Browse content similar to 04/03/2013. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Hello, and welcome to Stormont Today. | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
Bombs primed and ready to go were intercepted by police in | :00:29. | :00:31. | |
Londonderry last night. Today, MLAs united in their condemnation in | :00:32. | :00:39. | |
what the police described as a reckless attack. We were within | :00:39. | :00:45. | |
five minutes or 10 minutes last night of a major out rage. | :00:45. | :00:47. | |
Also the environment minister issues a warning about our | :00:47. | :00:54. | |
dependence on imported energy. are in a situation in the north | :00:54. | :00:58. | |
where, to borrow a phrase, we could reach a perfect storm. | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
And our Political Correspondent, Martina Purdy, joins us with her | :01:00. | :01:05. | |
analysis of today's events. It's being claimed it had the | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
potential of causing mass murder, but instead a van carrying four | :01:08. | :01:11. | |
live mortar bombs in Derry was intercepted by the police minutes | :01:11. | :01:21. | |
:01:21. | :01:22. | ||
before the explosives were launched. Today MLAs gave their reaction. | :01:22. | :01:29. | |
work within five minutes or 10 minutes last night of a major out | :01:29. | :01:38. | |
rage. How major it could have been can be established by recalling | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
that in 1985 a similar mortar bomb attack occurred on a new re- police | :01:43. | :01:51. | |
station and the end result was that nine innocent officers were | :01:51. | :01:55. | |
murdered. -- new three. Any police station in Londonderry area, any of | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
the ones that I can think of are all in built up areas. The police | :02:00. | :02:05. | |
have indicated as we all know that these mortar bombs are notoriously | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
unreliable so, not only were innocent police officers being | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
targeted, but innocent civilians as well. I think we need to send out a | :02:14. | :02:21. | |
message today that this Assembly, in its totality, utterly condemns | :02:21. | :02:26. | |
the actions of those responsible last night, that we commend and | :02:26. | :02:30. | |
thank the police service and the officers responsible for at | :02:30. | :02:37. | |
pretending the device -- apprehending and we also call upon | :02:37. | :02:42. | |
the community upon whose information we hope last night | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
occurred, to keep giving more information like this so that the | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
police can keep taking the action they are taking in order to prevent | :02:50. | :02:53. | |
the wholesale slaughter that could have occurred last night and | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
thankfully, bright the grace of God, did not. The vast majority of | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
people in our city woke up this morning thankful, thankful that | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
this institute -- incident through whatever intelligence sources had | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
been stopped. People who are intent on damaging our city and our people | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
meet today to step up to the plate, need to come to the microphones and | :03:16. | :03:23. | |
explain to the people of this city, of our city, how those actions will | :03:23. | :03:29. | |
advance any city, any people, any cause or advance or build any city | :03:29. | :03:36. | |
of equals or any island of equals. There is huge relief in the City of | :03:36. | :03:41. | |
Derry today that these instruments of death and destruction have been | :03:41. | :03:46. | |
intercepted last night. Four craze -- fault raised and credit must go | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
to the police for their brave and heroic actions. We shudder to think | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
what may have happened otherwise but I have little doubt that we | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
would have been waking today to news and scenes of carnage. I speak | :03:58. | :04:03. | |
for Derry today when I condemn those who would visit this upon | :04:03. | :04:13. | |
:04:13. | :04:13. | ||
their -- who would visit this upon our society. We must drive us for | :04:13. | :04:19. | |
it and not let others drag us back. I was relieved that the security | :04:19. | :04:27. | |
services indicated that a mortar had come from the old IRA stopped | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
and I challenge those from the Provisional IRA that may now be in | :04:31. | :04:35. | |
Sinn Fein tour actually help the security services and bring forward | :04:35. | :04:40. | |
the information that is required to actually help the security services | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
and stop such actions as happened last night and insure that they | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
give them every piece of information as possible. Let me be | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
clear, some of those people know exactly where these items of | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
munitions are. Some know exactly where these Explosives are and they | :04:57. | :05:04. | |
should come forward and tell it. That is the out workings of the so- | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
called de commissioning process, where are all these weapons that | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
were decommissioned? I thought they were all out of commission but | :05:12. | :05:18. | |
obviously not. Shame on those who are carrying these acts out now and | :05:18. | :05:22. | |
shame on those who carried them out in the past. It is a clear this was | :05:22. | :05:27. | |
a very major threat, threat to life, as has been said, not just two | :05:27. | :05:30. | |
police officers against which it was almost certainly intended but | :05:30. | :05:36. | |
also against civilians in heavily populated areas of Derry City. It | :05:36. | :05:38. | |
is absolutely clear how utterly wrecked as those who would carry | :05:39. | :05:43. | |
out such deeds are. There is no question of having any | :05:43. | :05:47. | |
justification, there is no question of them having any support. It is | :05:47. | :05:50. | |
time they listened to the voices that we heard so eloquently across | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
the media this morning of condemnation of what went on of the | :05:54. | :05:57. | |
people in and around the area that made it absolutely clear that those | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
who carried out such deeds do not speak for them. | :06:01. | :06:03. | |
The Justice Minister, David Ford. Although the house united in | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
condemnation of the thwarted mortar attack, there was some dissent from | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
the public gallery on another issue. Our Political Correspondent, | :06:10. | :06:11. | |
Martina Purdy, is here with more details. | :06:12. | :06:14. | |
So, Martina, this outburst took place after the discussion had | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
moved on to Willie Frazer's bail application. | :06:19. | :06:25. | |
Yes, the TUV leader Jim Allister rose to put a point of order. | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
Basically he was unhappy that his matter of the day was not accepted. | :06:29. | :06:35. | |
He wanted to talk about how the courts had been applying bail | :06:35. | :06:37. | |
applications to loyalists and republicans. He got short shrift | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
from the Speaker and was told to sit down. 10 later -- 10 minutes | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
later there was a commotion from the public gallery. Most of it was | :06:45. | :06:48. | |
inaudible but it was fairly clear that someone in the public gallery | :06:48. | :06:53. | |
was tried to interrupt proceedings which has not allowed. Only MLAs | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
are allowed to speak. People in the public gallery are any allowed to | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
listen. The Speaker quickly clear the gallery and I think we have a | :07:00. | :07:10. | |
:07:10. | :07:12. | ||
short clip of this. Order! Order! Order! Order! Clear the gallery. | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
That was the Deputy Speaker clearing the gallery. Who were the | :07:15. | :07:21. | |
people up there? It transpired they were supporters of the flags | :07:21. | :07:28. | |
protest a Willie Frazer. Some of them were members of a group | :07:28. | :07:32. | |
including past a Barry Halliday. They were not expelled from | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
Stormont. The last time we can recall the gallery being clear | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
because of a protest was some time last year when an anti-capitalist | :07:39. | :07:46. | |
protest or, he was actually a sold out egg -- expelled from the estate. | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
Let's move on to talk about an intriguing story concerning the | :07:49. | :07:54. | |
SDLP's Colum Eastwood and the Environment Committee. Colum | :07:54. | :08:01. | |
Eastwood, it has transpired this evening, hasn't been attending the | :08:01. | :08:06. | |
environment committee. He has only attended once since last September. | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
He is not commenting but the BBC understands the difficulty is that | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
Colum Eastwood is also the Assembly Private Secretary to the | :08:14. | :08:17. | |
environment minister so he gets to see a lot of confidential and | :08:17. | :08:20. | |
sensitive departmental information Andy believes it is a conflict of | :08:20. | :08:26. | |
interest for him to do both jobs. But the difficult question is why | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
has and the SDLP leader moved him off? I am told that Alistair | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
McDonnell has been made aware of the difficulty but he has not moved | :08:35. | :08:37. | |
Imam. Alistair MacDonald knows there is a potential conflict of | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
interest and knows that column Eastwood would like to be relieved | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
of his responsibilities and the committee but for some reason he | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
has not done anything about it. Are we clear why the situation is as | :08:49. | :08:55. | |
cities? The BBC understands that Alistair McDonnell was a form of | :08:55. | :08:58. | |
the difficulty even before the appointment but appointed him to | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
the committee anyway. In maybe there are a number of personnel | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
thin on the ground and he did not have anyone else to put on the | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
committee. But he does not seem to have taken this conflict of | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
interest concerns seriously enough so far. What is the public position | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
on this? The party is saying that the party leader will be reviewing | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
the committees and will make sure there is no conflict of interest | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
and there will probably be a reshuffle around Easter. | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
Thank-you for now, Martina. A debate over a new Westminster | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
bill descended into a squabble between Sinn Fein and the Deputy | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
Speaker, John Dallat, today. Before the arguments began, Members had a | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
chance to give their views on the draft bill which deals with issues | :09:36. | :09:39. | |
like Stormont structures and party funding. | :09:39. | :09:47. | |
It is a bill which is currently -- which has carried constituted, I | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
believe lacks a certain ambition. We should be more ambitious on | :09:51. | :09:56. | |
calling on the Secretary of State to take those steps towards | :09:56. | :09:59. | |
normalisation. The biggest and most significant step she could take his | :09:59. | :10:03. | |
in supporting the establishment of official opposition in this house, | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
an opposition will to the institutions of devolution. What | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
would that mean? It would not mean a return to majority rule. The | :10:11. | :10:15. | |
Ulster Unionist Party is clear that if we do introduce an official | :10:15. | :10:20. | |
opposition that you will still need a cross-community government. An | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
official opposition would offer a choice and it would be given some | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
resources. We are not talking about a party walking away from executive, | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
as some of my former colleagues promoted, we are talking about the | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
establishment of an official, recognised opposition. It means the | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
same as what happens in Dublin and London and Cardiff and Edinburgh by | :10:41. | :10:48. | |
calling the Secretary of State to review her draft bill. She should | :10:48. | :10:54. | |
push ahead on this huge step towards normalisation. Karen in | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
members of this House must report to the electoral commission details | :10:59. | :11:04. | |
of any payments over �1,500. Political parties in Northern | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
Ireland at to contribute information to the commission about | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
donations of over �7,500 from a single source. The names of donors | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
are not made public as they are in the rest of the United Kingdom. In | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
April of last year my party colleague Naomi Long MP asked the | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
Prime Minister to commit to changing the legislation, to make | :11:24. | :11:29. | |
local parties publish their list of significant donors. We believe that | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
the public in Northern Ireland should have access to the same | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
information as people in England, Scotland and Wales. How about | :11:36. | :11:42. | |
political parties and how political parties are funded and who their | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
major donors are. The public and then judge to themselves whether | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
these donors will have any undue influence on party policy. We | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
cannot, on the one hand, talk about normalisation and tell people that | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
Northern Ireland has transformed into a safe destination for inward | :11:58. | :12:03. | |
investment and tourism and require companies to publish their accounts, | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
details of their directors and shareholders, and on the other hand | :12:07. | :12:12. | |
use of security concerns as a reason to avoid being transparent | :12:12. | :12:17. | |
about party political donations. do not have to - but we do not wish | :12:17. | :12:21. | |
to have a return to majority rule. It is an argument we have made and | :12:21. | :12:24. | |
we do not want that. We have outlined where we think we can | :12:24. | :12:29. | |
reach some sort of consensus. That ensures that a minority community | :12:29. | :12:35. | |
is always going to be protected. It may develop a better form of | :12:35. | :12:37. | |
democracy than currently exists in this place and nothing that is | :12:37. | :12:46. | |
something that should be explored. I listened to the lyrical waxing of | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
- a waxing lyrical of how they are not for majority rule yet we have | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
to look at how the abused power in the Assembly commission in a | :12:53. | :12:57. | |
desperate attempt in the recent flags debacle. I would be | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
interested to see what the members opposite can actually do to | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
reassure people from the nationalist republican community on | :13:05. | :13:11. | |
how they would ensure a quality, given the sad record over the last | :13:11. | :13:18. | |
number of years. Were you betide anyone to lecture others about | :13:18. | :13:24. | |
equality after judgments made against senior members. Also in | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
relation to transparency, given many of their members stated dual | :13:29. | :13:36. | |
membership of an organisation which extorts it hundreds of thousands of | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
pounds from the community that we all represent here in this house. | :13:40. | :13:44. | |
Coming back to Sinn Fein, I do have to say that they never cease to | :13:44. | :13:50. | |
amaze me. They never cease to surprise me with their attitude. | :13:50. | :13:55. | |
Openness and transparency? Maybe you can tell us whether �26 million | :13:55. | :13:59. | |
has gone from the northern bank robbery? Maybe they could tell us | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
where some of those bodies are buried that their comrades in arms | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
in the IRA buried and have disappeared? Maybe they could tell | :14:07. | :14:16. | |
us some of those action that they carried out since 1970? It is not | :14:16. | :14:21. | |
for me to tell the chair his responsibility but in terms of Sinn | :14:21. | :14:27. | |
Fein I disagree with some of Commons that have been made. It is | :14:27. | :14:33. | |
not your place to tell the chair. Can I remind a member, please, and | :14:33. | :14:38. | |
this is the second time, that he has an important asked to sum up | :14:38. | :14:48. | |
:14:48. | :14:53. | ||
the debate and stick rigidly to wit. You did not need to remind the | :14:53. | :14:57. | |
chair because I was discussing it with my clerks. It is a serious | :14:57. | :15:02. | |
offence to challenge the church. colleague raised a point of order | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
on the basis there had been no intervention from the Deputy | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
Speaker on this occasion were asked a number of scurrilous remarks were | :15:09. | :15:15. | |
made by a member against our party. As far as I am concerned, I stand | :15:15. | :15:21. | |
by my colleagues need to get up on our behalf to make an intervention. | :15:21. | :15:24. | |
Whether that is revising or reminding is a moot point but I | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
would ask you to reflect on the fact that it took a member from | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
this side of the piles on behalf of our party to make an intervention | :15:31. | :15:34. | |
before the matter was dealt with and I think that was regrettable | :15:34. | :15:38. | |
and not acceptable. It is important for the member to accept and | :15:38. | :15:43. | |
understand that I was in the process of doing that. I was about | :15:43. | :15:47. | |
to remind Mr Elliott that he should not make remarks about a political | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
party in connection with bank robberies and other things for | :15:50. | :16:00. | |
:16:00. | :16:17. | ||
Does the Minister except that there are significant changes -- chances | :16:17. | :16:24. | |
in losing too many presents staff within a short timescale? | :16:24. | :16:27. | |
member certainly has a point about that and that is why there has been | :16:27. | :16:36. | |
some difficulty with some staff. Staff are not being released | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
without it being acceptable on operational grounds that they are | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
able to be released. I am glad to confirm that we have received | :16:43. | :16:49. | |
approval from the park -- department of finance which all are | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
all those who were granted the scheme to leave. Some funding has | :16:52. | :16:55. | |
been released which will allow some to leave at the end of this month. | :16:56. | :16:59. | |
Others will be raising as -- leaving as operational | :16:59. | :17:02. | |
circumstances permit. There is an issue about the loss of experience | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
staff, there is also an issue of them being replaced by well- | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
qualified, enthusiastic, well- trained new staff and I believe | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
that the prison second month -- service will be better for it. | :17:15. | :17:21. | |
the Minister agree with me that too often tackling hate crime is | :17:21. | :17:25. | |
undermined because we have no legislative definition of | :17:25. | :17:32. | |
sectarianism in relation to hate crime? I think the Member raises an | :17:32. | :17:35. | |
interesting issue about the difficulty of ensuring that we get | :17:35. | :17:45. | |
there necessary definition of the crime. I am not sure that the | :17:45. | :17:51. | |
defining of sectarianism as opposed to the improving of sectarianism is | :17:51. | :17:56. | |
the difficult issue that has to be crossed. When the Justice Bill was | :17:56. | :17:59. | |
being debated in the last assembly we were unable to reach that | :17:59. | :18:09. | |
:18:09. | :18:18. | ||
agreement. In interest of prisoners and the families of prisoners, when | :18:18. | :18:22. | |
we they -- where the prisoners are housed actually be a matter with | :18:22. | :18:28. | |
some empathy with their families in terms of travel time? Deputy | :18:28. | :18:36. | |
Speaker, I am certainly well aware of their issues. In certain | :18:36. | :18:44. | |
circumstances there are a number of prisoners that have to be housed at | :18:44. | :18:49. | |
at prison whose families do not necessarily live near by. A | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
statement will be made in a couple of weeks' time. The Minister will | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
not that there is over 1,000 prisoners in that prison, which is | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
already struggling with a capacity issues there, and that hundreds of | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
prisoners are already doubled up and yet the demand on the | :19:04. | :19:13. | |
republican side is to take the other landings. Will he assure us | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
that he will take action against those who are considered -- to | :19:18. | :19:25. | |
continue to demand special status. It is not for me to either resist | :19:25. | :19:28. | |
our support demands for separated accommodation. Those are issues | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
which he might wish to raise what the Secretary of State. What I will | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
ensure is that the accommodation pressures are managed as best they | :19:36. | :19:40. | |
can be in the interest of all prisoners, and that provides a wide | :19:40. | :19:46. | |
variety of different categories of prisoners currently there. A how | :19:46. | :19:48. | |
much it 10 JUN did you pay in size class and more to the. | :19:49. | :19:58. | |
How much do you think our politicians know? -- how much | :19:58. | :20:06. | |
attention DTP. What is this all about? There was a | :20:06. | :20:16. | |
:20:16. | :20:16. | ||
bit all The Geek Manifesto which was published last year. It was | :20:17. | :20:21. | |
published by Mike Henderson. The thesis of the because that the | :20:21. | :20:31. | |
:20:31. | :20:36. | ||
demographic of the key -- they geek is people who ogres on things that | :20:36. | :20:44. | |
rabbit different to other parts of the world. Was their way of getting | :20:44. | :20:54. | |
:20:54. | :20:54. | ||
this information about this large demographic of people who are | :20:54. | :21:00. | |
voters. You like the ideas of evidence based decision-making. Is | :21:00. | :21:03. | |
there any evidence that you have to show that our MLAs do not know | :21:04. | :21:09. | |
about science? You might look it ever politics and say that there is | :21:09. | :21:12. | |
a lot of evidence for that particular assertion, but one may | :21:13. | :21:17. | |
be badly placed if one was trying to say that our MLAs are not trying | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
to take care of this. They are a lot of decisions which had been | :21:22. | :21:26. | |
taken that we think have been influenced by the evidence. A lot | :21:26. | :21:29. | |
of them at least have made lip- service to science and scientific | :21:29. | :21:34. | |
advice. We're hoping that people will use sounds much more | :21:34. | :21:40. | |
explicitly and evidence much more explicitly. It is a very expensive | :21:40. | :21:45. | |
structure here. MLAs have researchers paid for out of the | :21:45. | :21:50. | |
public purse. Ministers have special advisers who are paid a | :21:50. | :21:53. | |
very handsome salary. They are there to help and that of research | :21:53. | :21:57. | |
and policy making process. That is correct and one would be making a | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
mistake of one said that there was not a good job being done there. | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
There is a lot more to be done and in particular there is still this | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
very strong insistence and emphasis on what would largely be seen as | :22:10. | :22:12. | |
the arts and humanities side of things, which is very important and | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
vital, but we would like to see signs as a much more explicit part | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
of the cultural discourse and part of the decision-making process up | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
front. Some will tell you that politics is an art and not a | :22:25. | :22:35. | |
science? Some people tell you that art is a science. It is a skilled. | :22:35. | :22:38. | |
It has a huge potential to revolutionise our economy. Our | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
background, environment, health, so many aspects in which science is | :22:42. | :22:47. | |
important and we would like to see people emphasise that more. That is | :22:47. | :22:53. | |
some thought for bedtime reading. Thank you very much. | :22:53. | :22:57. | |
Northern Ireland potentially faces a perfect storm which threatens its | :22:57. | :23:01. | |
energy supply, the Environment Minister told the chamber this | :23:01. | :23:04. | |
afternoon. In order to guarantee self-sufficiency exploiting | :23:04. | :23:08. | |
renewable sources is essential. This is a very important question | :23:08. | :23:17. | |
indeed. I keep saying that in my judgment renewables is arguably | :23:17. | :23:20. | |
Ireland's biggest economic opportunity. That includes Northern | :23:20. | :23:24. | |
Ireland because of our wind and wave and tidal power. And because | :23:24. | :23:28. | |
of the quality of the manufacturing and services that we could provide | :23:28. | :23:33. | |
in terms of a renewable applications. The answer to the | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
question is that on average it takes 37 weeks to process a | :23:38. | :23:45. | |
renewable application. 37 weeks. In my view that is too long. When you | :23:45. | :23:49. | |
look especially in the last 18 months at the scale of renewable | :23:49. | :23:54. | |
applications that have gone to the point of decision compared with any | :23:54. | :24:01. | |
time here to four, I think that tells a much bigger and better | :24:01. | :24:06. | |
story. And the last two quarters a lawn, in the quarter up until 20th | :24:06. | :24:12. | |
September 12, they were 326 renewable applications approved. | :24:13. | :24:21. | |
That builds upon the 401 renewable applications approved in 2011-2012. | :24:21. | :24:29. | |
Find excess of previous years. Thank you. I'm sure the Minister is | :24:29. | :24:37. | |
aware of the 40 % target for renewable electricity. Is he aware | :24:37. | :24:41. | |
that there are expects to think that the first 20 resent will come | :24:41. | :24:48. | |
at a cost of �80 million, the second at the cost of �800 million. | :24:48. | :24:53. | |
Does he feel that the consumer should foot the bill? That is an | :24:53. | :24:57. | |
important question. Whilst we are on track to achieve a 40 % | :24:57. | :25:06. | |
renewable target by 2020, if all the wind approvals to date that had | :25:06. | :25:10. | |
been built and consented to were actually constructed and then went | :25:10. | :25:16. | |
into an National Grid, that alone in 2013 would account for her 30 % | :25:16. | :25:22. | |
of our energy renewable -- electricity needs in the north. We | :25:22. | :25:27. | |
are on the right path, but the member needs -- makes two valid | :25:27. | :25:36. | |
points in my view. The first is that if you have a pre-payments -- | :25:36. | :25:40. | |
approvals or if the cost of connections is disproportionate, | :25:40. | :25:45. | |
then there will be a rest of the 40 % not been achieved by 2020. We are | :25:45. | :25:51. | |
in a situation in the north where, to borrow a phrase, we could reach | :25:51. | :26:01. | |
a Perfect Storm. A Perfect Storm in that we will not have on the island | :26:01. | :26:05. | |
of Ireland, sufficient interconnection, and this is only | :26:05. | :26:09. | |
one of the factors that would lead to a Perfect Storm, sufficient | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
interconnection in order to keep the lights on when it comes to | :26:12. | :26:20. | |
Northern Ireland. This would be an issue of energy cost, the cost of | :26:20. | :26:23. | |
connection with renewables, which is a one about which we need to | :26:23. | :26:27. | |
more collectively gather were thoughts. In connection to the time | :26:27. | :26:31. | |
that it takes far an application to go through for a wind turbine, | :26:31. | :26:37. | |
applicants at this point in time appear to consider that there is a | :26:37. | :26:42. | |
considerable amount of delay in terms of one of the Council teas. | :26:42. | :26:47. | |
Given that that is within the Minister's we met in his department, | :26:47. | :26:54. | |
could he in sure that that process is speeded up? It used beat the | :26:54. | :26:59. | |
renewable energy industry they will tell you that at any time up until | :26:59. | :27:03. | |
now given the scale of the renewable applications that run the | :27:03. | :27:08. | |
system, and these cover nine categories, not just wind farms, | :27:08. | :27:12. | |
but solar plants and so on and so forth, they will tell you that | :27:12. | :27:20. | |
given that historic that Lord and given the surge of applications, | :27:20. | :27:23. | |
particularly for a wind turbines. The fact that so many are now | :27:24. | :27:28. | |
coming to the point of decision, especially in the last four | :27:28. | :27:32. | |
quarters, is actually demonstrable of the fact that the planning | :27:32. | :27:37. | |
system is more and more managing that scale of applications and | :27:37. | :27:42. | |
getting decisions out. Martina Purdy is with us again. | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
First of all, I do have some news on the next meeting between the | :27:46. | :27:50. | |
Prime Minister and a were first and Deputy First Ministers. Peter | :27:50. | :27:56. | |
Robinson and Martin McGuinness will go to Downing Street on March 26th, | :27:56. | :28:03. | |
to meet David Cameron. They want to lower corporation tax to give | :28:03. | :28:07. | |
Northern Ireland a competitive edge. It is controversial and will | :28:07. | :28:12. | |
require a political decision from the Prime Minister. Finally, it is | :28:12. | :28:15. | |
likely to delight the tomorrow as far as business is concerned | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
because the justice minister is not proceeding with the next stage of | :28:18. | :28:23. | |
his bill. The Criminal Justice Bill was supposed to have its further | :28:23. | :28:29. | |
consideration stage tomorrow but it was not -- there was not the | :28:29. | :28:39. |