23/04/2012 Stormont Today

Hello and welcome to Stormont Today. And we start with congratulations

to the SDLP's Conall McDevitt. He completed yesterday's London

Marathon in less than four hours. And the session in the chamber was

equally speedy today, just under four hours from beginning to end.

Well done to all our MLAs for that feat of endurance.

And back in the chamber today, Mr McDevitt hadn't run out of steam.

He wants action from the Education Minister. This minister needs to

move from fiddling with the policy to bringing in a right. A human

right. A right to pre-school and nursery education to every child

who showed -- also wishes to avail of it.

And whose grandson came to Stormont today after a chance meeting with

an MLA? William happen to say, I have a relative involved in

Northern Ireland. And Chris Herd, who was that? I expected to -- I

expected him to say Almera something, and he said captain

O'Neill. And with me throughout, my guest is

Paula Kelly of digimumsni. Children's issues dominated

business in the chamber this afternoon. There was a motion on

support teams for young people and the ongoing problem with pre-school

nursery provision. With me now is Paula Kelly from the website

digimums. Thank you for being our guest. This subject of the nursery

provision has had -- has been highlighted. What have been people

saying on your website? This isn't the first time this has been

brought up and certainly the parents, their feeling is they fail

criteria for pre-school education. The government have made a

commitment to children's education and we have made great strides, and

parents feel they would like criteria as a whole reviewed.

unfortunate we have gone into a situation where parents who are

working Orrell must set against parents were not working? -- who

are working are set against. They feel the criteria is weighted

against them. They feel it is difficult up July and August. They

feel it is more difficult for their children to be educated and there

are bigger issues. If there is part-time and full-time places,

depending where their child has, it is a logistical nightmare.

there as many parents on benefits getting in touch? We have a cross

next. I couldn't say for sure. Other people have made contact

outside of the platform by a direct message. But there are views on

both sides. The general feel is that children would like to be...

It is about locality, children educated in their communities and

socialising in their communities. Frankie. -- thank you.

If Stephen Farry was on a high after his party conference at the

weekend, he would have been brought back to earth quickly enough as he

took questions today. We'll hear him in a moment but first up was

the Education Minister. And here he is responding to a query on the

number of schools here with control of their own budgets.

The delegation of financial and managerial responsibilities are key

elements in the department's policy to improve the quality of teaching

and learning in schools. Within the resources available for education,

I am committed to ensuring as much funding as possible is delegated to

schools however it is important to recognise their -- recognise it is

not always practical to do that. Their number of budgets are held

centrally. For example school transport, meals, and schools

should recognise the greater delegation will mean greater

accountability and responsibility, as well as time management. Can the

Minister respond as to why in Northern Ireland we have the lowest

percentage of delegated schools budget compared to anywhere else in

the UK? This is one of the arguments that you use statistics

in any way you choose best. I can quote statistics back tee which

suggest that the delegation of funding is as good as if not higher

than in other jurisdictions. The member refers to the delegation of

the funding formula, broken down to schools, but we also provide

schools with different services which, if they were taken into

account, would bring this up to what is happening in England.

the issue of budget cuts and when a party colleague has a question for

a minister, he can safely bet it will not be taxing. Can the

Minister reiterate the extent of the impact of the Budget as a

result of the British Government cuts and perhaps he could outline

how he liaises with the finance minister in regard to these

particular budgetary difficulties. The out workings of the British

Government's cuts have been devastating to education and while

we are able to make announcements as they did today of several

million pounds invested over a number of years, and, indeed, those

are very welcome, it has to be remembered when you were dealing

with tens of millions of pounds, this makes a major difference to

his school or community and we have to focus on that. The impact of the

budget has been devastating and I have been reviewing my budgets as

they have come into post and we are making savings where recant and

reinvesting those savings back into education. The minister refers to

devastating cuts. Can he explain to me how he can justified issuing

50,000 circulars surveying, asking on views about cross-border

education. Can he tell us how much this will cost? With respect to

remember, his objections are political. If you set them aside,

the then planning cross-border educational services makes economic

sense because many of the border communities, regardless of their

political views, operate across the border as if the border didn't

exist so if we can provide education to the benefit of those

local communities, and this is how it will be plant, if it is for the

benefit of those local communities, we will move on to that plan. And

if we plan on economies of scale, we will save money in the long run.

So it ticks all those boxes. How much will it cost? The final cost

hasn't been worked out but it will be minimal because we are not

bringing in outside consultants. The star difference in my own

department will be analysing the statistics. I'm not aware of the

costs. I am sure -- I can assure him that it will be value for money.

Employment and learning next and with high hopes this will be a

major year for tourism, Army training enough people for the sect

are? Northern Ireland will continue to host events and celebrations.

These events often of a lion to showcase -- offer a chance for

Northern Ireland to show case itself. I want to provide

employment and taboos the local economy through these. The skills

of staff are fundamental to success. I have designated tourism and

hospitality as a priority skill area. My department has been

working with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. They have developed

and put in place a customised training programme for customer

service. In the financial year just ended, I allocated �350,000 for

staff. And have committed finance for future training of staff. We

are delighted the North coast will host the Irish Open and in

anticipation, my officials have developed a short training

programmes with the Northern Regional College to assist the

tourism sector in this area to upscale stuff. This programme will

be rolled up to other areas. The Executive is making a wonderful

investment in infrastructure, and attracting events over the next

number eat of the years but we went to see Northern Ireland tourism

grow and flourish and to be a feature of our economy for many

years to come and all of the international evidence shows the

way we build a legacy and get a return Vizards is through word of

month -- word of mouth and recommendations from families and

between friends, and the there are - were the key determinant is the

quality of the customer care, so it is important to complement what is

happening in terms of investment and make sure we have an all-round

package, make sure the tourism industry is a great success.

Let's go back to the issue of nursery provision and hear today's

debate calling for the right number of pre-school places in the right

locations. The motion was brought by the Alliance Party's Judith

Cochrane. In January, she said she was so happy she could kiss the

Minister after he announced plans to change the entry requirements.

But with no sign of the legislation to make the changes, there was no

love lost in the Chamber earlier. Let's be clear, we have established

the July-August criterion is wrong and it disadvantages younger

children. The minister said he would introduce separate

legislation. It was not in place quickly enough. Whilst it is

progressive, it will not be complete in time. The minister has

the park to act on this now and the parents want action. You should

always go to your nearest school. It is difficult to put you on a bus

alternative car if you are free to travel miles. The department has an

issue and what this debate will insure is that yet again the

genuine concerns of working parents is placed on the record in this

house because there are clearly concerns the current process could

become a disincentive for working parents. If we are trying to

encourage people going back to employment, and to create an

environment where by families can have a lifestyle that is able to

accommodate all the challengers and needs, then, clearly, this policy

is not able, as is currently constructed, to deliver. I have

been here two and three-quarter years and we continually see no

sense of urgency. No target dates, rarely target dates. This is a plea

to everybody. Please let's look at how we can do things quicker.

not need to have policies that tackle inequality if they just

perpetuate another inequality. Which is why this minister needs to

move from fiddling with the policy to bringing in a right. A human

right. A right to pre-school or nursery education to every child.

And, for once, he has simply refused to entertain that

possibility and I do not understand why. It doesn't matter what I think.

Parents don't understand why. They don't understand why, when we

profess to be committed to transforming education and putting

young children first, something I know Mr Rogers also in his speech

and feels passionately about, that we continue to build a pre-school

and nursery system on a policy that discriminates. I am at -- I am

allocating a further �1.4 million for pre-school places. Over the

last three years, additional funds have been made available through

voluntary and private providers and today additional funding will be

recurrent. A total of �1.3 million will be made available on a

recurrent basis to further close a funding gap between statutory and

other sectors. This was one area of concern. We do need to close the

gap and the funding will close that Do you think that news goes far

enough? It goes. I think it's great to hear that July and August is

going to be reviewed. There are other aspects of the criteria that

need to be reviewed on a longer term basis. But it's a bigger issue.

I think it's going to take time to know what the right criteria is.

Mervyn Storey raised the issue of a disincentive to work. Are you

finding that, are people saying there's no point if trying to get

back to work to have to organise the child care and transport to a

nursery school that's miles away. There are parents particularly over

this weekend who have said it doesn't incentivise them to go back

to work, that they'd be better off staying at home and wait until

their children are in the education system and that they would be then

registered on like an income related benefit, therefore that

would help them in their criteria. Is the stracher to provision the

answer do you think? I think they need to align the supply and demand.

I think it's maybe extending, having time extensions, whether we

are looking at statistics and working out what are the areas that

have high birth rate and forecast soing that we can extend --

forecasting, so that we can extend provision in certain areas. Thank

you. Prisons here are currently undergoing major reforms with

hundreds of officers leaving with enhanced payments and being

replaced by new recruits. The Prison Officers' Association has

long been a very vocal force and its head, veteran, Finlay Spratt,

was not short of words when he was invited to the Justice Committee

last week. Tonight we concentrate on his appearance as we look at the

work of the Stormont committees. The budget was cut by �17.6 million,

that's what it amounts to. Whether people like it or not, we as a

trade union have that responsibility. We went along and

said you were prepared for discussions. I've said clearly from

the outset, that the programme was not the answer of the Northern

Ireland Prison Service. What the seed programme has done it hasn't

reformed the Prison Service, it's dismantled it. That will be borne

out over time. I hope I'm wrong. But indications would be to me, and

I wrote to the department on August 2011 and said that again, it was an

English solution to an Irish problem. The shift patterns from an

English private prison and imposed it in Northern Ireland. I accept

our job is to be there when we're required to do the job. But this

has left the biggest mess that's ever, and you are not getting all

the facts or the truth. It's all about, I'm here to tell you exactly

what's going on. It could get worse. In fact all you people around this

Justice Committee, who signed up for this wonderful SEE programme,

you signed up to lock up prisoners earlier. That's what it's about.

People need to realise, there are people in this committee shouting

about reform. I'm all for reform, 100%, but just actually lock the

prisoners up early. It hasn't broke out there yet. These prisoners

don't realise on a Saturday and Sunday they're going to be locked

up at 5.30pm. That's what's going on. If there's an independent voice

of this, then why was it that the criminal justice inspector time

after time, have had reports on the Prison Service which have come out

with comments like "Customs and practices exist which should not

exist in prison establishments, need for radical reform and the POA

are part of the problem. All the parties signatories to the

agreement all agreed there was a need for a radical review into the

management and detention of prisoners." Is everybody in this

instance wrong but the POA. That's not what I said. When I wrote to

the department in August, we fully support a reform of the Northern

Ireland Prison Service. We fully accept it was needed. Coming back

to the criminal justice, I wouldn't set much to these people. They're

just a quango produced by direct ruled ministers. It's easy to go

along and criticise. I could come in here today and criticised all

you people for different reasons and very easy to criticise the POA.

It's very handy for management to abdicate their responsibility and

blame the POA. The POA took a conscious decision and said fine,

you get on with it. You only have to look at the mess that's been

created. As the head of the association, representing the

prison officers for 36 years and the head of this organisation for

26, I've taken that opinion. It's management's job to management when

we agreed the framework in 94, admitted in 97, management had it

on their job, then the POA wouldn't have got, the PO ar bailed them out.

It was handy for the inspector. If you blame the POA.

Multi Agency Support Teams. What does it mean? Well, it's a scheme

where health and education professionals work together to help

children with issues such as behavioural difficulties or speech

problems. The Ulster Unionist Roy Beggs proposed the motion calling

for all schools and nurseries to adopt the scheme. Here he is

outlining his case. I think in terms of the scheme, one of its

benefits is the multidisciplinery nature so this a range of issues

can be dealt with in a child- sentaerdproch. I'll demonstrate how

one issue can trigger others. Whenever a child has a speech and

language problem and thae rife at primary school, they're not able to

communicate well with their teacher. They might not be integrating with

the rest of the class. They're likely to have behavioural problems

that flow on from that. They might be very withdrawn. They might be

disruptive. That will affect other children in the classroom. So

because there's a fundamental problem, other problems can arise.

And the beauty of this scheme is that it can bring in the range of

professionals required to help the child an the family overcome those

difficulties and then benefit from education. I would like the

multiagency support team to be available for every child, not only

in my own constituency but in Northern Ireland. The feed back

from the scheme has been very positive for parents, teachers an

the children themselves. 78% of Prince pals and 69% of teachers

highlighted that the children benefit from the intervention from

the maths service. What other things are exorcising people and

parents about this nursery provision? I would say that mainly

parents feel it's about the locality. They want their children

brought up in their own areas, educated in their own areas. They

want them socialised, establishing those relationships at a young age

and from the working parent's perspective, it makes life slightly

easier and it's, otherwise it's logistically can be very difficult.

Is there any sense of people doing what they shouldn't be doing, using

parents or grandparents' homes as an address to get a child into

nursery place? Does that ever come up? Anecdotally you hear of cases.

It's difficult to assess how widespread it is. Last year there

was research that showed there were so many grandparents being used, as

informal child care. There have been instances of that. That's one

of the issues we'd hopefully see less of in relation to the July and

August issue, but people have been applying applying for a place in an

area where their parents are living so they can look after the children.

A chance meeting in Limerick brought a visitor here today with a

strong family connection to Stormont. The grandson of Captain

Terence O'Neill, the former prime minister of Northern Ireland,

visited parliament buildings for the first time. UUP MLA Ross Hussey

was there to welcome him and told me how the visit came about. It was

very surreal. We were in a meeting in Limerick and William happened to

say "I have a relative who was involved in politics in Northern

Ireland. I expected him to say Alderman Joe blogs or whatever. He

said Captain Terence O'Neill. We sort of went, did he just say that?

Obviously since then we've had a private conversation and I asked

him to visit. He was a significant part of my life as a grandfather.

Actually his role in politics was really a very small part of my life.

I knew the position he held. I understood that he was there saz

sadly, things became more violent and obviously got worse afterwards.

Beyond that, I really didn't know very much. Sadly, I think many

grandchildren regret, I only started paying an interest when it

was too late to start asking him questions or his wife, my

grandmother. So the journey to just learn a bit more was a bit late in

terms of asking it from the horse's mouth sadly. But lots of

politicians are here and still have good recollections. Did you meet

anybody today? Yes, I met a few MLAs who had stories to tell or

recollections or things to say about him that they inspired, that

he inspired him to join the Ulster Unionist Party or they were going

no to O'Neill. Yeah, it's been interesting. Is this a one-off

visit or will you keep the -- up the connection? Hopefully it's not

a one-off visit. I hope to keep the connection with politics in

Northern Ireland and what happens in Northern Ireland. I suppose my

real interest is we achieve reconciliation here. That's

something that interests me. If there's a small part I can play

brilliant, and if not, I'll be an interested observer. I want to keep

my link with what's happening with the political situation here and

hopefully to see communities slowly build bridges. That's what really

interests me. Have the party offered you a future leadership

role? No, they haven't. That would be unwise on their behalf!

Politicians at Westminster had their say last week about the legal

case the Attorney General is taking against the former Secretary of

State Peter Hain. But as Mark Devenport told me earlier it wasn't

so straightforward for our MLAs. Yes, it was definitely the case

which has been dominating the chat in the corridors. In terms of the

chamber, even though there was an urgent oral question asking whether

the Attorney-General still had their confidence, given some of the

criticism from DUP minister and the DUP Deputy Leader recently, he

wasn't able to get that question in because it was said there wasn't a

minister available. Jim Allister was unhappy about that. He raised

that in a point of order. Nowhere does it suggest that a minister can

simply say "I'm not available". Considering there are four

ministers, can you confirm this matter didn't get to you for

decision but that someone in the business office took a decision it

wouldn't be accept yapbl because they claimed they weren't

available? We expect to hear more about this case tomorrow? Yes, it's

due for a mention tomorrow morning in the Royal Courts of Justice.

We've heard a lot from the politicians with the DUP weighing

in on the side of those who say that contempt of court proceedings

shouldn't go ahead. Jim Allister making a different view whether

there's interference in the Jew dishary here. -- judiciary here.

And controversy over the MLA Colin Eastwood. Yes, he carried the

coffin of a personal friend, a former paramilitary and because

there was paramilitary regalia at this funeral, other parties, the

DUP and even Alliance were questioning the action and whether

it was consistent with the SDLP's opposition to any kind of violence.

Mr Eastwood said he was there in a personal capacity. The situation

was confused somewhat because over the weekend, we had a confirmation

of an SDLP reshuffle which saw Mr Eastwood off the Justice Committee

and given a place on the standard and privileges committee. They make

the point that was planned before the latest controversy and that it

was simply co-incidental. They therefore are saying nothing to do

with this. They have a principle over the image that went out with

his carrying that coffin. It would have been the image that would have

been the SDLP criticising Sinn Fein over. In terms of the website, is

it filling a gap there that people want to get in touch with each

other and with your side? Yeah, it's great fun and it's a good site.

It's interactive where mums talk to each other and get advice. There's

a network kind of like, digi mums, mothers and business people, who

give great support for each other. Questions or queries, people are

helping each other with things. could be a life line for people

working at home I suppose. It's a good forum for people to talk to