NI ASSEMBLY ELECTION ’16: SOUTH BELFAST PREDICTION

The South Belfast constituency is one to watch this May – it has gone through massive changes to its sitting MLA’s since 2011 and that could have an impact on the outcome this time around.

In 2011, the candidates elected were as follows:

• Anna Lo – Alliance (retiring)
• Alex Maskey – SF (replaced by Máirtín Ó Muilleoir within the term)
• Jimmy Spratt – DUP (replaced by Emma Little-Pengelly within the term)
• Conall McDevitt – SDLP (replaced by Fearghal McKinney after resigining)
• Alasdair McDonnell – SDLP (stepped down, replaced by Claire Hanna)
• Michael McGimpsey – UUP (retiring)

So, none of the originally elected representatives will be seeking to hold their seats in May 2016.

Looking at the data, it would seem the SDLP is in real trouble in this constituency.  Alasdair McDonnell held the seat for the Party at Westminster, but suffered a cataclysmic drop of 16.5% in his vote.

At the 2011 Assembly election, the combined SDLP vote was actually behind that of the DUP, 24.3% as opposed to 23.9%.  The SDLP still held two seats, but this was with two very well known, relatively popular candidates.

Fearghal McKinney, the SDLP deputy leader is an untried electoral animal in the Assembly, having run for Fermanagh and South Tyrone’s Westminster seat in 2010 with an abysmal 7.6% – down by over 7% on 2005.  Will his deputy leadership help him hold on?

Claire Hanna is another untried Assembly candidate, though she was a sitting Councillor on Belfast City Council for Balmoral, coming third in the five seater ward with just under 1,500 votes.

Rodney McCune will be the UUP standard bearer in May, replacing big hitter and former Health Minister Michael McGimpsey.  He ran for Westminster in the constituency, and had a disastrous turnout, down 8.2% on the previous election.  The combined UUP candidates in 2011 polled 13.5%.  There should be a relatively safe seat there for the UUP, but it is by no means set in stone.

Emma Little Pengelly, a former OFMDFM Special Adviser replaced veteran Jimmy Spratt relatively recently, and ignited a furious row with outspoken Councillor Ruth Patterson who believed she was ‘parachuted’ into the seat having never held elected office before.  Cllr Patterson resigned and will run as an Independent.  She amassed 3,800 first preferences last time, and narrowly missed out.

Alliance will miss Anna Lo, she topped the poll for the party in the constituency in 2011.  She is being replaced by one time UCUNF candidate Paula Bradshaw who joined the party in late 2013, and Duncan Morrow.  Bradshaw is a sitting Balmoral Councillor, polling just over 800 first prefs in 2014, whilst Morrow lost out in Botanic.  Running two candidates seems risky to me, but tight vote management might just get Bradshaw over the line.

The dark horse in this constituency is the Green Party’s Claire Bailey.  She ran in 2011, getting just over 800 firsts, but then at the 2015 Westminster, almost doubled the Greens’ 2010 total.

Sinn Fein is running sitting MLA Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, in a safe seat.  Sinn Fein did’t run for Westminster in 2010, an he gained almost 14% in 2015.  Alex Maskey has moved constituency, and will be a big loss, but Ó Muilleoir is a name in himself, having been a popular Lord Mayor.

PREDICTION

A very tricky one to call for the most part.  SF will definitely hold their seat here, no doubt about that.  We can’t see the SDLP holding both seats, Hanna is from a well-known local family, her mother Carmel is a former MLA and Minister.  McKinney is the one to lose out here if they drop a seat, which will be a massive story.

Alliance have taken what we think is a strange route here with running two candidates, the votes are there to hold the seat as Lo was very popular, but this needs to be carefully managed, if it turns into a bloodbath, the seat may well be lost.

The big story here is the fight for the sole DUP seat.  Ruth Patterson is running off her own steam with flag protester Jamie Bryson as her election agent, and she has garnered a loyal electoral base over the years.  Little Pengelly is high profile on the Hill at present, but untried in electoral contests.  I can only predict here that Patterson will come out on top.

The Greens have a real chance here in my opinion, starting from a relatively buoyed and steady base from 2015.  This chance stems not only from their own electoral base, but from the relative disarray of the Unionist vote in particular created by Little Pengelly v Patterson.  The SDLP losing one of their two here, and the well known chance of it happening, may spook some of their voters, especially those who are not die-hards.  They may well go Green.

The UUP seat looks relatively safe, though there have been what looks to be some bloodletting in the South Belfast Association when Michael McGimpsey stepped down, to the shock of many.

Here’s how we call it:

SF 1

AL 1 (Bradshaw)

SDLP 1 (Hanna)

UUP 1

IND 1 (Patterson)

GP 1 (Bailey)

 

 

NI ASSEMBLY ’16: W TYRONE PREDICTION

West Tyrone borders Fermanagh and South Tyrone to the west, and Foyle to the east, currently dominated by SF which holds the Westminster seat and half of the available Assembly seats.

The DUP, UUP and SDLP have one seat a piece, with Thomas Buchanan, Ross Hussey and Daniel McCrossan holding these respectively.

Sinn Fein are running four candidates, the three sitting MLA’s Barry McElduff, Michaela Boyle, Declan McAleer and Grace  McDermott.

Thomas Buchanan will run again for the DUP with Allan Bresland as a sweeper securing that seat, though there was whispers in the constituency that Buchanan would retire.  Ross Hussey, the very popular UUP MLA is running again and sure to be returned if he builds on his just over 10% yield in 2011.

The SDLP are running former staffer of Joe Byrne, Daniel McCrossan.  They’ve faced numerous setbacks in this area – first a row over Council candidates, returning only one Strabane-based Councillor, then there was a row over McCrossan’s selection to replace Byrne, having not run in any election apart from the 2015 Westminster poll garnering 6,444 votes, 300 ahead of Hussey.

CISTA are running Barry Brown, the NI Conservatives are running Roger Lomas, Alliance’s Stephen Donnelly and the Independent Corey French will join them.

In 2011 SF had 3.5 quotas, and in 2015 Pat Doherty lost 4.9% of his vote on his 2010 totals, with the SDLP and UUP adding marginally to their 2010 totals.

The DUP and UUP have a seat each in the bank.  The UUP may want to run a second here to carry Hussey home but he should be safe.

CISTA, Alliance, NI Conservatives and the Independent candidate will not come within any distance of a seat here.

The big question here will be, can the SDLP hold against SF given the internal meltdown and terrible performance from non-Derry based candidates in the 2014 local government election, returning Patsy Kelly who is known to oppose McCrossan.

Cllr Kelly has already had the party whip withdrawn once over his opposition to McCrossan, and now a second time, for suggesting that the party would run a second candidate in the constituency for the Assembly.

Party apparatchiks moved quickly to undermine this story, but the saga has reached the point of being a joke now – that a modern political party would allow such abject indiscipline means either the rifts between the two camps is long past repair, or the one representative who actually has his own mandate is playing a blinder – either way, the vote will suffer.

If the internal rumblings hit the SDLP campaign, or indeed voter confidence, the seat will go – and go to Sinn Fein whose fourth candidate was less than 350 behind Byrne in 2011.

Here’s how we see it:

SF x 4

DUP x 1

UUP x 1

SDLP need to get their act together here.  A loss here would mean no Assembly members anywhere west of Derry.

DERRY DETOX: ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

EDIT: We have been told by the Western Trust that the Omagh Addiction Treatment Unit closed for a refurb on 3 July 2015.

Readers in the North West will remember reading our very popular piece on how the campaign for a detoxification unit in Derry was betrayed by a range of political parties, health trusts, and their own council – you can read it again here.

The whole process to reconfigure the services into a ‘regional network’ started with a consultation that ended in January 2014.  As part of this, four centres would cater to all of NI and an existing centre would have 8 beds to serve the Western Trust.

In October 2015, Chair of the Stormont Health Committee was informed by the Western Trust that the new service would be operational by January 2016. (Source).

However, to add insult to injury for the people of the North’s second largest City, BtP can reveal today that the Omagh unit has been totally closed for some time – meaning the Western Trust has had no 24/7 inpatient detox services at all.

We asked the Western Trust to give us information about how many patients the Omagh centre had seen since the reconfiguration of the service took place, broken down by month.

In an astonishing reply, the Trust told us:

“We have been advised by the Trust’s Directorate of Adult Mental Health Services that unfortunately due to the refurbishment requirement in the former facility, the detoxification unit is not currently operational.”

In a piece in the Ulster Herald in April 2015, a local Omagh Councillor was told that the service would be up and running from June 2015. (Source)  In it, the Councillor informed the paper that correspondence from the Department of Health stated that:

“The intention being to have the Omagh ATU operating in its enhanced role from June 2015, subject to recruitment and training.”

We asked the Trust when the service closed for refurbishment, but have not had any reply as yet.  The Trust did inform us that the work was due to finish at the end of March – but the question remains – how could the Western area be left with no provision at all for any period of time given the need and demand of a proper service from the people of the North West?  It is now over two years since the consultation ended for the new service.

HOW MUCH ARE YOU PAYING FOR THE SPEAKER’S ACCOMMODATION?

Much like the UK Parliament where the Speaker of the House is provided with a grace-and-favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster as a perk of the job, so too does the Assembly provide accommodation for the Assembly Speaker.

William Hay of the DUP served as Speaker from May 2007 until October 20114 when he was replaced by Sinn Fein’s Mitchel McLaughlin in January 2015 who is the current office holder.

 

Stormont House, this article’s cover picture was originally built to act as the Speaker’s residence, but present is used by the Northern Ireland Office as their local headquarters.

However, the Department of Finance and Personnel, who run the Stormont Estate, still provide accommodation for the Assembly Speaker – and you pay for it.

Whilst we do not know the location of the accommodation used specifically, we know it is within the grounds of the Estate, which for anyone who has ever visited, will know is far from being deprived.

So what have you been paying for?

BtP asked for all costs relating to the accommodation provided for the Speaker since the beginning of the current Assembly mandate, i.e. 2011.  We also asked how many times the accommodation has been used.

Home heating oil

Yes, you are paying to heat the private accommodation of the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly.  Since 2011, this cost was a whopping

£4,341.57

 

Electricity

You also pay for the electricity bills run up by the Speaker during his use of the property.  Since 2011 this amounted to

£281.51

 

Rates

You also pay the rates bills for the property – despite the property being paid for by the Department of Finance and Personnel, who bill you for your own home.  Since 2011, the rates bill for the Speaker’s accommodation came to

£9,056.46

 

Rent

 The scandal here is that the rent is paid to the Department of Finance and Personnel – we pay rates to the Department and rent despite it owning the Stormont Estate.  Oh yes – despite the Speaker having his own respective private accommodation in his constituency, you pay the full rent on his grace-and-favour property also.  From 2011 this came to.

£21,600

Remember the second question we asked – how many times the property was used?  The Assembly couldn’t tell us.  Which means in essence that you could have been been paying all of these costs for a property that went unused for months, even years at a time.

What’s worse – whilst we couldn’t pinpoint the location of the property, we can get an idea of what size it may be.  The level of rates paid indicate the commercial value of the property used by the Speaker would be in the region of £300,000.  BtP looked at a leading property website for properties for sale of that value – there were several detached 4 and 5 bedroom properties across NI.  This may give you an idea of the size of the property used by the Speaker – and you pay for it.

SCHOOLS FEEDING KIDS FROM DEPRIVED AREAS: CHILD POVERTY SHAME

Information released to BtP under Freedom of Information by the Department of Education show schools in Derry and West Belfast are spending thousands of pounds under the Extended Schools Programme to provide breakfast clubs for their students.

The Department of Education’s (DE) extended schools programme provides additional financial support to eligible schools to help improve the life chances of children and young people particularly from deprived areas.

BtP asked the Department to outline ‘the number of schools i.e. Nursery, primary and post primary that offer free breakfast clubs for pupils either funded from their own budgets or from the Department specifically (please specify funding stream) broken down by Assembly constituency since 2011′.

The Department informed us that:

‘the Department does not hold information on the provision of free school breakfasts across the entire schools estate.

However the additional resources made available via the Department’s Extended Schools (ES) programme can be used for a range of activities including breakfast clubs. The focus of the ES programme is on improving educational outcomes, reducing barriers to learning and providing additional support to help improve the life chances of disadvantaged children and young people.’

£2.65m has been spent as part of this programme across the region since 2012-13 to cater for Breakfast clubs.  Each year from 2012-2015 with the exception of 2014-15, 2014 schools right across the region have benefitted from the Extended Schools programme.

In each of the years from 2012 until the end of 2015 inclusive, at least one Derry school and one West Belfast school have been included in the 5 highest-spending on breakfast provision for their students in NI.

In the Foyle constituency, the top school for spending on breakfast clubs alternated between either St Patrick’s Primary or St Joseph’s Boys School in Creggan.

In West Belfast, it is St Mary’s CBS or Christ the Redeemer Primary School respectively.  Of all the data BtP received from the Department of Education, St Patrick’s Primary School in Foyle has by far the largest budget, at almost £17,000 in 2014-15.

Earlview P.S is situated in South Antrim, whilst Christ the Redeemer and St. Mary’s CBS are situated in West Belfast.  St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s Boys are in Foyle.

Again, the same schools are in the top five with the exception of Fleming Fulton in this year, which is situated in South Belfast.

The 2014-15 figures mirror those of 2012-13, in a different order, with South Antrim, West Belfast and Foyle schools topping the spend.

The 2015-16 figures suggest St Paul’s in South Armagh and St Patrick’s and St Brigid’s just outside Derry join the other schools that are static throughout the figures.

For the first time, we are going to release the full FOI response we received from the Department, showing all of the school figures. (.xlsx format)

Breakfast_Club_Extended Schools 12.13

Breakfast clubs provided through Extended Schools programme 13.14 14.15 and 15.16…

STATE OF THE PSNI: 5 YEARS AFTER ENDING 50:50

A major factor in delivering the Good Friday Agreement was the establishment of the Patten Commission on Policing, which subsequently instigated a 50:50 recruitment policy in the new Police Service of Northern Ireland for Catholics and Protestants.

However, in March 2011, the then-Secretary of State Owen Paterson ended the practice, which lead to widespread anger, given just below 30% of the officers were from a Catholic background at that time.

Given it is now five years from that decision, BtP decided to investigate the current state of the PSNI in relation to community makeup.

Current staff composition

At the time of writing, 67.32% of Police Officers were from the Protestant community, whilst 31.13% were from the Catholic community.  In terms of support staff for the PSNI, 78.31% of these staff are from the Protestant community, whilst 19.61% are from the Catholic community, the rest in both categories are marked ‘Undetermined’.

Training

Prospective Police Constables are required to apply, be granted a place at the Police Training College, and pass their course there.

BtP sought the community breakdown of all applicants, successful and unsuccessful, in the last three years.  It should be noted that the 2014 intake have not yet completed training, and the 2015 tranche have not yet been appointed to the College stage of the process.

In all of the years, the percentage applicants from the Protestant community have reached a high of 67.51% in 2014 and their lowest, 65.30% in 2015.

The number of applicants from the Catholic community have hovered around the 30% mark, 31.81% in 2015 being the highest, and the lowest in 2013 at 30.62%.

Of those applicants who were successful in being allowed to progress to the PSNI Training College, the percentages seem fairly static in 2013 and 2014, however the figures underlying these are surprising.

In 2013, 319 members of the Protestant community progressed, compared to only 77 members of the Catholic community.  This works out as 79.5% Protestant, 19.2% Catholic.

These figures mean that for 2013, just over 6% of applicants from the Protestant community progressed to the College stage, whilst just over 3% of applicants from the Catholic community progressed.

In 2014, the figures are more stark.  215 Protestants progressed to the College compared to only 46 from the Catholic community.

Of the 2013 intake, the graduation percentage for each community match that of the applicant breakdown, however the figures tell a different story.

Of all of the applicants in total from the beginning of the process, those to graduate from PSNI Training College from the Catholic community add to a mere 0.94%, whilst those from 5% of those from a Protestant background graduated.

Given those who entered the College in 2014 are still in training, the figures of those still in training and those who have graduated are;

145 Protestants remain in training at the College, compared to 31 members of the Catholic community.  63 Protestants from that cohort have so far graduated, compared to 14 Catholic graduates.

The figures for 2015 show only those who have applied and no sifting has been completed to progress to the College stage.

3,590 members of the Protestant community applied to the PSNI, with 1749 Catholics applying.

Promotions

We asked the PSNI to outline how many officers were promoted in the last three years, broken down by community makeup.

Since 1st Jan 2013, 321 officers were granted a promotion in the PSNI.

The breakdown is as follows:

226 or 70.04% were Protestant, 90 or 28.04% were Catholic and 5 or 1.86% were ‘undetermined’

In terms of numbers by rank, these break down as follows:

The vast majority of promotions were granted to constables elevated to Sergeant, 172, with of course one new Chief Constable being appointed.  The figures, just for information, are as follows (these are all promotions, not broken down by community designation):

Chief Constable  1

Deputy Chief Constable  1

Asst Chief Constable  2

Chief Superintendent  6

Superintendent  15

Chief Inspector  39

Inspector  84

Sergeant  172

 

 

EXECUTIVE BUDGET CUTS KILL THEIR OWN JOBS STRATEGY

In April 2015, the Minister of Employment and Learning announced, on behalf of his Department and then-Minister for Enterprise Trade and Investment Arlene Foster ‘Enabling Success’ – a strategy to tackle economic inactivity and get people back to work.

In his speech to the Assembly, the Minister stated:

“High levels of economic inactivity represent a major structural problem with our economy, which, if unaddressed, would  limit our ability to develop and transform our economic prospects.

For that reason, our two Departments have been leading, on behalf of the Executive, on the development of a new strategy aimed at tackling economic in Northern Ireland.This will be the only dedicated government strategy in the United Kingdom at a national level aimed at tackling economic inactivity.”

As part of the strategy, a number of departments wanted to invite a number of pilot projects to test how best to actually get people back to work on the ground – a rather major piece of work for the Executive given the high prevalence of people out of work in NI.

According to the Executive’s own 2016-2017 Budget, 27% of people of working age are deemed to be ‘economically inactive’ – vastly beyond the UK average at 21.9%.

As part of the perceived priorities for the new Minister for Communities (which will take on most of the current DSD portfolio plus some other features) the Budget states ‘How to enable access to debt advice and tackle economic inactivity’ as a major priority. (Source pg 51)

Also, the section on the new Department for the Economy refers to economic inactivity and the use of European funding in the form of the European Social Fund.

“The Department is also the Managing Authority for the Northern Ireland ESF Programme 2014-2020, which has a European funding allocation equivalent to £144 million and a total value of £360 million. The strategic aim of the ESF Programme 2014-2020 is to combat poverty and enhance social inclusion by reducing economic inactivity and to increase the skills base of those currently in work and future potential participants in the workforce”.

On a side note, it is likely that the new Economy Department will be headed by a DUP Minister who favour leaving the EU.

Bearing in mind the DEL Minister made the Enabling Success statement in April 2015, and was mooted long before that, you might be shocked to discover that BtP can reveal today that the Department hasn’t received any bids for funding for pilot projects.

Why? because, as the Department told BtP – ‘due to the ongoing pressure on government budgets and finance, these cross-departmental projects have yet to commence.‘

In essence, we are being told that a major Executive strategy to get people back into employment in NI has completely stalled – because of the austerity budget that the Executive agreed as part of the Stormont House Agreement.

COUNT STAFF CUT COULD SPELL NIGHTMARE FOR ASSEMBLY ELECTION

The notoriously slow process of election counts in NI, culminating in the horrific 2-day wait for many candidates for the Assembly in 2011 could yet be compounded this year.

BtP have asked for details of the workforce available to the Electoral Office for the last three elections, and planned staffing numbers for this years Assembly elections to be held in May.

Only 65 counting staff will be available per constituency, with only 15 senior staff per constituency.  BtP can reveal that there will be over 700 less staff counting at the Assembly elections this year – which could prove a disaster for anxious candidates.

RATES: WERE YOU TOLD THE TRUTH?

A programme of local government reform completed in April 2015 reduced the number of councils from 26 to 11 in NI.  Following the May 2014 elections, the DUP and Sinn Fein emerged as the largest parties in 10 councils with the exception of Newry and Mourne District Council, where the SDLP and SF are in the majority with the same number of seats.

Now we look at the promises made to the electorate during the 2014 European and Local Government election by each of the three respective parties.

On 6th May 2014 at the launch of the DUP Manifesto, then-DUP Leader Peter Robinson states:

“By voting DUP you will be sure we will keep your household taxes down.” Source here

The Sinn Fein manifesto states:

“We also feel that accessible housing with reasonable rent and rates should be available to everyone.” – Page 12, SF 2014 European and Local Government Manifesto (6CO). Source here.

The SDLP manifesto states:
“In the next mandate the SDLP will assist both the business and domestic ratepayer by ensuring council rates do not rise above inflation.” – Page 40, SDLP 2014 European and Local Government manifesto. Source here.

Those are some fairly clear commitments made by the parties that now run our local councils.

Now let’s put those promises to the test.  All local councils set their rates in mid-February.  According to the Treasury, the current rate of inflation is 1.3%, we have included this on the graph below as the orange line.

As is clearly demonstrated, seven out of eleven councils have increased their district rate above inflation.  Belfast City Council froze their rates for the third year in a row, and Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council reduced their district rate from 2015 by almost half of a percent, the only to do so.

So, primarily, the DUP have broken their promise to keep household taxes down – three  councils under their control – Lisburn and Castlereagh, Causeway Coast and Glens, and Ard and North Down have all increased District rates above inflation.

The SDLP broke their promise to keep rates below inflation in Newry and Mourne District Council.

Sinn Fein increased rates above inflation in all of the councils they control except Belfast City Council, with the highest set in Mid Ulster District Council.

Is an election coming up?  You might want to mention it to your candidates.

PFI COSTS: ASTRONOMICAL BURDEN ON TAXPAYERS REVEALED

Private finance initiatives are used by governments to build public projects such as schools or hospitals using private finance, which is then paid back each year via a ‘unitary charge’ which includes part of the cost of the building – just like a bank loan.

Until the full amount is paid back to investors, the private funders manage and own the asset, which is not passed into public ownership until all unitary charges have been paid.

Northern Ireland has 39 PFI projects in total, with six of these having been completed and paid for.

The cost of building all of these assets came to a whopping £1.987 BILLION which is eclipsed when we reveal that the amount of money you the public will pay back in total when all the contracts are completed is an eye-watering £7 BILLION (£7,085,000,000).  Let’s put that in context.

The entire budget for the Department of Education agreed by the Executive for 2016-2017 is £1.947bn.  The budget of the Department of Health in the same period is £4.88bn.  Our PFI debt is more than these two budgets added together.  Indeed, the original cost of just building all of these projects is largely equal to the Department of Education’s budget – £1.987bn.

Let’s look at these projects, what they originally cost, what they will cost us when the PFI ends, and who oversaw the deal.

The six deals that are complete range from projects started in 1996 (New Renal Dialysis facilities) to a huge upgrade of schools IT infrastructure, the last project of which started in December 2004 by the Dept of Education.  To give an idea of the terms of some of these deals, a project entitled ‘Electronic Libraries for Northern Ireland’ cost £10.2 million to complete, but the public paid £38.37 million in total after the ten year lease.  The renal dialysis project referred to above cost £2.85 million but at the end of the 15 year lease, the public had paid ten times that – £24.97 million.

The largest PFI project in Northern Ireland is referred to as ‘Roads Service DBFO Package 2’ DBFO refers to ‘Design, Build, Finance and Operate’.  The contract was awarded to Amey in 2007 and completed two years later – it cost £250 million to build.  The details can be found here.  When the 30 years contract is completed, it will cost £1.076 billion – four times the original cost to build.

The Department of Education currently has 11 projects under PFI contracts, the largest of any public body.  The total cost to originally build the 11 projects was £245 million – but when the contracts are completed, some with still 20 years to go, the total cost to the public purse is £733 million.

The Department of Employment and Learning come second, with major projects such as the new buildings for Belfast Met, North West Regional College, South East Regional College and South West College.  All of the DEL projects cost £150 million in total, but when the contracts are completed, again some with 20 years still left to run, it will have cost £865 million.

A number of Health Trusts have undertaken PFI projects, 6 in total.  They cost £335.44 million – but when the contracts are paid off, some decades in the future, the public will have paid £1.015 billion.

Northern Ireland Water is next with three PFI projects to upgrade water treatment works.  These were build at a cost of £144 million, but when the contract ends, we will have paid £1.191 billion. (Details here)

The Department of Regional Development has two massive PFI contracts to upgrade infrastructure, one we have already referred to.  The contracts cost £367 million to build, but when the contract is complete on both, we will have paid £1.638 billion.

The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure has one project, the building of Lisburn City Library at a cost of £3.7 million.  It will cost the taxpayer £11.6 million when the contract is complete in 2030.

In a particularly hard pill to swallow for many, the sole Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment PFI project was the building of the InvestNI HQ in Belfast at a cost of £25 million.  When the contract on it completes in around 2037, the taxpayer will have paid £129.15 million.

Another very strange project indeed is referred to as ‘LandWeb’ managed by the Department of Finance – this cost nothing to build, the information we have tells us, yet when the PFI contract is completed in the summer of 2019 – it will have cost the taxpayer £91 million. (We have contacted the Department to clarify)

Last but not least is the building of the Laganside Courthouse by the Department of Justice.  It cost £24.48 million to complete, but by the time we are finished paying, it will have cost us £110.47 million.  We do not even own the building at the present time – the contract does not conclude until 2024.

Large sections of our critical infrastructure – roads, schools, courts – are not in public hands and we are paying private interests because of these deals undertaken by the Executive.

So, who authorised these deals?

Of the 11 Department of Education projects, three were authorised by direct rule ministers in 1997.  However, all of the rest were authorised when Sinn Fein headed the Department.

(SF Education Ministers; Martin McGuinness, Catriona Ruane, incumbent John O’Dowd)

Of the Department of Employment and Learning projects, two were initiated pre-devolution, 2 others were initiated when SDLP Minister Sean Farren was at the helm and the remaining during the period the Assembly was suspended, under Direct Rule ministers.

(Former SDLP Employment and Learning Minister Sean Farren)

The Northern Ireland Water projects were all started under Direct Rule ministers – in 1995 pre-devolution, and during the suspension in 2004 and 2005 as was the controversial ‘landweb’ project under DFP.

Of the Health Trust projects, all started under pre-devolution Direct Rule ministers, either pre-devolution or during a period of suspension, the same with all three of the NI Water projects and the two Road Service projects.

The UUP’s Michael McGimpsey was the Minister in DCAL when their sole project was initiated.

(Former DCAL Minister, UUP MLA Michael McGimpsey)

A Direct Rule minister initiated the building of the InvestNI HQ project, much to the relief of our politicians, and the new Laganside Courthouse was initiated long before policing and justice were devolved to the Assembly.

Where are these projects?

Two of the projects are situated in East Belfast, four in West Belfast, 3 in South Belfast.

Two are situated in Foyle, 1 in South Down and 2 in Lagan Valley.

Three in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, one in Mid Ulster and one each in West Tyrone, South Antrim, North Down and East Londonderry.  The remaining eleven cross constituency boundaries and as such are listed as being in ‘more than one’ constituency.

Who owns the assets now?

Seventeen of the projects are currently owned by one shareholder.  For example, the Royal Victoria Hospital Carpark is owned by a company called Car Parking Services Ltd.  They run a number of car parks throughout NI.

The Lisburn City Library is owned by Turkington Holdings, who were at the centre of a controversial debate in the Assembly about Housing Executive contracts.

One of the schools IT projects is wholly owned by the IT giant Hewlett Packard and the strange asset known as ‘landweb’ which seemingly cost nothing to build but will cost taxpayers £91 million is owned by BT.

Laganside Courts is owned by Consul Services Holdings Ltd – and two of the directors of Turkington Holdings Ltd are also directors alongside the owner of the Obel Tower.

In another strange twist, part-nationalised bank Allied Irish actually own 24.5% of Enniskillen Hospital (South West Acute Hospital).  Some Unionists in the county might not be very happy to know the Irish Government owns a quarter of a local hospital.

The bank HSBC also owns 45% of the equity in Grosvenor Grammar, Belfast Boys Model School, Belfast Model Schools for Girls and Ashfield Girls School, one primary school (Orangefield Primary School), and two nursery schools (Ravenscroft and Glendhu).

PFI costs are a staple of our financial outgoings in the next number of years, even decades, despite the questionable return to the public.