10/01/2017 BBC Newsline

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The former First Minister Arlene predicts that

an election will be brutal, but she hopes an independent inquiry

into the renewable heat scandal can be set up within the next 24 hours.

It is needed to restore the confidence in the institutions and

also for me personally to be able to regain my integrity which has been

temptingly maligned but this past number of weeks.

The Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams warns there can be no

We get reaction from business and community groups to the potential

collapse of the Northern Ireland executive. I think the losers in

this process are the people, the citizens and in particular those

citizens that were so badly affected by the troubles.

A farmer tells us he fears his industry

is being demonised over the renewable heat scandal:

a couple admit helping the murderers of a Chinese restaurant owner.

And it's going to get much colder over the coming days

with a bitter northwest wind and some snow.

An Assembly election hasn't been called yet but the DUP leader

Arlene Foster say if it goes ahead, it will be "brutal."

She has also said she hopes an independent inquiry

into the controversial heating scheme could start within 24 hours.

The resignation of Martin McGuinness as the Deputy First Minister has

sparked yet another Stormont crisis and as our political correspondent

Gareth Gordon reports, no one is quite sure what will happen next.

Stormont today after. More dark clouds then rays of light but all

pointing towards an election. And soon it will be about seats. Not

these one stacked in the great Hall but the ones which we knew a place

in the assembly chamber across Europe. The last poll how is barely

over. The next one unlikely to be pretty. I have no doubt that if the

election proceeds, it will be a brutal election. It will be a very

difficult election and with Sinn Fein hat indicating that they're not

going back to see disco, there are those of us who will also want to

look at the construction of the institutions to see what we can do

better because I think that there is no doubt, if you look back at our

documents from 2003 row forward, we always said mandatory coalition as a

first step towards moving to voluntary coalition and so we will

want to look those issues as well after an election, if it takes

place. So, undoubtedly, we're in for a period of direct rule. 24 hours

after her partner in Government told her he was leaving, Arlene Foster

sprung a surprise. It public inquiry into the heating scandal could be

called soon. We're very keen that it is set up for all the reasons I have

set out. The fact that from a political point of view I think it

is needed to restore the confidence in the institutions and also for me

personally to be able to regain my integrity which has been constantly

maligned over this past number of weeks and months so it's important

that we get this inquiry up and running as quickly as possible and I

hope it'll be in place before the end of the week. Too late impress

Sinn Fein. Martin McGuinness thanked well-wishers. Whether his health

issues will allow him to even run an election is not clear but others are

ready. We've had two max uprising elections, Brexit and the in the

American election. I think we have unprecedented anger about this

scandal waiting there are so many unknowns that there is all to play

for if we go to an election and we will go on very confidently. What

should be happening now is the Secretary of State and the Irish

Foreign Minister should be convening talks with all five parties, not

just with the two that have caused the problems of last 14 months, to

see what we can do to reform the structures before we have the

election campaign. The next steps as uncertain as Stormont 's future.

Tara Mills spoke to the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams that

afternoon. She asked him about the DUP's suggestion that there could be

a lengthy period of directional. Directional cannot be an option.

That if there is no agreement between the two biggest parties,

legally there has to be direct rule. First of all, the situation has

moved on tremendously. We are facing Brexit, you know. DUP for this part

of the islands, contrary to the wishes of the majority of people,

want to exit from the European Union so there is a challenge. So, you

see, if you're against half a billion of money being flushed down

the drain for possibly into someone's pocket, if you are against

that, if you are for fairness and equality, if you value the progress

that has been made, and unionist leaders have played a role in that

process, if you want that to continue, then come out and vote and

vote accordingly to make sure that the institutions that are put in

place will be sustainable and will be based upon fairness, decency,

good manners and equality. But what you've done means the money is going

to go down the drain until the election process is completed and it

also means that there can't be a short-term inquiry as the one you

had suggested. That could take years, so you have undoubtedly got

what she wanted or what you set out to get. And that's why Martin felt

that his position was untenable. What are the other consequences of

Martin McGuinness resigning is that there is no voice, there is a

nationalist voice in the Brexit negotiations because you don't have

a voice at Westminster, so we are totally detached. You have detached

electorate away from the Brexit negotiations. Our voices loud and

clear. We published a document strategy on Brexit, we have argued

for the North to be treated with a special designated status... If

you're not there, how can you hope... We couldn't get that done

anyway because the DUP are for Brexit and against the majority vote

which says that the people want to remain within the European Union.

Just a number of final quick points. Martin McGuinness, some commentators

have suggested it is actually your influence that has taken a harder

line here and that if it had been entirely up to Martin McGuinness,

there wouldn't have been resignation. It was from Martin

McGuinness. In terms of itself, are you worried about him? Absolutely. I

was with him at the castle just before the interviews. I found it

very emotional as a period. He obviously is ill. He's very

resilient. He's getting very, very best medical treatment so hopefully

people praying, and they should pray, hopefully he won't back to

himself before too long. Gerry Adams. It is the job of the

Secretary of State to call a election. In the House of Commons,

he outlined his thoughts. There was a nearly a full house

from our local MPs in the Commons for this debate and afterwards

I caught up with a number of them. MPs from all parties gathered to

hear the Secretary of State, who knows his options and time for

decision making is limited. The clock is ticking. If there is no

resolution that an election is inevitable. Despite the widely held

view that this election may deepen divisions and threatened the

continuity of the devolved institutions. And there was a

warning that an election could lead to political deadlock. This could

last for months. I think were looking at weeks, months, maybe even

years. If Sinn Fein continue on the line that they're on now. Just to

clarify, years of direct rule? Well, if Sinn Fein are going to turn their

back on power sharing and on the agreements that have previously been

reached, then directional is the inevitable controversies of that. On

the Labour benches, there was a feeling that an election was not the

solution to Stormont's problems. I just don't believe that what were

going into now will resolve anything in any shape or form. You think

election will solve anything? Reed no one has convinced me that it will

do anything. We will have a result at the end of that which the only

change will be the number in the seven rumbled reduced from 108 to

90. Others insist the electorate should

use an electorate to -- an election to judge the record of the DUP and

particularly Sinn Fein. Now they have to tell the truth about the DUP

but of course the DUP have got their own point about Sinn Fein as well so

be brought public have decisions and choices to make if there is to be an

election. Even at this late stage, there is some hope that an election

won't be necessary. It is certainly avoidable if everyone sits around

the table. That is what the Secretary of State said he would do

was sit around with everyone I talk to everyone. It is avoidable but not

if we carry on in the same way we have been doing things. At

Westminster, there is much surprise and sombre wonderment at how events

at Stormont have unfolded in the last 24 hours. And whilst they have

heard appeals from talks and solutions, there is a growing

feeling that the parties in Northern Ireland will be on the campaign

Trail within days. After today's debate

the Secretary of State returned And he is going to spend the next

few days talking to the parties Former First and Deputy

First Ministers have been giving their thoughts

on the current crisis at Stormont. The Ulster Unionist, Lord Trimble,

says an election probably won't change the dominance

on the two main parties but that disillusioned voters at least now

have an alternative. The SDLP's Seamus Mallon says

the fault for the current problems lies squarely with both

Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness. The easy way out of this is to blame

the institutions, not to blame the people who didn't bring integrity

and a sense of justice and a sense of belonging and reconciliation to

the whole process. I can't remember a time when the whole question of

reconciliation was addressed in that assembly. Was addressed by beef

first and Deputy First Minister. Today marks the deadline for those

on the renewable heating initiative scheme to say if their details

can be published. A former president of

the Ulster Farmers Unions says he fears boiler owners like him

will be "demonised" John Gilliland also warned

the government against tearing up the contracts of those who signed up

to the scheme. Our political correspondent

Enda McClafferty has been speaking to Mr Gilliland

on his farm in Londonderry. As you can see, this is our willow.

A year after harvest... When it comes to renewable energy, few can

both a track record like John Gilleland. He installed his first

biomass boiler 30 years ago and now supplies woodchip from his willow

crop to is all over Northern Ireland. Come to this boiler and I

will permit obsolete Ashley C B woodchip. He has three boilers

drying woodchip around the clock for which he gets paid ?80,000 a year

from the RHI scheme. 30,000 of which is profit which he says he uses to

pay off debts from his renewable investments. I encourage many, many

people to go into renewable heat, but there are really scared at the

moment. They're scared of being victimised, have been made a pariah

in their own community. I think the Government needs to be genuine and

before they release names at least allow them to be inspected and

approved to the public that they're doing it above board so that when

the wet woodchip comes in it goes on the special floor. This is where the

warm air from the boiler comes up through, underneath the woodchip.

This is close off at the moment and it drives the moisture out and you

can see the water vapour coming out of the woodchip and we extracted out

of... John Gilliland expects to be one of the few to go public and he

is warned the Government against taking money from those like him who

signed up in good faith. When you write a legal contract and you sign

a legal contract, there are responsibilities on both parties to

deliver the spirit of that contract. If governments then tears up 2000

contracts, what other contracts are they don't want a terrible? They

create a very dangerous precedent. John Gilliland, like hundreds of

other boiler owners, is now waiting to see if his contract will be

scrapped and his money cuts. But a bigger conserver hemp is the

long-term damage on future green energy schemes in Northern Ireland

and that's something he says he can't surprise on. -- can't put a

price on. The knock-on effect of having no

functioning Executive could be far Sara Neill has been been speaking

to some of the groups who believe they could be left dealing

with the fall out. For many nationalists, the straw

that broke the camel 's back was the withdrawal of funding to the Irish

language scheme. It targeted the most marginalised with in the

community, people who couldn't afford to send their children,

people who couldn't attend to themselves. This is who the target.

You're talking about pennies in terms of the overall budget and it

was seen as crass and as an outrageous attack. As I said, almost

as valid people. The findings of the as oracle institution of query

allegedly made public later this month but without a solid

Government, victims say they are the real losers, a sentiment echoed by

those affected by the Troubles. We just don't want to believe that as

soon as Sir Anthony's report was ready and delivered on Friday, that

the collapse of the Government and the collapse of our dreams and hopes

and desires that this was going to be our day. I think the losers in

this process are the people, either citizens and in particular those

citizens that were so badly affected by the Troubles and lost loved ones,

lost limbs and they were having some sort of hopes raised by the Stormont

agreement on some of the things coming down the line from that. We

were assured it would be a fresh start and now the whole thing is

that we unravelled. In business, we know that markets hate uncertainty

and it is feared that this political instability could cast a shadow over

economic growth and later a slowdown in the construction industry. The

industry was already in a very fragile position, beginning to make

a recovery after ten long years and that just adds further uncertainty

to an industry that quite frankly can play a very important role in

economic growth so were very concerned. I've never seen a time

when we need strong leadership more than we do now in advance of Article

50 being triggered in March. We need to have that Northern Ireland voice

out there, we had very unique circumstances that the rest of the

UK do not face and who is going to be talking for us at those

negotiations? In the second week of January, little more than 24 hours

after Martin McGuinness stepped down, it's still not clear what lies

in store for the people of Northern Ireland and if there is an election,

what change that could bring. What is clear is that the events of

yesterday at Stormont will be felt long into 2017.

Our economics and business editor John Campbell is here in the studio

and our political editor Mark Devenport is at

Two Stormont first. What do you make of the claim that we could be facing

a lengthy period of directional? Well, it seems logical even though

Gerry Adams said earlier in the programme that that was not an

option. If we do have an extensive negotiation after an election, then

there really will be very little alternative but for the Government

to step in and to administer Northern Ireland directly. That

could mean different things in terms of policies. Maybe they could bring

in same-sex marriage as they have elsewhere in the UK, maybe we could

get more austerity measures, perhaps the bedroom tax without some of the

mitigation that had been planned unless they get those measures in

place. But in general, is not really a perfect system of Government

having London-based ministers flying in just a few days and civil

servants really administering the place on a sort of ticking over

caretaker type pieces. John, let's look at the Stormont finances. What

will that vacuum do? Just to pick up on something Mark said there, about

the bedroom tax. That was a policy introduced by Westminster saying

that people living in social housing could have the housing benefits

reduced if it was felt they had too much space, too many legends. Under

the fresh start agreement, Stormont agreed to mitigate that is so in

effect the betting tax would not apply here. However, for that policy

to take effect, a piece of legislation needs to go through

Stormont and the important thing is that piece of legislation has not

yet gone through. So the housing right organisation are warning that

come next month, come the middle of next month, more than 30,000

households could unexpectedly be paying the betting tax which means

on average they would lose about ?20 a week in housing benefit. I imagine

it will be good fun for the parties to try and explain that if they are

campaigning on the doorsteps. We heard a business represents to talk

about Brexit there in an earlier report. What difference will it make

that we do not have executive ministers involved in the Brexit

negotiations? There's something Cobbe joint ministerial committee

which means each devolved administration comes together and

meet with the Government in London and they are meant to feed into

those Brexit talks. It looks unlikely that we will be

representative to the stocks so in effect, our representative, the

present looking ever Northern Ireland, is going to be James Brooke

and Shire, the MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup. Back to you Mark and to the

keys renewable incentive scheme. What you make from the line from

Ivan Foster who says she is willing to fast track in inquiry into the

scheme? Under the 2005 enquiries act, any DUP ministers who still

remain in place until midnight on the exception of Arlene Foster have

the ability to put into place and inquiry. They could all Institute

and inquiry, but I have to say that opposition parties have given as a

dusty response Colling at electioneering or making Northern

Ireland a lasting spot will have to see if this becomes a reality in the

next few days. John Campbell in the studio and Mark Davenport are

political editor at Stormont. A County Antrim husband and wife

have admitted helping the murderers of a Chinese restaurant owner

try to cover up the killing. Wing Fu Cheung - also

known as Nelson Cheung - was stabbed to death outside

Randalstown in 2015. Four people have now been convicted

in connection with the killing. Our north-east reporter Sara Girvin

was at Belfast Crown Court. Nelson Cheung was on his way home to

Ballymena after closing his restaurant for the night. His

attackers forced his car off the road on the outskirts of Randall

Stout, stabbed him 17 times. His wife was injured during the robbery

and her handbag, which contained a full and ?200, was stolen. Following

her husband's murder, she left Northern Ireland and watched today's

court proceedings in Belfast from Hong Kong. Gary and Lisa Thomson had

previously denied all charges against them but entered new guilty

pleas as their trial was about to begin. Both admitted assisting

offenders by allowing two men who have already pleaded guilty to

Nelson Cheung's murder to use their home as a refuge, remove clothing

and preen themselves after the killing. Gary Thompson was

previously accused of Mr Cheung's murder but that charge was left on

the books. The couple also admitted perverting the course of justice

while Gary Thompson pleaded guilty to robbery and Lisa Thomson to

handling stolen goods. The two other men who admitted Mr Cheung's murder

late last year are in custody awaiting sentence. Following their

guilty pleas, Gary and Lisa Thompson were released on continuing bail.

They will be sentenced at a later date.

An inspection report on De La Salle College

in Belfast says arrangements for safeguarding its pupils

The Education and Training Inspectorate also found that staff

at the school had been absent for an average of 40 days each

during the last school year, as our education correspondent

It was business as usual for the education Minister Peter Weir at

Corpus Christi College in West Belfast this morning. Seeing and

hearing how partnerships between schools there have really raised

standards in the classroom. But not far away, it has been another grey

day for the college, one of the county's largest primary schools.

The inspector said that arrangements for protecting peoples was

unsatisfactory. Teaching and assessment required significant

improvement, a culture of bullying led to vulnerable and stressed staff

and that they had limited confidence in the school governors. The

inspection did say there have been some improvements since last

September but is the culmination of over a year where there have been

disputes among staff here and periods were a significant number of

teachers have been off sick and protests by some parents. The local

MP is worried. The Inspector's report is a hard-hitting report. We

need to learn from it. We need to move on and we need to make sure

that education and the inspector's report next year shows massive

improvement. Despite the good news at Corpus Christi, the Lasalle was

also on the mind of the education minister. We've put in special

measures. Those of is the word loosely put in and indeed we are

committed to doing that work. In a statement this afternoon, a

spokesperson said they would take action to address the concerns

highlighted by the inspectors. Golf and Rory McIlroy says

he will probably not compete McIlroy has indicated that

conflicting loyalties make him uncomfortable with declaring to be

part of either a Great Britain Last year, McIlroy opted

to represent Ireland, before pulling out of Rio Games

because of concerns I'm a very conflicted person and not

a lot of people understand that maybe, but it's just the way I feel

and I know that some people, or most people, think that that is wrong.

But it's the way I feel and I can't really help it, I guess. You know,

more and more likely that I'll be going to the games -- more and more

unlikely that I'll be going to the games. Not bad feelings towards the

games and I think golf included in the games is fantastic, but just

throw me, it's something that I just don't want to get into and, you

know, that's a personal choice and hopefully people respect that

decision and it's a decision that I have not taken lightly. A decision

that I have with myself over for so many years and I hope it goes even

better in 2020. You know, I just won't be a part of it. If it upsets

some people, that's OK. I can't please everyone, but at least I keep

saying as long as I'm true to myself, I'll be happy. 's

Rugby and back row forward Chris Henry has signed

The 32-year-old Ireland international,

who's been hampered by injury and illness over the past

two seasons, will now remain at the Kingspan Stadium

Cecilia Daly is here with the weather forecast.

I suspect is going to get even colder.

Colder and windier and people have already noticed the wind picking up

today. Today we had debited up to 11 or 12 degrees. Those figures will be

cut and have to moral and add on an even stronger wind which will make

it feel absolutely better. At the moment, not particularly cold. There

will be damp weather around for awhile but after midnight, we will

find that the wind strengthening with gales, severe gales coming up

the coast. Showers coming into the North West as well and temperatures

in the south-east could get low enough for perhaps one or two icy

spots. So the main feature in Italy of the weather is going to be a very

strong, cold wind so much colder tomorrow and much windier. But there

will also be some dry and bright weather around and some sunshine.

And there will be some showers. We are mostly looking at rain showers

during the day tomorrow so first thing, temperatures around 5 degrees

but feeling much colder in those very blustery winds. There will also

be some sunshine and dry weather at times, particularly across the East

and south-east. A day of sunshine and showers but very strong winds

and winds could well cause some damage. Especially in the north and

west. Could be some thunder mixed in with some heavy showers as well.

Tomorrow evening, that's when the error gets cold enough for those

showers to turn more and more to snow. So through Wednesday night and

through the rest of Wednesday and Thursday, we will be looking at

snow, cold, windy weather and also ice. You can see on the chart,

temperatures not only fall to around freezing or below but also more and

more in the way of white stuff. By Thursday morning, there could be

some lying snow in places which could well cause some disruption.

There will be further wintry showers, a real mix of showers

really, through the fee next few days. Most of the lying still on the

high ground of the north and west but there could be lying snow just

about anywhere over the next couple of days so it certainly is a couple

of days to come that will feel bitterly cold, you'll need to wrap

up warm. And really strong wind. By the end of Thursday, there could be

a couple of inches or more, especially over the high ground in

the north and west but really through Thursday and Friday, a bit

of snow is possible just about anywhere and it will feel better.

And the first significant snowfall Billy the winter.

That's right, I really easy winter so far so some say we were Jewett.

-- June for some snow. of our local hospitals and

clinics...