Mr Oliver Gibson: What are the views of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister on this morning’s announcement that a private civil action is being taken to try to bring the Omagh bombers to book? That group of victims — and I think that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister would have to agree —received assurances at the time that the perpetrators of that heinous action would be...
Mr Oliver Gibson: I support the motion. Mr Byrne dealt historically with the majority of the background relating to the local hospitals. He rightly said that Tyrone County Hospital lost its maternity services in 1994. Unfortunately for Erne Hospital, the predictions that were made on the numbers that would use its maternity services did not develop as anticipated. As a result, Erne Hospital is limping along...
Mr Oliver Gibson: This motion is timely and essential. I am reacting to an outburst made by the Deputy First Minister, Mr Mallon, when he spoke at a formal occasion — the opening of a commercial event in east Belfast. On that occasion, he indicated that the education system was somehow failing the people of Northern Ireland. My private reaction was, first, that he might be correct. Secondly, I noted that the...
Mr Oliver Gibson: Most community groups receive a cocktail of funding from various sources, of which a small amount may come from rural or district councils to prime the pump. Most of those money providers have a different system of auditing, so community groups have great difficulty in presenting their accounts in such a way as to be understandable because often each provider demands its own system. It is...
Mr Oliver Gibson: 6. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to give her assessment of the future provision of acute hospital services in the West Tyrone and Fermanagh and South Tyrone parliamentary constituencies. (AQO 750/00)
Mr Oliver Gibson: When does the Minister expect the acute hospitals review group to report? Will it be before or after Easter? The Erne Hospital and the Tyrone County Hospital are in decline, and the South Tyrone Hospital has gone. We are totally dependent on hospitals that are 60 to 70 miles away.
Mr Oliver Gibson: I am sure that the Minister will agree that the agriculture industry demands confidence, and that that is demanded equally by consumers. What programmes has the Minister considered to ensure that there is mass screening of all our livestock, or is she confident that BSE cannot be transferred at the incubation stage in animals under 30 months? Is there scientific evidence to support the...
Mr Oliver Gibson: 11. asked the Minister of the Environment if he will make it his policy, in liaison with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, to ensure that the farming community will be consulted in relation to new legislation to protect the environment. (AQO 669/00)
Mr Oliver Gibson: I welcome the Minister’s statement that he enjoys the support and encouragement of the farming community. The difficulties with regard to tree protection orders (TPOs), special areas of conservation (SACs) and those areas that are still designated ASSIs include identification of the locality and protection by fencing and the identification of the rare trees. Very rare trees may be...
Mr Oliver Gibson: 5. asked the Minister for Regional Development to outline the steps he is taking to address the underfunding of the road infrastructure and increase standards to an acceptable level. (AQO 668/00)
Mr Oliver Gibson: I congratulate the Minister on his knowledge of the geography of West Tyrone. It is one thing to mention the Leckpatrick scheme, the Newtownstewart bypass, the Omagh throughpass, the Strabane bypass, the Ballygawley —
Mr Oliver Gibson: If the funding is not forthcoming, is that an indication that the Executive have a policy of helping the rural community’s rurality, of removing remoteness, of removing peripherality, or of denying the cohesion funds of the Peace II programme? If the funding is not forthcoming, then the Executive will truly have let the Minister down.
Mr Oliver Gibson: 3. asked the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister to detail (a) when the next meeting of the Assembly Executive will take place and (b) what issues will be raised with the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. (AQO 667/00)
Mr Oliver Gibson: In view of last week’s legal decision, what new sanctions does he intend to apply to the representatives of armed terrorists in his Executive? Or does dealing with armed terrorists in his Executive have the same elasticity as the word "decommissioning"?
Mr Oliver Gibson: First of all, I thank the proposer of the motion. Bearing in mind Mr Ford’s warning about ASSIs, I will use the term "special areas of conservation" (SACs), as designated by the European Directive. In June last year the Minister wisely introduced 23 of those, making a total of 43 such designated areas in Northern Ireland. I have three simple points. First, a number of people have quite...
Mr Oliver Gibson: Mr Deputy Speaker, I thought I had escaped - [Laughter]. When listening to Ms Morrice I remembered attending a national school on a first floor. The principal and his family lived on the ground floor. That could have been called a high school or college of technology. Older generations in rural areas attended mixed schools, and my father would declare that mixed schools were great because...
Mr Oliver Gibson: I am surprised that the number of victims in North Antrim is 47. As Mr Paisley Jnr said, most people think of it as an area that has been remote from terrorism. If I compare it with West Tyrone, some of the lessons that we have learned will be of use to you in North Antrim and may develop this argument further. We have 97 direct victims. That does not include the Omagh bomb victims or groups...
Mr Oliver Gibson: Will the Minister pass on my thanks to his 400 men? In the circumstances, they carried out personal tasks for many of us, such as accommodating funerals and helping with other emergencies — this was welcome. The Minister has already mentioned the variations in the treatment of roads in different areas. Can he tell us why the M1, an arterial route, was less well salted than roads in the more...
Mr Oliver Gibson: Of course it is dishonest, for one is changing the paper. However, that is what Governments want. A move must be made, through the North/South procedures, to see what is happening and what the real effects are. Someone talked about research. What about inequality? This situation becomes more unequal if one examines the extraction of other products from the ground, for example, coal, oil, gas,...
Mr Oliver Gibson: We are having an interesting day. This morning, the Chancellor of the Exchequer here was criticised for his idea of taxing buildings — a tax commonly known as rates. He also referred to the mobile phones carried into this place. We know that Chancellors tax airspace. Governments have, over the past few years, tried to move from direct taxation to other means of taxation. At an international...