Robbie Butler
Lagan Valley · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“Officials highlighted that alignment was provided through existing EU-derived arrangements and that coherence with existing regulatory frameworks was identified as a main consideration.”
“I note that the Member for Strangford agrees: she understands the value of our fisheries in those areas. There are other complexities. The Isle of Man Government have now done a bit of a circle around that island, which makes it difficult for our fishers from Portavogie, Kilkeel and Portaferry to craft and graft a living from some of the…”
“The Committee took the opportunity to question officials on several issues and highlight matters warranting scrutiny at Committee Stage but was not limited to those areas.”
“As the Minister said, they have possibly been viewed as competing demands, but they are not competing demands, because clean water is part of sustainable food production.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am glad to see language in the Bill on the sustainability of the aquaculture sector, and I want to lean in a bit on that. Aquaculture pastimes have, perhaps, been underutilised, whether they relate to the angling fraternity or other river and water users.”
“Today, I want to talk about a very talented young girl from Lisburn called Freya Terris. Freya, who is 17 years old, attends Friends' School and studies the piano under former Lisburn resident Rory Dowse. Freya is an incredibly accomplished young pianist and has performed in the Ulster Hall.”
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“A year on from Fresh Start, what progress has been made on delivering a world-class trauma centre?”
“A year on from Fresh Start, what progress has been made on delivering a world-class trauma centre?”
“I suppose, being new to the House, that I will get away with this only once or twice more. With that in mind, I am more than happy to wait for the question for urgent oral answer and for my supplementary to be answered then.”
“Like, I am sure, other Members, I have held recent meetings with teachers who are concerned about their pay dispute and conditions.”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. The Minister will be aware that the Ulster Unionist Party is proposing a motion on energy to the Assembly tomorrow. Will he take the opportunity tomorrow to indicate what his plan B is, should there be a further planning delay in the North/South interconnector?”
“Thank you, Minister, for your statement. I welcome many of the short-term measures that you have embarked on, especially in conjunction with the Health Minister. You talked about the lack of training and the appropriateness of prison officers looking after people who have been diagnosed with mental health issues. Notwithstanding that, those subject to custodial sentences will find themselves looked after by prison officers. Are you satisfied that the training, specifically the induction training that our prison staff get, is appropriate at the moment? If not, are you looking to address that in the short term as well?”
“I thank the Minister for attending today. The largest share in breaches of psychological therapy services over recent months was recorded in my own trust, the South Eastern Trust. In August, for instance, the South Eastern Trust accounted for 773 of the 1,798 patients forced to wait longer than 13 weeks. Will she detail specifically what steps she is taking to close the widening gap of unmet need and funding for psychological therapies in my constituency?”
“Is the Minister satisfied that she has sufficient funding resource in place to seriously address the issue of prisoners who are affected by poor mental health and well-being?”
“— like my time is slipping away now. Thank you, Mr Speaker.”
“In conclusion, we have heard many good points being raised on the motion, some critical and some commendable. I put it to the Minister of Health that, whilst nine or 10 years might seem like a long journey, the reality is that without clear signposting and clear measurable targets, I fear that the time will slowly slip away —”
“What I will actually do is go on to Pat Sheehan because what Pat said at the start of his comments was that he was not going to waste his five minutes. I commend him for that. He did not waste any of his five minutes. He got straight to the meat. I commend him for that. He talked about transformation. He talked about detail, which we all know. <BR /> <BR />Mr Durkan, thank you. I always like listening to you. You can do it without reading, which is admirable. That will come with experience. Mr Durkan talked about failure to implement in the past and reiterated Stephen Farry's earlier point about previous reports sitting on the shelf and not really addressing the issues. We must indeed learn from the mistakes of the past. <BR /> <BR />I am sorry that I did not mention anybody else. There were plenty of other good speakers.”
“We really do not want to be faced, in a grown-up, modern-day Assembly in 2016, when we have moved so far in the past 18 or 24 years, with having those words being beat about the House. I would be really disappointed if, at the end of these four years, never mind 10 years, we are still talking about openness and transparency. <BR /> <BR />Another good one that was raised by Mr McGrath was ambulance response times. There is a disparity in the provision of healthcare in this country depending on where you live. We talk about the postcode lottery. I would keep a particularly close eye on that with regard to response times and how that is addressed. Thank you, Mr McGrath, for that one. <BR /> <BR />Gary Middleton — no, I will not go there.”
“I absolutely do. The core of this must be putting patients first. Nobody in the House will disagree with that. On the point about consultation, patients need to be listened to. That was the point that I made in my address. <BR /> <BR />I will pay very little time to this next bit, Mr Speaker. Two Members of the House wasted two of their five minutes to attack the Opposition. I thought that it was petty and very disappointing. I just wonder whether they wrote their speeches together: it could be another way in which the Executive are working collaboratively behind the scenes. It is incredible. That is all that I am going to say about those two Members. <BR /> <BR />Mr McGrath talked about openness and transparency — two fantastic words. They are turning into buzzwords, really. We have heard about buzzwords.”
“She talked about commitment, courage and clarity. I can assure the Minister that she will get the commitment and courage from the House; all she needs to do is bring the clarity and detail.”
“The Member's point is well made; nobody in the House could argue differently. <BR /> <BR />At this point, I will recap some of the comments made by other Members. I commend my party colleague Jo-Anne Dobson for proposing the motion. A number of points stood out, none more so than her personal account as a mother of her family's experience of using today's overburdened and overstretched services, and the risks that sufferers and service users are exposed to. She talked about who, where and when, and the plan must get us to that level of detail. <BR /> <BR />Paula Bradshaw, in her amendment, called for recognition that care should be free at the point of access and that the service is broken and needs to be fixed. I agree. Paula also mentioned "the three Cs". I think that that is worth noting, especially by the Minister.”
“<BR /> <BR />Over the weekend, the Minister once again stated the importance of consultation and the necessity to take members of the public along on the journey with any proposed reforms. I urge her, however, not just to consult for consultation's sake, as Mr Allister said. I use the Lagan Valley Hospital as an example of when the local population was not treated with the respect it deserves. During summer 2011, Lagan Valley had its accident and emergency service reduced to daytime and weekends. At the time, staffing concerns were cited, and the people of Lisburn were assured that the decision was only temporary. Despite the supposed concerns of the Minister at the time, the opposite has happened, and the services have been further reduced. I use this only as an example of how —”
“<BR /> <BR />The Minister rightly identifies practice-based pharmacies as a means to alleviate some of the pressures facing general practice, but I urge her and her officials not to overlook the increasingly important role that community pharmacies can and do play in delivering a fully integrated service. Last week, I and many Members visited local community pharmacies, and we saw at first hand the role they play in, and the support they offer to, our communities. Therefore I sincerely hope that the Minister is not minded to follow the reductions in community pharmacies proposed in England. When they were recently debated at Westminster, members of the DUP surprisingly sided with the Government, which understandably raised some concerns in our constituencies.”
“With advancements in technology and telemedicine, it is much easier than even a few years ago for patients to remain in their own home. I urge the Minister to stick to her word and better integrate care at home with social care in the next three years. My main point in this respect is that the trusts must ensure that staff on the ground have not only the support but the time to deliver that service. Specifically, I remind the Minister of the report last year by the Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland, which recommended that the NICE guideline NG21 be embedded into the standards for the delivery of domiciliary care, and that calls of less than 30 minutes' duration should not generally be used.”
“<BR /> <BR />I agree with the sentiment espoused by the Minister that mental health care should have parity of esteem, but I urge her to start putting in place some measures to actually deliver it. As a starting point, I once again call on the Executive to recognise the merits of appointing a mental health champion. I recognise that the Minister has said that she is prepared to take up the role of a champion, and I commend her for that, but the gravity of poor mental health is so severe that we need an independent champion to ensure that the Minister and Executive are genuinely responding to the need. <BR /> <BR />On page 15 of the health and well-being report, the Department rightly identifies acute care at home as a service ripe for reform.”
“Northern Ireland, as we know, suffers from a disproportionately high level of mental ill health compared with other parts of the UK and British Isles. Not only do we suffer unduly high rates of mental illness in our more deprived areas, but there is significant evidence to show that the legacy of the Troubles has significantly contributed to our mental ill health. The Ulster Unionists have been campaigning for and championing adequate mental health care provision for many years, and so I am particularly pleased with the commitments in the report to tackle mental health issues, including the commitments to additional funding for mental health interventions in primary care and to make available early support services, such as mental health hubs.”
“For those reasons, I am encouraged that the Executive appear to be moving to address the issues with a high degree of priority. <BR /> <BR />I will focus on a number of points. First, I am encouraged by the content of both reports that we are discussing today. That is at odds with a number of Members' points. The outworkings of Health and Wellbeing 2026 have the potential to become the basis of a new framework of sustainable healthcare provision in Northern Ireland. The Minister has heard us call for more detail, and I hope that, over the coming weeks and months, that detail will be forthcoming. <BR /> <BR />The Minister will not be surprised to hear me raise the issue of mental health again.”
“I welcome the opportunity to wind on the motion brought to the House by my party colleague Jo-Anne Dobson. I find it encouraging that there has been such a wealth of debate today. That shows a real appetite to tackle the problems in our health service. <BR /> <BR />All of us in the Assembly agree that the health service needs to change for the better. Standing still is no longer an option. There are too many people on waiting lists, and those who are on them wait far too long. The absence of a strategic workforce plan is contributing to a building over-reliance on locum staff and to targets being stretched. The implications are felt across the board, whether in A&E or care in the community. The people of Northern Ireland deserve a fully functional health service that not only delivers but is sustainable, accessible and affordable.”
“I thank the First Minister for her answer. The First Minister will be aware that Lord Empey has introduced a cross-party Bill that would see Libyan assets frozen in the UK used to pay compensation to its victims. Can she confirm Executive support for that legislative attempt to finally provide some justice to the victims of Gaddafi-sponsored terror?”
“That can only happen once or twice. Can the Minister assure us, with the rush to install wind energy before the renewables obligation certificate (ROC) expiry in March 2017, that he has personally ensured that all appropriate measures have been taken so that nobody receives a subsidy for electricity that is not delivered to the grid by that date?”
“Thank you, Minister, for your graciousness in saying that I am new to the House —”
“I thank the Minister for her answers so far and, indeed, for the report. The Minister thought it important enough to mention extending the role of nurses and midwives, and recommendation 3 talks about innovative approaches. I hope that she will agree that that is not an innovative approach. It is doing more for less. With that extension in role that she talks about, will she also recognise that an additional responsibility payment may be required for those people, and will she commit to recognising that our nurses, midwives and care staff are appreciated and treated fairly?”
“Nursing staff, as I am sure every consultant or person responsible for commissioning services is acutely aware, are best placed to ensure that patients are safely and efficiently progressed through their journey. It is for that reason that the Assembly has an obligation to ensure that they are supported through this work.”
“The previous Minister increased the number of nursing training places slightly, but we need to realise that it only slowed down the problem rather than solving it. The pressures under which our nurses work, as well as the traumatic scenes that they witness daily, are quite immense, but rarely do they let it spill over. At that point, I pay tribute to our hard-working nursing staff. They work long hours, come home at night and go back to work the next day, putting their uniform on to do it all over again. <BR /> <BR />The current Minister has an obligation — we will, hopefully, hear more from her tomorrow — to ensure that our local health service has the capacity to meet the rising demand. That means not just that more staff are needed but that the right intervention has to be made at the right time.”
“A cost is also attached to those recruitment drives: travel, accommodation, additional examinations and, of course, supporting the nurses to become sufficiently fluent in English. How will the Minister ensure value for money in those circumstances? As a first port of call, we should seek to utilise all our local resources before investing large amounts of money in attracting nurses from overseas. <BR /> <BR />Nursing, like midwifery, is a wonderful career. In fact, it is the type of career that people queue up to enter, often not for the money but for the pleasure of helping people in need. That is most apparent in there being a far greater number of applicants than nursing positions.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am also aware that there have been some efforts in recent times to increase the number of nurses entering the profession, and that has included the Department of Health's recruitment drive on the international stage. Whilst I welcome the foresight of bolstering nursing levels — the nurses already in post here who were recruited from overseas play an essential part in the local health and social care workforce — the obvious disadvantages of our increasing reliance on international recruitment have been pointed out. I believe that the Southern Trust and the South Eastern Trust have relied on a small number of foreign nurses recently, but I have to express disappointment that a small number is all that we were able to attract.”
“I really hope that we have a positive discussion, but there needs to be a recognition across all the parties that there is a problem. <BR /> <BR />Nursing roles have been systematically widened, and targets have been stretched without the appropriate provision being made for staffing levels through workforce planning. The failure to workforce plan, as can be clearly seen in the spiralling reliance on and cost of agency nurses, is impacting on every aspect of our health service. It does not matter whether it is A&E or care in the community, they all face serious challenges. Whilst I am aware that there has been an increase in nursing posts over recent years, it has been in conjunction with a major increase in nursing vacancies. A long-term vacant nursing post is about as much use as no nursing post at all.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion and the amendment. I understand the difficulties of the increasing pressures on nursing staff: my wife is a nurse and deals with these pressures daily. I have no problem with either the motion or the amendment. The only issue that I might have at home, in speaking to my wife, is that I am not sure whether she would agree that we commend any former Health Ministers for how they treated nursing. However, we will support the motion and the amendment. <BR /> <BR />It is ironic that, when reading over previous debates in advance of today, those who tabled the motion were most irritated when concerns were raised in the last mandate about the pressures facing our nursing staff. Nonetheless, party politics should not be brought into today's debate.”
“Thank you, Minister, for your answer. This issue deeply concerned me when we had briefings from the ombudsman. Is the Minister concerned about the potential for vexatious complaints against councillors? Will he revisit the councillors' code of conduct to make sure that it is fit for purpose?”
“Thank you, councillor — I mean, Minister. We are practically neighbours, so he will let me off with that.”
“<BR /> <BR />I wholeheartedly commend the motion proposed by my party colleague, and I believe that nine or 10 years is more than generous, Mr Beattie, in which to normalise the Prison Service at Maghaberry, and we have more than enough time to do that.”
“Let us not forget — it has been well covered today — the purpose of custodial establishments like Maghaberry. There is a duty on the Justice Minister and the Executive to ensure the safety and well-being of staff, visitors and inmates. I can tell you that resources are stretched to breaking point. I am in regular contact with former colleagues who are concerned not only for their own well-being but for that of colleagues and prisoners as well. The strain of the current regime at Maghaberry cannot, and should not, be maintained indefinitely, as has been suggested, not solely for financial reasons but for the poor impact on the mental health of staff and prisoners alike.”
“By not allowing the mistakes of the past to influence good decision-making and by accepting and recognising the amendment from Sinn Féin, we would be legitimising an artificial regime. That would tell us that we have not learnt from our mistakes and would perpetuate the Executive's inability to develop Maze/Long Kesh for the people of Lagan Valley and Northern Ireland.”
“<BR /> <BR />That the staff and even the families of staff — that is my family whom I am talking about — have had, and continue to have, their personal safety jeopardised from the outworkings of prisoner segregation is disgusting. Did the deaths of David Black or Adrian Ismay further a peaceful political cause? The truth is that they absolutely did not. They were murdered. I cannot accept the mantra that we are still living in a peace process with ongoing political prisoners. At what point do we, as a society, finally move from a process into normality? As we seek to integrate our society and our societal differences more and more, why do we allow ourselves to be haunted by the spectre of the past? <BR /> <BR />We find ourselves at a critical juncture regarding making history.”
“Frankly, my main concern is safety: for the officers, the non-uniform staff and the prisoners. There is no reason that we cannot have all three. <BR /> <BR />As has clearly been evidenced today, however, the current policy of prisoner segregation is not working. In no way does it increase the safety of staff or prisoners. In fact, it undermines it. The decision taken in 2003 to enforce prisoner segregation was flawed at the time and makes even less sense in 2016. It promotes a two-tier prison service, which only heightens tensions in the prison and perpetuates the false narrative that we have political prisoners.”
“Like many Members have done, I go on record to thank my former colleagues in the Prison Service for their bravery and for the work that they do in arduous circumstances. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the opportunity to support Doug Beattie's motion, which is critical to the continued viability of Maghaberry prison. I feel that I am in a unique position to speak to the motion. I speak with the benefit of four years' experience working as a prison officer in Maghaberry prison, from 1996 to 2000, which is the hardest job that I have done to date. I have first-hand experience of the difficulties faced by staff, particularly around safety and the management of facilities and resources. Moreover, that I live just outside Maghaberry and represent Lagan Valley in the House gives me a unique insight into issues that are faced there.”
“I welcome the Minister's comments thus far and his willingness to work with the Department for Communities in support of marching bands and a tourism strategy. Will he further undertake to ensure that the Ulster-Scots Agency is suitably supported to ensure that this important area of our Northern Irish culture is fully recognised?”
“I thank the Minister for her answers so far. The current problems in dental waiting lists would, of course, be significantly worse were it not for the pre-emptive actions of Michael McGimpsey in 2009. It is just unfortunate that similar attention was not shown by his successors. Will the Minister confirm how many of the dentistry graduates who applied for work in Northern Ireland last year were able to find training posts here?”
“Yes, certainly. It is around workforce planning and the determination that you say you have to give us solutions.”
“I thank Mark Durkan for tabling the question for urgent oral answer, and I thank the Minister for coming in to address it. I welcome those statistics being published last week, which do not make good reading for anybody. I agree with Dr O'Hagan, who this morning described the situation for urgent cancer treatment as "horrendous". Mr Durkan asks about the immediate interventions that your Department will take. My colleague wrote to you on a specific issue being faced by the Southern Trust, and your answer referred to long-term solutions. Today, you also referred to solutions in relation to sustainable breast cancer clinics and services. What are your solutions, Minister, especially on workforce planning? You talked about the long-term plan —”
“I welcome this discussion on Prison Service staff. I would like to declare two interests: I worked for the Prison Service for four years, so I am talking from a practitioner's perspective; and I am my party's spokesperson on mental health. We talked about Carecall and the six calls that staff are entitled to. I can verify that it is a unique job, and I welcome what you have said about support. It is a unique experience to work in any of the prisons that we have. However, whilst Carecall is a very good service — and I am not taking anything away from it — would you agree that perhaps there is a need for something more specific to the needs of prison officers and their mental health? Do you have any plans to develop any such system?”
“I call on her to extend nurse specialists; to carry out a wider epilepsy needs assessment; and to assist in the development of a database that will ensure that the appropriate support mechanisms are in place to ensure that people are receiving the appropriate and timely care.”
“Timely access to appropriate services is essential in the diagnosis and treatment of suspected epilepsy. MRI scans are particularly important, yet, as my party previously revealed, waiting times for a scan sharply increase in areas such as the Southern Trust, with some jumping from nine weeks to as many as 16. <BR /> <BR />The provision of specialist nurses across Northern Ireland is a poor. This should be easily addressed with better NHS workforce planning that takes account of the need to train epilepsy specialists with consultants and nurses. <BR /> <BR />I hope that the debate will act as a timely prompt for the Minister that the sporadic level of service provision is no longer tolerable.”
“In particular, I would like to raise the plight of children and young people with epilepsy. A wealth of research reveals that they have a lower quality of life than peers who have other long-term conditions, such as asthma and diabetes.”
“Of course, we do not have that rate of misdiagnosis of conditions such as cancer, principally because suspected cases of cancer are referred to a specialist — rightly so. Epilepsy sufferers are most regularly seen by a general physician with no specialist knowledge of the condition. That is a criticism not of those doctors but of a system that does not best signpost patients to the timeliest and most effective path of support. <BR /> <BR />In addition, in some areas of Northern Ireland, the limited specialist services are next to non-existent. As a result, health outcomes for people with epilepsy not only in Northern Ireland but in the UK more generally are very poor.”
“By its very description, it is a condition that greatly impacts on the people who suffer from it. A diagnosis can come as a worrying blow, and, as we all know, it can greatly impact on areas of daily life as basic and fundamental as driving, as Member Sheehan mentioned. <BR /> <BR />Epilepsy has a worrying misdiagnosis rate, however: up to 20% or 30%. As a result, it is a real possibility that people with the condition in Northern Ireland are being left in the system, where their needs are never identified. That, in turn, contributes to a rate of unscheduled care that is far higher than normal. We would not for one moment tolerate such a rate of misdiagnosis for cancer. However, it is the sad reality for epilepsy.”