16/10/2011 The Politics Show Northern Ireland

And in Northern Ireland, heavy- drinking is costing our economy a

fortune. An economy that is already under severe pressure, so which

sector could save her bacon? We will hear from the farming Minister

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1485 seconds

Hello and welcome to the Politics Show in Northern Ireland.

What is the real cost of alcohol? Retail prices are at a 30 year low

but the effects of trendy are costing the Government �900 million

a year. Now the Executive wants change. We should not have to

intervene. But the irresponsible to us of a markets is causing the

situation where we do. And farming - it is one of her most important

sectors. But will the grass a greener with new plans by the

European Union to manage farm payments. Is the so-called European

Gravy Train coming to an end. We will hear the views of Agriculture

Minister Michelle O'Neill. It is keeping tens of thousands of

people in work at a time when unemployment is growing. It is

attracting more students than ever before. But farming is facing new

European legislation which some says threatens the livelihoods of

many of our farmers. Michelle O'Neill joins me. When you call it

to the negotiations Minister for the common agricultural policy

reforms, will you be Team Ireland our team UK? We need to play it

that to all of her strengths. There are obvious benefits of going with

the team Ireland approach. Where 15 Irish MPs strong to help us get a

great -- the best deal for our farmers. I will work with the

English Minister, with everybody that will give us the best deal

that we can get in Europe,. Jim Alastair says you have met the

southern agricultural Minister seven times. I am meeting Caroline

Spelman and October. She had to cancel. There is no agenda there.

It is just how it has happened. I will continue to work with deaf

rough. We need to go out, get the strongest voice out there and get

the best deal for our farmers. it comes to the All Ireland

approach, we have seen in the past with port contamination scares, the

Republic do not necessarily see it as Northern Ireland -- one Ireland.

We have the fortress island approach. When we had a scare with

foot-and-mouth in 2004, the fortress island approach kicked 10

immediately. -- Island. There have been good examples of how would we

have worked in the past. There is a willingness to work together. We

have strategies in place to make sure we protect the country if

there is any outbreak of disease and the future. When it comes to

processing the payments, how do you square that circle? How do you make

things better if farmers are going to get less money? The pup --

proposals have been published this week. What I am concerned about is

away are looking from changing from one single payment to five are six

individual payments. Farmers are concerned about that. It becomes

too much hard work. We need to talk to you have about that to find a

what they mean by that. One payment excess and it means you can get

them out quicker. The Northern bankers saying that the new reforms,

it is A1 size fits all. That will not tell farmers here. All we have

done is that we need a flexible cap. We need a well-funded cap. Cut out

the red tape, let's get the money out directly as quick as you can.

We want to make sure we do not all were duplicate things that are

already done. We do not want to over complicate things that are

already there. That is what we need to talk to them about. We are going

out in November to start the niggles stations. It is about all

the administration's going out together with one voice. When it

comes to money, are you open to the new headquarters being in Bally

Kelly? They are standing up for their constituency. There is office

space there. You would not need to build a new building. What I intend

to do is bring good quality, high quality public sector jobs to her

community. I have not set up -- set my mind on one area. People come

forward with different ideas. I will have to consider it in the

context of a business case. It is a good opportunity for the Executive

to show their commitment era a rural economy. What about the

justification for the cost? There will be people watching today who

have children in schools that are earmarked for closure. How

justified can we be in spending more money on a new building when

we have one here already? There is a building here already that is no

longer fit for purpose, so we need a new building. We have set aside

money in this budget for it. It has been arranged. It is not to it

disadvantage anybody. It will bring those jobs into the rural area. It

will bring spend at into the local economy and will help everybody.

The rough and tumble of the presidential race in the Republic

seemed to get to the rougher this week. Here is a Dublin reporter

Julie Kerr beat's snapshot of the Poll for the Park.

For a position of such relatively power, the viciousness of the

presidential campaign is nothing short of surprising. At this stage,

all of the candidates except of one has been affected by the digging of

dirt. This week's debate was a classic. Some had to deal with the

damage caused by their own actions, some dealing with the actions of

others. Some damaged by a new association with the political

party are people they know. Afterwards, Martin McGuinness

complained of a show trial by television. But all was

overshadowed by others. The irony is that once the lucky candidate on

the presidential mantle, he or she will never have to debated again.

Julie Kirby reporting. According to the Scottish First Minister Alex

Salmond, alcohol as the scourge of society. And our Health Secretary

Edwin Poots agrees with them. Heavy drinking is costing the Northern

Ireland economy a fortune and the Executive are set to follow its

Scottish counterpart by trying to tackle the problem with legislation.

Yvette Shapiro has been talking to health professionals and drinkers.

Serious conditions like liver damage are being seen in much

younger groups than they were before. I would call on those who

are selling cheap alcohol to reflect on the damage they are

doing to society. It is an average night. These foreign students have

been observing the drinking habits of locals. You can seas from young

people being wasted in the streets and 9pm. It is dazzling Ferme, you

are so young. -- it is dazzling for me. The statistics paint a

revealing, some would say alarming picture. The sows chevron out of 10

-- seven out of ten drinkers but beyond the recommended limit. There

is a price to pay, it is estimated that alcohol misuse costs up to 900

millions pounds a year in Northern Ireland. This covers the Bill far

are all alcohol-related damage. Alcohol has quite a heavy burden on

an already pressurise system. You have got what is known as hazardous

triggers. That tends to be the under 25 and the 10 to fall victim

to injuries so you may have people who are a victim of assaults. We

would be able to deliver appropriate care to patients who

did not have self-inflicted illness or injury if the public use alcohol

more responsibly. Addiction problems has doubled in recent

years. But funding has not. would see people, a different

pattern of drinking now. We would see younger people drinking more

spirits. Younger people drinking before they go out to bars and

clubs, which we call pre-loading. In 1980, the ratio people drinking

in bars compared to home was 10-1. Now it is one-1. That has been a

big behaviour will change that we have seen. That behaviour is driven

by price. In Northern Ireland, the cost of drink has decreased by 65%

of the past 30 years, a downward trend driven mainly by the

expansion of national supermarket chains. I have had a look at

Tesco's and the best offers around the strong laggers and ciders with

probably the stand out deal being a boxer Budweiser, 20 bottles for �10.

The bottle -- the society - facts of a market says that works out at

50p a bottle. Similar deals are available at all the supermarkets.

That has put them in conflict with the Health Minister.

supermarkets are the main contributors to the problem. What

they are doing is unacceptable. We need to challenge the situation, we

should not have to intervene. But the responsibility of supermarkets

and others it is causing the situation of were we do. Alcohol

robs us of dignity. Our Executive is taking its lead from Scotland

where the SNP Government is introducing legislation to raise

the minimum price of a unit of alcohol. Stormont is due to follow

suit in spring. Academic research shows that rare thing that --

raising the price of a borehole will reduce they were people drink.

By raising it by 25% -- 45p could reduce it by 4.7%. We're probably

looking at the 45p to 50p mark. What concerns us at the moment is

that alcohol is available at as much as 14 cancer unit. -- 14p a

minute -- a year net. I do not over a drink. If I have to pay more, I

would have to less than other things. I would still go out and

buy the same amount. It is still the choice you have. It is a choice

thing. I think it is a good idea. It will make it difficult for

people to drink so much if it cost more. So people would consider

drinking less. I do not think everyone will go along with it.

There will always be offers in pubs and promotions. We have been

supportive end the price of a minimum pricing. We believe a

licence comes with responsibility. We have to live up to that.

British Retail Consortium which represents the server markets has

met the Health Minister to state its opposition to the price rise.

It says a drinking as an alcohol -- cultural issue. The Executive has

made clear that when it comes to low prices, the supermarkets are

drinking in the last saloon. It has not been a good week for the

economy. Shops are suffering a 10% drop in sales, compared with a

slight increase in the rest of the UK. The Bank of England is printing

more money to try and help. But there is there anything more that

Stormont can do? Neil Gibson and Dominic Bradley join us now.

It feels as if it is. That is disappointing. When we talk about

the retail figures, the most important thing is that people have

jobs and therefore they have the wages to spend. There are not a

huge amount of ideas out there as to how we can create jobs. This is

probably once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of devolving powers and

it is now that we should be making a strong case to get the powers and

then we can decide what we see the cost is. Dominic, D think the

committee is doing enough to put the pressure on you Minister to get

this corporation tax cuts sooner rather than later? I think the

committee is making strong attempts. We did have a debate earlier run in

this term on corporation tax and I think that served to highlight the

issue to bring it to the fore. The Minister had to come to the chamber

to respond to that debate. We led out the arguments very clearly.

There would be very few economic leverage here. Corporation tax

would be a huge boost for us. We live cheek-by-jowl with the

jurisdiction which has have that we have. We have a huge competitive

disadvantage when it comes to bidding for those businesses. We

saw an example of that recently when a business which might

otherwise have gone to Derry with 300 jobs ended up elsewhere. That

illustrates very well the need that there is. We are not talking about

lining the pockets of big businessmen. We're talking about

bringing more jobs into Northern Ireland. We're talking about

enriching local companies fear that will give them the tide of resource

that they need to invest further in their businesses and then turn to

create more jobs again. In terms of the Department of Agriculture

headquarters, things like that are difficult for the public. They see

vast sums of money being built on a new building at the same time as

schools are closing. One of the major things they impacted on the

public consciousness here was the fact that invests Northern Ireland

handed back �17.5 million to the Department of Enterprise and trade.

I think people who are unemployed see that money as money which was

set aside to create jobs, to bring jobs here, they are sitting

unemployed and they are wondering who is taking care of us.

Unfortunately, the Executive have not developed a very effective job

creation strategy. In fact, there is no job-creation strategy. When

it comes to the programme for Government, that is an element

which must be very strongly included a net. I think that that

money which has come back, indicates that the focus of invest

Northern Ireland is out of stew and we need to focus that investment,

that resource, on areas which will bring back the tide of returns in

terms of jobs. Briefly, you're party is in the Executive. What is

the SDLP doing? We have a draft programme of Government that was

published a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it was couched in

generalities and away have said that those bonds need to be fleshed

out. We have responded within the time limit to that. One of those

things of this size is the need for the Government from the Executive

develop -- to develop an effective job creation strategy. How do you

create jobs? As they are quick to point out, the money comes from

London and their hands are effectively tied when it comes to

the amount they get. It is very difficult and we have to remember

that there ever is no ideas coming forward then you cannot give the

money awaited bad ideas. We have to wait and find out what they can do.

Business rates, how it in -- how competitive can be made for her

first time businesses? They have a limited set of powers but they can

be doing things to get the cost of doing business down, putting

pressure on this. Is that doing all the recant to make sure that

insurance costs, all the things that mean businesses and consumers

have more in their pockets. They cannot buy jobs to bad ideas.

Various people were in touch saying there we had good ideas but we were

turned down because we dead -- because they did not fit into the

areas mentioned. There is a need to have the best people in her agency

is so they can understand business needs. We sometimes have crude

tools to make those decisions. I would be happy for an appeals

committee. They could look at ideas that came back. But it would be

false to assume that all the money they came back was because they

turned down many good ideas. The real danger is in tough times you

star reducing your criteria are in giving money to businesses. We have

to be very careful how we deploy our limited resources. Dominic,

when will we see the programme for Government? I hope we see it sooner

rather than later. We have already waited seven months. I brought a