Northern Ireland Assembly, 18 September 2001

102 contributions from 44 members. The official report.

Cryptosporidiosis

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I have received notice from the Minister for Regional Development that he wishes to make a statement on the cryptosporidium contamination of the Dunore Point water supply, which occured in the spring of this year.

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make this statement. First, I would like to express my sympathy to those who were affected by the cryptosporidiosis outbreak. I know how distressing that was for them and for their families. I regard the protection of the public water supply as my highest priority. The public should be confident that the water is safe to drink.

Information about cryptosporidium and its effects is in the public domain, and I have made Members aware of that in previous statements to the Assembly. However, for Members’ information, I shall recap on the nature of cryptosporidium and the measures being taken by the Water Service to minimise the risk of its entering the water supply. I shall also outline the history of the cryptosporidiosis outbreak in the spring that led to the identification of the Dunore Point water supply as its probable source. An investigation into the contamination of the Dunore Point water supply was carried out by a team led by Prof Adrian Long of Queen’s University. I shall provide details of that investigation to the House and set out the steps that the Water Service is taking to implement Prof Long’s recommendations.

Cryptosporidiosis is a diarrhoeal illness caused by a microscopic parasite called cryptosporidium.

In a healthy person the illness usually clears up by itself, but this may take a week or more. People who have problems with their immune system, including those with HIV infection or AIDS, those receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer, and transplant patients, are more at risk of serious or prolonged illness.

Cryptosporidium is present in the environment at low levels at all times. There are several sources of infection, such as contact with infected animals, contaminated food, foreign travel and person-to-person spread. It can also be spread through the public water supply.

Following outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis in Great Britain, the Government appointed an expert group to advise on measures to protect the public against cryptosporidium in drinking water. The group was initially chaired by Sir John Badenoch and then by Prof Ian Bouchier. It reported in 1990, 1995 and 1998 and made many recommendations on measures to mitigate the risk of cryptosporidium entering water supplies. These recommendations were all adopted by the Water Service and are being implemented.

Measures already taken include: carrying out cryptosporidium risk assessments at all 59 water supply sources; rigorous cryptosporidium sampling and testing programmes; and the development of effective protocol arrangements with the medical authorities and the drinking water inspector. High priority is being given to the provision and upgrading of water treatment works to ensure effective barriers to cryptosporidium, involving expenditure of £140 million over the next five years. The replacement of the Mourne and Lagmore conduits to prevent ingress has involved expenditure of £40 million.

On 13 April 2001 Dr Morgan, consultant in communicable disease control with the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, informed the Water Service of an increase in clinically diagnosed cryptosporidiosis in the community of the central Belfast area.

The Water Service immediately initiated a wide series of precautionary measures. These included: instigating category 1 major incident procedures with incident management teams being set up at divisional level and at head office; taking the Woodburn conduit out of service and carrying out a CCTV survey of it for signs of possible ingress of untreated water; the redistribution of water from various sources to compensate for the removal of the conduit; the introduction of 24-hour continuous sampling; the intensification of leakage repairs in the area to conserve water supplies; establishing formal lines of communication with the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, and providing additional customer call-handling arrangements.

Dr Morgan convened a meeting of the outbreak control team on Monday 16 April. The team comprised officials from the Water Service, the Eastern Health and Social Services Board and Belfast City Council. Water samples indicated that the level of cryptosporidium present in the water was low and well within national standards. Having reviewed the available information, Dr Morgan considered the water safe to use and to drink. The outbreak control team met on six occasions between 19 April and 8 May, reviewing the situation constantly.

By 19 April geographic mapping of cases by the Water Service had identified Dunore Point water supply area as a possible common link. Over the weekend of 21 to 22 April investigations concentrated on the Dunore Point treatment works. These revealed that a defect to the site drainage system may have allowed the ingress of a small quantity of contaminated water along a cable duct to the outlet of slow sand filters. The cable duct was immediately sealed and repairs to the site drainage system were undertaken, which ensured that no further ingress of contaminated water could occur. A significant concentration of cryptosporidium oocysts was also detected in the septic tank located at the treatment works.

The outbreak control team considered that the defective sewer had been the most likely source of the outbreak. On 23 May Dr Morgan issued a press statement confirming that cases of cryptosporidiosis had returned to the usual seasonal level and declaring the outbreak to be over.

Three hundred and six cases of cryptosporidiosis were notified during the outbreak in the Eastern and Northern Health Board areas. The normal investigation into the cryptosporidiosis outbreak by the outbreak control team is underway, and its report is due later this year. The Water Service is assisting fully with this investigation.

On 27 April, I commissioned an independent investigation into the cause of the contamination of the water supply at Dunore Point. The investigation was led by Prof Adrian Long of Queen’s University, Belfast. Prof Long was assisted by Randal Scott, the Northern Ireland drinking water inspector, Harry Thompson, the technical director of the Water Service, and Dr Pauline Mackinnon, lecturer in environmental engineering at Queen’s University, Belfast. Prof Long’s report was recently presented to me, and it is clear that the team’s investigation has been detailed and comprehensive. I thank Prof Long and his team for the thoroughness and promptness of the investigation.

The team considered a number of possible sources of contamination and concluded that the most likely source was dilute sewage, which was transmitted via the cable ducts to the outlet channels of the slow sand filters. However, the report indicated that for this to have happened, a combination of a number of factors was required. These factors include the contamination of the sewer with cryptosporidium; leakage from the sewer; leakage from a water main in the vicinity of the leaking sewer, which acted as a carrier for the sewage; blockage of the drainage outlet from the cable ducts, and openings between cable ducts and filter outlets left unsealed.

Prof Long’s report stresses that if any one of the factors had not occurred, it is unlikely that contamination would have resulted. Nevertheless, I accept that, apart from the contamination of the sewer with cryptosporidium, each of the factors could have been prevented.

The report concludes that the Water Service staff acted promptly and professionally when the results of the cryptosporidium tests showed higher than anticipated values in the water supply. I endorse this conclusion, and I thank all the Water Service staff involved for their hard work, professionalism and dedication.

The report makes a number of recommendations to reduce the risk of further cryptosporidium contamination of the treated water at Dunore Point and other comparable works. These include changes to the infrastructure; procedures for the operation, maintenance and monitoring of treatment works; procedures for personnel at treatment works; design issues; the replacement of pipes and conduits vulnerable to ingress, and the implementation of similar reviews for other treatment works.

A copy of the report has been placed in the Assembly Library and is available to Members. An executive summary has been distributed to members of the Committee for Regional Development.

In conclusion, the Water Service prepared an action plan to implement the recommendations at Dunore Point and other similar treatment works. I stress to Members the seriousness with which I regard this incident and assure them that the implementation of Prof Long’s recommendations is underway — this is being treated as a top priority by the Water Service. Substantial progress has already been made in implementing the recommendations at Dunore Point, and target dates have been set for implementation at other installations.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive report on the cryptosporidium contamination of the water supply at Dunore Point. I express the sympathy of the Committee for Regional Development to those who were adversely affected by the outbreak.

The Minister outlined five failings in the system related to Dunmore Point. A combination of factors could have contributed to the contamination. Although I understand the substance of Prof Long’s report and accept that a combination of factors was involved, it is a poor reflection on the Water Service that these factors existed and contributed to the outbreak of cryptosporidiosis.

The Water Service is to be congratulated for dealing with the outbreak promptly.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I urge the Chairperson to ask his question.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

I understand the recommendations that have been made and their implementation, but can the Minister assure us that there will not be another outbreak at that location? It is worrying that the situation arose, and the public demands an assurance that it will not occur again.

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

I thank the Committee Chairperson for his question and his comments about the professionalism of the Water Service. He asks for an assurance, but the nature of this problem is such that it is virtually impossible to give a categorical assurance that there will be no further outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis, given that low levels of cryptosporidium exist all the time.

I have no hesitation in giving an assurance that every possible step is being taken to ensure that the possibility of future outbreaks is minimised. All the recommendations from Prof Long’s report have been, or are being, implemented. I hope and expect that that will minimise any future outbreak in so far as it is possible to do so. The wholesomeness of the public water supply is a top priority, and the public should be able to have confidence in its drinking water supply.

Alan McFarland (UUP, North Down)

I thank the Minister for his statement. However, I am concerned, because I recall that after the two outbreaks in 2000 on the Mourne and Lagmore conduits we were assured that the Water Service had checked everything. Similarly, it was stated that in so far as it was possible to determine, given the ambient level of cryptosporidium, everything had been solved. I am concerned that several problems were not solved at that time. I am aware of the overall cost of replacing entire systems, but the report has made certain recommendations; what will it cost to implement them?

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

I repeat that attempts are being made to ensure that outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis are kept to a minimum. It is difficult, because cryptosporidium is in the water supply at low levels throughout the year, and at certain times it occurs at higher levels.

I assure the Deputy Chairperson that the Water Service is doing all that it can to ensure that continuous efforts are made and measures put in place so that the public can have confidence in the water supply.

A range of recommendations is being implemented. Some are short-term measures and do not have significant resource implications, but others have substantial resource implications. I refer the Member to the replacement of the Mourne and Lagmore conduits. Those alone cost £40 million. The upgrading of water treatment works will make for a more effective barrier to cryptosporidium, but, as I said in my statement, that will cost £140 million over the next five years. It will be a costly exercise, but those measures must be put in place. I will apply for every possible resource to ensure public confidence in the water supply.

Seamus Close (Alliance, Lagan Valley)

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive statement, but I am sure that he will forgive me if I say that it is a case of déjà vu. This is beginning to become something of an annual event; exactly a year ago the Minister gave a similar report, following the outbreak in my constituency and bordering areas.

Does the Minister agree that the entire infrastructure and supply of water, and also the sewerage infrastructure, is crumbling into disrepair, and that that is the major cause of these outbreaks? Today’s report deals with Dunore Point, but there have also been outbreaks in Silent Valley, the Poleglass reservoir, the Northern Service reservoir and Lagmore conduit. Where will it end? Whose water will be next?

Does the Minister agree that cryptosporidiosis should now become a notifiable disease, because of the difficulties and potential difficulties for the elderly and those suffering from the illnesses that he already mentioned? Does he agree that the Department is failing in its duty to the general public to provide a wholesome water supply?

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

I will answer the final question first. I do not accept that the Department is failing in its duty. If the Member peruses the statement, he will see the lengths to which the Department is going to ensure continued public confidence in the water supply.

The substance of the Member’s questions brings us to the nub of the problem. For about 30 years, we have had a continuous cycle of underinvestment in water treatment works and in the provision of a public water supply. The events of the past two or three years are indicative of that underinvestment. I do not want to mislead the Member or the House by saying that all cryptosporidium outbreaks occurred because of underinvestment, but there is no doubt that a substantial majority of them did.

For that very reason, I have made continuous bids to increase the amount of money available for the Water Service to put effective barriers to cryptosporidium in place, as well as the other benefits that water treatments bring. I welcome Mr Close’s support for that, and I hope that if the House votes for moneys in the near future, the Water Service will receive additional funding.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Mr Close asked a question about notifiable disease status. That is not an area of responsibility for the Minister for Regional Development. However, the Member may wish to put the question to the Minister who has responsibility for disease notification.

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I too welcome the Minister’s statement. The open and honest approach goes some way to reassure the public about the causes of this outbreak, and I thank him for that. Is it not then incumbent on the Minister to apply the same standards of openness to the other outbreaks? I refer in particular to the outbreak resulting from the Silent Valley issue. It was made quite clear in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board’s report that a deficiency in the infrastructure in the Saintfield area led to that ingress. Does the Minister agree that it is totally unjust that the ban on grazing for the Mourne farmers is allowed to continue? Those poor farmers were subject to a savage and punitive situation during the foot-and-mouth disease crisis. Is it not unjust that they should suffer doubly because of miscalculation and inefficient infrastructure? It is not their fault.

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

The Member raised the Silent Valley issue previously mentioned by others. He knows that I have responded to oral and written questions on this and have met a delegation of farmers. I sympathise with their plight. However, given the circumstances and the advice to me from the Water Service and the medical authorities, I had no alternative but to take the actions that I took. I hope for and expect Mr ONeill’s support to obtain sufficient resources to enable the speedy replacement of the Mourne conduit. That would assist the farmers, whose position we both support, to return to their grazing lands.

Jim Wilson (UUP, South Antrim)

Like others, I thank the Minister for the openness and honesty of his statement and for his warning that these matters should be taken very seriously. However, is he really surprised that people in Northern Ireland, having consumed some of our water, become ill from time to time?

In my constituency, the Six Mile Water pours human waste, toiletries, bathroom and personal hygiene items into Lough Neagh every day. I can give Members a more graphic description should it be required. I can only assume that if that is happening on the Six Mile Water, it also happens on the Moyola, the Upper Bann and the Ballinderry rivers.

Is the Minister aware that an officer of the Ulster Angling Federation was recently taken to Dunore Point on the lough shore? He tossed a pebble into the water and it did not sink. What he saw there was pure gunge.

To bring the Minister up to date, is he aware that reports are reaching the angling fraternity and the local press that Lough Neagh is now throwing up dead dollaghan trout on the water surface? Is he really surprised that people are becoming ill after drinking water?

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

There is no doubt that from time to time in several rivers in Northern Ireland there are items that make the provision of a clean water supply more difficult. I will investigate the status of the Six Mile Water and other rivers and write to the Member when I receive a report on it. The Member also referred to Dunore Point on Lough Neagh.

I will have those checked, and I will write to the Member when I receive the information.

Local Government (Best Value) Bill: Second Stage

Sam Foster (UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I beg to move

That the Second Stage of the Local Government (Best Value) Bill (NIA19/00) be agreed.

The Bill will remove the statutory requirement for the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) of selected services and in the interests of council residents and district ratepayers establish in its place a new framework of best value.

Few Members will mourn the passing of CCT. When I was a district councillor, I had no great love for CCT, which seemed at times to place too much emphasis on costs rather than on quality of services. CCT did, however, bring to local government a useful focus on value for money in the delivery of key services. It was, therefore, a policy that had the interests of residents and ratepayers at heart. Under best value, I am keen to promote greater transparency and accountability in the use of council resources and in the provision of local services to council residents and ratepayers. The Bill is an essential step towards achieving those objectives — it is a Bill for local people.

"Best value" is, of course, an expression that is not yet familiar to most residents and ratepayers in Northern Ireland’s 26 council areas. However, the Bill is highly relevant to the local issues that impinge on the everyday lives of the people whom Assembly Members and district councillors represent. It seeks to promote quality services for council residents at a price that local district ratepayers are prepared to pay. It does not simply pursue the lowest cost option. Unlike CCT, the Local Government (Best Value) Bill will require district councils to review all of their services in consultation with local people and to seek areas for improvement in the quality of service and in value for money.

Best value is not a new concept for local government in Northern Ireland. In 1998, all 26 district councils agreed to implement best value voluntarily in advance of primary legislation. A joint departmental local government steering group was set up to oversee the implementation, and key tasks were assigned to a number of joint working groups chaired by district council chief executives. My Department also introduced subordinate legislation to defer the further implementation of CCT while the best value initiative was being progressed.

Some might ask why we need the Bill. There are two main reasons. First, the requirement for CCT has merely been deferred by subordinate legislation; it remains on the statute book. Legal advice is that it cannot be further deferred in that way. That means that the CCT obligation becomes effective again on 1 April 2002, unless it is repealed before that date. Secondly, experience to date of the voluntary implementation of best value indicates that a statutory framework for best value is essential if we are to deliver the transparency, accountability and consistency that council residents and ratepayers deserve.

While councils have, as expected, taken the opportunity to stand down CCT, they have not yet fully implemented some key aspects of best value and have called for further detailed guidance to ensure that there is an effective and consistent approach. That strongly suggests that a statutory framework is the best way of promoting the interests of local people with regard to quality and value for money in council services.

I say that without rancour towards councils, which I regard as having filled the democratic gap in Northern Ireland during 30 years of direct rule. Members may argue that the best value framework might be too prescriptive and bureaucratic. They may also contend that councils should be given the scope and flexibility to seek continuous improvement on their own terms. Such views have merit. Those points were raised with me when I discussed an earlier, much more detailed and prescriptive draft Bill with the Environment Committee.

I reflected carefully on those points, and I have substantially altered the draft Bill. However, I have done that without prejudice to the sensitive principle that council residents and ratepayers are entitled to transparency, accountability and consistency in the delivery of council services. People are entitled to be given a say in the determination of council priorities for the area in which they live. People are entitled to know how their council is performing and to have the opportunity to contribute to its plans.

Ratepayers are also entitled to an assurance that their money is being well spent and that every effort is being made to provide quality services. Such an assurance can be provided only after a robust, independent scrutiny of council activity. The Local Government (Best Value) Bill makes provision for delivery on all of those counts. At the same time, I have gone to some length to ensure that the proposed statutory framework is not over-prescriptive. Moreover, I assured the Environment Committee that I would avoid over-prescription in the implementation of the framework. I repeat that assurance to the House today, because it is an important one.

Current best value procedures allow for different approaches to suit local circumstances. For example, at present councils can determine the means by which they engage local people in consultation, and, through local targets and performance indicators, they can demonstrate to the residents and ratepayers how they are performing year on year. The implementation guidance in the Bill will allow for appropriate local variation. Inevitably, any new framework will involve time, effort and resources — best value is no exception.

I am committed to taking all genuine opportunities to streamline the process. However, the proposed framework should instil some consistency of approach, enabling councils to learn from one another, while improving transparency and accountability for residents and ratepayers. That should prevent unnecessary duplication of effort, while promoting continuous improvement through meaningful benchmarking.

I do not deny that, during the consultation process, significant reservations were expressed by the local government sector. In particular, there was a genuine concern that my Department would use subordinate legislation to establish a framework that would place more emphasis on process than on outcomes. It was feared that that would stifle innovation and flexibility of approach. I have made it clear that I am opposed to such an approach.

The Bill makes provision for a robust framework that will allow for the sensitive and practical development of the best value concept. Emphasis will be placed on the use of departmental circulars for setting out the operational requirements of best value, rather than subordinate legislation, as previously proposed. That will allow us to continue and strengthen our partnership with local government to develop further guidance. I propose to establish a joint working group to develop the necessary guidance on implementation. That will make best use of the expertise of local government representatives and officials, to the benefit of the 26 district councils, their residents and ratepayers.

The Bill now comprises 11 clauses, as opposed to the 19 that were proposed at consultation stage. Clause 1 describes the best value duty and applies it to all district councils in Northern Ireland. The clause sets out a requirement that councils should systematically review all their functions and prepare plans to address any deficiencies. Councils will be required to consult widely with their communities, and that will give people more influence over council priorities for their area. Clause 2 empowers the Department to issue guidance to councils on how the duty of best value is to be discharged. Councils have requested such guidance, on the understanding that they will have input into its development. As I have said, I am committed to such engagement.

Clauses 3 and 4 deal with the arrangements for the audit of best value. That will give local people, the Department and the Assembly the assurance that council activities are subject to independent scrutiny. The Bill will allow the local government auditor to undertake an audit of every council’s performance improvement plans and to report on whether they are consistent with the legislation and any guidance issued by the Department. Other provisions will enable the auditor to examine all aspects of a council’s approach to best value in more detail. On completion of an audit, the auditor will produce a report of his or her findings. Any such report will highlight areas of concern and make recommendations for either the council or the Department to act on.

Clause 5 outlines councils’ responsibilities following receipt of an auditor’s report. If the report contains recommendations, a council will be required to prepare a statement outlining its views on those recommendations and saying, in appropriate circumstances, how and when it proposes to address the issues raised. Such statements will be forwarded to the Department and will be included in the council’s next performance improvement plan.

Significantly, councils will be required to publish an auditor’s report, thereby improving transparency for local people. Such reports will be valuable sources of information for local residents and ratepayers as well as for councillors, council staff and the Department. The provision for independent scrutiny and accountability checks will enable the Department, councils and the local government auditor to work together on promoting the delivery of quality local services.

Clause 6 deals with non-commercial considerations. Article 19 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 specifies matters that councils should not take into account when awarding council contracts. However, in certain circumstances, it is possible that some of those matters may be deemed relevant to procurement objectives. The clause, therefore, gives the Department powers, subject to Assembly approval, to specify, through subordinate legislation, matters that are no longer deemed to be non-commercial. We would, of course, ensure that any such proposal to use those powers would take account of the procurement review being undertaken by the Department of Finance and Personnel.

Clause 7 makes provision for my Department to disapply a council’s statutory obligations under best value, either for individual councils or for local government as a whole. That power would be exercisable through subordinate legislation. At this stage, I do not envisage any circumstances in which that power would be used, so its inclusion is for reasons of contingency.

Clause 8 is simply an interpretation of key references in the Bill.

Clause 9 lists the changes to primary legislation necessitated by the Bill. The main change will be the repeal of Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1992, which makes provision for compulsory competitive tendering.

I would like to emphasise two points. First, it is crucial that we make progress with the Local Government (Best Value) Bill if we are to avoid the reinstatement by default of compulsory competitive tendering as a statutory obligation for 2002-03. I believe that there is consensus on that, although it undoubtedly creates pressure on the Assembly and my Department, given our tight schedule.

Secondly, Members will have noted my recurring reference to the need for transparency, accountability and consistency, in the interests of council residents and ratepayers. I make no apologies for that deliberate repetition. When I was first appointed Minister of the Environment, I was still a councillor. However, when I became conscious that my appointment gave rise to potential conflicts of interest, I took steps to avoid those conflicts. The mere possibility of potential conficts of interest eventually led me to resign my seat on Fermanagh District Council.

About 60 of my fellow MLAs retain a dual mandate as councillors and Assembly Members. It is perfectly in order that they do so. However, that dual mandate undoubtedly carries with it an added responsibility. The Assembly must assure the public that the framework created for local government is transparent, accountable and subject to independent scrutiny. In particular, we must reassure council residents and ratepayers that the legislative powers of the Assembly are not being used to deny them that transparency, accountability and independent scrutiny.

The challenge is to create a balanced framework that is proportionate and practicable, but is also sufficiently robust to ensure that the legitimate needs of ratepayers and residents are met. I believe that the Bill does strike the necessary balance, and I commend it to the Assembly.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

I thank the Minister for his speech this morning. It is true that many members of my Committee are also members of district councils, and they declared that at the time.

As Chairperson of the Committee for the Environment, I wish to register with Members and also the Minister, a number of concerns that the Committee still has about the Bill. On 6 April, the Committee formally responded to the Department’s best value consultation document. We questioned not only the timing of the Bill but the need for it to be so detailed and prescriptive. At that time, the Department was proposing a 21-clause Bill as opposed to an 11-clause Bill, and I acknowledge that the Minister has taken some of our concerns into consideration.

We carefully considered the policy memorandum and saw the purpose of the Bill. Members of my Committee objected to few of the stated purposes including the repeal of the existing provision for compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). Few councils are sad to see the demise of CCT. The Bill will also give councils a duty to make arrangements for continuous improvements in all their functions — who would not want that? The question is whether it should be done in a compulsory way, through the Bill, or voluntarily, as is already happening.

The Committee has recommended a two-clause Bill, which would repeal CCT and simply put a best value general duty on councils to seek continuous improvements. I respect the fact that the Minister has made changes to the initial draft brought to my Committee. It seems that this Bill is less prescriptive, particularly on the audit of best value plans and reviews, and places more emphasis on the use of departmental circulars and consultation than on subordinate legislation. It drops clauses on best value inspections, costs recovery via prosecutions and performance improvement plans. It puts a duty on councils to seek best value and to make arrangements for continuous improvement. That is better than the original statement about securing continuous improvement.

The Committee wrote to the 26 district councils in January and March. We heard directly from representatives of three councils, the local government auditor, the Association for Public Service Excellence and, of course, our Minister of the Environment and his senior officials. Several of the councils questioned the need for legislation, saying that they had been voluntarily operating best value for two years. It was acknowledged by many, inside and outside the Department, that that had been successful.

The councils also questioned the timing of the introduction of best value legislation, given the pending review of public administration in Northern Ireland. To date, Members have heard much talk about this review, but little has been done about it. Councils also argued that the best value framework used in Great Britain was not applicable to Northern Ireland district councils, which have more limited roles and budgets.

The Committee, therefore, sees merit in extending the non-statutory approach to implementing best value, as currently happens in Scotland. That would allow us time to develop and strengthen the partnership and improve communications between local government and central Government. It would also allow councils time to develop good practice and improve transparency, accountability and value for money, which are key components of councils’ procurement and service delivery.

Who would deny the importance of improved transparency? Who would not want accountability or value for money? As ratepayers, we certainly desire those, but is the Minister’s approach — to race ahead with the legislation — the appropriate one?

Improved transparency, accountability and value for money are essential, and that applies as much to the Department and its activities as to the district councils and theirs. The Executive contribute to the Bill, and they consider accountability in local government to be in need of improvement to provide more transparency for ratepayers and those who rely on council services. However, that could also be said about the Executive. My Committee discussed the 11-clause Bill. We had serious reservations about it, but we undertook to scrutinise it rigorously, clause by clause, at Committee Stage and report in full to the Assembly.

We noted the Department’s letter of 22 August, which said that, at the meeting between local government and departmental officials, it was unanimously agreed that, unlike compulsory competitive tendering, best value offered district councils the opportunity to improve quality services. It also said that the revised draft legislation was endorsed unanimously as an acceptable basis for developing best value. Can the Minister confirm that that is correct? Did the district councils ask whether that statement referred to local government throughout Northern Ireland or just to the limited number of officials who happened to be at the meeting? How will the Bill address my concerns? Will the Minister explain why extending the non-statutory approach to implementing best value is not a viable option?

Arthur Doherty (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

This is an important Bill, and we need to get it right, for it reaches the heart of what politics — local and national, should be about — quality of life.

I look from three perspectives. First, the perspective of the SDLP, which, from its beginning, has worked to build the partnerships and communities — social, economic and political — that are essential to the achievement of that quality of life. Secondly, in 24 years as a district councillor, I have promoted the importance of partnerships as the best method of giving best value. Good councillors of every persuasion, despite their differences, have been united in their commitment to giving good service and good value to their constituents, making a major contribution to keeping Northern Ireland from sinking into the abyss that still opens up before us. Thirdly, I speak as a member of the Environment Committee, which is charged with giving serious consideration to the points that will be made during the debate and to the responses of the Minister and his Department. There are still many small-print points that must be examined.

I have some general questions: why the hurry; why only local government; why not the Department itself; why not Big Brother — central Government? Why impose this on councils that may soon be abolished or, God forbid, subsumed into a few supercouncils? The reasons given by the Department in support of the revised Bill are worthy of close scrutiny.

The Bill is

"to make provision imposing on district councils requirements relating to economy, efficiency and effectiveness; and for connected purposes".

The requirements relating to economy, efficiency and effectiveness are admirable and acceptable, depending on how they will be imposed. They concentrate on the processes, which might effect a limited sort of best value. We hope that the need for councils to provide best value services that take account of the human needs of the community, council workers and other stakeholders are covered under the last three words, "for connected purposes".

In its response to the draft Bill, the SDLP made that point, with regard to the absence of an equality impact assessment and the fact that both new targeting social need and equality considerations should be taken into account in local government procurement. I am not sure that the revised Bill has taken up those points.

We can readily accept the assurance of the central management branch that best value offers district councils the opportunity to provide quality services with an emphasis on public consultation and with transparency, accountability and value for money as key components in procurement and service delivery. To help councils, the Department may

"issue guidance to councils as to the carrying out of their functions".

That is in clause 2(1). Obviously, councils will, at times, need guidance, but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It is surely in order to suggest that, before it issues its guidelines, the Department should consult the councils and other stakeholders fully. I take on board the Minister’s words this morning about discussions with councils.

That is just one suggestion of the many that, I am sure, will be made during the debate and the Committee Stage. District councils are already heavily and voluntarily engaged in seeking to provide best value in all their services. Before the Bill becomes law, we must be satisfied that, as an Assembly officer said, the statutory framework for best value is

"essential if we are to deliver the transparency, accountability and consistency to which council residents and ratepayers are entitled."

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I want to give a broad welcome to the concept and contents of the Bill, while expressing some concerns that can be more properly dealt with in detail in Committee, if we ever get that far. The Bill will require district councils to make arrangements for continuous improvement in all their functions. It is designed to replace compulsory competitive tendering and is a recognition that CCT was too rigid and, on occasions, prevented councils from acting in the best interests of their communities. In other words, it was a failed and counterproductive concept.

Services and contracts will be judged not just on cost but on the balance of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Obviously, that is to be welcomed, because it allows local government services and functions to be carried out in a manner that encourages the targeting of social need and embraces human rights and equality considerations.

I welcome the changes that have been made to the Bill since its original drafting. Many of the concerns expressed by the Environment Committee and by district councils have been taken into account. I welcome and acknowledge the responsiveness of the Minister and his advisers to those concerns. The Bill is now less prescriptive, particularly on the auditing of best value plans and reviews. It places more emphasis on the use of departmental circulars and consultation, rather than on subordinate legislation. It has dropped best value inspections and cost recovery via prosecutions and the section on performance improvement plans. It now provides a duty of best value that requires councils to make arrangements for continuous improvement, rather than to secure continuous improvement.

However, I remain to be convinced that we require back-to-back repeal of CCT and the introduction of best value on a statutory basis now. The Committee Chairperson comprehensively and scrupulously outlined the general view of the Committee on that matter. I note that the Scottish Parliament has extended the non- statutory implementation of best value. Best value should encourage the continued development of partnerships with the community, voluntary and private sectors, where this adds to the overall efficiency, effectiveness, and economy of services. Best value practices should encourage the sharing of resources and information in appropriate cross-border partnerships.

It is vital that best value practice does not become too mechanistic. It is vital that it be accompanied by a culture of workplace partnership and be related to human rights and equality issues — as I said earlier. It is my firm conviction that local government reform will set the context for local authorities’ powers and their limitations. It does not seem to be sensible, prudent, or even logical, to impose additional restrictions and structures in advance of this reform, given that local authorities are already implementing best value policies on a voluntary, non-statutory basis. It would be more appropriate to await the outcome of this reform before considering the legislative framework that may be required to foster local government practice in a spirit of the culture of best value.

CCT legislation needs to be rescinded. However, the introduction of a detailed legislative scheme for best value should be deferred until local government reforms are being introduced. Until then, local authorities should continue to implement best value policies on a partnership and co-operative basis, and the legislative timetabling should reflect this flexible and phased approach. Go raibh míle maith agat.

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

The Minister, in outlining his proposals, told the House that there were two reasons why we required the Bill. The first was to get rid of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT); the second was because we need a statutory framework for best value. The first reason is self-evident, and it is not questioned by anyone in the Chamber. CCT has been an unmitigated disaster in its implementation in Northern Ireland. The very modest financial savings by district councils have been more than matched by consultants’ fees and staff time lost through pressures. However, the sweeping statement that we require a statutory framework for best value has not been spelt out in any detail. No reason has been adduced as to why a statutory framework is required.

Can the Minister tell us why the Scots can manage for two more years without a statutory basis for best value, yet for our councils there is apparently an urgent requirement for back-to-back legislation to introduce statutory best value? It should be borne in mind that district councils in Northern Ireland account for less than 5% of all public expenditure and that they are in a completely different situation from that of the unitary authorities in Scotland, which have far greater powers.

The reaction of councillors, in giving the proposals a general welcome, has also been cited. The Committee Chairperson has queried the numbers and the format involved in that. I suspect that district councillors who have not had the pleasure of being elected to the Assembly still think that the consultation process is as it has been for the last 30 years. They think that a consultation document is issued; district councils and others comment on it; the Civil Service ignores the comments; and an Order in Council goes through Westminster at midnight without any regard for what has been said.

It would be an interesting exercise to remind district councillors that it is the Assembly that legislates and not Westminster — at least for another week anyway. On issues requiring consultation, they should know that there are open minds in the Assembly that will listen to the evidence — not closed minds that will slavishly follow whatever is being done in London, Edinburgh or Cardiff.

There is no doubt that the Minister has outlined some significant points that need to be taken into account. We need much more transparency and accountability. We need to give local residents and ratepayers a say in how matters are dealt with in their districts. What the Minister proposes, however, is that the district auditor, who has functions in the field of accounts, should be able to report on other matters. An auditor, with his accounting background, may be qualified to judge matters of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. However, will the Minister explain how an auditor can judge when a swimming pool should be open, whether a district council should spend money on a children’s playground, or whether additional recycling centres should be maintained? Those are political issues on which councillors are entitled to set political priorities. They are not issues to be tied up purely on the basis of an auditor’s examination of best value.

It is clear by the reaction to the draft Bill that was put before the Committee that this is a frightened rethink on the part of the Department and the Executive. Speaking as a Member of the Opposition, and given today’s reaction from leading figures in the DUP, SDLP and Sinn Féin, I am not surprised that the Executive are running scared. If members of their parties sit in the Chamber and query the legislative plans that the Executive put before us, they clearly have a great deal to be frightened about. It has been highlighted, for example, that the best value regime is now somewhat less prescriptive because we will no longer depend on subordinate legislation but on departmental circulars.

Will the Minister explain how the Committee for the Environment will scrutinise the Executive’s proposals, which will come out in the form of a departmental circular? Will we have a full opportunity to discuss them? Will they be laid before the House as subordinate legislation would be? If not, we shall end up with a best value regime that is equally prescriptive but not subject to democratic scrutiny in the Assembly.

If we are to talk about transparency and accountability, the Executive must clearly explain to the Assembly what is happening to the review of public administration. This issue is one of directing best value to councils alone. Where is the rest of the quango state? Where are all the agencies that look after what would be council functions if we were in England, Wales or Scotland? We cannot simply compare a body such as Moyle District Council with Glasgow City Council, Cardiff City Council or a London borough council. The population is minute by comparison, and the range of functions is totally restrictive. What we still have, although there are modest changes in the way that best value is to be administered, is the best value regime being introduced in England. That regime is being applied to a completely different set of circumstances in Northern Ireland.

The Department’s original proposals were like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We now have a heavy single-handed club hammer to crack a nut. My Colleagues and I shall seek to design a suitable nutcracker, both in Committee and when the Bill comes back to the Chamber, rather than use what the Government have suggested.

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

I endorse many of the remarks that have been made about the necessity to drive the legislation through as quickly as the Minister has suggested. I suspect that one of the reasons behind driving through quickly is that it will provide the Minister with an excuse for not including many of the concerns that people have, and many of the legitimate amendments that should be made to the legislation. It strikes me as odd that we have to rush the Bill through in Northern Ireland, when voluntary best value could be extended in Scotland for a period of time.

I have served in local government for a long time, therefore I am not against local government being forced, and legislation being introduced, to ensure that ratepayers get good value for money.

Many Members who have served on councils know that value for money is important because ratepayers are increasingly asking questions about the delivery, cost, quality and nature of services. Let nobody run away with the idea that asking for the legislation to be delayed is an excuse for not wanting value for money at local government level. Serious questions need to be raised about the legislation. However, I suspect that the impetus being applied by the Department will drive the legislation through.

I wish to deal with two aspects of the legislation; one aspect is included in the legislation and the second is not. First, the Minister spoke about the need to make allowances for local variations. He referred to clause 2 (Best value guidance, performance indicators and standards) and said that he would establish a joint working group to make best use of the knowledge at local government level. The working group would advise the Department as to what should be contained in guidance.

Looking at the record of the Minister and of the Department to date, I doubt very much if anyone will pay any attention to the working group. As mentioned earlier by Mr Ford, one change in the new legislation is that it will not allow for indicators to vary between councils. Allowance was made for that in the original legislation. The working group that was set up to look at the indicators recommended that there should be different indicators for different councils, given the diverse nature of some councils. One example is street cleaning in Belfast. It is unfair to impose an indicator of cost-per-head-of-population for street cleaning on a city that has so many daily visitors, whether they be tourists or workers. It does not make sense to apply the same indicator to Belfast as to a rural town that does not have the same numbers of visitors and therefore does not have the same street-cleaning problems.

The original intention was to allow variations in indicators between councils. However, the Minister has removed that allowance, despite the fact that it was recommended by a working group that was made up of practitioners at local government level. If that is an example of how he intends to heed the views of local practitioners or the people who he says have knowledge of local government, we should be sceptical about his promise.

When the Environment Committee goes through the legislation clause by clause, I hope members will re-examine clause 2(4) and ensure that the words

"different performance indicators or standards may be specified for different councils"

are reinstated. It is logical to include those words in the legislation. Having worked in local government, I know that if something is measured, it is likely to be done. I am in favour of indicators. Problems arise when a bad indicator is set and resources are pushed towards meeting that indicator; the exercise is futile and wasteful and does not give good value for money.

My second point relates to something that is absent from the legislation here but is included in the legislation for the rest of the United Kingdom.

Section 16 of the Local Government Act 1999 allows the Department to confer additional powers on councils so that they can enact best value. Those additional powers might change the way in which councils do things or they might allow councils to enter into partnerships. That is important.

Six pilot studies were carried out before best value legislation was introduced, and 75% of them showed that the authorities believed that partnership was important in their approach to best value. The team reported that partnerships enabled innovation in service delivery and made more effective use of existing resources.

Despite the evidence from the pilot studies in England, the Minister has dismissed the inclusion of any clause enabling him to give additional powers to councils to let them have partnership arrangements if it was believed that they would lead to a more effective delivery of services. The Minister has made a number of arguments. He wrote to the Committee Chairperson with the usual "I am committed to broader powers for local government, et cetera, et cetera." However, the first argument was that this legislation must go through. One reason why the Department wishes the legislation to go through is that it will allow the Department to avoid having to look at whether or not to give those additional powers to local authorities.

During my time in local government, I learned that the local government branch of the Department of the Environment wants very little to do with local government; it certainly does not want local government to have too much power. I suspect that there is an element of in-house fighting going on.

The Minister did not believe that the councils were large enough to benefit from partnerships. However, the joining of three bodies — the councils that joined together to look at waste management — has shown that it is possible for partnerships to be effective.

As long ago as 1997 — I remember this because I was involved through Belfast City Council — Lord Dubs promised to look at the possibility of allowing councils to enter into partnerships for economic development purposes. Yet, here we are four years later, and nothing has been done about that. Lord Dubs has gone; there is a new Minister; and we are still getting the same promises.

For the Minister to say that he is looking at ways of enhancing the powers of local government but that consultation will be required is an excuse. The Local Government Act 1999 allows for scrutiny when a council asks for those extra powers, and that means that the process does not need to be delayed any further.

The Minister says that he does not believe that partnerships are critical to the early success of best value. That is bizarre considering that 75% of the councils involved in the initial pilot studies said that that was the case. Surely the Minister has to give cognisance to the evidence from local government where best value has been practised and partnerships have been used.

The Minister should respond to the first position adopted by the Committee, that the legislation should not be pushed through. There is no need for haste.

If the Department insists that the legislation come before the Assembly, it could be voted down. If that does not happen, then it is important that the legislation be amended to change clause 2 to allow individual performance indicators for different councils. Belfast could have a performance indicator that is the same as those used in medium-sized cities in other parts of the UK. That would be reasonable.

A clause should be inserted to allow additional powers to be given to individual or groups of local authorities. Additional powers are believed to lead to a more efficient use of resources when entering into partnership with other bodies or with the private sector. This would lead to a council’s achieving best value objectives.

Unlike the situation under direct rule, we can look at flaws in the legislation. This is the view that has come from the practitioners, the people who have to implement the legislation. The Minister ought to use the evidence that is coming from the Environment Committee, local government and Members of the Assembly to see the folly contained in the Bill as it presently stands and remedy it.

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

The thought of getting rid of compulsory competitive tendering is wonderful to me. The depredation that the policy has wreaked on councils and the delivery of public services is sufficient to encourage me to support the legislation.

I am convinced that the concept of best value, if not always its practice, emphasises, reinforces and values public service. This is something that was vilified by previous Administrations in England and led to the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering.

Public service is, and could be in the future, excellent. However I am amazed at the approach, not just by the Minister and his Department, but by the entire Executive towards best value. Why does it apply only to councils? If we look at the concept of best value and at the statistics that the Assembly Research and Library Service can provide, we see that the estimated net expenditure by councils in 2000-01 amounted to £275 million, out of a total Northern Ireland public expenditure of £9·9 billion. This is approximately 2·8%, even lower than the figure of 5% that Mr Ford referred to.

There are 148 other public bodies operating in Northern Ireland that are run by 2,000 appointees. There are 46 executive non-departmental public bodies and 32 National Health Service bodies with an expenditure of £5·5 billion, approximately 56% of public expenditure. Nothing is being done about best value in that sector. Why should Departments escape the discipline and rigour of best value? They are responsible for the rest of the expenditure. If we look at best value and its introduction into the Administration in Northern Ireland, 2·8% of that expenditure is hardly exciting.

I am not a member of the Environment Committee, so there are a number of points that I would like the Committee and the Department to examine. First, on page 1 of the Bill, clause 1(1) (The duty of best value) refers to the three Es — economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Although there are differences between local government in Britain and in Northern Ireland, we can learn from the experience of the operation of best value there.

Economy, efficiency and effectiveness are good things, but they apply principally to finance. There is little emphasis on the human element, or on delivery to the population. Now, instead of three Es, we talk about five Es: economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equality, and environment. This is often referred to as the well-being factor, as it addresses the well-being of the community and not just the monetary aspect of best value. I would like to see that emphasis included in the amended legislation.

Mr Wilson referred to clause 2(1) of the Bill. The introduction to that clause reads

"The Department may issue guidance to councils as to the carrying out of their functions under this Act."

Although it is hinted at, nowhere does it actually say that there should be consultation with the people involved. An amendment should be included to emphasise that the Department may issue the guidelines as to carrying out of their functions under the Act, "following full and detailed consultation and agreement with all stakeholders". I am suggesting an emphasis on the well-being factor. It would not be a big job for the Department to discover who its stakeholders are — they are councils, community groups and various other people. Departments could quickly investigate that through an audit.

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

I agree with the Member’s point. Clause 2(5) states

"Before specifying performance indicators or standards, the Departments shall consult —

(a) persons appearing to it to represent councils; and

(b) such other persons (if any) as it thinks fit."

How would you see that being strengthened?

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I was referring to clause 2(1). Mr Wilson is referring to a clause that is specifically on performance indicators. Consultation should apply to the whole operation of the introduction of best value.

In addition, I refer to clause 3(4)(b), where there is a requirement for inspection in circumstances indicated in the Act. It would be sensible, fair and wise to have a specified date for the inspection to be carried out. Such a date could be chosen to allow local authorities time to compile a full annual report.

A date such as the end of June would give councils an opportunity to compile that report and help people adjust to the requirements of the Act.

12.00

Finally, I refer to section 16 of the Local Government Act 1999, which Mr S Wilson has already mentioned. I emphasise again that the experience in Britain has been good. In fact, I understand that Nick Raynsford has agreed for work to be done on that sector to improve the regulations under section 16. The well-being concept and partnerships have been highlighted. Mr S Wilson made the arguments very well, and I do not need to reiterate them. Among the regulations is a new power to provide indemnities to members and officers involved in partnerships and external bodies.

While we have had bad experiences here, the ravages of compulsory competitive tendering in England have produced some frightful cases. I read recently about an employee who has five pensions because he was shoved around from one private contractor to another. He has lost all the stability and security that he had as a council employee.

In addition to the partnership emphasis, section 16 helps to ensure that employees are safeguarded and that their benefits and job standards are not lost or interfered with through any of the partnerships or public-private deals that might be made. It is, and should be, an area of great concern to us as we embark on a best value approach. We should learn from what has happened in England in that regard and be very wary of the damage that could be done to individuals.

Sam Foster (UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I thank the Members who contributed to the debate. There is, undoubtedly, a keen interest in this matter. Members have dwelt upon the issue and looked into it, and it is right and proper that it should be debated thoroughly. The responses mirror the genuine interest shown in the earlier consultation process, which sought to deliver best value in the interests of council residents and district ratepayers.

I have listened to the debate carefully and I will try to reply to as many points as possible in the time available. My officials will, in any case, scrutinise Hansard, and I will write to those Members who raised issues that require further clarification.

Rev William McCrea asked why we need legislation if councils have already introduced best value voluntarily. First, the requirement for compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) has merely been deferred using subordinate legislation that remains on the statute book and cannot be deferred further. That means that the CCT obligation becomes effective again on 1 April 2002 unless the legislation is repealed before that date. Secondly, experience of voluntary implementation of best value to date indicates that a statutory framework is essential if we are to deliver transparency, accountability and consistency.

Should best value legislation be deferred pending the review of local government? In accordance with the Programme for Government, the Executive are committed to a full review of public administration, including the administration of local and public services. I have been pushing for that for quite a while but other events have taken over. However, best value principles apply irrespective of the structure and responsibilities of local government. I therefore see no need to defer the introduction of best value legislation on those grounds.

Why the urgency with the Local Government (Best Value) Bill? Why does the Minister not simply defer it? That approach has been used in Scotland, where a moratorium has been placed on CCT pending the development of appropriate best value legislation. However, it is not possible in Northern Ireland, where a different legislative framework exists. The Department has already used subordinate legislation to defer the implementation of CCT, but it is still enshrined in primary legislation. Legal advice indicates that further deferral in this way is not viable.

Should the Bill deal with the repeal of CCT alone, leaving the framework of best value to be formulated by the Department and local government at a later date? That is a good question; indeed, there were several good questions. The clear objective underpinning best value is that it is a policy designed with the interests of residents and ratepayers at heart. If we are to deliver the transparency and accountability, which local people deserve, while ensuring consistency of approach, experience to date of voluntary implementation of best value indicates that the framework needs to be clearly defined in legislation. That is vitally important. As drafted, the Bill would allow local people to have their say on the levels and standards of service provision in their areas.

Rev William McCrea also asked if all councils were happy with the redrafting of the Bill. The draft Bill has been circulated to all councils, and they have not advised me of any particular problems. That does not surprise me, as the redrafted Bill addresses their key concerns.

Mr Doherty asked why the Bill did not apply to Government Departments. I contend that central Government already operates under a value-for-money or best value framework. Elements of that include a Government accounting manual and accompanying financial regulations; a requirement to operate resource accounting and budgeting; a detailed Programme for Government incorporating departmental public service agreements, corporate and business plans, internal scrutiny and Northern Ireland Audit Office scrutiny, and the Public Accounts Committee of the Assembly. I assure the Member that we are very well scrutinised.

Mr Doherty also asked if best value would concern process at the expense of outcome. That issue was highlighted during the consultation process, and I am anxious to ensure that it will not occur. At the same time, councils expressed a need for guidance concerning best value.

Mr Doherty wanted to know why the Department had not conducted an equality impact assessment of draft best value legislation. My officials have closely screened the proposed policy and have identified no issues of concern on equality grounds. A decision not to undertake a full equality impact assessment was ratified with the Equality Commission. Under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, councils are required to produce equality schemes for approval by the Equality Commission. Councils will therefore have a legal obligation to operate best value within the parameters of their approved schemes.

Mr McLaughlin referred to support for the partnership approach. I have already advised his party that we have delayed the introduction of this legislation pending local government reform. Mr Ford asked why we need a statutory framework for CCT, and why we do not adopt the Scottish approach. I referred earlier to the Scottish approach and to our legal difficulties. Is it true to say that the Department has ignored the concerns of councils and the Environment Committee in bringing forward the draft Bill? I assure the Member that that is definitely not the case — we do not do business like that. We want to work with people and we co-operate with people. I refute any suggestion that my staff override any Department or area. The draft legislation was subject to an extended consultation process. My officials and I met the Environment Committee to discuss the draft proposals. That approach proved most useful and led me to instruct my officials to redraft the legislation and address many of the concerns expressed at that time. In particular, there was a genuine concern that my Department would use subordinate legislation to establish a framework that placed more emphasis on process than on outcomes. We have examined that issue and dealt with it; we do not want to override anyone’s responsibility.

Mr Sammy Wilson made a number of points. He referred to individual performance indicators, which are not appropriate to all councils. He asked why councils do not have the freedom to set their own performance indicators. I see clear merits in having a set of four indicators, which are used by all councils, instilling some consistency across local government. However, I recognise that individual performance indicators will not be equally relevant to each council. No indicator, taken in isolation, can accurately measure the performance of a council. We need benchmarks, and that is why we seek them. I therefore expect councils to supplement cross- council indicators with local indicators, which they will develop themselves to reflect local circumstances. The joint use of cross-council and local indicators should prove an effective means of summarising council performance.

Mr Sammy Wilson also asked whether the Department would genuinely listen to local government when producing guidance. I have assured the Assembly that the Department collaborates with the Environment Committee and all relevant agencies and groups to ensure that we are working together for the common good.

I emphasise that my record shows that my officials have worked positively with council officials and I refute the suggestion that we are not working in co- operation with others or discussing matters with them.

Great Britain’s legislation gives the Secretary of State the power to amend or remove the legislative barriers to achieving best value. Mr Sammy Wilson asked why those powers were not replicated in the Local Government (Best Value) Bill. As in Great Britain, certain legislative barriers to best value might become apparent over time. Any legislation that could impede the full implementation of best value would need to be examined and discussed, in the first instance, with the appropriate Department. If a decision were reached to change existing provision the relevant Department would be responsible for any amending legislation, which would be channelled through the normal legislative process.

Mr Sammy Wilson asked about economic development powers, a matter that has been referred to many times in my years as a councillor. The issue has cross-cutting implications for many Departments; it will be addressed in due course through interdepartmental discussion. However, the matter should not be allowed to delay the progress of the important task of establishing a sound framework for best value.

Mr ONeill welcomed the demise of CCT, and asked whether the statutes of guidance would be subject to consultation. I have responded to that point and his question on whether we could draw on the English experience.

I assure the House that I do not wish to be over- prescriptive in regard to best value. I recognise that best value touches all aspects of local services; none is more important than the well-being of local communities. I have every confidence that councils will continue to address that issue within the best value framework.

As the Minister responsible for local government in Northern Ireland, I consider it my duty to further promote transparency and accountability in the use of council resources and the provision of local services. In bringing the Local Government (Best Value) Bill to the Assembly, I sought to achieve that objective. I listened carefully, therefore, to all of the representations, and I thanked everyone who contributed to the consultation process. It is true that concerns were expressed about the labour-intensive nature of best value and about the apparent emphasis on procedures rather than outcomes.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

In the light of today’s debate, the Minister and the Department of the Environment should realise that if they press ahead with the Bill there will be great difficulty in getting it passed by the House. As Chairperson of the Environment Committee, I ask the Minister to reflect calmly on today’s debate and to consider the appropriate way forward.

Sam Foster (UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

If the Bill were delayed now, it would be too late to get rid of CCT by next April; therefore, we would be under contract for another three or four years. I appreciate the points and concerns expressed. I want the Bill to proceed. I am not trying to push something through against anyone’s will. However, while some negative points have been made, not everybody has said that they do not want the Local Government (Best Value) Bill. Members are concerned and have questioned some points, but, in the main, they welcome the Bill. I would not therefore give way on that point.

Many people support the provision of greater guidance to help streamline processes, provided that allowance is made to accommodate the diversity of circumstances among councils. There was uniform agreement that CCT should be replaced, with greater emphasis on quality service delivery rather than the lowest-cost option.

It was also widely recognised that in order to achieve quality services a framework for best value — which I still contend is necessary — must be developed to engage local people in meaningful consultation. I have fully considered all of these matters; we need a common statutory framework to ensure that people in different council areas have equal opportunity to participate in local services provision and to obtain quality local services. Again, such a framework must be transparent, consistent and accountable to ratepayers and users of local public services. The framework should provide a basis for local people and councils to work in partnership with each other. The framework has to be workable and proportionate to the requirements and circumstances of district councils. That is why I have made provision in the Bill for my Department to develop further guidance on partnership with local government. The guidance should benefit councils in their implementation of best value by providing the necessary consistency of approach and enabling councils to learn from one another. It is important that we have benchmarks and that we learn from one another.

In the Local Government (Best Value) Bill I have responded to the representations made to me. I firmly believe that the Bill makes provision for the framework that I described. The Bill is proportionate to the needs of local government in Northern Ireland and, at the same time, it addresses the needs of residents and ratepayers, giving them the assurances that they require. The Bill needs to proceed, and, although I understand everything that was said, I know that not everyone is against the Bill because we have discussed and co-ordinated the matter across the realm. I commend the Local Government (Best Value) Bill to the Assembly.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That the Second Stage of the Local Government (Best Value) Bill (NIA Bill 19/00) be agreed.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I am conscious that efficiency was a topic of the last debate, and the House has been particularly efficient in dealing with this morning’s business. In so doing, it has earned itself a longer lunch. The House will now rise and is suspended until 2.00pm, when it will resume with the motion on hospital waiting lists.

The sitting was suspended at 12.18pm.

On resuming (Madam Deputy Speaker [Ms Morrice] in the Chair) —

Hospital Waiting Lists

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I beg to move

That this Assembly views with concern the ever-increasing waiting lists for medical and hospital treatment in our local health services, and requires immediate action to remedy this unacceptable and growing problem.

One of the most urgent issues facing the Assembly, which acts on behalf of the community, is the spiralling increase in waiting lists for medical and hospital treatment and the consequential increase in waiting lists for all types of health care, including community care.

I — and, no doubt, others — will quote many statistics today. Behind those statistics is a huge amount of human suffering and misery. Waiting for surgical appointments means additional suffering, and that should be and can be avoided. In some cases, waiting leads to premature death, and society should strive with all its might to eradicate death and suffering. That is what health care is all about.

There are continual stories and statistics in the press about the rise in waiting lists. In September 2000, we were told that the waiting lists in Northern Ireland were the longest in the UK. In November, we were told that one of the reasons that the waiting lists were extended was that one plastic surgeon in the Royal Victoria Hospital could not be replaced. As a consequence, waiting time for plastic surgery increased to two years for elective surgery. Such is the fragility of the current system.

As the Minister said at Question Time yesterday, the quarterly figure for ordinary and day-case admissions stands at a massive 54,246 — and that includes elective and non-elective admissions. In the quarter from March to June of this year, the waiting list increased by 2,251 — a 4·3% increase. Examined from a different angle, the figure for those ordinary and day-case admissions from June 2000 to June 2001 rocketed by a massive 4,728, to 54,246.

Last Tuesday, a news item referred to Northern Ireland’s chronic nursing shortage, which has caused the closure of 55 beds in the Royal Victoria Hospital and has doubtless contributed to the waiting list. The issue is not simply the number of surgical procedures performed, it concerns capital back-up, existing facilities and time.

For example, according to the Eastern Health and Social Services Council, 93 patients in Northern Ireland waited more than seven days for emergency repair to hip fractures. Medical guidelines state that the waiting time for such treatment should be no more than 24 hours. Yet, not just one or two people, but 93 people waited seven days for treatment.

The Acute Hospitals Review Group has published the most up-to-date, analytical, independent report into the issue, and it is entirely divorced from departmental figures. Indeed, the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety appointed that review group, which provided startling statistics about hospital and medical waiting lists in June 2001. On page 20, at paragraph 3.9, it states:

" Northern Ireland has the longest per capita hospital waiting lists in the UK. In March 2000 there were over 47,000 people waiting for elective treatment, an increase of nearly 11,000 compared to March 1996. More significantly, there has been a huge increase in waiting times, with the number of patients waiting 18 months or more for treatment increasing from 632 in March 1996 to 5,200 in March 2000."

The Hayes report refers to the rising numbers on waiting lists for outpatient departments:

"the number of people recorded as waiting for an outpatient appointment has increased significantly from 59,000 in March 1996 to over 102,000 in March 2000."

Yesterday, the Minister told the House that that figure had risen to 128,438. Should we not be anxious about those figures? There is something wrong with a society that cannot focus on such a massive failure to provide normal public health care. The report continues:

"Of these patients, the number waiting six months or more for an appointment has increased from 7,300 to over 26,700."

Those are frightening figures. Supplementary material to the Minister’s oral answers, available in the Assembly Library, shows that 498 people are waiting for cardiac bypass surgery in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board area; of those, 63 have been waiting for six to eight months. There is a waiting list of 1,385 people for hernia operations; of those, 810 have been waiting, in much discomfort, for more than two months. There is a waiting list of 638 people for knee replacement operations; of those, 118 have waited for six to eight months.

Considering the size of the population and the number of hospitals in Northern Ireland, the average waiting time for specific operations such as cataract removal, heart bypass surgery, hernia repair and knee replacements is longer than in England, Scotland or Wales.

The despair engendered by such a long waiting list is obvious, and I see it in my constituency surgery. It increases day by day. A Rostrevor constituent has been on the urgent cardiac bypass list for 13 months. Another constituent, from Downpatrick, has been waiting for over two years for quadruple bypass surgery. Recently, a consultant told him that surgical slots had been reduced by 50%. The average waiting time for cardiac bypass surgery is two years. Earlier this year, I visited an elderly woman in Mayobridge who has a chronic hip condition and has been waiting for over two years for a hip replacement. An Annalong constituent has been waiting for a lung transplant for two years, even though he has a donor who has been medically approved. The consultant cannot give him a date for the transplant surgery because he has been given no surgical slots for September. We are talking about human suffering.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

Is the Member aware that elective orthopaedic surgery in the Ulster Hospital was suspended entirely because of lack of operating time, lack of surgeons and lack of available funding?

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I have concentrated on my constituency, but every Member could tell horrific stories of unnecessary human suffering.

Since the introduction of devolution, there has been a concentration on deficits, underfunding and the need for adequate capital revenue expenditure on health. Substantive additional allocations have been made. I am grateful to the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety for finding the time to be present at today’s debate. I ask her to respond to the growing problem of waiting lists. She may say that the problem could be solved by additional financial investment in the health service, despite the fact that there has been substantial additional funding. The amounts were £3 million last year and £8 million this year. We are entitled to ask how the additional money has been used and managed, and what changes to the waiting lists have been brought about by it.

At Question Time yesterday, the Minister again identified under-resourcing and overall capacity problems as the main factors contributing to the lengthening waiting lists. Have the Minister’s officials sought, or thought about, other ways of improving the position? For example, has consideration been given — I am not making a political point — to further cross-border co-operation? Hospital waiting lists in the Republic of Ireland have decreased in the past year. A news report that I saw in April showed that waiting lists in the Republic of Ireland had decreased by 9,000 patients. That means that there is a capacity there that we should be able to buy into.

What consideration have the Minister and the Department given to the reversal of the political dogma of centralisation? Why not decentralise surgical procedures and use hospitals in the more rural areas — or not so rural areas — where surgical expertise still exists, before it is lost altogether? On 11 September, the Minister referred to the work already undertaken to address the waiting list problems. What was the outcome of the ‘Framework for Action on Waiting Lists’, policy that was announced last autumn? What significant changes have taken place in the past 10 months? In a press release of the same date — I am sorry to quote her, but she is the authority on, and has responsibility for, our health care — she said that:

"the only long-term solution is money."

As a layperson, I disagree with that analysis. Certainly, extra money is essential, and it must be provided. However, is the money given to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety — especially that given specifically for reducing waiting lists — managed effectively? The Minister should examine such issues, instead of simply saying that money is the solution to everything.

The lack of resources has been referred to by the Minister, by the Assembly’s Health Committee on 2 July, and by the Eastern Health and Social Services Council on 12 September. However, the debate about the lack of resources should not detract from the need for the Department to manage the current health budget more professionally and to deploy resources more effectively than at present. Some trusts are allowed to run up deficits while those that manage budgets properly suffer as a consequence. Residents in those trust areas have a diminished health service.

It is also interesting to note what Dr Hayes and his committee said about waiting lists:

"While undoubtedly there is a need for a substantial injection of funding, it is of even greater importance that existing resources are used as effectively as possible."

The report also states:

"It is difficult to argue for additional resources for hospital and community health services against other national and regional priorities if we cannot also demonstrate that existing resources are being used to the best effect by generally accepted levels of comparison."

I must emphasise that point. An independent report is saying that there must be a clear demonstration that existing funding is being used effectively.

The Hayes team demonstrated that spending on acute services in Northern Ireland was higher than in any other region in the British Isles, apart from Scotland in this particular instance. Another study of comparative waiting times for elective surgery demonstrated that the problem of lengthy waiting times had not even been targeted in Northern Ireland and that an initiative to tackle the problem was urgently required. The report also stated that Northern Ireland had more acute beds and staff per capita than many regions of England. Up to 10% or 15% of acute beds could be unavailable due to bed blocking caused by their use as follow-on accommodation for patients waiting to be transferred from residential to community care.

The time is now ripe for the Department to address urgently the problem of hospital waiting lists. It is clear from recent newspaper coverage, questions posed in the Assembly, and contributions made this morning and on the radio that people are anxious about what is happening to their health service. Everyone has experienced in some way the dire consequences of extended waiting lists. The problem is creating unnecessary pain and suffering for many in our community. I submit the motion to the Assembly for its consideration; we should not allow that situation to continue.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Given the large number of Members who have asked to speak, and the high level of interest in the matter, Members should limit their contributions to five minutes.

Joe Hendron (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

I could not possibly cover the main points in five minutes, but I understand the restriction. I congratulate Mr McGrady on bringing such an important motion to the House, and I thank the Minister for her presence.

Mr McGrady mentioned waiting lists and waiting times. Waiting times are a far more accurate means of measuring delay in the delivery of health care. People — in some cases, those with cancer — can wait long periods before getting an appointment with a consultant. We are all aware of the importance of early diagnosis and proper treatment, a massive subject in Northern Ireland today. I therefore draw the Minister’s attention to waiting times, as opposed to waiting lists.

Some things are being done, and I appreciate that money has been spent and that several projects are under way. For example, lower back pain, one of the most common cases for referral in the primary care sector, can be caused by muscular problems rather than secondary cancer. Next month, a clinic will open at Musgrave Park Hospital at which physiotherapists will play a key role — and rightly so. Doctors in the Eastern Board area can refer patients to the clinic, rather than to an orthopaedic surgeon. Unfortunately, I do not have enough time to elaborate on that point.

Similarly, if there is the slightest chance that a patient’s chest pain is caused by problems with a coronary artery there must be a diagnosis and, if necessary, treatment. However, a good deal of chest pain is caused by other factors. The Royal Hospital Group has, therefore, set up a clinic to which a patient can be sent if his doctor concludes that he is unlikely to be suffering from ischaemic heart disease. Skin cancer is another common illness in Northern Ireland, and a clinic at Belfast City Hospital treats patients affected by that disease.

I appreciate that the Minister has made a bid for £122 million for next year. However, the Health Committee fears that, if the full allocation is not made, the waiting lists will get worse. That point needs to be addressed by the Executive. Elderly people who live at home but who require residential care or increased packages of care are affected by waiting lists. Massive waiting lists also affect the professions allied to medicine, including occupational therapists, chiropodists, and speech and language therapists.

Trusts will have to overspend dramatically, because boards and fundholders cannot provide enough funding to cover demand. Unsurprisingly, elective procedures will be the first to be affected, and there will be an obvious impact on waiting lists. For every pound that is now spent on the National Health Service in England, the equivalent in Northern Ireland is 75p.

On 31 July in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board area alone, there were approximately 22,000 people on waiting lists for elective surgery. Of those, 3,600 had been on the lists for longer than the charter time limit.

Orthopaedic surgery is a major problem in Northern Ireland. The elective orthopaedic service at Musgrave Park Hospital is reaching a crisis, and patients are now waiting for up to three years for some operations. Even waiting for an outpatient appointment to see a specialist orthopaedic surgeon can take up to three years. The current fracture crisis has caused the Department and area boards to concentrate on trauma problems. Although that is necessary, the elective service has been allowed to deteriorate, storing up a crisis in waiting times. Musgrave Park Hospital has been asked to help in operations on trauma cases, which the hospital has been able to do without cancelling other operations.

There is a massive problem; orthopaedic surgery could be the subject of a debate on its own. As Mr McGrady mentioned, people with fractured femurs at Craigavon Area Hospital and Antrim Hospital have had to wait for a week; 24 hours is the stipulated waiting time.

What can we do about it? I will not talk about finances; I accept that we need more money, but there is more to it than that. It is important how the resources are used. In her statement on 11 September, the Minister said:

"the increases [in waiting lists] highlight the fact that, without major new investment, our hospital and community care services simply cannot cope with the present, growing levels of demand."

We agree with that. The Minister also said:

"all boards and trusts are working on measures at the moment to improve efficiencies in the system."

For goodness’ sake, let us look at the system. That is where the problems are. There are 19 trusts for a population the size of Greater Birmingham — I say that with respect to the Minister. We must look at the trusts. If Sir Reg Empey can merge LEDU and IDB without waiting for a review of public administration, there is no reason why we cannot examine the whole structure of the Health Service. Primary care can be talked about another day.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I thank Dr Hendron for his understanding of the time constraints. Fifteen Members have asked to speak, and we want to allow them all the opportunity to do so.

Ian Adamson (UUP, Belfast East)

I also thank Mr McGrady for bringing this motion before the House; as he said, it is extremely important. The agreement of the Department of Health in England to allow health authorities there to commission services from other European countries was prompted by a ruling by the European Court of Justice. It stated that patients facing an "undue delay" in treatment in their country should seek earlier treatment in other European countries. That means that the door is now open for a significant reduction in the waiting lists in England for cardiac surgery, hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and an increasing variety of other elective procedures. The decision of the Secretary of State to allow individuals to make their own arrangements to be treated in Europe at the expense of the National Health Service may also, I hope, prevent the development of a massive bureaucratic network to facilitate that extension of the service.

Mr McGrady and Dr Hendron have shown that, as most of the progressive countries in the European Union operate without waiting lists, it would not be hard to prove "undue delay" in Northern Ireland. We have the worst waiting lists of any of the four countries of the United Kingdom, yet fundholders in Northern Ireland have shown that it is possible to buy cost-effective services in England and Scotland, despite their own waiting list problems. Patients generally show a willingness to travel rather than wait indefinitely for treatment, and the quality of clinical outcomes is at least equivalent to the quality of service achieved locally. Some health boards have used the facilities of the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin with similar success.

People in Northern Ireland are entitled to treatment equal to that available in other parts of the United Kingdom. Some people feel that when resources move away it undermines the ability to provide quality services in Northern Ireland. Reliable, guaranteed funding is needed so that we can retain staff with the required skills and ensure that those skills are kept up to date. On the other hand, some feel that a lack of competition creates complacency. Cardiac surgical services have had guaranteed resources. However, the standard of performance is clearly damaging patients in our Province. There is probably an element of truth in both those arguments. The fundamental aim of the Health Service should be to meet the needs of the population, and we are not doing that at present. Action must be taken both in the short and longer terms.

In the rest of the National Health Service there has been a considerable injection of cash as part of the modernisation process. The NHS plans to achieve parity with European health funding over the next five years. However, the Health Service in Northern Ireland has been demonstrably unable to attract similar injections of cash. We have, therefore, been given an opportunity to redress the balance in a way that would benefit patients immensely. We must always remember that if treatment were more timely, there would be fewer lost working days and benefit claims, and that would be a positive boost to the local economy.

In the longer term, we can consider how to handle existing resources and any increase that we might receive. Like many of my medical colleagues, I believe that using services from other EU countries is an interesting idea and takes us away from the parochial thinking that affects so much of life in Northern Ireland. Are we not all Europeans now? Can we not show the rest of the community that we are equal to the task?

Paul Berry (DUP, Newry and Armagh)

I commend Mr McGrady for tabling the motion. It has given us an opportunity to highlight the serious problem of waiting lists.

The whole Health Service in Northern Ireland is in disarray. Regrettably, it does not seem to be dealing with the problem of waiting lists. We listened to Mr McGrady talk about his constituents, who have been waiting for operations for over two years. The Chairman of the Health Committee was just warming to the subject of what is needed to deal with the problem.

The waiting lists will get worse if sufficient funding is not found. It is regrettable that the Department’s bid for an extra £122 million for next year has no guarantee of being met. It will merely maintain the status quo. Not only is funding needed but, as the Chairman of the Health Committee said we must examine the whole structure of the Health Service. It is disgraceful that there are 19 trusts and four boards. The problem with the Health Service in Northern Ireland is that there are far too many chiefs and too much bureaucracy. Our constituents are not being treated fairly.

In Craigavon Area Hospital and Daisy Hill Hospital 42 patients were waiting in the accident and emergency departments. Over two thirds were waiting for a bed to become available before they could be admitted to a hospital ward. Patients were waiting in the corridors. I went to Craigavon Area Hospital the other night at 10.30 to speak to a constituent who had been waiting for over a week for an operation and was still lying on a bed in the corridor. Her privacy had been taken away. It was ridiculous. That hospital was like something in a Third- World country. It is not just Craigavon Area Hospital; it is a Province-wide problem. The situation should be dealt with. It is distressing for patients and their families. Patients’ charter standards are not being met, and urgent action is required from the Minister.

We need more consultants, nurses and medical staff. If that need is not met, there will be severe problems ahead. In 1998,we had a document entitled ‘Fit for the Future’. It recommended that we abolish boards and merge the trusts. Then we had ‘Fit for the Future — A New Approach’, which advocated merging trusts and increasing the role of general practitioners. Then we had a document titled ‘Putting It Right’. The next thing at our door was the Hayes report, which contains a lot of recommendations. The Hayes report says that from now until 2010 we will need 400 more consultants, which will cost £40 million per annum; 250 more general practitioners, which will cost another £25 million; and 2,300 additional nurses — an increase of 20% — which will cost £60 million per annum.

There is no way in which we can meet such costs, and we can start to deal with the problem only if we have more funding. We must call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to examine the funding of the Health Service in Northern Ireland. There is no doubt about it — we are underfunded. That must be addressed, so that the Department can deal with the problems it faces. The Department has a responsibility to the people of Northern Ireland, especially those who are waiting for surgery. Health Service structures must be examined immediately, so that there is less bureaucracy and more work is done for all patients in Northern Ireland, no matter what their postcode is.

It is distressing to walk into hospitals in a so-called modern society and see people lying on beds in corridors. One lady waited for heart surgery for over a year. During that time, she suffered another heart attack and had to go through the whole system again, just because she was on a waiting list for over a year.

I commend all the staff of the Health Service, especially the nurses and doctors in hospitals throughout this country. They are being mentally and physically affected by these problems. I support this motion.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I support the motion, but I disagree with Mr McGrady’s view about finance. This is a matter of finance. Any consultant, doctor, nurse or hospital executive will say that. There is no doubt that the health services in this part of Ireland are underfunded. Research tells us that the north of Ireland is losing the battle for increased investment in personal health services. We know that there has been an increase of 12% in Scotland as against 7·2% here. In England, £1 billion has been invested in the improvement of primary care because of new initiatives announced last year by the British Government. There is a disparity between the funding of the Health Service here and the Health Services in England, Scotland, Wales and the rest of Ireland.

Waiting lists, as we all know, do not happen by accident. Nurses, doctors and consultants are not happy to see people waiting in corridors for a bed or to be examined or operated on. They are there to ease pain and suffering. They do not want to see that happening in any hospital in this part of Ireland.

The problem goes back to the underfunding of the Health Service in the north of Ireland. It comes down to what is available to cover scarce resources. I was on the phone this morning to a rheumatology consultant. Hundreds of people are waiting for a new drug, at a cost of £700 per month, to ease their pain, but there is no money for that drug. There are people suffering from certain forms of leukaemia who require a drug that eases their pain and helps prolong their life. It costs £100,000 a year to ease the suffering of one person.

It is a question of finance. Doctors and other staff in the hospital services are also under pressure. They are trying to decide how the money should be allocated. It is unfair that that extra burden should be placed on them. We need to know how much money is needed. Mr Berry said that about £60 million per annum would be required if all the elements of the Hayes report were to be implemented, and he said that we would never get that amount of money. However, if we are serious about health, we must be serious about finding the money to alleviate the suffering.

This is a matter not just for the Minister of Health, but for the whole Executive. If the Assembly is saying that the Health Service is underfunded, we should approach the members of our parties who are on the Executive and put the case to them. We should ask them to exercise their influence to find the moneys that are so desperately needed.

Many things in life, including home and family, come down to finance. Finance is the big factor in the problems that confront the Health Service. Doctors, nurses and professionals are trying their best with limited resources and, we must find the money to ensure that the suffering is alleviated, if not obliterated.

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

Health should be our number one priority. Someone who does not enjoy good health cannot wholeheartedly enjoy life. It is up to those of us who, thank God, enjoy good health and are in a position to provide a good comprehensive Health Service to enable everyone in the community to be as free as possible from unnecessary pain, anxiety or suffering, and thus live and contribute to society for many years in good or, at least, reasonable health.

The rot in the National Health Service and the increasing waiting lists started some years ago when the Thatcher Tory Government presided over a massive reduction in funding and training, and it has continued to this day. We used to call the Tory Government uncaring and they certainly deserved that title. I hope that those years are now behind us. We were promised a modern, quality Health Service by the new Labour Government — that has yet to be achieved.

Waiting lists and times are getting worse. "Trolley time" and "armchair time" are new expressions, but they are also getting worse and are totally unacceptable. Behind every figure on a waiting list is a human being who is not in good health and is quite possibly in pain, probably severe pain. That could and should be preventable. I have listened to constituents crying for help to get off waiting lists. They have been on those lists for far too long, and in many cases they are convinced that they are being overlooked, forgotten or just not considered to be as important as other patients because they are senior citizens. It is a shame that any official or consultant would discriminate against a patient because of his or her age. The Assembly has offered its support to senior citizens, not only in health care but in other areas that contribute to better health. Elderly patients must never be overlooked or abandoned, and they cannot be expected to remain on a waiting list for any longer than is necessary. Waiting times for patients affect young and old, and there are signs that the waiting lists will continue to increase across the spectrum unless radical action is taken immediately.

There are all sorts of reasons for the situation. The Assembly must tackle the inherited problems. The Health Minister has acknowledged that underfunding has taken place over the years, and Members must give her credit for what she has achieved. However, she must do more. Eight million pounds was found to tackle the waiting list problem. That is welcome, but much more is required. That is why the Alliance Party calls for tax-varying powers for the Assembly. We must have the money as well as the power to make a difference to people’s lives.

The Executive must be convinced of the need for considerable extra funding to reduce waiting times and waiting lists. Every effort must be made to ensure that funds are not squandered and that fat-cat handouts are stopped. The public must also help by attending appointments on time and by not making fraudulent prescription claims. Those measures would add money to the Health Service’s coffers. The total cessation of paramilitary attacks — which are on the increase — would also help the already over-stretched resources and cut back on waiting times. Those acts of barbarism require emergency treatment that uses resources that would otherwise be used to cut down waiting times.

Even with Mr Blair’s return to power, the Health Service continues to fail. Recently, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has sent patients to other European countries for treatment in its efforts to reduce the waiting lists. That is far from ideal, but I suspect that many patients would be happy to do that if the alternative were to remain at home in pain.

Today may be the last Assembly sitting. On behalf of suffering patients on waiting lists and everybody in Northern Ireland who might be on a waiting list in the future, I appeal to the Minister to do what the Assembly wants to do — continue the business for everyone in Northern Ireland.

Norman Boyd (NIUP, South Antrim)

Most Members have direct knowledge of the issue of hospital waiting lists, because of the number of constituents affected. It is unacceptable that waiting lists should continue to grow. There are over 54,000 people on waiting lists for treatment and operations, and that brings with it a lot of pain and misery. Northern Ireland has the longest waiting lists in the United Kingdom, and the additional £13 million allocated in the past 12 months to address the problem has had little impact on halting the trend. Waiting lists have increased by 5,000 in the past 12 months, and the situation will deteriorate further in the coming winter months.

Fractures are a huge problem, made worse by the daily paramilitary beatings and shootings that create an enormous strain on vital health resources. Many people bury their heads in the sand and hide from the problem. The Government’s patient’s charter states that patients will receive treatment within 48 hours of admission, compared with the 24-hour target for the rest of the United Kingdom. Despite that, in the past four months, over 1,000 fracture patients have had to wait more than 96 hours for treatment.

The Royal Victoria Hospital, which is the only facility for cardiac surgery in Northern Ireland, was recently forced to cancel heart operations because of a shortage of beds. That is scandalous. People stay longer in hospital because of the lack of resources for a full care-in-the- community programme. That creates a shortage of hospital beds, and we have horrendous examples of patients sleeping on trolleys and in corridors. Doctors and nurses work a horrendous number of additional hours.

A vital meals-on-wheels service in Carrickfergus may have to cease because of lack of funding. That will result in greater demand for home helps, a service that is already under severe pressure. Despite all of that, many health trust chief executives continue to enjoy huge and unjustified annual pay rises, sometimes up to 27%. Do we need all those boards and trusts?

2·45 pm

Waiting lists for occupational therapy visits are at crisis level. Disabled people are particularly affected, and many have been waiting for months, even years, for grants to carry out essential repairs and improvements to their properties. My local Housing Executive office has told me that money for such much needed work is available but is not being taken up because of occupational therapy waiting lists. That is not a criticism of occupational therapists; it is the exact opposite. I know occupational therapists who are working additional hours without pay to help those in need of their services.

The University of Ulster at Jordanstown made the foolish decision to deny a young person, who attained two As and one C at A level, a place on an occupational therapy course, because she did not get three Bs. She has been able to attend the same course in Edinburgh. There is a possibility that that student and many others will complete their studies in other parts of the United Kingdom and get employment outside Northern Ireland. That situation is illogical. Our occupational therapy lists are critical, and we must aim to keep our young people and their much-needed skills here.

There are no rheumatology services for patients in the Northern Board area, and those awaiting diagnosis are sent to Belfast, which has a waiting list of up to 16 months. That is unacceptable. The hospital waiting list crisis graphically illustrates the folly of those who naively believed that the Assembly would be the answer to all our problems. Despite the additional resources, the waiting list situation is continuing to deteriorate. The Assembly has failed the people of Northern Ireland.

Boyd Douglas (UUAP, East Londonderry)

The problem with waiting lists in the Health Service is not new. People are concerned that the lists are growing, while little is done at strategic level to deal with them. I am sure that every Member knows someone who is waiting for an operation or some other surgical procedure. Those with the least need will probably be taken first, but that will only massage the waiting times.

There appears to be a severe problem with orthopaedic procedures. We often hear horrific stories of people waiting days for treatment for broken limbs. The main reason for that is the shortage of beds. The problem is particularly acute in winter, but it is with us at all times of the year. Many surgical beds are taken up by medical emergencies for which there is also inadequate provision. That must be dealt with immediately.

There are difficulties with recruiting and retaining staff, particularly nursing staff in intensive care units. Many major operations could be carried out if suitably qualified staff were available. The main obstacle to recruiting and retaining staff is the poor pay that they receive for the responsibilities that they shoulder. Compared with staff in other countries that recognise the importance and skill of the profession, our nursing staff are shamefully treated and poorly paid. I ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to push for a significant increase in pay for our nursing staff at a time when the pay review body is taking evidence on the subject. We have a dedicated workforce in the Health Service, but we cannot expect people to work for gratitude alone. Hospitals must be well staffed if we are to have a responsive service.

It has been stated that in Northern Ireland we have the longest waiting lists in the UK, but significant strides forward have been made in the area of cardiac operations. That has been possible because the boards have purchased services from the mainland. HCI International Health Centre in Glasgow has carried out many cardiac and hip operations under contract for the Western Board. Most of the patients that I spoke to journeyed to Glasgow, and they gave good reports of their experience and the care that they received. I do not advocate that as a long-term remedy, but if we can see shorter lists and a healthier population as a result of such initiatives, we must provide funding to achieve those aims.

In the past 10 years, we have seen the rolling closure of small hospitals across the Province. The beds that were lost were not replaced by the larger ‘golden six’ hospitals. Many of those beds were for long-term care and minor operations, which took pressure off the larger centres and provided step-down care. If that system were adopted, we would see critical care places released more swiftly, and more people would ultimately be treated. Those spaces would come at less cost to the Health Service, because they would not require the same level of medical supervision and expertise as the larger centres.

We must place the subject at the top of our agenda. Our system must ensure that we have more bed spaces, manned by well-paid and motivated personnel, to ensure that the Health Service can treat more people with appropriate, adequately resourced step-down care. In the long term, it would be cost effective, creating savings in other areas of the health budget.

In the meantime, we must purchase more high quality care from other providers, if necessary. We must not remain at the bottom of the league. We often hear the cry that certain people are second-class citizens. I ask the Minister to ensure that we do not have a second- class Health Service in Northern Ireland.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

As this is one of the last debates before suspension — although there are days yet to play for — I would like to record my concern about what happened during Question Time yesterday, when it appeared OK to beat up the Minister and hold her solely responsible for the Health Service budget. The problem will be resolved only when the Executive sit down this Thursday and make funding available not only for this area, but to address the serious issues that come up every day. The facts are well known, because of the media coverage and because Members have asked question after question.

I was disappointed. Where is the collective responsibility for the Health Service in Northern Ireland? Either the members of the Executive begin to get to grips with the issue and agree that Northern Ireland’s Health Service is of concern to all of them, or they leave Minister de Brún on her own to face the Question Time wrath of Members from other parties who feel that that is the way to get the budget increased. Members of other parties represented on the Executive should take the opportunity between now and Thursday to tell their Ministers what they said at Question Time — that they would like to see an increase in the budget.

The demand for £122 million has been put forward as an urgent requirement. As a member of the Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety, I am concerned that we will not get £122 million. We will simply go on having this debate. If the budget increase is as urgent as Members are suggesting, it should be the number one priority for Thursday’s meeting. Then we could argue whether the Executive are truly functioning or not. Certainly, having witnessed yesterday’s responses to Members’ concerns about waiting lists, I feel that the Executive’s sense of collective responsibility leaves a lot to be desired.

There are three issues. There is the issue of how Northern Ireland is faring compared to the rest of Britain, with regard to funding. It is not just about money, it is also about management and what was once called manpower, but is now called human resources. I have mentioned funding. It is extremely important for the Minister to tell us whether, with the available funding, it is realistic to think about getting the numbers down from 54,000 to 48,000, or anywhere close to the target of 39,000. If that remains a realistic target, how soon will it be met?

Other things happened that were out of the Minister’s control, such as the use of single-use instruments in tonsillectomies, which caused waiting lists to go up. Can the Minister tell us about anything else that resulted in targets not being met? Is there another explanation? There may be other explanations; but if it is not about funding alone, we need to know what other things must be factored in. Are sickness levels increasing, or is it that the longer people stay on the waiting lists, the sicker they become and the longer they take to recover? Hence, the waiting list cycle goes on. From calls made today, and on other occasions, to the Royal Victoria Hospital, I know that our regional centre is in danger of collapsing.

Theatres are cancelling operations, and a cancellation culture exists in Northern Ireland’s regional centre, where people from across the Province have urgent operations. There are two reasons for that, and a strategy must be put in place. One reason is that there are not enough anaesthetists. The trainee anaesthetists who used to want to work in the Royal after they completed their training no longer want to do so and do not stay to become consultants. The second reason is that there are insufficient intensive care beds. When will there be a framework, and when will the human resource strategy be in place?

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

I totally endorse Mr McGrady’s motion. However, I listened with a degree of political astonishment to Ms McWilliams’s remarks —

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

For the first time in his life.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

I listened to her remarks about the beating up of Ministers. I have made that point since the Assembly began: there is no collective responsibility. The Executive cannot control individual Ministers, who act as warlords in their respective Ministries, and in those circumstances they become the objects of collective criticism and attack rather than of collective support. I am surprised that that astonishes Monica McWilliams — [Interruption].

Members went through a long catalogue of deficiencies in the Health Service, but we must look at the root causes. Many Members are cheerleaders for devolution. Devolution was supposed to bring more sensitive, accountable and effective government. Yet, under devolution, standards of the health care in Northern Ireland are falling below even the indifferent standards of the National Health Service in the rest of the United Kingdom. Devolution was never properly financed from the start. Those who negotiated the Belfast Agreement were so busy with purely political and constitutional matters that they never directed their mind to the price that they ought to have demanded from central Government for taking on the responsibilities of devolved government. Devolution has enabled central Government to distance themselves from the welfare of the people of Northern Ireland. The block grant controlled by the British Exchequer simply leaves the devolved Government to divide an inadequate cake, the size of which is determined by others.

The reply to our complaints of disparity of service with the mainland will be: "How you allocate your money among competing priorities is a matter for you, not us." However, some economies and some reforms may be made. Dr Hendron and others have pointed out the need for drastic reform in the bureaucratic organisation of the Health Service and the vast amount of money that could be saved by severely pruning bureaucratic expenses, not only in salaries but in the provision of facilities that are available.

I also mention something that was taken up by a number of contributors. I shall indulge, if I may, in a bit of "beating-up" of the Minister responsible. The Minister responsible is from Sinn Féin, a party that Prime Ministers have said is inextricably linked with the IRA. The treatment of victims of the IRA and its counterparts in the so-called Loyalist organisations eats up an enormous amount of money. Every year, huge amounts of money, particularly in orthopaedics, are paid out to treat the victims of IRA and Loyalist terror, yet we have a Minister who is also given the duty of attempting to economise. For their own purposes, Central Government are willing to lay out up to £200 million on the bloody Sunday inquiry, and perhaps another £50 million to £100 million on some of the additional inquiries that are being called for. That money and other money could be used for Unionist patients, Nationalist patients and all other patients in Northern Ireland.

If we want to get the Health Service right; if we want to get our priorities right; if we really care about the welfare, economic well-being, health, and education of the people of Northern Ireland, we will have to return to real democracy, instead of a partnership between a terrible form of democracy and terrorism.

Ivan Davis (UUP, Lagan Valley)

A previous speaker mentioned that this subject has been visited many times. The topic of waiting lists has been raised in the Assembly since the Executive took office. All Members have grave concerns.

It must be accepted that the Minister cannot be blamed for a historical problem that has been with us since direct rule. However, the Minister should remember the sign on President Truman’s desk, which stated: "The buck stops here". Waiting lists are now the Minister’s ultimate responsibility, and it is up to her to provide a solution.

Last week we were told that waiting lists were at their highest level ever. That is not acceptable in a society that should pride itself on the care of those who are in ill health and who face long periods of pain and discomfort because the structures are not in place to treat them. In March 2000, over 47,000 people were awaiting elective treatment — an increase of more than 11,000 in the four years from 1996. Only last week the Minister confirmed that the figure had risen to over 54,000 by the end of June 2001 — an increase of 4·3% since March.

There has also been a huge increase in waiting times. Between 1966 and 2000, the numbers waiting for treatment for 18 months or more increased from 632 to 5,200.

The Minister has set targets for the reduction and elimination of those unacceptable figures. That is to be welcomed, but there is currently no clear indication that those targets can and will be met.

In many cases, the elderly are suffering. They are the greatest users of health care resources. That is the nature of the problem, and it will always be so. However, it is unfair that those who have been the backbone of society in the past are now suffering because of the problems of the present. The long wait to deal with matters such as cataracts and joint replacement is a scandal that must be addressed quickly.

Northern Ireland is short of specialist surgeons in orthopaedics and neurology, and the departure of even one surgeon from these specialities can cause a crisis. Over the years, the system has received additional money, but the position does not appear to have been greatly improved. It was reported in May that there was a delay of nine months even to get on to the waiting list in some specialities. It was also reported that there was a wait of nearly two years for what are described as non-emergency operations. All of that reflects badly on the current system.

Much of the problem is historical. The drive by the Conservative Government towards market economics in all aspects of society — especially in health — was ill-judged and ill-thought-out nonsense. We are paying for that folly now because we have a system that was introduced with cost-cutting priorities rather than health care factors in mind.

There has been a problem with the number of medical staff, and the long lead-in periods required for training new staff have not helped. These matters, and others, will take time to sort out. Demand for health care will always be on the increase. People are living longer, and their health care costs increase as they grow older. The birth rate is falling, and that, along with other factors, means that the costs will fall upon the narrow band of those in employment.

We must look closely at the entire health care system. It is notable that in some European countries almost twice as much of the gross domestic product is spent on health care than is spent in the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is tied to United Kingdom spending levels, but the Minister must find the means, regardless of those financial restraints, to deal with an urgent and growing problem. Pressure is mounting on the system, and the limited projected spending increases per head of the population to the end of this decade will only exacerbate the situation, with Northern Ireland falling further behind comparable United Kingdom regions.

I support the motion. I have no doubt that this issue will be a recurring theme for a long time to come.

Annie Courtney (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Foyle)

I support the motion and congratulate my Colleague Mr McGrady for proposing it.

Members have already spoken about the dramatic increase in waiting lists that may have cost people their lives. Figures recently released by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety confirm that increase. A comparison of the quarter ending June 2001 with the quarter ending March 2001 shows that the total number of patients waiting has increased by 4·3%. Over the year, comparing the end of June 2001 with the end of June 2000, the total number waiting has increased by 9·5%. Over the past year, therefore, the total number of people waiting for a hospital bed has increased by almost 10%. More than 54,000 people are waiting for treatment. That is not good enough.

We must ask how many people have suffered or have died while waiting to undergo treatment. How many family members’ lives have been affected while patients wait for vital surgery? I appreciate the fact that the Minister of Health, Bairbre de Brún, is in the House today. There is an onus on her to explain the reasons for these appalling figures and the high rise in waiting times.

I accept that the growth in the numbers awaiting elective procedures must be seen in the light of the overall increase in pressure on our hospitals. However, only last week the chairman of the Western Health and Social Services Board stated that the staff at Altnagelvin Hospital are near breaking point as they push themselves to retain high standards of service with inadequate resources. That is repeated in hospitals throughout the Province. There is no point in attempting to reduce waiting lists at the expense of the health of doctors, nurses and health professionals, who are stretched to the limit.

The Minister states that work is already underway to address the problem of waiting lists. Although I accept that that is the case, waiting lists will never be reduced without adequate resources. There is no point in appointing extra consultants in specialist areas, such as orthopaedics, if the resources are not in place to employ staff such as theatre and intensive care nurses, orderlies and other professionals who are necessary to provide back-up. At present, there are many examples in our hospitals of consultants being appointed as a cosmetic exercise because of public pressure. As other members of staff are not available, and theatre space is at a premium, consultants already in post must hand over operating sessions to allow the new employee to work. That is not acceptable. To make such appointments only fools the public and does not help the situation. The Minister must be made aware of that.

I agree that there has been historic underfunding in the Health Service. However, if we are ever going to make a serious attempt to cut waiting lists for elective surgery we must listen to the staff who are continually under pressure. They are the same people who are expected to work long hours because, for example, they have to cover sick leave. More money must be found to pay for extra staff. There is no point in a hospital owning a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner or a computerised axial tomography (CAT) scanner if the staff are only available during office hours — 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. Hospitals need to provide a 24-hour service — emergencies occur at all times.

In the Royal Group of Hospitals we can see the serious consequences of not having back-up resources. Cardiac operations have been cancelled because there have not been enough intensive care beds. A complete re-evaluation of the system must be undertaken. I support what my Colleague, Dr Hendron, said about changing the management structures. We must look seriously at that issue.

Our waiting lists are currently the worst in the United Kingdom. We must make a concerted effort to ensure that the next quarter’s report shows considerable improvement on the most recent one.

Iris Robinson (DUP, Strangford)

It is with great concern and a degree of frustration that we find ourselves debating this important issue. The fact that the topic of waiting lists for elective surgery has reached the Chamber should illustrate the serious nature of the issue and the urgent need for action. On quarterly and annual comparisons, inpatient waiting lists have increased by 4·3% and 9·5% respectively. The total number of people on the waiting list has increased by 2,251 since March 2001.

Rather than witness an increase in the quality of service, the past few years have seen the NHS and health care provision undermined and reduced. The figures released in the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety’s monitoring returns are cause for grave concern. The number of people waiting for inpatient and outpatient treatment in Northern Ireland has increased considerably. They have not only risen since the last quarter; in comparison to this time last year, in some cases, they have increased dramatically.

One of the most worrying aspects is the number of patients who are termed "excess waiters". There are people who are seeking inpatient treatment and have been waiting more than 12 months for cardiac surgery and 18 months or more for other specialist treatment. The increase of 15·8% for that group since last year is alarming.

It is particularly worrying that the Eastern Health and Social Services Board is responsible for 60% of the inpatients who are waiting for treatment, and a staggering 78% of those who are classed as "excess waiters". Of course, statistics are always susceptible to being twisted and massaged to suit one’s own point of view. In this case, however, the figures do not require any artificial enhancement.

The statistics prove that this issue must surely be addressed. The doctors, nurses and other staff servicing the NHS are under serious pressure, and we must pay tribute to all those who are doing their best to carry out their duties.

However, it is obvious that the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has failed to address the problem. It is now time for the Department to look seriously at the considerable problems that exist. The published figures show that, without an increase in the financial support given to the NHS by the Government, the service will eventually have more people waiting for treatment than are actually receiving treatment. If the necessary and resolute action to address the problem is not taken now, the service will continue to deteriorate.

Therefore, it is essential that sufficient funds are provided so that local services can meet demands for surgery. We must do all in our power to maximise what health care provision we have left.

I am sure that most, if not all, MLA’s receive a heavy mailbag of letters from their constituents every day imploring us to use our good offices to enable loved ones to get appointments with consultants. Worst of all, we often receive complaints outlining how loved ones would still be alive if they had been able to access services in time.

It is an utter disgrace that, to date, we do not even have the money in place to start the building of the new cancer hospital at the Belfast City Hospital site — especially when we consider that cancer is our number one killer, claiming more victims than strokes or chest and heart illnesses. Meanwhile, Belvoir Park Hospital has to cope with huge waiting lists and run-down hospital equipment. Unless we take the bull by the horns and dismantle the four boards and 19 trusts, this top-heavy structure will use up much-needed revenue.

The NHS needs additional, financial assistance. This Administration, like all new Administrations, takes the easy option of blaming the previous incumbents for the failures and inadequacies of the system. In Northern Ireland, the message is that any shortcomings are due to previous direct rule from Westminster. It is only a matter of time before this bluff is uncovered. Three years have passed, and we have still not addressed the problem of bureaucracy, much less any other problems. I support the motion.

Francie Molloy (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. We all agree that waiting lists have escalated over the last number of years. This trend started about 30 years ago. We need to rectify that situation. No one can stand over the long waiting lists or waiting times.

We reject the Hayes review as it has failed to deal with the problem sufficiently. It has failed to deliver any new or imaginative thinking in relation to hospitals or acute care facilities — particularly in rural areas.

However, we also have to examine the root of the problem. Like Iris Robinson, I would like to see a restructuring of the boards, but the Hayes review does not address that problem. Replacing four boards with three, or 19 trusts with a greater or fewer number of trusts will not solve the problem of bureaucracy in the system.

I agree with Mrs Robinson that each Administration blames the previous one. However, we can clearly point the finger of blame at the last Conservative Administration, which many Unionists propped up. That Administration ran down the entire Health Service over many years. There are Unionist MPs in the Chamber today who stood by over the last 30 years and allowed the Health Service to be run down by Margaret Thatcher and others in the Conservative Administration. It is quite clear as to when we fell into this rut; and we have a right to point the finger at those who are to blame.

Research also shows that other European countries, particularly the Twenty-six Counties, have reduced the problem of waiting by putting enough money in place to ensure a proper service. While all parties in the Chamber agree that we need to reduce waiting lists, we also need to agree that one of the ways to do that is to provide adequate funding for the service. We need to ensure that we have a proper service in the future. It cannot be done by people pointing to cancer services, hospitals and other services and saying that the proper money has not been put in. The money can only come from the Chamber and from the block grant — it cannot come from anywhere else.

We have missed out on opportunities under the present British Administration. They have made announcements on health every time they needed a perk for an election or for some other issue. They have put large amounts of money into the Health Service in England to eradicate problems there, but we have not got our fair share of that money. The Barnett formula has failed to deliver and failed to follow need in this particular situation. We have not got a fair share of the distribution of the money. While Mr Durkan announced a 7·2% increase in the health budget last year, in Scotland it was 12%. In England, £1 billion was invested to improve primary care. That is money being allocated for a particular reason, and if we had received our fair share we would have at least had an extra £35 million to put into the Health Service.

We need to put our money where our mouths are. The test here is whether the Executive have a collective decision-making process. Where will all the parties actually stand when the Minister of Finance and Personnel asks where they want to allocate money to? It is recognised by most parties that an injection of money is required by the Health Service. We need a collective voice today. We want the Health Service to be a priority in order to get the bulk of this year’s Budget. We want to ensure that the Health Service can provide the proper health care facility that we all want and that we all talk about. We have to meet the needs of that service, and it will only happen if we have a collective decision in the Chamber and in the Executive.

We can lay the blame and pass the buck, but at the end of the day the buck will stop at the Executive and the Assembly. The Assembly needs to be satisfied with the budgets when they come here to be approved. The Committees scrutinising the whole process need to be satisfied that enough money is going into the Health Service to allow the Minister to deal with the problem. We also need to be able to trace that money. I accept that there are certain question marks over where the money allocated to the boards and trusts ends up. I hope that the Assembly gives a very clear message to the Minister of Finance and Personnel that we want to prioritise health in the new Budget.

George Savage (UUP, Upper Bann)

There can be no doubt that a waiting list crisis exists in the Health Service. Only yesterday, in answer to a question from my Colleague, the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mrs Carson), the Minister told the House, in a document deposited in the Library, that the Southern Health and Social Services Board had a waiting list of 228 for hernia operations, with 32 people waiting more than a year. I noted that 5 patients had been waiting more than two years. With mounting disbelief I went on to read that, across the Province, 26 people had been waiting for a hernia operation for more than two years.

I mention hernia operations because, as the Minister knows, I am currently dealing with such an issue for a lady constituent from Lurgan who has been waiting for more than two years. I suppose she is one of the Minister’s statistics. She was placed on a waiting list in October 1998 and is still waiting, with no date for the operation having been set. In fact, her consultant informs me that she is still fourteenth on the list. This lady is more than a statistic. She is suffering daily discomfort and pain, to the extent that her quality of life is severely curtailed. That is the reality of waiting lists — pain and suffering.

Further searching of the Minister’s document showed that approximately 20 people had waited for more than two years for knee replacement operations, and some of the figures that were supplied yesterday, including those for heart bypass operations, were provisional. That word may be appropriate for the Minister, but it is not appropriate in a written answer to an Assembly question about a major public service. Such data should be readily available because it enables the public to judge the service they are paying for.

I urge the Minister to give serious consideration to a suggestion by my colleague, Dr Adamson, that patients who have waited for a long time be treated in European hospitals. That happens in Great Britain, where patients are transferred to France and Belgium, and it is no more expensive than treating them here.

Insufficient capacity causes long waiting lists. Hospitals in Europe have more capacity, so why not transfer long-wait patients there for treatment? After all, we are all Europeans, so why not give people the choice of going to Europe or, if they prefer, wait here on the long list.

The Minister’s paper also shows that people in Northern Ireland have a significantly longer average waiting time than people in England and Scotland in two out of four key areas. In Northern Ireland the average wait for a cataract removal is 227 days, compared with 119 days in Scotland. In Northern Ireland someone needing a knee replacement operation has a waiting time of 234 days, compared with 105 days in Scotland.

There appears to be a serious shortfall in specialisms, and I ask the Minister when and how that will be addressed. It gives me no pleasure to point that out, because I have nothing but the highest regard for the doctors and nurses who are so dedicated to our Health Service. However, the Assembly has a right to demand a better performance from our Minister when addressing the glaring issue of hospital waiting lists.

She has been in office for approximately three years, and that is just a little longer than a constituent of mine has been waiting for her operation. However, a further extension of the accident and emergency unit in Craigavon Area Hospital will open soon, and I give the Minister credit for that. It will help to alleviate some of the problems confronting that area.

I know the Minister takes the problem very seriously, but if something is not done to alleviate the situation, it will get out of hand altogether. I support the motion.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

There are two further Members to speak, and I ask both to curtail their contributions to two minutes.

Carmel Hanna (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast South)

I support the motion. The statistics are depressing. The headline rate of increase is accelerating. The three months up to June saw an increase of more than 47% of the yearly increase. If the rate of increase continues unchecked, there could be a waiting list of more than 64,000 by June 2002. The last quarter did not include the winter pressures.

The only qualitative criterion for determining whether a patient needs an operation is an assessment of clinical need. The emphasis on waiting lists distorts clinical priorities, and the pressure on acute hospitals to meet heart targets means that there has been undue emphasis on performing larger numbers of routine operations at the expense of patients who need longer, more complex and ultimately more serious operations.

Doctors with outpatients waiting for investigations such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, possibly to diagnose serious illnesses, have to resort to admitting patients into acute beds to move them up the waiting list, and that compounds the problem.

We do not live in a perfect world. If a quantitative benchmark is to be used, the length of time that a patient is on a list is a better measurement than the number of patients on a list.

The situation is not just drifting; it is out of control. On 11 September the Minister said that she was very concerned at the growth in the number of patients awaiting admission. I am sure that she is, but, with respect, she is paid to do much more than that. She went on to say that the basic problems are money, lack of investment and past underfunding. Nobody will disagree with that.

We want to know what specific proposals the Minister has put to her Executive colleagues. We need details, chapter and verse. We need to know what monitoring is taking place to ensure that the actions outlined in the framework for action on waiting lists are being implemented and monitored. If we do not know what is being measured, we do not know what actions are effective. The Minister is in a difficult position. She has a complex portfolio —

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

In my constituency there is one of the largest hospitals in Northern Ireland — the Ulster Hospital. It has repeatedly been in the news over the length of time that people have had to wait before getting medical attention or a necessary operation. A source told me just last week that the waiting time for emergency theatre treatment was three days. If someone required a bone pinned or a wound stitched, they would have to wait more than 72 hours.

I would expect the sort of scenes that patients described to me last week to have come from a war film or a Dickens novel. There were people waiting on trolleys and in corridors, and some critical surgeries were taking place in the wards alongside other patients. This situation is not only deplorable, but also deadly dangerous. Infections are rife in wards, with methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus being a killer disease that affects every hospital in the United Kingdom. The carrying-out of procedures in wards where an infection that attacks open wounds is present is unbelievable, but we can understand how desperate doctors are to administer the aid that they are trained to give.

Many people, including myself, are further angered because the Minister and the Department do not seem to know how to spend money or time wisely. We were recently told in an article that the Ulster Community and Hospitals Trust was to receive an investment of £20 million, yet the lists keep getting longer.

I was made aware yesterday of a new scheme operating in the trust area. A social worker’s assistant delivered folders to each person claiming disability living allowance. The folders contained five sections, and every time a home help, social worker or health visitor pays a call to a client, they must write the purpose of the visit on the folders. Two things have been highlighted by that: first, the money spent on the folders, dividers, paper and, not least, the petrol; and secondly that a member of staff was specifically sent out to do that job. It is a waste of money.

Much money is wasted annually on the administrative side of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. The old Newtownards Hospital is a prime example, having had many of its wards, such as the Thomas Bailie ward, turned into offices. It was converted both physically, with bricks and mortar, and also decoratively. The bill was staggering. I suggest that some of the money spent on the decor should be spent on reducing hospital waiting lists.

Bairbre de Brún (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Tá mé buíoch den Uasal Mac Bhradaigh as an rún tábhachtach seo a chur síos ar chlár. Phléigh díospóireacht an lae inniu le hábhar atá ina chúis mhór imní do mhórán daoine.

Chuir mé suim, agus mé ag éisteacht go cúramach, sna pointí a rinne an tUasal Mac Bhradaigh agus Comhaltaí eile. Is ionann cuid mhaith de na tuairimí a nochtadh agus mo chuid tuairimí féin: is cás liom daoine tinne ag fanacht ar feadh tréimhse fada le cóireáil; is cás liom na brúnna atá ag dul i méid ar ár ngéarsheirbhísí — agus ar ár seirbhísí pobail; is cás liom ár bhfoireann, a leanann leo ag cur seirbhís ghairmiúil ar fáil.

Amhail Comhaltaí, ba mhaith liom seirbhísí ardchaighdeáin soghluaiste a chur in áit; seirbhísí a bhéas ar fáil dóibh sin a bhfuil siad de dhíth orthu — nuair a bhéas siad de dhíth orthu.

Mar sin, cad é atá ag teacht idir sinn agus an chomhaisling seo?

Is eol domh go bhfuil os cionn 54,000 duine ag fanacht le hobráidí otharlainne anois. Tá imní ar mhórán acu faoin mhéid ama a ghlacfas sé go gcóireáilfear iad.

Chuir sé gliondar orm an oiread sin Comhaltaí a chluinstin agus iad ag iarraidh níos mó airgead mar mheán praiticiúil le cinntiú go ndírítear seirbhísí mar is ceart le freastal ar riachtanais ár bpobail. Is eochaireilimint í, leoga, infhaighteacht maoinithe shásúil i liostaí feithimh a laghdú.

I am grateful to Mr McGrady for tabling this important motion. Today’s debate has covered an issue of deep concern to many people in our community.

I have listened carefully and with great interest to the points made by Mr McGrady and other Members. Many of the views expressed echo my own thoughts: thoughts about the unacceptability of sick people waiting for a long time for treatment; thoughts about the increasing pressures on our acute and community services; and thoughts about our staff, who continue to provide a professional service. I am grateful to Members for stressing the value they place on health service staff.

Like other Members, I listen to constituents who value our health and social services and feel betrayed when these services are not readily available to meet their needs. I too have spoken to constituents who have to wait, often in pain or distress, for a hospital operation, or support at home. I also share Members’ desires to put in place high-quality and responsive services that will be available to support those who need them, when they need them.

What are the obstacles to achieving this shared vision? More than 54,000 people are now waiting for operations, and many are worried about how long it will be before they are treated. Members have rightly spoken about the level of human suffering that lies behind the statistics. I was particularly glad to hear so many Members calling for better resources as a practical means of ensuring that services are adequately geared to provide the level of service necessary to meet the needs of our community. The availability of adequate funding is a key element in reducing waiting lists, although as I stated yesterday, and state again today, there is an allied question of management, which we will also address.

Although this debate is focused on waiting lists, the underlying problems are much broader. Waiting lists are in some ways like a barometer registering the overall levels of pressure on our health and social services. The current high waiting lists reflect both the pressures on our services’ overall capacity and a continuing growth in emergency admissions. It is not easy to find a single cause for this. One factor is undoubtedly our ageing population; another factor may be advances in medicine that offer new therapies for previously untreatable conditions. This makes it likely that people can avail of services that were not previously available.

However, this year in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, medical activity in hospitals has increased by 9%. Increases of this magnitude are difficult to meet, and year-round trolley waits are becoming a fact of life in too many hospitals. The system is simply running too close to full capacity. Increased waiting lists are one symptom of a service that was grossly underfunded in the past. It will take some time, and a great deal of money, to address that problem. I am glad to see that Members have recognised this and made references to the effect that small, or temporary, changes in staffing levels or capacity in any given speciality can have. I am also grateful for their comments regarding historic funding decisions.

Members have also drawn attention to the situation beyond our hospitals. That is of equal concern. People, many of them elderly, are waiting at home for the support needed to maintain their independence and quality of life. Without prompt and appropriate assistance, some of these people will end up in hospital. There will be a delay in returning people to the community after hospital care because the services are not in place to support them, and that is equally worrying.

Since becoming Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety I have brought this situation to the attention of the Assembly and sought its support in tackling the underlying problems that face health and social services. Since December 1999 the Executive have found some additional funding for these vital services. However, in order to turn the corner, a sustained increase in funding over a number of years is required. The service faces some difficult choices this year. The additional resources in this year’s Budget fall far short of the bids that I submitted, as a number of Members, particularly those on the Health and Social Services Committee, have drawn out.

To make a lasting impact on waiting lists we must address the issue of capacity in hospital and community services. Given the current financial climate, I am greatly concerned — and I note that Committee members share that concern — that I will not receive the level of resources needed to bring about improvements. The situation will worsen without these resources. I am aware that the Health Service can do, and is doing, a great deal to cut waste and to operate with maximum efficiency. I support such action.

Last September I issued a comprehensive framework for action on waiting lists to improve the process. That was the first long-term strategic approach to dealing with waiting lists here. Previous reductions in waiting lists were not sustained because recurrent investment was not forthcoming. I want a sustained programme of action over a number of years to deliver long-term improvements. We need that sustained and long-term action, supported by recurrent resources, to boost service capacity and to reduce waiting lists.

I have put in place the necessary framework, but there is still a long way to go. I am glad to say that it has been possible to allocate some additional funding to reduce waiting lists. In the current year, for instance, I have been able to allocate an extra £3 million for specific action on waiting lists. In addition, last year’s non-recurrent allocation of £5 million was made recurrent, thus increasing to £8 million the total additional resources available for action on waiting lists this year.

Following the June monitoring round, I also made available to the service an extra several million pounds to strengthen community infrastructure and services. Although that money is welcome, the service needs more overall investment if it is to meet the demands placed on it. Those demands have been clearly illustrated by the very graphic personal stories that Members have today related on behalf of their constituents.

To make the required impact on waiting lists and waiting times, we must address the shortage of acute hospital capacity, particularly at peak periods. We must also deal with the under-resourcing of community care services. Against that backdrop, however, there are some rays of hope. Boards and trusts are implementing a wide range of measures to improve the management of hospital admissions and discharges. Every board has devised a comprehensive action plan to address necessary measures, and a great deal of work is being done.

For example, an additional 60 opthalmology patients have been treated as day cases in the Mater Hospital — patients who would otherwise have had to wait for treatment elsewhere. More than 200 patients have been treated in ward 8 of the Royal Victoria Hospital under an initiative by which the ward is used as an elective surgery ward for six months per year and as an emergency admissions ward for the rest of the year.

Many hundreds of people have been offered the opportunity to receive their treatment at a more distant hospital rather than continue to wait. The Eastern Health and Social Services Board has contacted 300 people on long waiting lists to offer them early treatment at Downe Hospital.

Additional cardiac surgery operations have been provided for patients who have agreed to travel to Glasgow rather than wait for treatment locally. A new angiography facility due to open soon at Altnagelvin Hospital will increase overall capacity for diagnostic testing of that nature and will help to reduce waiting times. Mobile MRI scanners operating from several locations have reduced waiting lists. I have also allocated additional funding for new supernumerary nursing posts in cardiac intensive care to support the existing staff, and to allow more nurses to get the specialised training that is needed. That will help to increase bed capacity and the number of operations carried out.

Some Members commented on the structures and organisation of the Health Service and the forthcoming review of public administration; they mentioned that those matters were dealt with by the Acute Hospitals Review Group. As Members know, I have issued a report, and consultation on it will last until 31 October. That consultation will provide the initial information and reaction that will help me to formulate proposals, which I will then discuss with my Executive Colleagues. I encourage Members, and all those with an interest in health and social services, to respond to the consultation.

Members commented on the need for overall efficiency in the service. Despite the fact that since the early 1980s the equivalent of £190 million, in today’s terms, has been removed from the Health Service’s baseline budget, it has treated almost 10% more patients in the last five years. During that time, there has been a 27% increase in the number of community care packages. In addition, the service plans to achieve savings of £12 million by the end of 2002-03 through a range of improvements, including a review of acute sector performance, improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of prescribing, improved waiting list management, improved bed management and further rationalisation of the Health Service estate.

We heard about difficulties specifically in relation to our ageing population. Kieran McCarthy was worried about discrimination on age grounds. I fully accept that there must be no discrimination on the grounds of age, gender or any other such factor. All of our services are covered by equality legislation. That means that we are bound in law to ensure that all patients are treated fairly, and that is what I would expect to happen.

Eddie McGrady talked about co-operation with the South, and I am very keen to encourage the services in the North and the South to work together. I hope that the work already undertaken by CAWT (Co-operation and Working Together for Health Gain and Well-being in Border Areas) can be built upon.

Dr Adamson and some other Members asked about the use of services in other countries. I am happy, in principle, to draw on services available elsewhere in the interests of our patients. We already make very good use of services in Glasgow, London, Dublin and other centres, as part of the overall services available to patients. There is, as Dr Adamson pointed out, the issue of how that draws money into the overall financial resources available elsewhere as opposed to here. However, we want to establish an appropriate balance and to ensure that the services that people need are accessible and readily available.

Eddie McGrady talked about decentralising services to make capacity available. I am very committed to using all of our capacity to its fullest effect. That is evidenced by the increased use of hospitals such as Lagan Valley Hospital to help tackle waiting lists in hospitals such as Craigavon Area Hospital. We are also now making better use of day facilities at South Tyrone Hospital with ophthalmology cases receiving treatment there. I am conscious of the difficulty of the availability of expert staff, and we need to be careful to avoid creating staffing problems in other centres.

A range of specific measures has been introduced to deal with the difficulties in fracture services. The Royal Group of Hospitals Trust and the Green Park Healthcare Trust have put on additional theatre lists. Additional day cases have been taken at the Ulster Hospital. Fracture lists at the Royal Victoria Hospital have been protected, and I am monitoring the situation very closely. There is a shortage of orthopaedic surgeons both here and in the overall NHS, and we are taking steps to increase the number of trainees in the speciality, although that will obviously take time. We have also recently dealt with a difficulty relating to the number of theatre nurses.

I was very grateful to Monica McWilliams for the points that she raised about collective responsibility. It was a very thoughtful contribution, which we need to keep in mind. Prof McWilliams also asked whether 39,000 is a realistic target, and I believe that it is not unless there is a substantial recurring investment in service capacity and in staff. I have repeatedly emphasised that reducing waiting lists will require a sustained effort over a number of years.

Carmel Hanna told the House that 47% of the rise occurred in the last quarter. Both she and Monica McWilliams talked about the last quarter and the factors involved. Some 60% of the increase in the last quarter — therefore some 60% the figure that Carmel Hanna told us was such a large part of the overall figure — was in the ear, nose and throat speciality. That increase can therefore largely be explained by the delays in some operations due to the directive to use single-use instruments for tonsillectomies. There were also some delays caused by the absence of key consultancy staff through illness, and others as a result of patients being transferred to the Causeway Hospital. Those last two factors were temporary and should be overcome quickly — the former less so.

Outpatient waiting lists increased due to an apparent across-the-board surge in numbers being referred to outpatient services.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I ask the Minister to bring her remarks to a close.

Bairbre de Brún (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

I recognise these difficulties. When I issued the ‘Framework for Action on Waiting Lists’ last year, I said that only long-term focused management action, coupled with new investment in the service, would improve the waiting list situation.

I have set a long-term programme of work in motion to ensure that the Health Service makes the best use of what it has and that efficiency is improved where possible. I look to the Assembly and my ministerial Colleagues to recognise the pressing need and to agree to put in place the funding necessary to ensure that health and community services are adequately resourced so that we can meet the challenges facing us in the years ahead.

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I thank all Members who participated in the debate, and particularly the Minister for the time that she has given to this problem and the detailed response that she gave in the past 16 minutes. She will undoubtedly agree that it will take some time for the lay person to digest all that she has said, and I am sure she will understand that I do not have the capacity to reply to all aspects of her response.

(Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr McClelland] in the Chair)

The main thrusts of the motion enable the Assembly to consider its collective concerns, and its view that immediate action is required. Those are the two important themes — Members’ concerns about representing community concerns, and their concerted action with, it is hoped, the Departments to bring about an improvement in the situation.

There were 15 valuable contributions made this afternoon, and it is impossible for me to reply to them all as the Minister has done. However, they had some common themes. The matter of additional funding arose in many contributions. The structures through which the Health Service delivers were strongly criticised for being ineffectual and inefficient. There was an underlying theme that no matter how much money is thrown at the problem, it will not change unless the Assembly does something urgent and dramatic. No Member said that, but that is the feeling one got from many of the contributions.

Many Members also referred to the enormous debt of gratitude owed to the medical fraternity, nursing and ancillary staff. Not only do they deserve credit for what they are doing, but they should be doubly credited for doing it under conditions that we have allowed to be imposed upon them.

Ultimately it is the patients who suffer the prolonged and unnecessary pain that I referred to in my introductory remarks. Sometimes that pain can lead to premature death, and that is what Members must strive to avoid.

I have three pages of notes that I intended to use for my response, but I have given up the prospect of doing so. However, I will nail a remark that was made by Ms McWilliams. I did not come here to bash, or gang up on, the Minister. I came here because my representative role gives me the responsibility of articulating people’s concerns. I doubly resent Ms McWilliams’s insinuation because, metaphorically speaking, she waded in in her pinstripe wellingtons to a debate to which she had not heard the introduction. The thrust of my introduction was not to bash the Minister. The thrust of my introduction was that finances are needed and we must ensure that that need is properly addressed. In addition, I would point out that the "delicate flower" of ministerial responsibility can well defend herself.

Undoubtedly the crisis with hospital and medical waiting lists is not solely about money, and I have said that time after time. Mismanagement of resources has been endemic for a long time, not just during the past three years but for longer than that. I have asked the Minister to address that problem.

In the Assembly on 17 October 2000, Minister Durkan, speaking about the Budget, said:

"In the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, the budget will grow by over £150 million (or 7·2%) to some £2·3 billion. Within this total, over £1·16 billion will be available for hospital and community health services, and £460 million will be available for personal social services.

Additional provision is also being made to address winter pressures and waiting lists, while family health services show an increase in funding of over 8%."

Even with the additional money, we still have a spiralling waiting list. We must find out if the cause is inefficient spending, misallocation or a lack of funds. I doubt if it is a lack of funds.

In November 2000, an extra £17 million — £5 million of which was carried over — was allocated to the health services. In January this year £14·5 million was given to the health services. In February 2001, £18 million of additional spending was injected into the health services. These are vast amounts of money. The figure of £18 million had been analysed by the Department of Finance and Personnel and by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety as being required. If the Departments made an assessment of what was required, they got it. Where are the funds going? Why are they not having the desired effect? It is important to remember that a further £8 million has been allocated for this year, specifically to reduce waiting lists.

Seven months have passed since the interdepartmental consultation study and review of the consequences of trust deficiencies were put in place. What progress has been made? Is it near completion, and have any conclusions been reached? These are urgent matters that require urgent answers.

There is an absence of decision making. We have consultation fatigue; we have "paralysis by analysis". No decisions have been made, and everything is under review. However, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is not alone in being in this situation. Reviews are being conducted in almost every Department, and reviews of reviews. It goes on and on.

Decisions are needed about primary care, acute care and the administrative structure of the health services. There is almost universal agreement today that there are too many trusts —19 for a population the size of Birmingham. The situation is ludicrous, and we cannot wait for reviews of public administration.

There is a lack of co-ordination. Why is Northern Ireland the only part of these isles that has not carried out an audit on the reasons for the waiting lists? An audit could tell us what factors are contributing to the waiting lists, and also whether money is being spent wisely or if a bucketful more money is needed. At least we would know what is happening.

I will finish on a parochial note. Last night in my home town five patients were lying all night in the corridors of the Downe Hospital. That is the epitome. Endemic centralisation should be reversed rapidly, and we should make use of what already exists and enhance it. Surely that is the way forward.

I am not here on a bashing exercise, nor am I here on a political platform. I am here, along with my Assembly Colleagues, to say that the Minister, fortunately or unfortunately, has responsibility for the health services. We look to her to address these issues. We plead with her, and we will back her in any way we can, to ensure that the waiting lists that are literally killing people are reduced as soon as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That this Assembly views with concern the ever-increasing waiting lists for medical and hospital treatment in our local health services, and requires immediate action to remedy this unacceptable and growing problem.

Paramilitary Activity

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

I beg to move

That this Assembly deplores the ongoing catalogue of paramilitary activity particularly from groups which are allegedly on ceasefire and which claim to accept the premise that only those committed to the use of exclusively peaceful and democratic means can participate in government in Northern Ireland; and further determines it is inconsistent and intolerable that any party associated with active terrorism continues to hold Executive positions.

I am mindful that this is possibly the last debate on the last day — at least before suspension, perhaps even for all time — of the Assembly. None the less, it is vital that the issue be dealt with before the close of business of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Assembly has been dogged by the issue since its inception, which is no small part of the reason why it faces its present problems.

I consider it a reasonably effortless task to show the Assembly that each of the main paramilitary organisations has violated the terms of its ceasefire. My task is even simpler, because I do not confine myself to their definition of a ceasefire. Rather, I will use the definition that is set down in law — namely, that parties associated with paramilitary groups and all others must show that they are committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. There are still some in this community — even after all these years — who refuse to face the reality of the violence in our midst. They still hold on to the illusion of a peace process, shutting their eyes to the violence that surrounds them. When they are pushed to come to terms with breaches of the ceasefires, we hear the hypocritical cant that "it’s better than it was 10 years ago". It follows that we are to be grateful to the terrorists for adjusting the nature and level of their terrorism. Setting for a lower level of terrorism may have led to an improvement on the streets, but that does not amount to peace, nor does it justify providing seats in Government for those who are still actively engaged in terrorism.

There are others who — almost convincingly — advise us that we are coming out of a long and sustained period of violence and that we cannot expect an unblemished record in those circumstances. They tell us that terrorism is in its death throes. That is nonsense; we must look at what is happening. We must face the fact that terrorism in Northern Ireland is cranking up — it is not winding down. Moreover, there are those at the head of Government and of policing who refuse to point the finger at the paramilitary organisations involved. They tell us that the act was probably carried out by dissident groups; they tell us that the police are still investigating the incident; they tell us that we have to consider it in the round; and they tell us that it may be the activity of mavericks, not sanctioned by the organisations themselves. Almost any excuse is made for such terrorist activity.

For some in the political world, the highest legal standard of proof and evidence is required before an organisation can be blamed for anything. Yet, it seems that they do not require the same high legal standard for infractions perpetrated by "the other side". I suspect that even an admission from the terrorist organisations would not cause those people to act as if those organisations had been in breach.

There are some in this community who, when their colleagues carry out their terrorist activities — in violation of the declared ceasefires of those organisations — and are arrested, demand a higher legal standard of proof and evidence. Indeed, those people demand more human rights for the terrorists than the terrorists themselves accord when they wear balaclavas and meet their victims in the backstreets of Belfast and other cities and towns in Northern Ireland. That is the reality.

Some things become obvious when we look at the breaches of the ceasefires and the catalogue of incidents. The first is that the failure of the exclusion mechanism has given the IRA the message that it can — literally — get away with murder. The failure to hold Sinn Féin/IRA to account and to remove it from government has shown that there are parties in the House that are afraid of the consequences of the safeguards that they signed up to in the Belfast Agreement.

Events have also shown that the legislation was not only ineffective, but incomplete. Members had an instrument with which to punish Sinn Féin/IRA, had they chosen to use it. However, there was no mechanism to deal with parties that were not in government if the paramilitary group with which they were associated breached its ceasefire, especially if they were not in the Assembly itself.

Because of the higher standard required for participation in government, the failure to deal with Sinn Féin/IRA has been the central problem. The SDLP, and even the Ulster Unionist Party, must take the rap. Both parties have failed to vote on the violations of the IRA ceasefire during all the years of this Assembly. The greatest difficulty — particularly for Ulster Unionists — is that they went through the referendum telling the people of Northern Ireland that they had the issue covered and that, no matter what Sinn Féin/IRA might do, they would get it thrown out of the Executive, if it turned to violence. Moreover, they convinced some people in Northern Ireland that they had a belt-and- braces provision. If the SDLP did not answer the call and fulfil an explicit commitment in the agreement by throwing Sinn Féin out, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party had a letter from the Prime Minister.

The letter said that if those measures proved to be ineffective, the Prime Minister would propose some changes. Many of us said that the letter meant only that such changes would be proposed to co-signatories to the agreement. If two of the parties to the agreement had already refused to comply, it was unlikely that they would agree with any proposal that the Prime Minister might make. The weakness of the Ulster Unionist Party is that it has never actually triggered that mechanism. The party never voted to exclude Sinn Féin and thereby test the Prime Minister on whether he would propose a provision that would ensure that those who were engaged in violence would be excluded from government.

Why has there been no action against Sinn Féin/IRA? Is the case for exclusion marginal? Is there a shortage of evidence? That is not the case.

First, the loyalist paramilitaries, who receive less attention in the House on this issue, because they are not in government have indisputably breached their ceasefires. That was seen most graphically and tragically when the two organisations went to war with each other. Hundreds of so-called punishment shootings and beatings have been carried out by both Loyalist paramilitary groups. Given the frequency and the geographical pattern of the attacks and the co-ordination required, all one’s intelligence, judgement and senses would have to be suspended for one to believe that the ongoing attacks on Roman Catholic homes with pipe bombs and other missiles were the work of anything other than a major Loyalist paramilitary group. Equally, the bomb left in Ballycastle could not conceivably be the work of anyone other than a member of one of those paramilitary organisations. Those attacks must be condemned without any verbal or mental reservation.

It is a sick irony that the groups responsible were among the most enthusiastic advocates of the so-called peace process and the Belfast Agreement. That the behaviour of Loyalist paramilitary groups does not directly impact on the functioning of government has meant that they are under less scrutiny and, I suggest, less pressure than their violent acts deserve.

What should we make of the behaviour of Sinn Féin/IRA? They have representatives in government and are bound by the terms of the Belfast Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to employ exclusively democratic and peaceful means of effecting change. They broke their first ceasefire and re-engaged in a campaign of bombing and shooting, murder and carnage. Even while signing up to the Belfast Agreement, they were involved in the planning of the massive bomb attack on London. That shows their sincerity.

Since the reinstatement of their ceasefire on 20 July 1997, the IRA has been responsible for 170 so-called punishment shootings and 250 paramilitary beatings. In July 1997, the IRA was involved in the preparation of a major robbery in the Republic of Ireland. Provos were arrested while staking out the Allied Irish Bank headquarters in Dublin. In January 1998, the IRA murdered a well-known Loyalist, Jim Guiney. He was gunned down in his carpet shop in Dunmurry. In February 1998, the IRA murdered 38-year-old Loyalist Robert Dougan, again in Dunmurry. In February 1998, the IRA, using its DAAD cover name, murdered Brendan Campbell. They claimed that he was a leading drug dealer. In July 1998, 33-year-old Andrew Kearney from New Lodge in north Belfast was shot by the IRA. After the shooting, they jammed the lifts, and he bled to death. It transpired that Mr Kearney had been shot because he had got the better of a local IRA hero in a fight.

In January 1999, author and former IRA man turned informer Eamon Collins was beaten to death by the IRA in Newry, County Down. In May 1999, the IRA murdered Brendan ‘Speedy’ Fegan. They again justified their action by claiming that he was a leading drugs dealer. They shot him dead in a bar in Newry. In June 1999, the IRA murdered Paul Downey. Once again, they claimed that he had been a prominent drugs dealer. In June 1999, Martin McGartland, an RUC agent who infiltrated the IRA, narrowly escaped with his life after being shot in Whitley Bay, Northumbria, by IRA members. I have a copy of a letter sent to Mr McGartland by Northumbria police. It shows that they had arrested Henry Fitzsimmons and Scott Gary Monaghan, two well known Provisional IRA members, and that they were regarded as responsible for the attempt to kill Martin McGartland. However, even with all of that evidence, the Secretary of State considered that in the round there had been no breach of the IRA ceasefire or the terms of the Belfast Agreement.

In July 1999, the IRA abducted and murdered Charles Bennett, a New Lodge man. Also in July, the men arrested, and convicted in connection with the importation of arms from Florida were shown to be members of the Provisional IRA. It was proven that that activity was sanctioned at the highest level of the Provisional IRA. I will come back to that issue in my winding-up speech. Clearly, those men were members of the Provisional IRA. On the Noraid Internet site, they are described as IRA prisoners in an American jail. An article in ‘GQ’ magazine shows clearly the links between the Provisional IRA and those who were arrested, and asserts that they were part of an IRA gun running escapade. It is interesting that that activity was being planned at the same time as the organisation’s representatives were sitting down with Senator George Mitchell and telling him how sincere they were about trying to achieve progress on decommissioning. While they were telling the senator that they were serious about decommissioning, they were importing guns from the United States to increase their stockpile of weaponry.

In August 1999, the IRA deported five men from Dungannon and one from Belfast for what they judged to be antisocial behaviour. I suppose that they consider their murdering and gunrunning to be civil and convivial. In October 2000, the IRA murdered Real IRA man, Joe O’Connor, in Ballymurphy, west Belfast. In April 2001, the IRA used the usual excuse of drug dealing to justify murdering Christopher O’Kane in Londonderry. In May 2001, the IRA again murdered someone who, it claimed, was a drug dealer. The victim, that time, was Paul Daly from Belfast. He was shot in front of his family.

In April 2001, Londonderry man, Gerald McFadden, from Rathlin Gardens in the Creggan estate was charged after he was found to have personal details of senior RUC officers. He has since been convicted of that offence. That demonstrates that the IRA was engaged in the targeting of RUC officers and that, once again, it was in contravention of the explicit requirement to use only peaceful and democratic means. In June 2001, the Provisional IRA raided Belfast docks and stole about £4 million. Also in June 2001, the IRA raided the house of an arms dealer in Athlone, County Westmeath. The attackers threatened him, tied up his wife and children, and stole over 100 shotguns, rifles and a quantity of ammunition.

In August 2001 came Colombia, another effort by the Provisional IRA to secure the peace process. I will deal with that issue in my winding-up speech. That was an added embarrassment for Sinn Féin, because all three men involved had party connections. According to the Government of their friend, Fidel Castro — to whom Mr Adams is soon going out to talk — one of the men, Connolly, was the accredited representative of Sinn Féin in Cuba and, no doubt, in South America. I have said James Monaghan was on the brigade staff at the headquarters of the Provisional IRA. He is their well-known chief engineer and bomb maker. Such an individual would not have been a freelancer; he was on a mission sanctioned by the so-called Army Council of the Provisional IRA. They tried to tell us that those boys were really on holiday. I can think of more attractive places in which to holiday than the malaria-stricken jungles, where the opportunities for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to kidnap or kill must be greater than anywhere else in the world. Clearly, the Provisional IRA, at the very highest level, sanctioned that mission.

I cannot say anything about the arrest of IRA leader, Eddie Copeland, in north Belfast, as the matter is before the courts. I could have spoken of many other IRA failures to maintain its ceasefire. One wonders, after hearing that catalogue of events, what the IRA must do before the House imposes sanctions on Sinn Féin/IRA. I hope, in what may be the last act before the suspension of the Assembly, that the House will not again dodge the issue and that it will support the motion.

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

One amendment to the motion has been selected and has been published in the Marshalled List of Amendments. Many Members have expressed a wish to speak, so I must limit Mr Attwood to 10 minutes and all other Members to five minutes.

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

I beg to move the following amendment: Delete all after "activity" and insert

"and calls on all parties who profess to be committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means to unequivocally repudiate any and all such violence and to call on all paramilitary groups to give real effect to the decommissioning provisions of the Good Friday Agreement."

If we — and certain illegal organisations — so choose, the events of the past summer can enable us to deal conclusively with illegal weapons on this island. If some fail to choose that option, they will be failing to acknowledge and accept the impact of the still unfolding events of recent days in the United States, Latin America, Ireland and in the communities that we represent. If some fail to choose that option, they will miss the beat of the people of this part of the world. They will also miss the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to events in other parts of the world. Decommissioning would confirm that we are moving beyond conflict at a time when others seem to be moving towards greater conflict.

All of us have, or should have, real concerns about the conduct of more than one, or indeed all, of the illegal paramilitary groups that are still active on this island. The attitude of some inside and outside the Chamber to illegal organisations now and in the past has been informed by their worst fears. That is a valid and genuine perspective, but it is one that paramilitary organisations and their advocates dismiss with the ritual recitation that "the guns are silent". That is not always the case, and that is not their only obligation. If the worst has been done to someone’s family or community by an illegal organisation, their fears will inform their judgements about the nature and intentions of that organisation. If evidence exists that discredits that organisation’s claims, mistrust will prosper. That is not to give succour to leaders who alarm their communities or constituencies; I say that to acknowledge the real anxiety in those communities about their future on an island that is changing enormously but which contains illegal organisations which, they feel, have not changed enough.

There are others inside and outside the Chamber who have experienced the realisation of their worst fears in the years of violent conflict and who have consciously sought to allow their judgements about illegal organisations to be informed a little more by their best hopes. Others have attempted to understand the transition that those organisations and those associated with them have tried to make from unambiguous support for armed struggle to exclusively peaceful and democratic means of conducting political affairs. That is a difficult political and moral line to walk. It becomes longer and more difficult to walk when evidence emerges that organisations have acted in a way that is contrary to a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means of conducting political affairs. That is the context for those of us who have expressed and maintained confidence in the ceasefires of various organisations.

Contexts and politics change. Today the context is the unfolding events of recent weeks and months, set against the backdrop of the uncertain and difficult years since the Good Friday Agreement. The new context and the continuing doubts about, and dangers to, the agreement now require a further response. If illegal organisations do not acknowledge the impact of recent threats and terror in the North on our political situation, or the mistrust arising from events in Latin America, or the parallels and consequences of attacks on commercial, civilian and military targets at home or abroad, recently or in the past, they will contribute to an environment wherein the worst fears can gather and the best intentions can fracture.

To rehearse tired and tested responses to the need to put weapons verifiably and completely beyond use, without appreciating the changed and changing local and international environment and the extent of the investment in the Good Friday Agreement, is to ignore unfolding events. If any political party professing commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means fails to repudiate unequivocally violence, it contributes to the environment wherein worst fears inform, not merely the judgement of political leaders, but the judgement of the wider community.

There has been ambiguity about sectarian attacks and evasiveness about events in Latin America. There have been parades with ranks of people in balaclavas and articulation of the grievances of one community, coupled with silence about the grievances of the other. None of that aids the resolution of the issue of illegal weapons, nor does saying — rightly — that our best response to events in America is to make our agreement work, while failing to recognise that illegal organisations and their past or present conspiracies and actions, at home or abroad, are at the heart of the threat to that agreement.

The UDA and UFF ceasefire does not exist in any meaningful way. The six UDA and UFF commanders are not likely to meet and declare their ceasefire over, but in at least half of their command areas, and in more than half of their areas of influence, the ceasefire has been breached — and that breach is systemic, to borrow the words of the Secretary of State. The situation requires both political and security responses. First, the UDA should be made aware that in the event of its ceasefire being redesignated, all its command areas will be affected. Secondly, the full weight of the law should be brought to bear on those persons — on licence or not — involved in threat or terror, particularly those directing the operations of the UDA and the UFF. The police must be — and be seen to be — more interventionist in bringing the full force of the law to bear on those carrying out activities that are anti-Catholic, anti-Nationalist, anti- agreement and anti-change.

Yesterday, with regard to the IRA ceasefire, John Hume said:

"Given the current international atmospheres, could I say directly to Sinn Féin please do all that you have to do now and all that you actually can do by taking the necessary actions to ensure that all weapons are put completely beyond use".

That was a request to respond to the particular circumstances of this week. It should be heeded. The IRA will make a monumental error of judgement if it concludes that if it hunkers down and keeps its head down, events will pass it by, and people will return to it on more tolerable terms than might otherwise be the case. The IRA will commit a further error of judgement if it concludes that its engagement with the de Chastelain commission is an adequate or convincing response to that requirement.

Although the media and the political leadership has its doubts, and the world sees the issue of terror more single-mindedly than before, the IRA may think that that will pass and that people will support the movement again. It may conclude that such isolation will be much as it was in the past: the IRA has been there, done that, survived it and come back stronger. If that is what the IRA concludes, it will have misread the shifts on this island and elsewhere. The sooner that that is recognised, the better it will be for the agreement, for all our citizens and for all of us who are responding creatively and purposefully to the unfolding events in a world that is smaller, more intimate and more familiar — but also more vulnerable — than at any time in history.

Some will refer to a series of real or alleged breaches of the Good Friday Agreement and failures of implementation to explain why weapons have not been put completely and verifiably beyond use. The Unionist political leadership will be blamed for its failure to lead. There is some truth in that, but it ignores the wider unease in pro-agreement unionism about the IRA’s intentions.

David Trimble (UUP, Upper Bann)

When he moved the motion, Mr Robinson made it clear that it was directed against all paramilitaries, and I was glad to hear his condemnation of Loyalist violence. Although there are reasons to focus on the Republican movement’s activities, this side of the House should make its condemnation of Loyalist violence clear.

The motion refers to a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means, which is one of the fundamental principles of the agreement. Two words that are used in the motion are also significant: "inconsistent" and "intolerant". It is asserted that violent activity is inconsistent with a commitment to peaceful means and to holding office. The motion is absolutely right in principle.

I made it clear in my first speech to the Assembly in July 1998 that those who signed up to the agreement and its implementation would give people the opportunity to change. I shall not quote everything that I said, but I recall that I said that if people had a past it did not mean that they could not have a future. However, they were required to demonstrate change. I have returned to that point many times since, most recently in December 2000, when I said that there could not be a moral vacuum at the heart of the process.

We are engaged in a transition, and in the course of that transition we will hold people to the promises that they have made. I have held the Republican movement to its promises, and it was because Republicans failed to implement their promises that I imposed sanctions on them, first by preventing their attendance at North/South Ministerial Council meetings, and secondly by triggering the present crisis through my resignation.

The Ulster Unionist Party has been clear about the principles. We have given people opportunities, but opportunities are also a challenge. I say to the Republican movement as firmly as I can that there has been a litany of Republican activities over the past few years, as Mr Robinson laboriously set out, culminating in what did happen and what may have happened in Colombia. Those events, the Republican movement’s reaction to them and its failure to deal with them have destroyed its credibility. That does not mean that the situation is irretrievable. However, for the situation to be retrieved, the Republican movement must move urgently to rebuild that credibility. It must do that now, quickly and convincingly.

It would be intolerable for the present situation to continue indefinitely — indeed, it will not. As Mr Robinson noted, this might well be the last time that we debate this issue in the Assembly. It may well be that, come this weekend, the Sinn Féin Ministers will be turned out of office. Unfortunately, others will suffer the same fate. If that happens, it will not be because of this motion, or because of any posturing — it will happen because of the actions that my Colleagues and I have taken. Also, to be fair, it will happen because Tony Blair did effect change. Reference was made to his promise to propose change. He went further; he made changes, and they will take effect this weekend unless certain things are done by Republicans.

The amendment is worthy of consideration. It challenges paramilitaries to give real effect to the decommissioning provisions of the agreement. I welcome the amendment because it is important that that challenge be put. Consequently, my Colleagues and I will support the amendment. If the amendment fails, we will support the original motion. At this stage, it is important that we concentrate on what has to be done and what people should do — even if there is not that much prospect of its happening. As a result of that, other action will be taken in the next few days and weeks.

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat. In the Good Friday Agreement, all parties reaffirmed their commitment to

"the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations."

They also confirmed their intention to

"continue to work constructively and in good faith with the Independent Commission, and to use any influence they might have to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years following endorsement in referendums North and South of the agreement and in the context of the implementation of the overall settlement".

I repeat:

"in the context of the implementation of the overall settlement."

That is the agreement that Sinn Féin is wedded to. Sinn Féin is absolutely committed to resolving our conflict by democratic and peaceful means. There is a collective responsibility on all parties to the agreement to resolve the issues, and Sinn Féin has told the Governments and other parties to go back and read the agreement. I note the telling omission of any recognition of this salient reality from the amendment, so I remind the SDLP of that fact once again. Of course, Mr Trimble has constantly misrepresented the agreement on this matter. It is of particular regret that the SDLP, by this ill- conceived amendment, has today given credence to that — perhaps inadvertently, perhaps because it is still reacting to recent election results, or because it is preoccupied with internal party matters.

This year, Loyalists have carried out over 200 bomb attacks on Catholic homes, businesses and churches. Loyalists have shot dead two young men in recent weeks and have created a blockade to prevent Catholic primary school children from going to school in north Belfast. Last weekend, Loyalist murder gangs again attempted to kill Catholics. If the process is to succeed, the two Governments and all the parties that signed the agreement must defend the agreement. It is the template for dealing with the matters that still need to be resolved as part of the conflict resolution process, including the issue of arms.

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement the British Government are committed to delivering on several key issues, including the creation of a representative policing service that is fully accountable for its actions and free from partisan, political control, a fair and impartial system of justice, effective structures to safeguard human rights, economic, social, cultural and political equality and the demilitarisation of our society. They have not delivered on those.

Sinn Féin has a vision for the future that goes beyond present difficulties. That means facing up to rejectionists, sceptics and cynics in the British political establishment as well as rejectionist Unionism. It means facing up to the reality that the paramilitary threat to the process comes from Loyalist, Unionist guns.

We have a significant common responsibility. We were elected to provide leadership that would represent the diversity of our society. We are leaders with a mandate to lead our community out of conflict and into a new and more democratic political dispensation. When we signed the Good Friday Agreement, we accepted that there were matters on which we could not, at that point in our history, reach agreement. We accepted pragmatically that we should either take the necessary time to develop sufficient mutual trust to move forward or that independent bodies should be set up to deal with such matters. That proposition is as valid now as it was in May 1998, when it received powerful endorsement from the people of Ireland. The motion was tabled by a party that failed the test of commitment to democratic dialogue during the negotiations. It would be unfair to accuse the DUP of having lost the plot with regard to the peace process — it was clearly always out of its depth.

I see no value in following the DUP agenda. It knows that the motion cannot achieve its objectives, because it has no effect on policy and no binding authority. Its only purpose is to harden hearts that were already too hard. It is a divisive motion that reflects only the sad vision of its authors. The DUP will, no doubt, refuse to discuss the sectarian attacks on Catholic schoolchildren on the streets of Ardoyne. We can see members of the DUP standing shoulder to shoulder with the UDA in Glenbryn, as they did in Harryville, in order to promote and prolong sectarian tensions and violence.

The SDLP’s amendment, much like its arguments on post-Nationalism or its decision to cave into Unionist and British demands on policing boards, demonstrates clearly why Sinn Féin is now the largest Nationalist party. The amendment abandons the collective responsibility spelt out in the Good Friday Agreement and refuses to acknowledge that, in May 2000, we agreed on the need for consistency in the agreement. We agreed a route out of our divisions. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Séan Neeson (Alliance, East Antrim)

My party also submitted an amendment, but it will support the SDLP’s amendment. Once again, the institutions are under threat, and we must ask ourselves why. The answer lies in the refusal by paramilitaries – Republican and Loyalist – to put illegal arms verifiably beyond use. I ask paramilitaries whether their armed struggles have been ended or merely suspended. Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries must answer that question.

Is the Good Friday Agreement a means to an end or is it a settlement that secured the support of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland? Unfortunately, paramilitarism is still with us. There are those who want to control territory and achieve their own selfish ends with bullets to the arms and legs and severe beatings with pickaxes.

There are those who carry out murders and bomb attacks because of their blatant hatred of their fellow citizens. There is clear evidence that those who are officially on ceasefire have been involved in serious violence, including murder and murder attempts. They include the IRA, UDA, UFF, UVF and LVF. It now appears to be acceptable for Protestants to murder Protestants and for Catholics to murder Catholics. It seems to have become acceptable.

The reaction to last week’s carnage in the United States demonstrates the democratic world’s total abhorrence of international terrorism. Is it any wonder that the vast majority of Members treat with contempt the excuses for the presence of three Irish Republicans in Colombia? That cannot be dismissed as the dying embers of paramilitarism. Loyalist and Republican paramilitarism has been allowed to become institutionalised in Northern Ireland. Is it not ironic that the police have now become the targets of Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland?

The DUP’s motives in tabling this motion are questionable, especially as DUP members have shared platforms with Loyalist paramilitaries and have also been present at Loyalist memorials. Such scenes have been captured by cameras on many occasions. Are they democrats, or do they want to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have been involved in some of the worst atrocities in Northern Ireland? Time is running out; it is now time for the paramilitaries on all sides to deliver their illegal arms and weapons. That was what was agreed in the Good Friday Agreement.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

The events of the past week have highlighted a principle that is fundamental to democracy — there must be a clear separation between democracy and terrorism. That means that no political party associated with terrorism should be permitted into any form of government that purports to be democratic. That principle must be applied equally to Sinn Féin and to parties in the Assembly that represent so-called Loyalist terrorist organisations, although my comments will be primarily directed at Sinn Féin.

What is the true political character of Sinn Féin? That question can be easily answered using the party’s publications and statements. Sinn Féin is committed to the Armalite and the ballot box. There are three fundamental features of the Armalite-and-ballot-box strategy. The first is that the political activity of Sinn Féin in the context of that strategy can never be construed as a renunciation of violence. In fact, it is a form of political activity that is meant to support and legitimise violence. The second point is that this Armalite-and- ballot-box strategy is not a localised strategy; it is a strategy that links into a global network of international terrorism. It is beyond dispute that the IRA has long established links and connections with Basque terrorists in Spain, the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the Middle East and the FARC terrorists in Colombia. The international network of terror to which the IRA is connected is supported by a number of rogue states, particularly — in the case of the IRA — by Libya, which supplied it with a huge arsenal of arms in the 1980s. Those arms have been kept secure by the IRA in the Republic of Ireland, where the authorities have never been able to find them.

The political activity of Sinn Féin, the political wing of this so-called Republican movement, is again linked into that network of international terrorism. For example, Amyee Hernandez, the spokesperson for Fidel Castro, said on 17 August that Niall Connolly, now in a Colombian jail, was the official representative of Sinn Féin in Cuba.

The question that we must ask in assessing the true character of this party, and therefore its suitability for involvement in any democratic institution, is what is it that cements its connection with international terrorism? The answer is anti-capitalism, fanaticism and a hatred of the United States, which was manifest in the ‘Republican News’ on 12 September, the day after the appalling acts of terrorism in the United States. An article in ‘Republican News’ actually asserted that the United States was itself responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East and Colombia. It was precisely that hatred that motivated those who drove the planes into the two towers and the Pentagon.

That strategy is absolutely incompatible with democracy. The relationship between democracy and terror is a one-way relationship. Terrorism corrupts democracy. The whole so-called peace process and the institutions are based on the opposite assumption that, somehow or other, the democratic process could democratise terrorism. That was the assumption, and the best possible reading that can be given of the UUP leader’s concessions to Nationalism. However, Mr Trimble now knows that he was wrong and that there is no integrity despite what he has just said, in this movement, which is inextricably wedded to violence. The refusal to decommission arms is the litmus test of that.

It was not only Mr Trimble who operated under the false apprehension that, somehow or other, democracy could democratise terrorism. The whole process was sustained by the soon-to-be ex-leader of the SDLP. Anyone who has a heart for democracy in Northern Ireland will be delighted that this man is, I hope, beginning his exit from the political stage.

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

The Member’s time is up.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I support the amendment. There is no question but that we must address the unacceptable level of paramilitary activity, be it Republican or Loyalist. At the same time, we must encourage people to remain committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. As David Trimble has said, we must encourage people to adopt those means.

In Northern Ireland we have a special understanding of what has happened in the United States. We must use that understanding as an opportunity to move our own peace process forward. Every one of us has a responsibility to do that, and that includes using our influence to urge the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons. We should use our influence to combat sectarianism and bigotry at all levels of society. For example, we should get a police force that is representative of our communities. I urge all the relevant parties to respond positively to the Secretary of State’s call to nominate to the Policing Board. We need a well- resourced, highly motivated police service to tackle lawlessness.

We must also confront the problems of sectarianism and sectarian violence. We are still living with them. We have not tackled them, and it is our responsibility to do so. Political leadership is essential. We must never forget that the politics of division at leadership level leads to division at street level, so it is important that we, as politicians, act responsibly in word and deed. There is nothing to be gained by using this Chamber for political point scoring. We need to be involved now in collective, inclusive negotiations.

The South Africans suggested that if the chemistry does not work between parties or personalities, we should find personalities between whom the chemistry will work, personalities who will find understanding, so that there will be a new dynamic in the process. Above all, we want to continue to encourage people to remain committed to the peace process. That is essential. In his opening remarks, Mr Peter Robinson said that we were settling for a lower level of terrorism. That is not the case. We are moving out of conflict. That is what the peace process is about. We have come far, but what we need now is political stability. We cannot afford instability. We cannot afford a political vacuum. Not so long ago, we were held up as an example of how mediation can help to resolve conflict. We must continue to show the world that it can be done. We can work problems out through meaningful engagement and dialogue. We were getting there; we are getting there.

We have the means, in the Good Friday Agreement, to live peacefully together. We must fully implement that agreement. If we let it go, we let hope go. We must never do that. That is why I look forward to seeing every Member back in the Chamber, if not next week, then sometime very soon.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

The hypocrisy of David Trimble is truly mind-boggling. He condemns the UVF and the UDA — they do need some condemning — but he used them to get the capacity to sign the Belfast Agreement. He was photographed flanked by them, among his supporters. He also used their votes to be elected to the office of First Minister. They were useful then.

From the beginning, my party has said that there must be no truck of any kind and no political intercourse with the representatives of terror, whether they be Sinn Féin, the UDA, the UVF or others. The purpose of the Belfast Agreement was never the creation of a democratic political settlement. It was about resolving the conflict between the British state and violent Republican terrorism, in order to protect the British mainland from a bombing campaign. It was cynical, but that was the purpose. That is why all Members of the Assembly must know that breaches of the ceasefires by Sinn Féin/IRA, the UDA or the UVF, no matter how blatant they are, will never be determined as such by the Secretary of State. The ceasefires are necessary to keep Sinn Féin/IRA in the process. Without ceasefires the process is not worth a penny candle, from the British political point of view.

It is necessary for Sinn Féin/IRA to retain its weaponry, because that is the accelerant that ensures that the British Government, fearful of attacks on the mainland, adhere to a policy of movement to a united Ireland. The British Government will never find that any of those terrorist groups is in breach of its ceasefire. In fact, they are so cynical that they dismiss murders such as that of Charles Bennett by the IRA as matters, as one NIO civil servant put it, of internal housekeeping.

The Assembly must face the fact that these terrorist groups have no place in any assembly or institution of democratic government. Sinn Féin/IRA never signed up to the decommissioning of weaponry. Sinn Féin made it plain in the 24 hours before the agreement was signed that it would walk if that requirement were made. Mr Trimble knew that, but he went on and signed a meaningless agreement, an agreement that he knew would enable Sinn Féin/IRA to remain within this allegedly democratic process.

The time has now come for everyone to face up to its failure.

A lot of sentimental expressions and the voicing of almost totally meaningless, lofty sentiments, such as those repeatedly expressed by Jane Morrice, will take us nowhere. The harsh reality of what happened in New York was a lesson learnt from the IRA. The IRA was capable of bringing a world democracy, with the fourth largest economy, to a policy of abject appeasement to protect itself. Why should Osama bin Laden and others not follow its example? Such people have no place in any form of democratic institution. That also applies to those murderous people, whose political representatives are not here today, from the Loyalist section of terrorism, who are persecuting the Catholic community — their representatives should not be in any form of democratic institution.

I support the motion.

David Hilditch (DUP, East Antrim)

I too support the motion, and I thank the proposer for bringing the matter to the Floor. It is unacceptable that any party associated with active terrorism should continue to hold Executive positions. It might be helpful if some Members from the Ulster Unionist Party who have still to speak could enlighten us and elaborate on the comments of Mr Trimble with regard to what exactly the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, has done to bring this matter to a conclusion.

I quote from page 3 of the Policing Plan for Northern Ireland 1999-2000:

"While most paramilitary organisations are on ceasefire, they retain a capacity for sustained violence" —

and —

"Racketeering and paramilitary assaults remain a scourge in a civilised society, while the increasing fear of the influence of drugs, particularly in the youth culture, is a growing cause of anxiety."

That is evidence that while the Secretary of State chooses to ignore blatant breaches of the so-called ceasefire, the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, in his policing priorities, quite clearly sees the activities of paramilitary groups allegedly on ceasefire as a major threat to public order and a source of public concern. Indeed, the plan, under the heading of "Protecting the Community from Terrorism and Alleged Criminal Activity", lists one of its main objectives as being:

"to counter the terrorist threat on behalf of the community and bring to justice those responsible for terrorist crime."

The Chief Constable’s report for 2000-01 states that

"Paramilitary activity persists, even by mainstream terrorist organisations. These organisations, although they continue to adhere to their definition of a cessation of military operations, have continued to engage in a whole range of criminality. They still retain their weapons and thus the capacity to kill, injure and terrorise. The people of Northern Ireland have endured enough of this malevolence over the past 30 years and it serves no cause whatsoever except the evil purposes that these individuals and groups seek to pursue for their own wicked and selfish reasons."

Members will no doubt have picked up on the reference to mainstream terrorist organisations and the cessation of military operations, which points clearly to IRA/Sinn Féin — Members of this House by day and also members of a terrorist organisation continuing to engage in a whole range of criminality.

Punishment attacks have continued to increase, and the intensity of the attacks continues to shock and leave the community feeling violated. The number of so-called paramilitary-style punishment attacks has increased by 145 in 2000-01 when compared to the previous year. These range from kneecappings to elbows, wrists and ankles being shot to a bloody pulp. People are beaten with hurley sticks and baseball bats studded with nails, and with iron bars and bricks. This is the kind of justice that Sinn Féin/IRA offers the people of Northern Ireland. It speaks of human rights, equality and justice and offers kangaroo courts as an alternative.

The Belfast Agreement has become no more than a political cover for terrorist godfathers carrying out their dastardly deeds on a daily basis. But is it really good enough to expect law-abiding citizens to suffer the indignity of having to endure a terrorist in the Executive of the Assembly and his cohorts on the Floor of the House as part of the Government here at Stormont? They orchestrate a policy of ethnic cleansing in north Belfast, similar to the one that we have endured in the border counties over the last 30 years. This is the democracy that Sinn Féin/IRA has to offer the Protestant people of Northern Ireland.

Sinn Féin/IRA is here under false pretences. It believes that it has an entitlement to places in the Government of Northern Ireland and at the same time an entitlement to wage war upon its citizens and to terrorise, racketeer, carry out punishment beatings, control drug lords and pollute our young people.

How can any right-thinking person believe that the presence of such a group in the Assembly can be an asset to the community? It is to the Assembly’s shame that it has remained for so long, but it has been tried and found wanting. It has been exposed by the gunrunning incident in Florida, by the Colombian escapade and by its connections with Middle East and north African terrorists.

A journalist for the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ wrote

"when the men who had done terrible things to their fellow citizens were streaming through the rusty turnstiles outside the Maze Prison the Secretary of State, then Peter Mandelson, said it was a bitter pill for people to swallow".

Today the pill has generated bitterness; that is proof of the pudding. The Chief Constable has voiced his concerns. The increased number of attacks by paramilitary groups on cessation speaks for itself as does the determination of IRA/Sinn Féin to hold on to its weapons.

The ethnic cleansing of areas such as Whitewell, West Circular, Ainsworth Avenue, Glenbryn, Twaddell Avenue, Oldpark, the lower Shankill, the Newtownards Road and the Albertbridge Road were all orchestrated by Sinn Féin/IRA in an attempt to force further concessions on decommissioning. That shows that street agitation is more important to Sinn Féin/IRA than anything the Assembly will ever decide.

The facts speak for themselves. Sinn Féin/IRA is here under false pretences and has not been committed to exclusively peaceful means.

Sean Farren (Social Democratic and Labour Party, North Antrim)

At the Lammas Fair in Ballycastle a few weeks ago a crude but massive car bomb was diffused. Had it not been diffused it is likely that a tremendous fire would have swept through the crowded, narrow streets of the town and that Ballycastle would have experienced a tragedy proportionate to the horrific events witnessed in New York last week. Ballycastle was spared that prospect, but those who planned, constructed and placed that car bomb were as contemptuous of human life as those who planned and executed the horrific events in the United States.

The Ballycastle bomb was claimed by a group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders. This bomb was another in a long list of incidents that have taken place across north and south Antrim, east Derry and elsewhere over the past year. In north Antrim the targets have mainly been premises associated with the Catholic Church, the GAA and the Nationalist community. In south Antrim two young men were brutally murdered; one was on his way to work, and one was walking the street with his friends. In east Antrim my party Colleagues, among many others, have come under frequent attack in their homes. North Belfast has witnessed violence and tension leading to the obscenity of a picket attempting to deny young children access to their school.

To that list can be added the many so-called punishment beatings meted out by people with no mandate and in total disregard for any norms of justice. Some of those incidents are motivated by nothing more sophisticated than sectarian hatred. The planning and execution of many other incidents suggest that those involved are politically motivated to undermine the Good Friday Agreement.

While much of the violence that I have mentioned is perpetrated by Loyalists, so-called Republicans have also been responsible for violence, including murder, and they cannot hide from their responsibility for that. If the Assembly’s claims to uphold democratic values are to be meaningful — and a majority here also claim to uphold the principles of the Good Friday Agreement — Members have no option but to condemn all such violence and oppose, without equivocation, those responsible for it.

As Members know, we are once more at the brink with crucial decisions being made that could affect the future of the institutions and the agreement. Underlying the decisions that need to be made is the choice between a peaceful and democratic way forward and the instability that feeds and makes room for paramilitary violence. The obligation on Members is to ensure that democracy and the will of the people prevail. That does not require, as some suggest, miracles.

Instead it requires a persistent and determined commitment to achieve the objectives of the Good Friday Agreement and to use, where necessary, all our influence to convince others to do likewise. To do otherwise is to betray the democratically expressed will of the Irish people, North and South, who voted in favour of the agreement. In the achievement of those objectives it cannot be accepted that decommissioning should await the implementation of everything else in the agreement.

It was intended that, through the commitments to exclusively democratic and peaceful political means contained in the Good Friday Agreement, decommissioning would be achieved within two years. Further commitments and developments made since then restored hope that decommissioning would be achieved this year.

Paramilitaries, notably the IRA, pledged to work positively and progressively with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. However, their continued failure to progress decommissioning is eroding the mutual confidence that is essential to the full implementation of the agreement.

Now that the world is coming together to defend the principles of our democratic way of life, it is beyond time that we in Ireland, North and South, made it clear that all traces of paramilitary terror must be removed, not just elsewhere, but in our own country. This would allow our people to enjoy the peace and political stability promised in the agreement. I support the amendment.

Sam Foster (UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

The motion should not have come before the House. It is born out of the failure by Loyalist and Republican paramilitary groups to fulfil the promises they made to the people of Northern Ireland when their representatives signed the Belfast Agreement. They have failed miserably.

The agreement committed those groups holding illegal arms to decommission them by May 2000. When the deadline passed, further talks were held and the groups were given an extension until June 2001. Those were not Unionist deadlines; they were commitments entered into by the political representatives of terrorism in this country. As a result of that failure, parties that are committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means have found themselves at a great political disadvantage.

The political representatives of the IRA have sought to remain in the Executive, and to govern the people of Northern Ireland while retaining the means to coerce those people with the force of arms and the threat of injury or death. Sinn Féin/IRA has continued to use the threat of Republicanism based on physical force to squeeze further concessions from the Government on issues such as policing. Meanwhile, the other democratic parties have had to rely solely on the democratic mandate that they achieved at the ballot box. The situation is inconsistent with democratic principles and is unsustainable.

The IRA claims that its guns have been silent — tell that to the families of the young people who have been abducted and shot by the punishment squads, and the families of those who have been murdered. If it is not the Provisional IRA, who else is abducting and attacking young people in Republican areas? I doubt that the SDLP has acquired a military wing. I have no doubt that if it were the work of Loyalists or the security forces, the Sinn Féin leadership would be the first to run to the media and call for an inquiry into human rights abuses.

The Sinn Féin leadership has been quick to apportion blame to the UDA after the recent spate of pipe bombings in north Belfast. However, it has been less vocal in its assessment of the perpetrators of the numerous kneecappings that have been carried out in west Belfast. The silence of leading Sinn Féin figures, including, ironically, the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the Minister of Education, and their failure to unequivocally condemn these attacks on young people has been as deafening as it has been telling. Actions speak louder than words.

Let no one doubt my stance on Loyalist violence: whether it be by pipe bombs, blast bombs, sectarian shootings or punishment shootings, I condemn it wholeheartedly. These attacks, like their perpetrators, have no place in a civilised society and should cease immediately.

The Unionist community wants no part of Loyalist violence and, time after time, it has demonstrated that by rejecting at the ballot box those Loyalist parties linked to terrorist groups. Sadly, this has not been the case with regard to Sinn Féin/IRA. Anyone has the right to sit in an Assembly, provided they have been properly elected, but their inclusion in Government is a different matter.

Governments require a higher standard of probity from their Ministers. Ministers must govern in the interests of all the people. An Executive therefore should not include Ministers who support terror in any way, or who give encouragement to those who seek to retain the capacity to inflict terror.

We have suffered from terrorism for a long time. The United States has suffered in the last week. Terror at any level is terror — it is destructive. I say again that no party should remain in Government while retaining the means to coerce its people by force of arms and threat of injury or death. That is totally incompatible with democratic principles — it is fascism.

The only people in Northern Ireland who should hold weapons are the forces of the state and those properly licensed by the state within a legal framework of due process. Only then can the safety of the citizen be secured.

How long can some alleged politicians continue to remain politically dishonest, circumventing the whole democratic system? There is an enlightening saying ‘Tell me whom you associate with, and I will tell you who you are’. Does it ring true? Are we being told something? I am convinced that we are. I support the amended motion.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. How could any decent person take the motion seriously, given the track record of the party proposing it? That party talks the most about democracy and peace, but it practices them least. That party’s very origins are steeped in bigotry, sectarianism and anti-Catholic fundamentalism. That party’s members have literally got away with murder. That party, over the years, has nodded and winked its way to power on the back of Loyalist paramilitary activity. That party said no to the Good Friday Agreement.

It is well known in political life in the Six Counties that violence channelled through Loyalist paramilitary activity has been used by Unionist politicians to bolster their position and pressurise their opponents. They have not had to accept the practical and moral responsibility for, or the consequences of, the actions of their paramilitary comrades.

Since the inception of this state, when moves were made to undermine the Unionist ascendancy, or when there was any hint that Protestant and Catholic people might come together as human beings, the heavy hand and the big mouths of the party that proposed the motion were there to ensure that it did not happen.

Unionists in or out of Government have used state forces — the RUC and the UDR — and Loyalist mobs to terrorise, bully and intimidate their way to power. The Nationalist community paid the price for this co-operative arrangement.

The righteous brothers on the opposite benches who proposed the motion have no problems with cosying up to their paramilitary friends when it suits them. We saw it in Glenbryn recently, and we saw it in Harryville. The DUP were cosying up to the UDA. The common theme of this cosy relationship is to stir up sectarian hatred and violence against Catholics. What do we see while they are cosying up to the UDA? The hearts of Protestant communities are being ripped apart by drugs.

We have all seen members of the DUP marching on many occasions with the UDA and UVF. This was not only to demonstrate unity of purpose, but also to signal to the British Government that unofficial armies have always supported their position as politicians. Loyalist paramilitaries are the muscle behind Unionist rhetoric. Yet the Member who proposed the motion can prattle on about exclusively peaceful and democratic means. He can produce all the statistics he wants, while his party members stand on platforms with the LVF. They elect deputy mayors who share platforms with masked gunmen showing off their firing skills. The Nationalist community sees these people for what they are — the Afrikaners of the Six Counties.

The blatant hypocrisy of the DUP is matched only by their ineptitude as politicians who cannot detach from their paramilitary allies because they might blow the whistle on their extra-political-curriculum activities. [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order. The Member has a right to be heard.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

It would be more fitting if the DUP demonstrated to the Chamber its commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. The difficulty is that the DUP is not, and never has been, a democratic constitutional party. In 1966, the then Ulster Unionist Prime Minister, Terence O’Neill, told the House of Commons that the UVF had been involved in the Malvern Street murder of a young Catholic — [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

They were also important officials in the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee, chaired by Dr Paisley. The proposer of the motion began his political career and commitment to constitutional politics by joining the Lagan Valley unit of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers. Members who are old enough may recall that both groups were involved in the explosions in 1969 that precipitated Terence O’Neill’s downfall. [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

They joined with Ulster Vanguard to form the United Ulster Unionist Council to destroy the Sunningdale Agreement.

And who can forget Ulster Resistance? While the leadership of the DUP was drilling on the top of mountains, waving firearms certificates, militant members of the organisation were importing guns into the North from South Africa. When they were caught in Paris, the leader of the party went to bail them out. [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order. Mrs Nelis, your time is up.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Perhaps John Reid will not only examine the status of Loyalist ceasefires —

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Mrs Nelis, your time is up.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh míle maith agat.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

I support the motion and oppose the amendment. [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order. Members on both sides have a right to be heard.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

Once again, the Assembly has returned to the recurring problem of paramilitary activity. Many of us wonder if we will ever come to a day when the word "paramilitary" will be put beyond use.

Last week, we all watched in horror as terrorists flew passenger jets into prominent buildings in the United States. We in Northern Ireland felt all the old feelings of the past 30 years flooding upon us: the heartache, the fear, the panic and — very clearly and honestly — the anger. Sinn Féin/IRA added insult to injury by declaring in the Assembly its heartfelt sympathy for acts of terrorism, when it has participated in the deaths of many residents of this country by committing terrorist attacks.

Sinn Féin spoke of its sorrow at such losses and condemned those who carried out the attacks. That sentiment rang a little false for me and for many others, as it is well known that Middle Eastern extremists have been allies of the IRA for over 20 years. Perhaps Sinn Féin/IRA is trying to distance itself from the Middle East and its extremists to ensure that it will receive the mighty American dollar, or perhaps there has been a falling out amongst this den of killers.

Sinn Féin has tried to tell us that the three men recently arrested in Bogota are not in any way connected to it, yet there are photographs in newspapers of those men participating in Sinn Féin party activities. Of course, rumour has it that they actually got lost. They were looking for the Bogside and ended up in Bogota.

Perhaps Sinn Féin is using the Nazi doctrine that if you tell a lie often enough, people will think that it is the truth, but it will not work this time. In south Lebanon, Irish passports belonging to known terrorists were found in a training camp for wannabe terrorists. It is somewhat disturbing to hear Sinn Féin’s president say that he and his party are totally committed to the peace process while his colleagues in the IRA are having up-to-date training in warfare in foreign lands.

Sinn Féin has forged links with Cuba — a country not known for its high regard for democracy, and with even less regard for basic human rights. Mr Adams intends to visit Cuba shortly. I do not see Mr Adams and his Colleagues staying at home to get the IRA to put its arsenal of weapons beyond use. That would be time better spent. Sinn Féin has been very quiet on that subject since the IRA pulled out of the de Chastelain commission.

Sinn Féin/IRA has been quiet about its organisation. Last week they sent me, and I presume many others, the numbers of alleged Loyalist attacks. It is uncanny that it always remembers Loyalist attacks, but it seems to forget those committed by Nationalists. I condemn all attacks, irrespective of who commits them.

In tandem with the silent Sinn Féin is the incompetent British Government. To my horror, and to that of many others, Mr Blair said on Sunday night past that the world had to learn what motivates terrorism. After 30 years of terrorism here, Tony Blair is still trying to work it out.

That brought two questions to my mind. First, did Prime Minister Blair not learn anything from the Northern Ireland Office or from the members of Special Branch, who put their lives on the line for his Government? Secondly, he has put convicted terrorists in Government positions. Why not ask them what motivates them and their abhorrent friends, the Middle East extremists?

Why is the British Government not like the American Government? Why is it not righteously angry with the terrorists? Why will it not pay any costs or go to any length in the pursuit of justice? Police officers’ families have waited in vain to find out who killed their loved ones. At least one widow in my constituency went to her grave without knowing who was responsible for her husband’s murder. The Government has also made it possible that this killer will never be brought to justice because terrorists are in Government and negotiating the type of peace this country will have.

This week there have been several gun attacks, and pipe bombs were found. Paramilitary activists judge young people, who are beaten, shot and evicted from their country by organisations who feel that they are the real police forces. Who are these people to tell us and our children how to live? What is more shameful is that youths who come to the attention of the IRA are told to report to Connolly House, the headquarters of Sinn Féin, to hear what their punishments will be. Sinn Féin said that it was committed to democracy, yet it allows an illegal and tyrannical organisation to mete out summary justice to the people of Northern Ireland.

Paramilitary activity and international terrorism are the same in this country, and we need to stop them. For 30 years we have been at war against Nationalist violence in the name of politics. Police, soldiers and civilians have been killed and maimed while trying to live their lives in a democratic fashion. The people of Omagh, for example, still seek the trial of their aggressors in a court of law. Those who take part in violence, or condone it in any way, should not be part of a democratic process.

Danny O'Connor (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Antrim)

I am amazed at the hypocrisy of the DUP. We heard Mr Hilditch, whose constituency is East Antrim, talking about what is going on in north Belfast. In the 1970s, over 400 children attended a Catholic school in Greenisland. When it closed in 1997, there were 27 children. Mr Hilditch talks about ethnic cleansing in north Belfast. What is that if it is not ethnic cleansing?

The DUP has always had an ambivalence about dealing with terrorists — the sharing of a platform with Billy Wright has been mentioned. The inspection of men with balaclavas on a beach in Portrush in 1985 by Coleraine aldermen was talked about also. Those things are true, and no one can claim to be able to end terrorism having given it so much succour for so long.

Terrorists are active throughout Northern Ireland. They inflict huge suffering on all our people. My home has been attacked on several occasions. Less than a week after my colleague was elected to Larne Borough Council, his home was pipe-bombed. That was his welcome to politics, Northern Ireland-style. The problem is that the UDA in Larne operates an equal opportunities policy — it recruits young Catholics as well.

We need to decommission all those organisations. I agree that terrorism is linked to drug-dealing. We were all horrified by the events in America last week, which prompted President Bush to say that he would hunt down evil-doers worldwide. We have in our country evil-doers associated with the Shankill bomb, McGurk’s Bar, Enniskillen, Loughinisland, Greysteel, Omagh — and the list goes on. We are not in an ideal world. Terrorism must be stopped by political means and a better future given to the people in this country who have suffered so much for so long.

In my first speech to the Assembly, I quoted Martin Luther King. He said:

"We are not where we want to be, but thank God we are not where we used to be."

We no longer bury 80 or 100 coffins a year, leaving hundreds and thousands of grieving widows and orphans. There are murders and punishment beatings, but 10 years ago a punishment beating or shooting would not have merited four lines on page 10 of ‘The Irish News’.

We have moved forward. We must make politics work. This weekend will tell whether we will. I appeal to those with influence, in light of world opinion and the international groundswell of public opinion against all forms of terror, to give peace a chance. Do what you can to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland do not suffer for another 30 years what they have suffered for the last 30 years.

Each of us is duty bound to try to do something about that. I appeal to all those with influence to use it to ensure that we create the peaceful society that everyone in this country wants.

Peter Weir (UUP, North Down)

The Assembly met last week rightly to express its condolences to the victims of the terrorist outrage in America and to condemn international terrorism. It met against the backdrop of many nations’ leaders committing themselves to the fight against international terrorism. Like Jim Shannon, I listened with a degree of incredulity to the remarks of our Prime Minister, given his record against terrorism. Despite that, many of us in the Chamber are committed to the fight against international terrorism.

However, if we are to begin that fight, we should do so in our own backyard in Northern Ireland. That is where we must make the change. The motion rightly condemns all paramilitary activity, Loyalist and Republican. I join with many ordinary, decent Nationalists who look with incredulity at the extent to which the Government have been prepared to turn a blind eye to Loyalist violence. It seems that no matter what they do, the Government are still prepared to declare that the ceasefires of all mainstream paramilitary organisations are intact. It is almost as if the only thing that would constitute a breach of a ceasefire is a nuclear strike on part of Northern Ireland. Even then, presumably, the Government would say that it was really the work of dissidents and not mainstream paramilitaries.

In the next few days, people should bear in mind the Government’s record on defining ceasefires when they give us the usual assurances about policing: changes will only occur when the security situation allows it.

It is right that there is no moral difference between the bombings last week in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania and the bombing of Canary Wharf. There is also no moral difference between those murders and a murder in an isolated farmhouse or a deserted city centre alleyway. Such murders are often forgotten. We must highlight those people who are committed to democracy and a peaceful way forward.

The events in New York last week and those here are not linked simply because there is a moral equivalence between them, but because terrorism is international. The Republican movement has been linked with various organisations across the world such as extreme nationalist terrorists in Europe, Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East and drug dealers or Marxists in South and Central America. The Cuban regime has declared that one of the men arrested in Colombia was Sinn Féin’s representative in Cuba.

The Cuban authorities are probably best able to judge who Sinn Féin’s representatives to Cuba are. However, the reaction of Sinn Féin has been like some latter-day Manuel from ‘Fawlty Towers’ — they know nothing of these people. They say that they have never met these people.

We must bring a degree of credibility to the debate. We must say that the demand for decommissioning goes beyond the agreement — it is a moral imperative. You cannot be in government if you have arms at your beck and call. However, you also cannot be in government if you have a private mafia, police force or vigilante organisation at your back. The paramilitary organisations have all of these things, and they make it unacceptable for any of those organisations to be in government.

Worthy sentiments are expressed in the SDLP amendment. However, the days of the Assembly relying purely on worthy sentiments are long past. The failure of the SDLP to commit itself to excluding these organisations means that, sadly, the amendment detracts from the original motion, rather than adding to it. Members can tell us as often as they like that we must encourage people into the democratic fold, but under a policy of carrot and stick there has been concession after concession. There has been a constant diet of carrots in this peace process. It is time put away the carrot and bring out the stick with regard to terrorism. I urge people to take cognisance of what has happened in the past few days; to draw a distinct line between terrorism and democracy, and to support the motion.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I oppose the motion and the amendment. On reading the motion I was struck with the thought that the DUP should change its name to "the Party of Déjà Vu". Nothing changes in that party — it is always the same. It has no political realism and no reality, just stagnation. It has the same old story and history that it has had for the last 50 years — [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

The DUP is a party that has consulted, and continues to consult, Loyalist paramilitaries. In particular, it consults with those Loyalist paramilitaries who are presently engaged in attacking Nationalists throughout the Six Counties. The DUP has connived with, and continues to connive with, those Loyalist paramilitaries who are murdering and attempting to murder Nationalists throughout the Six Counties. And yet they, who sleep in the same bed as the Loyalist paramilitaries, come here with a motion that condemns paramilitary activity. The political hypocrisy of the DUP was amply demonstrated last Thursday — [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

The political hypocrisy of the DUP was amply demonstrated last Thursday. It trooped out that door when Gerry Adams got up to speak and trooped back in again to listen to the political representative of Loyalist paramilitarism. What message did that send out to the Nationalist population? The crude and stark message that it sent was that it is OK to — [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order. Everyone is entitled to be heard.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

The crude message they sent out last Thursday was that it is OK to murder taigs. That is what that party is at. [Interruption].

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Let us, and let the general body of Unionism, make no mistake about it — there is a viable connection between those Loyalist paramilitaries who are presently trying to murder Catholics and the DUP in its drive to destabilise the political institutions. That message should go out to the Ulster Unionist Party. The DUP’s only interest is in destabilising the political institutions. Its sole interest is to further split Unionism and become its predominant voice. Were that to happen, it would be a sad day for Ireland, particularly for this part of Ireland.

If the DUP could exclude Sinn Féin from this establishment, it would consider it a victory. Let me remind the DUP that Sinn Féin has a mandate that is equal to, and perhaps better than, its mandate. That political mandate will not be denied. As I said — [Interruption]

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Order. It is very difficult to hear Mr Kelly.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

With the DUP we experience déjà vu and yet more déjà vu. Take the party back 50 years; that is where it belongs and that is where its political history lies. It does not lie within the context of the present political establishment.

David Trimble said that if my community has a past, it can have a future. Likewise, we could say to David Trimble that if his community has a past, it too could have a future. If our goal is to build new political structures that take responsibility for all the people in this part of the island — and the rest of the island — in our terms we are going about it the right away.

I say this to David Trimble: we have all contested elections under the same criteria. The results may not have been to the liking of some parties, but that is democracy. Although we signed the Good Friday Agreement, it is obvious that we are not yet ready to place trust in each other. We must ask if we still trust ourselves.

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

My colleagues and I find it profoundly ironic that Gerry Adams could not wait to rush to the microphone yesterday to praise John Hume, yet today in the Chamber, Mitchel McLaughlin could not wait to damn John Hume’s values and vision, which are incorporated in the amendment.

The irony of the comments made 24 hours ago, and the inconsistencies of the argument made in the Chamber today, expose the lack of confidence that currently infects the Republican leadership and Sinn Féin. Rather than acknowledge views firmly held and stated, Mitchel McLaughlin tried to demean the contributions of the SDLP by saying that our judgement was influenced and upset by election results or internal party matters. Anyone who reduces a criticism of other contributions to that level reveals a lack of confidence and a lack of certainty in addressing the arguments inherent in the motion and the amendment.

It is significant that in all Sinn Féin’s contributions, which singularly concerned the DUP, there was no acknowledgement of the wider international context, nor was there any acknowledgement of the Latin American context. The only point of substance made was that there was a collective responsibility to bring about the disarmament of illegal groups. That collective responsibility appears to include all of us, but to exclude Sinn Féin. That is the message that comes across. I see that Mrs Nelis is nodding vigorously.

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

Mr Attwood, you must direct your comments to the Chair.

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

I have only one comment to make about Mrs Nelis’s speech. I ask her to take a pen to her speech and replace the words "Loyalist paramilitary" with "Republican paramilitary", and "Unionist politician" with "Republican politician". She should then give it to Mr Robinson to use as his response to this debate. Everything said by Mrs Nelis could have been said by Mr Robinson with the change of two words only; such is the mirror image at the parties at that end of the Chamber.

Mr Trimble rightly said that the SDLP amendment concentrated on what has to be done. We also outlined that in our response to the Weston Park document. The SDLP singularly outlined a political strategy to get us from Weston Park, through suspension, to the full implementation of the agreement. There must be a new beginning for policing of the citizens and communities of the North. We must ensure that we have a bill of rights that is expansive and inclusive — a charter of rights on the island and a joint committee of the human rights commissions, North and South, to bring about the wider enforcement of human rights on the island. We must restructure our criminal justice system through the criminal justice review. We must address inequality and terror in the national and, belatedly, in the international context. There is also a wider strategy that we need to address, if not in the coming days then in the coming weeks. In the words of Mr Trimble, we must ensure that we concentrate on what has to be done, rather than, as some have done in this debate, on what has been done in the past.

I want to go back to some of the comments that I made about putting weapons verifiably beyond use. Although this might not be a fertile environment for new arguments to get Republicans to address the issue of putting weapons beyond use, I want to try to do so. I do so somewhat cautiously, because I am trying to put those of us who are from a non-Unionist background — from a Nationalist and an all-Ireland background, a background that wishes to share the life of the rest of the island — into the shoes of people from the Unionist tradition. That is something that people from Sinn Féin signally failed to do this afternoon just as, I have to say, the people from the Unionist tradition signally failed to put themselves in the shoes of Republicans.

I want to see the issue of weapons as Unionists see it. I might be wrong, but none the less I want to try. Nationalists and, particularly, Republicans must understand that Unionist unease about the issue of weapons comes from a number of sources — not just from the Unionist leadership. It comes from a much wider range of sources. The unease is shared by Unionist people who, before and since the ceasefires, have spent long hours encouraging those within their own community who doubted the thinking and intentions of the Republican leadership to move beyond their fears. If we do not address the fears of those who have tried to interpret to Unionists what Republicans are trying to bring about by the ceasefire, and acknowledge that they are beginning to lose confidence, we are not dealing with the issue of putting weapons beyond use.

It is time to acknowledge that Unionist unease is common among people who assess issues using standards of both word and deed, and for whom the concept of putting weapons verifiably and completely beyond use must produce real results. That unease is shared by Unionist people, who have been traumatised by threat and who are adjusting to radical change. They are looking for certainty, as they accept the uncertainties of being a minority on the island of Ireland. The IRA should acknowledge all that, and all the paramilitary organisations should acknowledge that it is time to give real effect to the decommissioning provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

Peter Robinson may be proved right. This may be the last time that we will debate the issue in the House. I hope that he is wrong. Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries must get decommissioning right, and get it right now. Peter Weir’s strategy was exclusion and the stick. We dissent from both exclusion and the stick. Political conflict is resolved by political means and if we go back to exclusion on the one hand and a stick on the other, we go back in history.

The opportunity that is beginning to open up should be exploited and we must resolve all outstanding issues relating to the Good Friday Agreement. A different mindset is beginning to develop on this island and around the world. That mindset is saying that we have travelled far with those who use threat and terror, but we are not going to travel any further. By hanging on firmly to the consequences, implications and requirements of the Good Friday Agreement, we can work out a political strategy that will resolve the outstanding issues and will not see us retreating to the failed policies of exclusion and the stick.

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

In my winding-up speech, I will deal with two further issues, namely the Florida gunrunning by the Provisional IRA and its exploits in Colombia, important aspects of the IRA’s international terrorist activity. Before doing so, however, I must respond directly to the mover of the amendment, who decries Mr Weir’s recommendation of the use of exclusion and the stick. Presumably, he is recommending inclusion and the carrot, and therefore I must question the SDLP’s ability to sign up to the section of the Belfast Agreement that appears ostensibly, to offer the stick of excluding any organisation or party that does not commit itself to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.

The SDLP tells us that the agreement should be fully implemented. But it does not want that section to be implemented, because it does not want to use the stick. There is nothing that Sinn Féin/IRA could do that would cause the SDLP to use the stick and exclude. Even if the IRA took the nuclear option, the SDLP would still piously tell us that we should go for inclusive politics and try to encourage people into the democratic process.

There is nothing wrong with the wording of the amendment. It is just weaker and less effective than the motion, and the purpose of deleting elements from the motion is to weaken it in order to avoid saying that organisations that are not committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means should be excluded. That is the purpose of the amendment, as demonstrated by the attack on Mr Weir’s remarks.

Now we know where the SDLP stands. Perhaps we are not surprised that that has consistently been its position over the years. What I cannot understand is why the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party is going to support the amendment. By supporting the amendment, the UUP will be going for a weaker version, letting Sinn Féin off the hook. That can be the only outcome if that party’s members follow their leader into the lobbies and support the SDLP’s avoidance amendment.

The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party beat his chest in the Assembly and told us how he had called Sinn Féin/IRA to account. He even had the audacity to say that because of his actions Sinn Fein/IRA would be put out of office. He seems to be blind to the fact that it was because of his actions that Sinn Féin/IRA is in office in the first place. Then he boasted that, having put Sinn Féin/IRA into office, he had taken some action to call it to account.

There was an article in ‘GQ’ magazine about the Florida gunrunning. A detailed investigation of the events in Florida was carried out. Siobhan Browne said:

"I kept quiet and they destroyed me. If I had said what I knew, if I had testified at the trial about the things I’m going to tell you now, the boys would have got it much worse and the Good Friday agreement — the sham that it was — would be over."

Later in the article, there is clear evidence that the writer of the report has come to conclusions about the so-called Good Friday Agreement. The report says that it is now starting to appear that in his rush to depict himself as the peacemaker in Northern Ireland, President Clinton delivered an inherently flawed, if not flat-out fraudulent treaty. Again, the article says that the Florida attorney, Richard Scrugs, had an ironclad case. He had surveillance photos, a confession from Bluestein, a copy of the wish list, mail and gun receipts, DNA evidence, fingerprints and fibre linking Claxton and Mullen to the packages. Thanks to assistance from Scotland Yard, Scrugs also had intelligence files on Claxton, Smyth and Mullen’s IRA/Sinn Féin activities.

Is it any wonder that they were convicted and that Judge Wilkie Ferguson, passing sentence, criticised the sentencing guidelines approved by Congress, saying that they made it impossible for him to impose a longer sentence? He went on to say that if a person could get a life sentence for possessing $400 worth of cocaine, this kind of offence ought to carry the death penalty. Yet, the Assembly was not prepared to take any action over something that a Florida judge thought was worthy of the death penalty.

In the same article, Unionist Ken Maginnis is inclined to give Sinn Féin the benefit of the doubt. He said that with an operation as big as that of the IRA, it would probably take time to reel in gunrunning operations set up before the Good Friday Agreement. The article goes on to say that Mr Maginnis was ignoring the fact that Claxton and Mullen arrived in the United States on 22 January 1999, a full eight months after the agreement was signed. It also makes clear the role of President Clinton and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in attempting to cover up the activities of the Provisional IRA in the United States, lest it do harm to the so-called peace process.

Some of the Sinn Féin Members who spoke in the debate were very uneasy, wriggling in panic. Some of them went into an incomprehensible rant. Mr John Kelly, almost foaming at the mouth, talked about Sinn Féin’s mandate being greater than the DUP’s. Where are the Sinn Féin Members of the European Parliament? How many Members of Parliament do they have, as opposed to the DUP? How many Assembly Members do they have, as opposed to the DUP? How many councillors do they have compared to the DUP? He should go back to the record books and learn for himself that Sinn Féin does not have the mandate that he seems to think it has.

Mr McLaughlin gave us a pious homily on the peace process. He, incidentally, thinks that people go with false passports on their holidays to Colombia. Although he has never been in Castlereagh Holding Centre — he is one of the IRA’s draft dodgers — he had a similar experience, during his ‘Newsnight’ interview, when he was clearly embarrassed by the position that he was being asked to defend.

He had the audacity to try to link the Democratic Unionist Party with events in north Belfast. I want to commend my Colleague, Nigel Dodds, for the sterling efforts that he and other constitutional politicians in the area have made to overcome the problems in north Belfast and to repair the damage done to community relations there. The Sinn Féin position is "if we say it, it is true". Whether the facts are absent or whether they contradict it, Sinn Féin is quite prepared to peddle a lie in order to cover its embarrassment. It kicks up as much dust as it can to conceal its embarrassment.

The Provisional IRA was clearly involved in international terrorism, training, and experimenting in bomb making in Colombia. It was involved at the highest level; its chief engineer was involved. The sanction of the IRA Army Council was needed; an IRA Army Council that has three Sinn Féin Assembly Members on it — the leader of the party, Gerry Adams, the Minister of Education, Martin McGuinness, and Pat Doherty, the former head of southern command of the IRA. All three of them were involved in the decision to send people to Colombia to take part in international terrorism and to bring death and destruction to the cities in Colombia; just as they brought death and destruction — and still do — to the streets of Northern Ireland.

Question put

The Assembly proceeded to a Division.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

On a point of order. Is it in order for a Member to enter the Chamber when the Doors are secured?

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

I will secure the Doors in four minutes.

The Assembly divided: Ayes 54; Noes 35

Ayes

Ian Adamson, Billy Armstrong, Alex Attwood, Roy Beggs, Billy Bell, Eileen Bell, Esmond Birnie, P J Bradley, Joe Byrne, Joan Carson, Seamus Close, Fred Cobain, Robert Coulter, Annie Courtney, John Dallat, Duncan Shipley Dalton, Ivan Davis, Arthur Doherty, Mark Durkan, Reg Empey, Sean Farren, John Fee, David Ford, Sam Foster, Tommy Gallagher, John Gorman, Tom Hamilton, Carmel Hanna, Joe Hendron, Derek Hussey, Danny Kennedy, James Leslie, Patricia Lewsley, Alban Maginness, Seamus Mallon, Kieran McCarthy, David McClarty, Alasdair McDonnell, Alan McFarland, Michael McGimpsey, Eddie McGrady, Eugene McMenamin, Monica McWilliams, Jane Morrice, Sean Neeson, Dermot Nesbitt, Danny O’Connor, Eamonn ONeill, Ken Robinson, Brid Rodgers, George Savage, John Taylor, David Trimble, Jim Wilson.

Noes

Paul Berry, Norman Boyd, Gregory Campbell, Mervyn Carrick, Wilson Clyde, Nigel Dodds, Oliver Gibson, William Hay, David Hilditch, Roger Hutchinson, Gardiner Kane, John Kelly, Robert McCartney, William McCrea, Barry McElduff, Gerry McHugh, Mitchel McLaughlin, Pat McNamee, Francie Molloy, Maurice Morrow, Mary Nelis, Dara O’Hagan, Ian Paisley Jnr, Ian R K Paisley, Edwin Poots, Iris Robinson, Mark Robinson, Peter Robinson, Patrick Roche, Jim Shannon, Denis Watson, Peter Weir, Jim Wells, Cedric Wilson, Sammy Wilson.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That this Assembly deplores the ongoing catalogue of paramilitary activity and calls on all parties who profess to be committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means to unequivocally repudiate any and all such violence and to call on all paramilitary groups to give real effect to the decommissioning provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

Adjourned at 6.18 pm.