24/09/2014 BBC Newsline

Good evening, the headlines on BBC Newsline:

A party leader and his former minister seemed to be at odds, so is

there underlying pressure shear? As the Executive struggles to

balance its shear? budget, Government departments face losing

millions from their budgets. Baby Sophie Maguire died

after surgery at Great Ormond Every night, I see her, dying in my

arms. A charity set up in memory

of footballer George Best is to be I will have all the latest news from

the Ryder Cup. And after a fresher day, it's about

to get a bit milder again, but also The First Minister Peter Robinson

had to issue a statement today denying he plans

to stand down at any stage The denial was prompted

by an extraordinary interview on The former Health Minister Edwin

Poots had claimed it was public knowledge Mr Robinson intended to

step down in less than a year. Since then, Mr Poots has explained

he misunderstood a newspaper Here's our political

correspondent Gareth Gordon. We must now move onto questions to

the Minister of health. that was Edwin Poots,

who conducted his final Assembly Question Time before

learning he was to be replaced. There was no bitterness, from people

who were standing down. They recognised the need for us to

continue to turn things around. Mr Robinson was also asked

about his own future. How can I tell how long I'm going to

live? I am taking here taking three full meals a day, happy at the job I

am doing. But when Edwin Poots went

on radio this morning, he said his leader would be gone

before the Assembly election. It wasn't really the intention for

him to stay on for that period of time, that is public knowledge. That

was in a interview he carried out, and he referred to it as months.

Months tends to be less than a year. It appears Mr Poots may have got

his interviews mixed up. He later clarified his position -

too late for Mr Robinson, who issued a statement saying he had

no plans to stand down before the Assembly election, and when he

did decide to go, it would be he He added he would continue to lead

as long as the party He has given no intention that he

will go anywhere for some time, and he will certainly not have

appreciated a senior party member suggesting otherwise so publicly. It

is not the way the party likes to do business.

Public shows of unity are much more its thing.

The DUP won't want any more days like today.

?200 million of public sector cuts will have to be made over the next

six months, as the Executive struggles to balance its budget.

The cuts could lead to a significant number of redundancies

The spending pressures have emerged during

Health spending is likely to be protected, which means all other

departments will have to cut 6% from their budgets.

Here's our economics and business editor John Campbell.

Over the last four years, our public services have had to

The amount of money they've getting has been flat in real terms.

But now we're reaching a crunch point.

There's an almost limitless demand for health services, placing

The failure to do a deal on welfare also means the Treasury

Those welfare fines will amount to ?87m this year.

But paying for health and other so-called inescapable

That means all departments, except health, will have to cut

One minister says it will affect his part in it. We already told them

that this would have it impact on recruitment, and impact on how we

deal with legacy cases, how long prisoners will be locked up for, how

many officers we will have supervising the community, these are

all serious issues which will impact our public safety.

We could be seeing more scenes like this - civil servants facing

Cutting jobs is one of the options for making big savings.

We need to see our Government here at the Assembly standing up and away

the people of Scotland have stood up. The people of Scotland will have

more powers devolved to them. We already have many powers devolved to

us, but Scotland will fight for more money and able get it.

The Executive is due to discuss all this tomorrow.

But even if they reach agreement, it?s not the end of the process.

They'll shortly need to agree a comprehensive budget for 2015-16.

And the context for those discussions will be even tougher.

Feat public finances in the UK are even getting worse. We hear about

the economic work operate, but it means there will have to be more

public expenditure cuts. So the focus shifts to

tomorrow's Executive meeting. Time is of the essence -

because if a budget can't be agreed, it calls into question

the future of devolution. The Labour leader Ed Miliband has

urged the Stormont parties to press ahead with welfare reform

and avoid penalties from London. In an interview with our political

reporter Stephen Walker, Mr Miliband also said he wants to keep the

Barnett formula - that's the system that sets the amount of money

allocated to public services in Scotland, Wales and

of course here in Northern Ireland. We said we will keep the Barnett

formula. We think that although people have their complaints about

the formula, it is the least worst there is. There does need to be a

lock on going and whether we can have fairness in funding across all

parts of the United Kingdom, but I think the Barnett formula is the

right thing for the future. And if you are Prime Minister today, would

you gives permit taxpayer and delete back -- gave taxpaying powers to

Stormont? I know how they feel about this, because we have talked to them

about it. My anxiety is, the reasons why we didn't want Scotland to be

independent was because we didn't want this to happen. People have

called it a game changer. I have heard that and it is something we

will keep looking at. If you are Prime Minister, with the reforms

that the Tories have pushed through, would you stand by them? We went get

rid of them. We got rid of the bedroom tax. We know the

conversations in Northern Ireland. We changed things for disabilities,

as we know there are hardships for people who are facing life with

disabilities. We would change welfare, and we would do it by

listening to the people of Northern Ireland and that is what is not

happening under this Government. We're joined now by our

correspondents. There is not a lot optimism today and it didn't even

seem that the DUP was agreeing. Yes, there seems to be some

arguments. We had a rare public spat within the DUP. It made it into a

bit of a misunderstanding in the background, because Mr Peretz

thought that it had been reported something that hadn't been, Edward

Prince -- Mr Poots. They have said that they have seen

the Secretary of State today? Yes, they were meeting about the

forthcoming interparty negotiations. They clearly want. And as soon as

party delete back possible -- as soon as possible. As far as the

inquiry is concerned, neither nationalist party likes the idea and

Sinn Fein rev is that it said it was unacceptable. I am absolutely

opposed to this. We should deal with it as we have done up to now.

Dialogue for the coming year, we said it time and time again, we are

up for dialogue that is our position. We have set up publicly

and we have said it again today. And our politicians are facing more and

more choices. Our public redundancies looking likely? I think

they are. Sermon has been trying to protect jobs as much as they can,

but now the question is can they continue to do that given the

magnitude of the cuts which are required? The number of people

employed in the public service have gone down over the last couple of

years, it is down by about 4%. That is down to people not being replaced

when they leave, but if we look at the number of people working in the

public sector, it is followed by more than 10%. And Ed Miliband has

not given us much hope about welfare reform today. We need to look at the

broader context about where the economy is. They are making cuts in

West Minster because they are trying to lower the deficit. They say they

want to completely remove the deficit by the end of the next

election. The Labour Party have said the same thing. They want to close

the deficit, too. Their spending plans aren't we to be significantly

different. Under Labour, there won't be any more money. Explain the

meeting tomorrow? The finance minister will brief the other

finance ministers on the seriousness of the situation, but there is no

sign of any common approach between the DUP and Alliance on the one hand

you want to get on with the cuts and Sinn Fein who want to get on with

talks with London. The Chief Coroner

in England has ordered an investigation into the death

of a baby from Londonderry at Great Baby Sophie Maguire died

after surgery in the world renowned The family have welcomed

the fresh inquiry, after it emerged no post mortem

examination was ever carried out. Here's our northwest reporter,

Keiron Tourish. Baby Sophie Maguire lived for only

15 day, but even in that short time Before her birth in Altnagelvin,

it was discovered she had blood flow problems in her brain and she

was later transferred to Great After undergoing brain surgery, she

later developed a number of clots. Tragically, she deteriorated

and her family say they took the heartbreaking decision to switch

off the life-support machine That is all I see every night when I

close my eyes, I see my baby dying in my arms. I know there is a lot of

happy things that happy with us there, but for some reason, that

awful image just sticks in our heads and it probably will stick in my

head for the rest of my life. The family say there was never any

post mortem examination to establish the cause of death and a call

from a member of staff in Great Ormond Street hospital prompted

more questions than answers. After I received a phone call from

one of the members of staff, they said they reopened her case, I

simply said, why did you feel the need to open the case? And she said,

because she should never have died. We need answers. We need closure. We

can't keep going and having people saying, you lost the baby, how did

she die? And we say, we don't know. What kind of answer is that? How can

we grieve properly if we don't know how her baby die?

A spokesperson for Great Ormond Street said:

The per se 's cause of her death, that is what this is about, because

to date on what we don't know how or why she died. -- the precise cause.

So far, the answers have not been satisfactory.

Sophie Maguire's family have welcomed the investigation

They believe that only a detailed public inquiry in the

form of an inquest will establish what happened to their daughter.

Some of today's other news now and a 24-year-old man has been

arrested following a stabbing in west Belfast.

The attack on a man in his sixties happened as he was

delivering building mortar to a street just off the Springfield

He is being treated in hospital for his injuries, where he is said to be

Police officers with video cameras are patrolling the streets

of south Belfast after two more cars were burnt out

The vehicles were set on fire in Delhi Street off the Ormeau Road.

Both belonged to families who have lived in the street for a number

One of the cars was brand new and had only 20 miles on the clock.

It brings to eight the number of cars set alight in the wider

The police have appealed for information about the attacks.

They also said they've stepped up their presence in the Holylands

since students returned to university.

In the last two weeks, there have been 27 incidents involving

students, including two 18-year-olds arrested on suspicion of burglary.

Officers have made 40 referrals to universities over student behaviour.

A senior paediatric cardiologist in Dublin has told

the BBC that it makes sense for there to be one centre in Ireland

Yesterday it emerged that an international review team has

recommended that surgery in Belfast be moved south of the border.

In an interview with our health correspondent Marie-Louise Connolly,

Dr Paul Oslizlok said it could take up to two years for

We need to make sure there are enough beds available, I gas, or

doctors and nurses, and all of the professionals need to be in place to

provide an excellent service and that would take at least a year or

perhaps longer. What would happen in the meantime if a child in an

emergency situation comes to Northern Ireland, what would you

propose would happen in that interim period? Again, remembering that we

don't have the capacity to deal with all the patients, but we can provide

limited emergency services to infants and children who can't be

transported to the other hospital at the moment, that is what we have

agreed with our colleagues in Belfast. That is what is happening

now. But 96 children did travel all over the past year to England. We

were told last year that there was this working relationship between

yourselves and your counterparts in the north. That didn't really

happen. Why not? To provide a safe and professional service, we have to

restrict the numbers. This is a process that is yet to be decided

on. Once it is, we will begin to put all our ducks in a row. We would be

perfectly confident that we could have the infrastructure in place to

provide an excellent service for infants and children, not just in

Northern Ireland but throughout the country. Could there be a scenario

where there are two separate waiting lists, one for Northern Ireland and

one for the Republic of Ireland? No, there wouldn't be a separate waiting

list. It is decided on medical grounds. Our hope is that there will

be sufficient facilities put in place so there will be no waiting

list, regardless of where you come from. What would your advice be to

ministers about how quickly they should prioritise this? I think they

need to, we all need to, but in particular, they need to look at the

reviews, the outcome of the review, and act on it. How quickly? I think

it needs to be done straight away, as quickly as possible. Even if they

can go ahead with that, we need to get the services in place, and that

could take a year or 18 months. The longer they delay the decision, the

longer it will be. Cocaine with an estimated street value of several

million was found off the coast. Two men have been detained who were on

the yacht. It is believed to be one of the biggest drug seizures at sea

in Europe this year. The folk musician Francis McPeake,

who's on trial accused of sexual activity with

a 15-year-old girl in 2009, has told the jury how a trip to Bangor

with the girl was a big mistake. The 72-year-old, who denies all the

charges, has been giving evidence for a second day a Belfast Crown

Court, as Helen Jones reports. The court heard

about a confrontation Mr McPeake, seen here with his wife,

had had with the alleged victim's She said she had heard

a rumour that the accused was seen He was told not to have any

more contact with the girl. The court was told four months

after Mr McPeake had been left in no doubt that there was to be no

more contact, he brought the then 15-year-old

and one of her friends to Bangor. You went back on your word,

the prosecution told him. Did you try to walk away,

get off side? She led me to believe she'd got

everything sorted out, he said. The prosecution put it to him

that he didn?t have to take her. It was a big mistake on my behalf,

he replied. They met up again in 2012 outside

a Belfast city centre bar. He said they had

a pleasant conversation. The prosecution said she'd been

upset and had told him It's claimed he told her she

had wrecked his life because he That's a lie, a total lie,

he told the jury. The court heard that she threatened

to go to his wife. Would you not have walked away? He was asked. She

was contemplating suicide. She had become fixated with you. I have done

nothing wrong, he replied. The prosecution and defence will

start summing up tomorrow morning. Helen Jones, BBC Newsline,

Belfast Crown Court. Work is underway to flatten

a site on the Shankill Road in Belfast which was once home to

hundreds of people. But it's now emerged that there are

no plans to redevelop the area. Some new replacement homes have been

built, but it's not known what will replace the remaining houses

as Kevin Sharkey reports. Long after the people left their

homes, the houses are coming down. A number of years have passed us in

this community was broken up. Hundreds of neighbours moved. In

recent years, no families here, no homes, just vacant and boarded up

houses. Up and down the streets, emptiness and neglect. Few signs of

people living here. No homes here to pass to the next generation. It was

a wonderful community and is sad to see it go and they couldn't get

these houses out quick enough six years there there, I found my sister

there six years ago last January, dead. It was the stress of having to

move. They couldn't get them out of the house quick enough. And they are

there. As these houses come apart brick by brick, the attention turns

to future generations around here, what lies on the other side of this

dereliction. For years, these houses have been homes to hundreds of

families around here, part of the wider Shankill Road community. Well,

what will take their place now? At the moment, there is no plan. The

housing executive says that this area were are ready to mullet. The

housing initiative says there are no development plans as of yet. --

demolished. This is causing anger. We have been waiting years for these

houses to come down. Were happy to see them come down now, but we're

going to be left with derelict houses. It has been reduced to

rubble. It is a reminder of the people who used to live here.

A charity set up in memory of football legend George Best is to

Last year, most of its board of directors

Our business correspondent Julian O'Neill has the story.

A foundation was set up in the footballer's memory

It was the idea of his sister, who was helped by her husband.

Now, after eight years, the charity is to fold and paperwork

confirming the decision has just been filed at Companies House.

In a statement, his sister Barbara McNarry said:

There have been questions about the charity's future ever

since the resignations of four of its six directors last year.

It came at a time when the running of

the organisation was being reviewed by a firm of chartered accountants.

In the statement, the Foundation said during its eight

years, it had given away ?280,000 to good causes in sport and health.

It made no reference to what might happen to existing funds which,

according to the last accounts it filed for 2012,

But discussions are believed to have taken place with another local

charity about the possibility of taking money as a donation.

Context is everything and as the countdown to the Ryder Cup

continues the Americans have taken a good natured swipe at European team

work, poking fun in particular at Rory Mcilroy and Graeme McDowell.

From Gleneagles, Stephen Watson reports.

today, the gloves came off here at the Ryder Cup. One player said the

European team's spirit may be dampened because of the case between

worry McElroy. -- Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell. We play well

together. One other player was speaking more positively today. He

said he would like to play in next year Ireland's open. I'm try to work

that part of my schedule. It is my favourite course in the world. It is

due to the 2007 cup. It is a special place that I would love to go back

and have a chance to play there next year. Rory McIlroy and another

player were thrilled when Alex Ferguson came last night. He gave a

motivational speech. But he was not the only surprise sportsman to show

up. A trio of Ulster rugby players arrive to especially see the world

number one. They were still buzzing after last night's chat with Alex

Ferguson. It was amazing. Just talking about the players and how he

managed them. It was like to have them come over and watch. It was

good to see them out there. He's been out a few games to support us

so it is nice to see him here. Obviously, with Graeme McDowell

being involved as well, maybe they can bring home the writer cup. --

Ryder Cup. And there was one more visitor. It is so busy. We started

off at four in the morning. The retired rugby cup captain. Rory was

delighted to hear he would consider coming back to coach Ulster in the

future. I've been trying to get involved in rugby and I would never

say never, but at this stage in my life, I am where I want to be. --

they have been trying to get me involved. My four years at Ulster

was the best time of my rugby career. If I ever get back involved

in rugby again, it is possibly the first place I will look to. Another

rugby championship is not involved here, but he has received a bid to

become the next Ryder Cup championship. -- another golf

champion. I don't think there is any better candidate from the European

side. He is loved. He would be just as well received in the US is

probably the US captain will be, so it can only become an advantage for

the working team if Darren was to lead us out in the states. You can

see our three major champions tonight.

The sun was shining, can we expect that to continue?

It will change, unfortunately. We have seen some mild air, but it will

go. It was a pleasant day for many of us, some cloud coming and going,

but some sunny spells. This was the seams here earlier today,

beautiful. We will see some rainy spells, they will be towards the

west. As it will continue to do so through the course of the night, it

will bring in murky conditions. Spells of rain and drizzle, most of

us will get parts of that, but mostly in the west and north. That

breeze swings around from the Southwest picks up a little bit. The

temperatures will hold up, hopefully staying in double figures. As we

head into tomorrow, we are looking at a cloudier day, a breezier day,

and it looks as though it will be a bit of a dismal start first thing.

And lots of low cloud, some rain and drizzle to move through. It won't

die away completely everywhere. If you are in the West, there will be a

risk that you will get patches of rain and drizzle throughout the day.

The breeze may carry some along the north coast, as well. In the East,

the breeze will bring one or two spots, but it will remain drier. The

temperatures will remain good tomorrow. Above average, 17 to 18

Celsius. We may even see 19 or 20. Into tomorrow evening, still breezy

mamma mainly dried. I never weather front will move through. Another

band of rainbow push through, keeping things mild. -- and other

band of rain. At or cloud on Saturday, a few showers on Sunday.

A reminder of our top story. The First Minister has issued a

statement denying that he is standing down. His former Health

Minister claimed this morning that it was public knowledge that he

would be gone before the next Assembly elections. Since then, Mr

-- Mr Poots has said he was mistaken.

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Our three golfing superstars together

I've got a very special relationship with these two guys.

It goes beyond just the success that we've had.