Tag: 2023

The press release issued by the Ulster Unionist Party on 20 January 2023.

UUP Education spokesperson and Deputy Leader Robbie Butler MLA said:

“The recent proposed budget cuts of £110m to Education services by the Department of Education would decimate an already stretched sector and place some of our most vulnerable children at unconscionable risk.

“With teachers and support staff already working to full capacity and above this will be a burden that they cannot bear.

“In real terms the quarterly cut that has been sought will likely manifest in a £500m reduction, in year. Given that slashes to services will have to be made in order to deliver the request, this places non-statutory services directly in the firing line.

“In recent years great work has been carried out at the Assembly to achieve much needed commitments to Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) Transformation funding which was evidenced by reports such as “Too Little Too Late” by the NI Children’s Commissioner (NICCY) and additional funding to support Mental Health and Wellbeing which was a key ask from our young people including the “Elephant In The Room” report.”

“If these cuts are realised, I fear that the disinvestment in our young people will manifest itself for years to come with preventable barriers to learning, engagement and wellbeing being irreparably eroded for a generation.

“There is clear evidence that early intervention and support for children reduces health inequalities and juvenile misadventure and promotes employability, wellbeing and life satisfaction. This should be enough to push for additional funding, not huge cuts.

“We need a functioning Executive as a priority for our children’s future with a Minister who is wedded to their best interests. In the interim we need demonstration from the Secretary of State that he values our children and will reverse this disinvestment in our pupils.”

The press release issued by the Ulster Unionist Party on 19 January 2023.

The Ulster Unionist Party Leader Doug Beattie MC MLA has called on retailers who sell home heating oil in small containers to price them at the same cost per unit as is charged to those who buy larger amounts which are delivered via tankers.

Doug Beattie said:

“Living in a cold and freezing environment can be debilitating, inhibit motivation and adversely affect general health and wellbeing.

“Ulster Unionists have campaigned to ensure many government interventions during the Energy Crisis and we welcome the current roll-out of £600 Energy Support Payment but further action is needed.

“We have called for the Utility Regulator to be given power to oversee home heating oil and bottled gas sales and in the absence of official regulation I am now also asking retailers who sell home heating oil in small containers – usually from the forecourts of garages – to self-regulate and not sell these containers for more than the price for bulk buying for home delivery via tanker.

“Those on a low income, particularly before receiving the long awaited £600 Energy Support Payment, may not be able to afford a bulk delivery of oil and it is important that we as a society protect the most vulnerable and those in greatest need.”

The press release issued by the Ulster Unionist Party on 18 January 2023.

Ulster Unionist Health Spokesperson Alan Chambers has warned that the delay in implementing the changes to Northern Ireland’s organ donation laws could cost lives.

Alan Chambers said:

“Whilst we should all remain eternally grateful for the many donors and their families that currently do donate organs, the reality is between 10-15 people each year in Northern Ireland still sadly pass away while awaiting an organ transplant.

“That is why the landmark soft opt-out Organ Donation Bill, which had been long standing Ulster Unionist policy and which was successfully driven through by the last Health Minister Robin Swann, should have been preparing for implementation over the coming weeks.

“Instead, due the absence of a Minister and functioning Executive, the changes are shamefully currently mothballed. Northern Ireland already has the most outdated organ donation laws anywhere in the UK and this delay will only exacerbate that fact.

“The Organ Donation Bill, as well as putting us in line with neighbouring countries, had the goal of increasing the rate of consent in cases in which it is clinically possible for organ donation to proceed after the sad occasion of a person’s death.  Evidence from elsewhere was clear that doing so would increase the overall number of donors, and ultimately the number of lifesaving organs available for transplantation.

“My former Party colleague Jo-Anne Dobson came agonisingly close to introducing the legislation 6 years ago, but which was ultimately sabotaged at the time by others for political reasons. So it makes it all the more reprehensible that the health and wellbeing of people in Northern Ireland has once again been sabotaged for political reasons and failures.”

The press release issued by the Ulster Unionist Party on 16 January 2023.

Mike Nesbitt MLA, the Ulster Unionist representative on the Policing Board of Northern Ireland, has endorsed the special edition of the Police Federation magazine, Police Beat. The magazine highlights the impact on serving officers of the cost of living crisis.

Mike Nesbitt said:

“This is a stark illustration of the human cost of the current financial crisis on the people we rely on to keep society safe. Probationary officers are leaving at one end. Senior, experienced officers are moving on at the other end, and in between, officers at all grades are feeling under-valued. The overall impact is fast approaching a crisis similar to that happening in the NHS, except police officers cannot take the same industrial action as nurses to bring a focus to their plight.

“I noted some months ago the head of the Prison Service said he was recruiting prison officers without the budget to fund their salaries, because he could not keep prisons safe without the additional headcount. I further note he said he was doing so with the approval of the then Minister for Justice. Unfortunately, there has been no such support for the PSNI.

“Millions are being lost in training probationary officers who do not stay the distance because they discover they cannot support their families as they thought they could as a police officer. Meanwhile, expertise is being lost as officers move on too early. We know it takes years, maybe decades, to replace what has been lost. You may recreate the numbers quite quickly, but rebuilding that level of experience takes a very long time.

“It does no one justice to see a police officer take a second job to make ends meet. In fact, I find that appalling, as would my late father or grandfather. We are supposed to be a first world country. There is a real issue with regard to the disrespect we show our public servants whose calling is to professions such as policing and nursing, which results in a clear and deeply negative impact on the public they desire to serve. That is why I believe we need the Assembly back now.”

The press release issued by the Ulster Unionist Party on 6 January 2023.

Ulster Unionist Health Spokesperson Alan Chambers MLA has warned that the longer it takes for a Northern Ireland Executive to be re-established the more serious and dangerous the crisis in the health service will become.

Alan Chambers said:

“It is absolute madness that we are in the midst of the most difficult winter pressures ever to face the local health service and instead of a having an Executive in place overseeing the response and taking the actions necessary to see us through it, the system and the staff that work within it are being betrayed in the worst possible manner.

“The crisis facing our health service, both in scheduled and unscheduled care, is now costing lives. Thanks to the efforts of Robin Swann we have record numbers of staff in training and the short-term and longer-term plans in place, but now the health system is being denied the leadership it so desperately needs to effectively implement those plans.

“Of course the current problems are not unique to Northern Ireland, but the sheer breadth and scale of the pressures are. At least in Westminster, even with the current Government’s many failings, there are a team of Ministers in place trying to take charge of the situation. The Prime Minister only this week laid out his commitment to try and turn things around in the health service in England. Yet in Northern Ireland the only thing we can be sure of is that the longer the re-establishment of the Executive is blocked the worse things are going to get.

“I challenge those MLAs and the Party responsible to imagine spending one night in an Emergency Department, to watch staff and listen to the real distress from patients, and then try to state that what they are doing is still the best way forward for the people of Northern Ireland. It’s not and they know it.

“Instead with each week that passes sadly more and more patients are coming to real harm and yet we have one political party that doesn’t seem to care. It is abhorrent!”