Danny Kinahan
South Antrim · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I support the draft Energy Order. I recognise that, today, it is really about putting in place an end date so that we can plan. It is great to hear that the Minister has put in a grace period and has been talking to the providers. I think that most of us have been lobbied at times by the various companies in the industry.”
“When I joined the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee not that long ago, one of the key briefings that I had was with the Northern Ireland manufacturers' association. One of the three main items that they wanted to raise with me is the cost of energy.”
“My original question was to ask the Minister whether he felt that the current transition process was fit for purpose and delivered to the same standard. He seems to have massive changes coming in, which is excellent.”
“Absolutely. Will the Minister guarantee that the flight routes being considered are planned to fit the respective airports and that we will keep in mind all the time that we need to try to make sure that our airports are competing with Dublin and that there is no bias involved, even in respect of our two local ones?”
“We still have ongoing insurance problems. We should keep that in mind when we look at the petition and the plan. <BR /> <BR />The present plan is to develop 400 houses beside the river, with a 10-metre buffer — that is all — with no recognition of the needs of the wildlife, including the otters, the dippers, the dollaghan and many others.…”
“<BR /> <BR />The valley and the river are just on the outskirts of Antrim, and a wonderful council-planned mill race trail runs along the riverbanks and is incredibly popular with locals as an area of natural beauty, for angling, for countryside walks and for nature. It really should be protected and preserved.”
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“I thank the Minister for his statement, particularly for the moneys going to education. I am glad that they are going to the front line. My question is in regard to the DOE capital budget. Will the Minister explain why there is £50 million of FTC funding allocated for the Arc21 project, if it commences, when his party, especially locally, seems to be against it? What exactly is his party's position on Arc21?”
“I also wonder whether any study has been done on the effects of absenteeism, early starts and years of travelling, especially for teenagers. When you think about nightlife and the way that many live now, that would make it especially difficult to get up early every day. Think of those 200 every year. <BR /> <BR />Minister, today's debate is a request for a constructive long-term view of Antrim and to plan for joined-up thinking on its provision. Antrim town and district is not well served, and the scramble for places for the less academic is wrong. Can we have a proper study and a plan? It is our duty to provide choice. That is what we should be doing to avoid that scramble for places.”
“In the same needs analysis, we see that there are some 240 empty places — probably more now — but some of those will be due to the development plan mechanism and others to the lack of services that I mentioned. <BR /> <BR />I wonder whether a study has ever been done on not having post-16 provision. All those whom I talk to in the education world feel that parents prefer schools with post-primary provision to age 18, and especially so in today's climate, when jobs are hard to find.”
“<BR /> <BR />I know that we are in a time of austerity, but we still need to plan a way forward. We are in the middle of a transport review, and initial suggestions seem to target reduced travelling. The cost of transport is very likely to go up in the long term, so we should be looking at how we reduce everyone's travel. <BR /> <BR />I referred to the 1,100 pupils leaving Crumlin every morning, and I am told that we have 1,000 leaving Antrim. Some 200 leave the Antrim district at post-16 — 200 scrambling for those places. In times of austerity, there has to be a better way. A needs assessment study in 2011 showed some 4,108 primary places, growing by, depending on how you read the document, between 7% and 9%. Yet it refers to just under 2,000 post-primary places, so some 2,500 are moving.”
“Just because a development plan does not exist, it does not mean that a long-term view or plan is not needed. <BR /> <BR />As I said, we no longer have a regional college. We have a very good area learning community, but, without a regional college, it has one vital limb missing. We also have an integrated learning community, which includes Sperrin and Slemish schools. Despite excellent close relationships between the schools, there is a lack of vocational and skills training in certain subjects. If expansion were allowed, these skills or subjects could be offered. When visiting Antrim Grammar and talking to pupils who had got excellent results, it was sad to hear one or two saying that they could not do physics at A-level. The school could not offer it because not enough pupils wanted it. Were it to expand, it could well offer physics.”
“The sporting facilities in the Antrim area are extremely poor, and, if you have the chance of a school for the full time with better facilities, of course, you are likely to go there. <BR /> <BR />The new principal has, quite rightly, looked at choosing from AQE and GL separately. Not only will this spread sharing in Antrim, it will improve the school's links with the excellent Catholic schools nearby. The review that I am calling for should take all this into account. If there were more post-16 provision and better facilities, I think that very many parents would want to stay in Antrim. An excellent report by Parkhall argued for post-16 provision, but it was shelved because of the rebuild. All those comments, however, still stand.”
“I wonder whether a study has ever been done on the effects on children of changing school at age 16. There is much food for thought there. We have to keep in mind that, if Crumlin were to have post-16 provision, that would affect Parkhall and, indeed, the other schools. It is the right thing to look for, but we need to consider it properly. That is why I am asking in today's debate for a long-term plan. <BR /> <BR />Antrim Grammar is full and very successful academically. It works very well with its neighbour, Parkhall Integrated, but can take only 10 or 15 pupils from the surrounding schools each year. It has not been allowed to expand. When I explored this, the indication was that parents were not queuing up because of the lack of facilities.”
“<BR /> <BR />Crumlin Integrated College is another school dear to my heart and one that we have debated and discussed here at length. I am glad to say that it seems to be much closer to a secure future as a grant-maintained integrated (GMI) school, subject to the development proposals and, of course, the Minister's decision. <BR /> <BR />Some 1,100 pupils leave Crumlin every morning, costing just short of £1 million in transport. When canvassing, it became very clear that, if Crumlin had post-16 provision, parents would think twice, and think seriously, about sending their children further away. I remind everyone that parental choice is what we all believe in. Keeping a child at the same school throughout their post-primary life must be a very high priority when choosing schools.”
“I do not want anything that I say today to affect that in any way. <BR /> <BR />St Benedict's, which is another great school, is doing its best but with creaking and windswept rooms. It is also very much part of Antrim, but is being undermined by the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) approach to area planning. Area planning, which has caused sectors to merge together, has, in this case, led to arrangements to work with St Louis Grammar School in Ballymena, but which will likely lead to leakage to Ballymena and could threaten the very existence of St Benedict's in the long run. <BR /> <BR />St Benedict's and Randalstown are very much part of the Antrim borough, and part of the reason for this debate is to push for that Antrim solution and not to lose St Benedict's.”
“<BR /> <BR />As one key teacher put it to me, if you are academic and in Antrim Grammar, you are fine; if it is St Benedict's, Parkhall or Crumlin, you have to move schools and take a bus. If you are going for a vocational future, it is a bus to Newtownabbey or Ballymena, so you are second-class citizens unless you are academic. If you leave Antrim Grammar at 16, you may well have an even harder time scrambling for places in schools; whether they are in Belfast, Lisburn, Ballymena or Magherafelt, you have to scramble for places. So, I am asking the Minister whether we can look at having an Antrim solution. <BR /> <BR />Parkhall Integrated College is a really excellent school, despite its split site, and it is really pleased that it is getting its rebuild, which was published today.”
“Thank you very much indeed. I am very pleased to be having a debate on the post-16 provision in Antrim, and I thank the Minister for being here. I hope that this debate will be conducted in a more friendly manner than the previous one. <BR /> <BR />I want to highlight the lack of provision post-16 and to ask the Minister whether he will cause a study to be done and a long-term plan to be put together for Antrim. We have no regional college in Antrim. We have Parkhall Integrated College with no post-16 provision, St Benedict's College in Randalstown with no post-16 provision, Crumlin Integrated College with no post-16 education, and Antrim Grammar, which is full and only able to take 10 or 15 pupils each year at 16, so everyone else has to go somewhere else for their post-16 education.”
“Thank you very much. Did you say six minutes?”
“I thank the Minister. I am listening to what you are saying, but all the way through all we seem to be doing is cutting everything by a percentage, whereas if we go to the point where we need a whole new approach, we then need to look at all the sacred cows and all the things we are doing and decide which things we are not going to do. Do you feel that it is all right just to keep trying to do everything that we are doing but cutting by not a little but a whole lot? We need to look at every single item.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />It also disturbs me that, in the lay-offs, we will lose skills. I am also told that some of the governors have said that they may not sign off on their budget. If they do not sign off on their budget, there is a whole further battle that will run on and damage our schools further. I hope that that will not be the case. <BR /> <BR />I have many suggestions, but I am running out of time. We have all got to get ready to park our sacred cows to find the things that we can drop to make schools work. So, the plea from the Ulster Unionist Party is to give as much as we can to front-line services, and then let us look at everything else to see what can we cut, what we can park and what we can do differently in the future.”
“In future, can we please have all the information and all the detail so that we can all be helpful?”
“It means principals having to go back into teaching, larger classes, fewer specialised teachers, the dumbing-down of teaching, loss of excellence, higher stress, more absences, further stress and a complete unravelling of our excellent education system, despite all the efforts. We could have a complete failure of the education system, and, as one person put it to me, we are letting down a generation and decades of pupils and teachers, and it will then take decades to repair. <BR /> <BR />I know that the Minister always wants suggestions from all of us on how to do things, but, given the lack of transparency and the lack of detail, it is very hard for us to come up with detail. In one case, I saw something from one board that had not even got to the Committee.”
“I think that the Minister should realise that whoever had got into government would have had to be making those cuts. It could have been Labour. It is all of us. We have our sum of money, so we must not keep producing a begging bowl. We have to find a way to look after ourselves. <BR /> <BR />The 7% cuts are enormous, whether you are a large school or a small school. I will give you a flavour of the sorts of responses received, although those have been looked at already. It means a cut to all non-core teachers, which is most likely to end up affecting special needs. It means a cut to classroom assistants and a cut to all non-teaching staff.”
“We need to try to find as much as we can of the £70 million that is being taken away from the coalface of education. <BR /> <BR />The message from the schools and the boards is that the cuts mean that they will not be able to deliver education the way it is today, particularly if it is carried out as proposed. That resulting failure will be cataclysmic. I wrote to all the schools, and I am very grateful for the replies I have received. Many of them are what the Minister will have received, with some extra points. I am also very grateful for the Ballymena meeting, which Mr Rogers referred to, and I am especially grateful to all the principals for their sturdy resilience when such cataclysmic cuts were thrown at them before Christmas. What a Christmas they and their colleagues had. I hope that the Minister will apologise to them for that.”
“No, I am not, but I am choosing that as the better of what we have in front of us. We need more money; you will hear more from me as we go into this. <BR /> <BR />When this came to the Education Committee, I remember listening and thinking, "Here we are, still trying to do absolutely everything that we're doing now but with vastly less money." That is absolutely daft. We have to rethink and look at what we are doing. We need a completely new approach. <BR /> <BR />The priority has to be to maintain the excellence of our teaching at every school. The pupils and the standard of education must come first. We have called for protecting the aggregate school budget. We did not support the ring-fencing of the whole budget because we thought that that was the wrong approach for starting the whole Budget process on the Executive.”
“I hope that the Minister is not playing any games of that type.”
“I am glad that we are debating this crucial issue on the second day that we are back. I am slightly disappointed with the motion. It is weak, and it is a bit of a masterclass in understatement. The Sinn Féin amendment calls for more money for the Education Department without earmarking which other Departments should give it. We will be supporting the SDLP amendment. <BR /> <BR />What a mess we have got ourselves into. We need to completely rethink how we are doing the Budget, but at least it is a consultation and a chance for everyone to have their say. Hopefully, there is some room to move. It should not be a blame game of blaming the Brits before the election, and it should not be — I hope that it is not — a bleak picture being painted so that everything looks a bit nicer when we come to a solution.”
“I am really touching on a similar subject. As the cuts come through in the future, is the Minister putting in place training for those arm's-length bodies, including how to do better fiscal management, how to better business plan, how to fundraise and how to make the whole thing more efficient from a financial point of view?”
“We have got corporation tax, so we are told, but we need the skills, and those skills start at school.”
“We need to look at what we do not need to do, what we can park and do later and what we can really work with. The absolute key to education is making sure that the schools can carry on educating to the best of their skills. <BR /> <BR />I also want to touch on the economy, very much in the same vein.”
“The loss of teachers and others will mean that we could have a decade or two of damage to the skills that we start in our education system. <BR /> <BR />We, as a party, have called for a ring-fencing of the aggregate budgets to the schools themselves. I agree with the Chairperson of the Education Committee, who spoke earlier; we really do need to see all the information. We need total transparency and we need that detail so that we can look at the situation and come up with constructive suggestions as to how we do it. <BR /> <BR />When the Department came to the Committee, it became very clear that we are still planning on trying to do all the things that we are doing at the moment but with far less money. Such an approach seems to be completely daft.”
“The Audit Committee would not, therefore, agree to a reduction in the funding for the Audit Office, which would prevent it from carrying out this crucial role. <BR /> <BR />If I may, because I have a bit of time, I would like to touch on education. I know that we will have a debate tomorrow, but one of the major messages that we are getting on education from the schools themselves is that they will not be able to deliver the entitlement framework if the cuts go the way they are proposed and they will not be able to deliver the great education that we have at the moment. Many people have told me that it will do untold damage, not just to those who are at school at the moment, but to the whole of the next generation.”
“<BR /> <BR />There may be further savings achievable at the Audit Office, but, given the nature of its spend, these can only be achieved by a rationalisation of its management structures. This would require specific funding being made available as part of the wider public sector reform measures to be put in place. The Committee would, therefore, ask the Minister and his Department to work with the Audit Office on this issue. <BR /> <BR />The Audit Committee is committed to ensuring that the Audit Office has the resources it needs to support the Assembly in holding public bodies to account for their use of public money. This role is even more important in the current financial climate.”
“Since 2010, this initiative has identified outcomes of almost £30 million, £14·5 million of which relates to fraud and error in rates revenue, which, as the Minister knows, is currently our only revenue-raising power and which is vital for us to maximise. <BR /> <BR />Last year alone, Departments acting, as I said at the beginning of my speech, on Audit Office recommendations saved the public purse £22·1 million. That sum would pay for an additional 1,500 nurses or 1,000 teachers per annum. If we were to cut the Audit Office's funding, we would limit our ability to make savings right across the public sector. We cannot afford to do this. Now more than ever, we need the Audit Office’s expertise in identifying efficiencies.”
“Given the statutory requirement for the office to carry out financial audit work, any such cuts would almost exclusively affect its value-for-money programme. A reduction of £1·2 million, as suggested by the Minister, would wipe out this work altogether. There is no conceivable reason for us to want to do this. <BR /> <BR />Let us just remind ourselves how important this work is and how much money is saved as a result of it. Let us recall the Audit Office's work on the management of substitute cover for teachers, which led to quantified financial savings of £10 million, or its work on the control of bovine TB, which led to quantified financial savings of £7 million. Then there is its work on the national fraud initiative.”
“<BR /> <BR />Mr Speaker, the Audit Committee accepts that the Audit Office should continue, wherever possible, to build on the savings it has achieved over recent years, but, if we are going to be fair, we must acknowledge the extent of the savings that it has already achieved. Those savings are considerable, despite the fact that it has very little discretionary spend. In the last five years, the Audit Office has made efficiency savings of 14·5% in cash terms. That is almost 25% in real terms. We should not impose additional cuts on the Audit Office simply because it has been ahead of the game in making efficiencies. <BR /> <BR />Much more significant, however, would be the impact of further cuts.”
“Its independence means that it can, without fear or favour, examine the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which public funds have been used. Its independence also means that the Executive should neither control nor direct its access to resources. <BR /> <BR />The Committee, therefore, welcomes the recognition of its independence by the Finance Minister and the acknowledgement that it would be inappropriate for the Executive to seek to impose savings targets upon it. The Minister has pointed out, however, that many Departments, including his own, will have to make savings in the region of 11%. He has gone on to say that he would expect the Audit Office to seek out similar savings and efficiencies. That would mean the Audit Office saving up to £1·2 million in 2015-16.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your new role. I am here to speak on behalf of the Audit Committee. I want to set out our position on the provision in the draft Budget for the Northern Ireland Audit Office. I begin by reminding Members about the Audit Office's position. It is entirely independent of DFP, the Executive and their Ministers, and it serves the Assembly by providing us with an effective and truly independent audit assurance in relation to the use of public funds. In fact, last year alone, those Departments that followed its recommendations saved some £22 million. <BR /> <BR />Its independence means that it can ensure that the Executive and their Departments are held to account by the Assembly for their financial performance.”
“I declare an interest as I let out land on conacre. I am still very concerned that those who have done so may find themselves, because of the change in the definition of an "active farmer", losing out. Is the Minister taking advice from HMRC about the future to ensure that farmers are protected and do not find that their future has changed and that they cannot hand their farms on to the next member of their family?”
“I thank the Minister for his answers so far. I will home in on a little bit of detail. Will the Minister provide an update on the suggested supplementary payment fund following the talks and, in particular, what, if any, further work has been done on calculating the level of support that it will be able to offer to people who fall outside the funding under universal credit?”
“If we believe in a free society, rather than in a theocracy of any denomination, we must defend the Enlightenment values of free speech, freedom of democracy, liberty, equality and fraternity from all others. If I can apologise for my French, we should all be saying, "Nous sommes Charlie", and I can certainly say, "Je suis Charlie", but also, "Je suis Juif".”
“There is no absolute right not to be offended; that is something that we in Northern Ireland should always bear in mind. We should also remember the murderous attacks against the 'Belfast Telegraph' by the Provisional IRA, plus the attempted and actual murder of 'Sunday World' journalists by so-called loyalists. Terrorists cannot abide a free press. <BR /> <BR />A letter writer to 'The Daily Telegraph' said it very well this morning:”
“<BR /> <BR />The Paris attacks were an explicit attack on the freedom of speech, which is the central tenet of liberal democracy. We do not have to search very far for the motivation of the terrorists who struck in Paris; no one should give them any cover by talking of western foreign policy. The terrorists were explicit: they attacked a free press because, in their world view, the cartoonists insulted their religion, and the attack on the Jewish supermarket exposed their sectarian mindset. Anti-Semitism is appalling, as is the spate of attacks on mosques. <BR /> <BR />Let us, in our condemnation, be very clear: all institutions, including organised religions, should be subject to criticism and satire. 'Charlie Hebdo' ridiculed many institutions and all religions; it is part of the European tradition of satire.”
“This trail of blood lays bare all the ingredients that make up terrorism in our age: fanaticism, intolerance, sectarianism and, above all, a complete lack of respect for human life. <BR /> <BR />I am acutely aware that we must not be selective when condemning terrorism. We remember the dreadful attack by the Taliban on the school in Peshawar, which left more than 150 people, many of them children, dead. This weekend in Nigeria, 20 people were killed by Boko Haram female suicide bombers, one of whom was reported to be just 10 years old. This comes after hundreds were reportedly killed by the same militant Islamist group last week. <BR /> <BR />Whether it is France, Pakistan or Nigeria, terrorism kills innocent people and is a threat to our civilisation.”
“I welcome this opportunity to speak on this incredibly important matter of the day. We in Northern Ireland are well aware of the brutal realities of terrorism, yet the events in France last week shocked, I am sure, even the most hardened of us. The murderous attacks on the cartoonists and journalists at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine 'Charlie Hebdo' included the murder of two policemen and were followed by the murder of a policewoman and the hostage-taking and murder of four people in a kosher supermarket, also in Paris.”
“I wonder whether the Member knows the amount of money that was given to Ireland to help it through its financial crisis.”
“The motion refers to the financial and economic costs of division. Let us all try to work together to find a way forward. I would welcome an audit and review. We support the motion.”
“Shared education is undoubtedly the right way forward. My party's long-term policy for Northern Ireland to have a single shared education system, where all faiths are educated together, has to be the right way forward.”
“<BR /> <BR />How can the process even be described as area-based planning when the maintained sector has already planned its own future with little regard for shared education? There is continuing uncertainty in many parts of our divided education system, and very little leadership has been shown by the Department or its Minister. The current area-planning process has been fatally undermined since the day that it was announced. Not only has the process caused significant levels of anxiety and suspicion in schools across Northern Ireland, it has proved to be counter-productive, as some of our biggest education sectors have started looking inwards to solidify their positions rather than outwards to work proactively and strategically with all local schools.”
“We do see that things are getting better, but we have a long way to go before we share properly. <BR /> <BR />If we look at area planning, we see that, so far, it has been an opportunity missed. There is no evidence that anyone has been looking at the bigger picture. In fact, a cynic would conclude that the various sectors have been allowed to rationalise their own estate, completely oblivious to the other schools in the area. Area planning has failed to follow its two guiding principles; namely, to identify realistic, innovative and creative solutions to address need, including opportunities for shared schooling on a cross-sectoral basis, and to maximise the use and sharing of the existing schools estate.”
“No, I will carry on, thank you. <BR /> <BR />In 2011-12, 20 controlled schools, the vast majority of them in the primary sector, had a Catholic pupil enrolment of more than 30%. Ninety-one per cent of Protestant primary-school children attended controlled — mainly Protestant — schools, and 88% of Catholic primary-school pupils were enrolled in Catholic maintained primary schools in the last academic year. At the same time, 88% of Catholic post-primary pupils attended Catholic maintained or managed voluntary schools. Eighty-nine per cent of Protestant post-primary children attended controlled schools. Total pupil numbers have dropped from 340,940 in 1997-98 to 311,559. In that time, integrated school pupil numbers have increased from 8,154 to 21,170.”
“The Ulster Unionist Party will wait to see the contents of the shared education Bill with an open mind. What is clear is that shared education must be a process, not an end in itself. We want a single education system in the medium to long term. <BR /> <BR />I will share some statistics that will counter comments about schools being just Protestant or just Catholic. Nearly half of Northern Ireland's schoolchildren are being taught in schools in which 95% or more of the pupils are of the same religion. In the 2011-12 academic year, 180 schools had no Protestant pupils on their roll. Another 111 schools taught no Catholic children. In the 2011-12 year, 493 schools educated almost exclusively — 95% or more — pupils of just one religion compared with 827 schools in 1997-98. Therefore, things are getting better.”
“I am very glad to speak to the motion. It has been particularly good to hear indications from all parties that there are ways forward, although, equally, we have heard indications of the opposite. We all need to find a way forward to stop the waste of money. Today, I will concentrate on education. <BR /> <BR />The shared education Bill that we have been promised could be the acid test of whether the Assembly and its Executive are serious about desegregation and promoting cohesion, sharing and integration. In recent debates, some Members, particularly the signatories to the motion, have argued that shared education is a ploy or a ruse to avoid what they would see as truly integrated education. One is part of the other. As far as I am concerned, however, the jury is still out.”
“Does the deputy First Minister agree that all Ministers and Departments should agree to choose priorities or look at ring-fencing those services that each Department delivers that affect health and safety and, particularly, the risk of death?”
“In my brief time on the Committee, I have heard the manufacturing industry say that energy is one of its three key costs. As the Member who spoke previously said, we really need to find a way to tackle it. Before Mr Wilson asks what my plan is to do that, I will tell him that it is to look at how we use better the small amounts of money that we have so that we can share. That means changing the regulations so that there are different ways to lever money on the back of what is being paid. I have not been on the Committee long enough to see all the different ways, but there must be ways. I know that Scotland has clever ways through its financial trust. I will say this with a smile, but surely there is a way to use all the paperwork that we all get to heat the Building. <BR /> <BR />We support the regulation.”
“Will the Minister indicate what financial incentive there is? Are we looking at any? The impression I got from the previous Member who spoke was that we were not. What financial incentive will be offered to domestic users to help them to install renewable energy? Will we help them with loans or something else? Will it be as generous as the previous scheme? <BR /> <BR />I note that the Minister said that the Department would be running this. Did it consider Ofgem or other possibilities for that? It may well be that the Department is the best, but I am always slightly sceptical, because, when we try to do things ourselves, we tend to be that little bit slower. Being agile and trying to put things in place that mean that we can act quickly are essential.”