02/04/2014 BBC Newsline

This is BBC Newsline. Tonight's top outlook is mixed. Thank you. That is

This is BBC Newsline. Tonight's top stories...

The inquiry into On stories...

the Northern Ireland Office had a culture of not prosecuting

Republicans. Plans for a new police, fire and

prison service college near Cookstown are put on hold.

Why some Protestant boys are among the lowest achievers in the UK.

How the locally based world war pilots relaxed between missions at

RAF Aldergrove. And there's plenty of rain in the

forecast both tonight and tomorrow - a warning has been issued. I'll be

back with the details. Unconstitutional, unlawful and

immoral. That's how a retired senior police officer today described the

actions of the government when dealing with the issue of On the

Runs. Norman Baxter claimed there had been political interference in

policing, and a culture to ensure that Republicans were not

prosecuted. He was that Republicans were not

to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster. Our Home

Affairs Correspondent, Vincent Kearney, reports.

Six weeks ago, and old daily judge ruled that a Donegal man would not

stand trial for the murders of four soldiers in the IRA was Michael Hyde

Park bombing. That is because in July 2007 he was sent a so-called

letter of assurance telling him he was not wanted for questioning by

any UK police force. The let -- letter was sent after checks were

carried out by a specialist team called operation rabbit. The officer

in charge of that team today accused the Northern Ireland Office of

political interference. I would say there is a culture in Northern

Ireland to ensure that Republicans were

Ireland to ensure that Republicans The retired police superintendent

claimed there was pressure to ensure that a number of high-profile

Republicans wanted by the place would be able to return to Northern

Ireland. They should not be contacting police

officers to bits under pressure. Downing Street was also accused of

political when veteran Republican, Jerry McKeown, and another man were

arrested about the attempt at murder of an off duty soldier in 1981.

He was later sentenced to 20 years in Britain -- in prison.

Gerry Adams ran a press release to mending their release. Downing

Street gave me a phone call suggesting that I would release

them. That, in my mind, is attempting to

pervert the course of justice. I don't know the person at -- I do not

know who the person in Downing Street was, but as a police officer

that is totally illegal and unconstitutional. What did you do?

We continue it interviewing him and he was subsequently convicted. It

was revealed during the hearings that PSNI new John Downie was wanted

in London for questioning about the Hyde Park bombing at the time his

letter was sent but did not tell the prosecution service.

The PSNI was accused of a catastrophic failure, criticism

Norman Baxter today said was unfair. Do you personally believe that the

PSNI and you were being scapegoated? Yes, if I am at liberty to say, I

thought the Secretary of State's statement was disgraceful in blaming

the police. Without any due process. I thought think that she,

by doing so, is covering up in what is going on in this administrative

process. The retired officer also criticised the chief constable, who

shortly after the judgement issued an apology saying the PSNI accepted

full responsibility for what happened.

The chief constable said that Matt Baggot was wrong -- Norman Baxter

said that Matt Baggot was wrong about use them covering up the

actions of the Northern Ireland Office.

A plan to build a joint police, fire and prison service college near

Cookstown has been put on hold. The programme team decided

Cookstown has been put on hold. The preferred bidder could not deliver

the project within budget. There are now doubts whether the project will

ever go ahead. Here's our south west reporter, Julian Fowler.

A vision of the future for the training of police officers,

firefighters and prison officers. A consortium consisting of Spanish

company, SEC, and local company, Gilbert Ash, said it could build the

college near place right -- Cookstown for ?133 million but was

told the budget will be no more than ?104 million. It has already cost

around ?11 million, but the sight of the college is still a field.

The programme team has now decided to take a pause and may now retender

the problem -- contract. We need to reassess the project and

current up-to-date costs. We will look at ways of reducing some costs

and we have to do reports that look at ways of reducing some costs

government and let the government have an idea of the scale of this

sound of the cost to ensure we have a way forward. But there is an

absolute commitment to delivering this college at the site in

Cookstown. The land was bought in 2003.

Ever since, the project has been beset by problems over costs and

design. The board that has to take forward of the scheme have said the

blame lies with the design team, who ultimately underestimated the cost

of this construction by some ?30 million.

For Cookstown the latest setback has come as a huge amount -- at huge

disappointment. I queued at work has been invested by ourselves as a

local authority. -- at huge amount of work. And

indeed by hundreds of businesses across the region to equip

themselves to be able to avail themselves of the -- economic

opportunities brought by the college.

For some in the town they're not no surprises over the delays and there

are doubts whether the college will ever be built.

Every six months of press releases taken out and dusted off with a

different date on it. No. I believe and many believe it will never

happen in Cookstown. For those behind the idea of a

world-class training facility for the urgency services, it is back to

the drawing board. Poorer Protestant boys are seriously

underachieving at school, according to a new report. The study by the

Community Relations Council has compared all communities across the

UK - using five good GCSE grades as the measure of success. The figures

show over 76% of Catholic girls from better off backgrounds - that's

those who better off backgrounds - that's

meals - are among the highest achievers, beaten only by Chinese

girls in the overall UK table. But the picture is bleak for Protestant

boys who are entitled to free school neals. Just 19.7% get five good

GCSEs. That's nearly at the bottom of the UK table. Only travellers and

Roma children are getting poorer results.

The man who compiled the report has accused politicians of sleepwalking

into an inequality gap. I've been speaking to him and to pupils at

schools from both sides to ask why pupils think there's such a divide.

I think the Catholic ethos is to better yourself, and that is why

there is such a drive to do well. Maybe because Catholics had a harder

time maybe it was ingrained in their culture of that in Northern Ireland

to try harder. Politicians are busy arguing about issues they considered

to be culturally important, but are not having any effect, you know,

economically or in terms of bettering their societies.

I don't think it has anything to do with faith or religion come it is no

ones fault but your own if you are not really pushing yourself to do

well in school. You are losing out.

Newtownabbey community School used to have poor results but in the last

few years things have started to change for the better. These

students were surprised to hear that Protestant boys are not reaching

their full potential. This is the first I have heard it, that

Protestant boys don't achieve as much as the others but if they don't

maybe it is now lack of from them. Maybe it is the way they are brought

up in their estate, who Maybe it is the way they are brought

about with and things like that. Girls seem to work harder, they are

more concerned about the future whereas boys are more relaxed about

that stuff. Now the Protestants will have to

lift their game and start revising more, doing better tests, stuff like

that. The principal says poorer Protestant areas do face significant

social problems and for some pupils even getting to school is an

achievement. There are many of them is with

complex challenges, both within and outside school.

Many of them are easily influenced by other interests out of school,

should it be the paramilitary organisations or other attractions.

The massive gap between students and their catholic counterparts concerns

the man who wrote their catholic counterparts concerns

says there will be consequences. The real problem with this is we are

creating inequalities that will later show themselves in the King of

incidents we have seen in recent years, in terms of public disorder,

in terms of younger generation that feels it has no roots out of its

poverty. Out that inequality comes anger, and out of that anger, I am

afraid, we have a very unsettled political future. Across Belfast,

the girls at Saint Dominic 's have their own theories about why girls

are doing well. In the past come in working class

families, especially, they did not have any other opportunities and

education was the way to get out and open doors. I think that is why now

education is being pushed and why we are doing so well. My family is

working-class Catholic, so I feel that why I work so hard at school

now because I appreciate education. My granny, for example, was not

given her the opportunity to pursue her education. So I know I would be

almost stupid to throw the opportunity away. What about

Protestant boys and catholic girls, then?

Why are Protestant boys not doing so well? I think the problem is mainly

that Protestant boys are being ignored, because real issues such as

education are being overshadowed by political issues from the past that

are not relevant today. Debates such as, I don't mean to

offend anyone, debates such as the flag is you don't seem to be as

royalist communities. royalist communities.

I don't think it is down to intelligence, I think everyone is a

genius, but you need to target the strengths people have and perhaps

Protestant boys are not given the opportunities we are about people

looking after us target it and that makes our education better. The

strength of this school is that we have a certain amount of diversity.

You know, obviously we have a high percentage of children on free

school meals, five times the average for grammar schools, and I suppose

we are not focused on what people have or have not got. Everyone is

judged by their merit, it is about your work ethic. Protestant

working-class boys are being locked out of planet.

Remember, even if we get investment into areas like East Belfast, these

kids will not be able to get access to those jobs, because they simply

do have the qualifications. The to those jobs, because they simply

chair of Stormont 's education Committee and the former principal

of Ashfield Boys, Andy McMorran join me now.

Protestant boys are being locked out of education, what are you doing

about that? This issue has been made reference to in many reports of a

long period of time. I think it is a regrettable

situation that, despite all of the top there has been by the current

education minister and his department and previous education

ministers, the specific issue of addressing needs in working-class

Protestant boys has been ignored. I spent some time recently with

working-class Protestant boys at Shankill Road. There is a proposal

on the education minister 's death and we're waiting for a response.

What about mainstream unionism? From Stormont's on record it

What about mainstream unionism? only been debated once at Stormont

in four years? I don't think that is a reflection

that my Party or others have ignored the issue. Constantly there have

been reports saying there was a problem. I have to take it is not

just an issue in working-class Protestant areas. There are

working-class Roman Catholic areas where there is a particular problem

and issue of underachievement and underperformance. But this report is

saying that Protestant boys from poorer backgrounds are at the bottom

of table. That is consistent with previous

reports, and this report makes a telling comment in regarding the

free school meals. We have spent a lot of money on the

issue of free school meals. Still, with all the money that has been

spent, or 19% of young Protestant boys in receipt of free school meals

are not performing. The issue is educational underachievement, not a

solely it -- social issue. Andy McMorran, your school but the social

trend, you got great results at Ashfield Boys, what is the utter?

I served on to committees. That was one task force, then I sat

with Don Purvis on the underachievement in working-class

areas. Some of the recommendations from the leadership around teaching

and learning, etc, we put forward some very good ideas, but these

figures in 2014 are telling us this and I would like to know what would

-- what was done? Why was this not acted on originally? One of the big

things was the leadership in school. We cannot get people in Northern

Ireland to apply for jobs for leadership. You think there is a

fundamental difference between Protestant state schools and

catholic schools and their ethos? No, I don't. One of the things we

pushed all the time was motivation, motivating the children to do better

and believe in themselves. Their self esteem was low at the start and

we built it up, and coming out at the other end, due to very solid

teaching and a link to the community and a link to different

organisations, etc, what was coming out at the end we were proving, we

bucked the trend and they are still churning out 70% at five GCSEs.

Thank you very much for joining us. Still to come tonight...

The company behind Games of Thrones gives its backing to promoting

Northern Ireland tourism. The Health Minister has warned that the failure

to agree a deal on introducing welfare changes could have a

damaging impact on the level of hospital

patients here. The DUP has predicted that fines

levied by the Treasury over welfare reform could lead to a cut of nearly

?70 million in next year's Health budget. Our Political Editor Mark

Devenport has been talking to the minister.

What is Edwin Poots warning could be the consequences of a continuing

stand off over welfare reform? Edwin Poots is saying that if the

final, which is predicted to be more than ?100 million, is imposed and is

shared out equally across the various Stormont government

departments, it is likely to happen will be a ?68 million cut in the

health budget. It says that people might not realise what that means.

He wants to set out in stark detail what it could mean.

?10 million would buy us hundreds of nurses. A further 10 million would

lose us thousands of consultants with GPs. A further 10 million with

losers almost 1,500 hip replacements. I have a paper from

officials indicating that we may have to close some of our smaller

hospitals. We do need to wake up and realise the pressure that the health

budget is under. What have the other Stormont parties

had to say about this? In general, some are saying that the

DUP are getting ahead of themselves. The fines have not

started to be levied yet. We don't know how they will be shared out

across the departments. The Ulster Unionists say this is a change of

tune in when the DUP used to criticise their previous Health

Minister when he complained about his budget. The SDLP 's favour big

parties should have a tougher negotiations with the government

department in London. Sinn Fein, the main target, is essentially saying

that the DUP's -- the DUP is scaremongering and is prepared to

take whatever London throws acid. The major American television

company HBO has, for the first time, given its backing to a tourism

campaign. After using Northern Ireland as the setting for Game of

Thrones, it will help promote here as a visitor destination. Our

business correspondent Julian O'Neill explains more.

Game of Thrones film locations are now being signposted. It aims to

capitalise on a connection with the hit TV series.

It is one of the world 's most popular television shows. It is

showcasing Northern Ireland's scenery to this rich fan base.

Season four is about to error, and the tourism sector has struck a deal

with HBO to endorse a series of adverts which will target a fan base

of millions on social media. This is an iconic image which became

famous in the initial series of game thrones. It will form part of our

advertising campaign. Game of Thrones has been using these

film studios and other locations and 2009. During that time, it has had

?11 million of assistance from the Northern Ireland Executive. The

argument is that that is money well spent.

It is viewed as an investment, not just in the local television and

film sector, but now inter isn't. We need to take the opportunity that

has been presented to us, with the fact that this is such a global

head. We can show off all of our beautiful scenery. We can draw

people into our tourism product. The campaign will roll out in the US

and then Europe. It will run until June.

Prince Charles and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall ended their two

day visit to Northern Ireland with an awards ceremony at Hillsborough,

and meeting servicemen and women and their families. This morning, the

Royal couple were at Palace Barracks where boxing and Easter eggs were

the order of the day. Mervyn Jess reports.

It's not everyday that the error to the throne visits a boxing gym, but

today Prince Charles visited the Palace Barracks.

He wanted to wish these fighting men like as they prepared for

tomorrow's Championships. The commanding officer is no stranger to

the ring himself. It's a very special day with the

Prince and the Duchess arriving. He was here a couple of years ago, and

we have achieved a lot since then. We wish them good luck for the

future as we leave Northern Ireland. The duchess went on an Easter egg

hunt with the servicemen's families. The royal visitor it soon realised,

when it comes to children, you can't please everyone.

Earlier, in Hillsborough was a special ceremony at the castle. A

number of local people were awarded their MBEs and OBEs.

More footage now from that rare cine film taken at RAF Aldegrove during

the Second World War. Yesterday, on BBC Newsline we showed you the men

of 502 Ulster Squadron preparing for war. Tonight, we see them in their

lighter moments. Will Leitch has been finding out how the men engaged

in the Battle of the Atlantic, chose to have fun.

Learning to hunt for U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic, the men of

502 Ulster Squadron fought right through the war. Activities to

former members - Sean McNeill and hardly enter.

-- Herbie Edgar. Herbie Edgar shot most of his

footage in buildings like this one at Alderbrook. It was the early

days... The error crew had become familiar

with working inside, and went off duty to relax with a few beers and a

pack of cards. Perhaps, the next bit was inevitable for young man with

time off after dangerous work - the door is open to reveal offals of

beer. It takes a bit of a shake before they will drop. Moments like

this. It brought it to life to see young

men the same age as our grandchildren doing fun thing -- fun

things. It makes them seem more like real

people, rather than just historical figures.

In a jokey reference to a character from the wartime comedy It's That

Man Again, if you can't be roused what's better than the old wet

sponge routine? The Squadron lost 174 men during the

war, and this film stayed with the families of the Squadron for years.

For many, it was too painful to watch. But the film of their working

lives is now available for new generations.

The fallout from the GAA's announcement that it has signed a

deal with Sky Sports to broadcast 42 of its championship matches

exclusively on the subscription channel over the next three years

has prompted Stormont to intervene. channel over the next three years

Sports Minister Caral Ni Chuilin has told BBC Newsline she has concerns

and will voice those to Croke Park. Mark Sidebottom reports.

A day on and on the PR front, there is much work to be done. The GAA has

just sold its soul, or it has secured its future and gone global

with a strong broadcasting deal. I don't want that to be to the

detriment of local broadcasting. I don't want it to be at the detriment

of the people. -- the people who don't have sky. Will you voice your

concerns to the GAA? I will when I get more details.

We don't know just how lucrative or otherwise that deal may be, as the

GAA is coming under pressure from its own members to reveal that

detail. BBC Northern Ireland would broadcast

only games which are TE will also show live. There will be no

quarterfinals, semifinals or finals on BBC Northern Ireland.

It's terrible. Why do you say that?

It's doesn't make commercial sense. It's bad for the punter on the

street who have to pay for everything now.

It's good that the money is put back into the clubs.

Do you have sky? Yes I do.

Last year, they said, our overall revenue was 65 million euros. Much

of this was reinvested. It's pretty much a wet picture of

the next 24-hour is. A rain warning has been issued. The first patch of

brain has been making its way out from the site today. This evening is

looking pretty wax. As I mentioned, the warning is now in force and it

is valid until midnight tomorrow night. -- looking pretty wet.

Later tonight, the rain will leave a lot of mist, low cloud and fog. As

the wind even as we may see a bit of sea fog lapping on shore across

parts of the East. Tomorrow, there will be further rain at times but it

won't be raining everywhere. The best of the dry weather will be in

the West. First thing, the next area of rain is edging out from the

south. Through the rush hour, most places will be fairly wet, mild and

misty. Some big puddles on the roads will stop there will be some heavy

bursts of rain in that mix. Temperature is around nine degrees.

It won't be particularly cold. That first area of rain it should ease.

There will be dry weather for a time around lunchtime. Another area of

rain it comes in later in the day. The best of the dry weather is in

the West. Tomorrow night, that rain The best of the dry weather is in

continues across eastern areas before slowly moving away. Over the

course of the night, there could be a couple of inches of rain to be

eased. On Friday we are looking at a better day. A change of wind

direction. The error starts to come in from the Atlantic which means it

will be clearer and less hazy. Mixed weather over the weekend.

Our late summary is at 10.25pm. You can also keep in contact with us via

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