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Mr Conor Murphy: Assembly records
All of Mr Conor Murphy’s imported questions, contributions and motions in this mandate, newest first, including those assessed as not qualifying, uncertain or not yet analysed.
You have to judge the positivity of a meeting not by the pleasantness of the conversation, which was very pleasant, or by the exchange of information — we provided further written information to the Minister and the Home Office — but by the outcome, which was not positive. The outcome was that they went ahead, and not…
Tourism has grown substantially in recent years, and there is considerable potential for further growth. However, the introduction of the electronic travel authorisation scheme threatens that progress. That is why, on behalf of the industry, I continue to lobby the British Government for a solution. With 67% of our…
UU is in negotiation with the owners of sites that are located within walking distance of the existing campus in order to purchase suitable land and buildings to support the future growth of student numbers. That work continues, and I hope that announcements will be made on some of it in the very near future.
The Department for Infrastructure has been and will remain engaged with the task force. It is looking at issues such as the restriction on ownership of houses in multiple occupation in areas that are in proximity to the Magee campus. I circulated a draft report and a final report to all Executive colleagues to keep…
I welcome the Member's acknowledgement of the fact that the task force has done some very positive work. Its membership is rooted in the Derry community, which is beneficial when it comes to local engagement. Accommodation will be a key issue in the expansion, so significant work has been done to identify land and to…
My Department is fully committed to ensuring that Ulster University's Magee expansion is done in a way that maximises the benefits to the local community and minimises the potential negative impacts. The task force is made up of local people, including a representative from the community sector. Its recently launched…
We continually monitor that. As I say, we have engaged in programmes with the colleges to ensure that we understand the numbers in attendance. There is a desire to increase that. It has gone up by something like 13·5% over the past number of years. There is no doubt that there is capacity there to do more. I have…
That continues. It is challenged by the level of funding that we have. As is the case for, I am sure, every Minister who stands here, we would do more in each area if we had more funding to do it with. Unfortunately, given the funding settlement that was proposed by London, we remain in a very challenging situation.…
In collaboration with the universities, we introduced higher education outcome agreements for the 2024-25 academic year. The outcome agreements are intended to demonstrate alignment between the Department's priorities and the work of the universities, including the skills strategy and related targets. For higher…
My Department works closely with further and higher education institutions to support a skills pipeline that meets the needs of our local economy and addresses skills shortages. That includes a range of interventions: for example, collaborating with employers through our sectoral partnerships in order to align…
The solution will be a mixture of all. Of course, in order to meet our targets for climate change, which the Executive and the Assembly have agreed to, and which are very challenging, we have to ensure that we have a renewable supply. Given our location, our geography and our position on the western Atlantic, there is…
Since the very first day that the Government in London came into office, we have engaged with them on those ideas. The Bill was front-loaded in the sense that there would be legislation, and now that has been backfilled, if you like, with detail. We continue to engage on it. Of particular interest are the community…
The Department will publish a consultation imminently on increasing the level of socialisation of reinforcement costs for customers who are connecting to the distribution electricity network. It will review a number of options for sharing the reinforcement costs of the distribution network among all network users. My…
We engage regularly with the Utility Regulator and the supply side for electricity and energy generally — we do something similar with gas — to try to make sure that there is confidence that supplies will remain sufficient to meet our needs. Of course, we cannot predict what weather circumstances might arise, but we…
The security of the electricity supply is a risk that is managed collaboratively by the Government, the Utility Regulator and the System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI), which provides electricity transmission. Last week, SONI published a revised winter assessment, following significant damage caused by storm…
We are going through the consultation responses at the moment. Those will, in turn, be put into the draft legislation. There will be an opportunity for the Assembly to process, debate and amend the legislation and to put it through the Committee Stage. We will ensure that we continue to hear from those who wish to…
One of the four themes of the consultation is "Voice and representation". That is to ensure that people have the rights to organise and to be represented by trade unions and that those rights become enshrined. The British Government have retreated from those rights in many ways over the past 14 years. Thankfully, some…
I agree that we should be given more powers, and if the Member wishes to take more powers from the British Government, I am happy to have his support; that has been an ambition of ours for some time. In this instance, Intertrade UK is not within my responsibilities. My responsibility involves InterTradeIreland and…
My understanding is that Intertrade UK will be based in Whitehall. It is a creation of the British Government, and they will have responsibility for it. No responsibility for its creation, its personnel or its staffing costs lies on this side of the Irish Sea. It is entirely a creation of the British Government and it…
It does not include a commitment to move investment outside Belfast. It includes a commitment to grow more and at a higher level outside Belfast. It is not about moving anything anywhere but about growing and encouraging more growth. There have been many headlines about foreign direct investment and jobs that have…
We are content, as I said, to work: we have set targets for outside the greater Belfast area, but we continue to want to see growth inside that area, and we will continue to support economic development there. If he wishes to discuss with Invest, or, indeed, the Department our approach to specific aspects of his…
Yes. Some colleges are struggling for people with the teaching capacity for those skills, but we are continuing to work at that and to provide more flexibility for the colleges in how they recruit people in order to try to ensure that we have sufficient trainers for young people. There are huge opportunities for young…
We are working on careers advice to make sure that young people have all the advice on the trades that they seek. Careers advice has not been consistent or coherent across the entire school network. We want to ensure that that is the case and that we have more apprenticeship opportunities for young people. However,…
If we find that the definition of a carer is not being fully understood, yes, I am very happy to ensure that it is revisited. I am sure that that will be reflected in the consultation responses, a significant number of which are being analysed over the autumn. We intend to move to drafting the legislation over the…
I am aware that carers continue to press for that right. I have said that quite a lot of our 'good jobs' employment rights Bill, which we are consulting on, relates to carers and their rights. I would like to see a situation where people are entitled to paid carers' leave. That will be a matter for the Executive; it…