, and the chief executive Antoinette McKeown remains

suspended. And there will be more on this story

on tomorrow's Good Morning Ulster where they'll be speaking

to the minister as well as her predecessor,

Nelson McCausland. That's on BBC Radio

Ulster from 6.30am. On tomorrow's BBC Newsline we take

a trip down memory lane with one of the world's most

famous motorcycle racers. 15 times world champion

Italian Giacomo Agostini gets the opportunity to watch

some rare archive of his victory at the Ulster Grand Prix

almost 50 years ago. Now here's Geoff Maskell

with the weather forecast The international trio of reverse,

Andrew Trimble and also starting is Craig Gilroy who is expecting a

difficult game. Now here's Geoff Maskell

with the weather forecast Well, if the story of the last

few days has been of sunshine and showers,

all that is set to change overnight We have an area of low pressure out

in the Atlantic and the associated weather front means that tonight

the winds will build, the skies will cloud

over and eventually, The last few days, it's been perfect

conditions for seeing rainbows. Tomorrow is going to be a good bit

more dull with that rain sitting over us right the way

through the daylight hours. If we take the wider

view across Britain and Ireland, you can see

the contrasting fortunes Across Ireland and

Scotland, that front sits there pretty much

throughout the day. The further east you come,

the brighter and warmer it gets. But for us, it is a wet

and a windy day. A real contrast

to the last few days. Now, eventually, that band

of rain will move away. It will gradually sink south

and east but the respite So overnight, we will see

the skies over Ireland start to clear as that front

moves across into Wales. But by the time we get to Saturday,

the rain is on its way back. We'll get off to a dry start

on Saturday morning but it won't take long for that

front to start to push up The west staying driest

for longer as we go through the day but it is going

to be a pretty unpleasant feel Things do improve

by the time we get to Sunday, the temperatures

are on the up just a little bit. We are going to see some drier

conditions too and that is the way things stay into the

start of next week. But I'm afraid the next

couple of days are going Our next BBC Newsline is at 6.25am

during Breakfast here on BBC One. You can also keep updated

with news online.