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Deputy Speaker, thank you very much. I thank the motion's sponsors. It is always important to test our mutual understanding of the issues and our passion for finding fixes. I am sure that there is not a single Member who does not recognise that the health of our people is the single most important issue that we face,…
Unacceptable ambulance waiting times and a lack of capacity in the Ambulance Service are terminal symptoms of a health and social care system on the brink of collapse. It is, quite literally, a matter of life and death. The longer a patient waits outside an emergency department, the more likely they are to experience…
As we have heard several times this afternoon, this is not a new problem. It should therefore not be blamed entirely on the current Health Minister. As far back as 2016, my predecessor in the House, Jim Allister, tabled questions that revealed that, in just one month, January 2016, there were no fewer than 20…
We should all be gravely concerned about the pressures facing the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and the profound impact that those pressures are having on patients with life-threatening and emergency health needs across the Province. None of us knows when we, a family member or a constituent will need an…
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. The strain on our Ambulance Service is undeniable. Every missed response target means that a patient is left waiting in pain, distress or potentially life-threatening circumstances. Those are not just numbers; they are people. They are parents, grandparents, neighbours…
I thank the Member for giving way. He raises a valid point. People in Fermanagh travel past the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) and Omagh Hospital and have to go the whole way to Derry to get to an emergency department. That adds to huge pressure that could be taken away and spread over those other two hospitals.…
I thank the proposers of the motion for bringing it to the House. It is really important that, if nothing else, we acknowledge the fear in our community about ambulance provision. People are genuinely afraid, forbye all of our discussions here as to why, that, when they need an ambulance, when they lift the phone and…
I am sure that no one in the House underestimates the scale of the pressures facing our Ambulance Service. Equally, I suspect that no one will try to pretend that our ambulance response times are acceptable. We need to be mindful of the fact that the delays to patient transfer at EDs reduce the availability of…
I thank the Alliance Party Members who tabled the motion. The debate is incredibly important and useful. In addressing the motion, we need to acknowledge and be thankful for the absolutely supreme efforts of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service in trying to keep going in the most difficult of circumstances.…
In the past few weeks, we have, undoubtedly, seen some of the most harrowing scenes in our health service for many years. The impact of that has been felt across the North by way of corridor care, patients being stuck in hospital as they cannot be discharged home and the backing up of ambulances at emergency…
I beg to move Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to propose the Alliance Party's motion on Ambulance Service waiting times. The motion proposes some tangible measures that, we believe, can be taken by the Department of Health and the Minister to ease the pressures. The motion is not about complaining; it…
I was about to come to that, Mr Speaker. Minister, the Act states that you have to, "encourage, facilitate and support" integrated education. In your response to a question for written answer from me, you outlined the fact that you do not monitor how many children are turned away from integrated schools in Ards and…
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this matter today. I am disappointed, Minister, by your misreading of the Integrated Education Act.
This has been a very useful session in the Chamber. Will you point to measures that schools can take not just that will produce integration — we know that that is a particular subset — but that can increase inclusivity across the education sectors? I am thinking of increasing the shared education and cultural…
The transformation process is clear: a school, once it is granted integrated status, transforms over time and will not be the finished article when making the case for change. Why has the Minister not given those schools the opportunity to transform, including on reasonable numbers, over time?
Some Members want to put up quite the defence that says that 3% is a reasonable number of pupils from a minority community in an integrated school. Does the Minister agree that, if we were to abandon the test of reasonable numbers entirely, some would say that it would become difficult to identify why exactly the…
Minister, given that you have now failed to replace Fresh Start funding, have prioritised meeting an umbrella body for paramilitary organisations and have ignored the advice of your officials by blocking two schools from transforming to integrated status, do you accept that your credibility on sharing and inclusion is…
Minister, given that you have decided that "reasonable" means that you will block those two schools from becoming integrated, what is your view of a reasonable number, so that parents who want to begin this journey can understand what the Minister will say?
Minister, you say that you made the decision on the basis of legalities, but everything that you have said today makes it fairly clear that you are taking the decision for clearly political reasons. You have outlined what appears to be a vendetta against integrated education. It comes after you decided to take money…
Have flaws in the integrated education legislation — legislation that my party opposed because of those shortcomings — in any way made it difficult for the Minister to apply any degree of flexibility to the decision-making process around the two Bangor schools? I wish to place it on record that both are excellent…
Will the Minister agree that one of the most regrettable aspects of the debate is the misrepresentation and mis-characterisation of many of our controlled schools, maintained schools and schools from other sectors, which already provide that naturally integrated and inclusive education? It is clear that, for some…