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Iris Robinsons recent outburst concerning our much loved, highly respected and extremely hard working health professionals really does provide conclusive proof of just how arrogant she has become. We should all be looking for efficiencies within the management of our NHS infrastructure but to lecture some of the most dedicated vocationalists in our province and tell them that they are inefficient compared to their colleagues in Great Britain is down right insulting and this point has been made to me when I have been out and about in the days since her comments were made.

Does she really dislike her husbands ministerial colleague that much to show such arrogant contempt for the magnificent people that have helped us all over the years of the troubles and beyond without fear or favour regardless of our political or religious beliefs? It was also nice to hear Iris quoting from our recent Party Election Broadcast with regards to our pledge to represent the people of Northern Ireland and form an executive after the election.

This was at the same time that many within Mrs Robinsons party were still conning the electorate with visions of “Over My Dead Body” or the liberal wing saying “When they disband the IRA Army Council”. Once again the UUP led the way and the DUP followed, which we all new they would, they just did not have the nerve to tell the people prior to the election. We will be operating an opposition from within the Executive which as Peter Robinson reminded us during the last period of Devolution is our right when the interests of our people is to do so.

We will be holding Sinn Fein/DUP to account when they short change our Health Service or fail to get the balance right between much needed economic provision and equally important social needs. We have not gone away you know, and for Northern Irelands place in the United Kingdom sake, I hope we never do.

Rev Dr Robert Coulter, the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly member for North Antrim and UUP Stormont Commissioner, has said that a tax on alcohol would have to be seriously considered to help stem the binge drinking problem – especially with the festive Christmas season rapidly approaching.

Dr Coulter, the UUP’s Health Spokesman, added: “In the financial markets, a correction or downturn often occurs when credit is too easy and inflation threatens to get out of control.

“It is the same with the problem of binge drinking which, if it is allowed to continue unchecked, will lead to a major upsurge in liver disease, which is now affecting an increasing number of young people, especially young women.

“Alcoholic drinks are now too inexpensive and too readily available. So a correction will have to occur and the only way this can be brought about effectively is by an increase in taxation on drink with a high alcohol content.

“This is the viewpoint expressed recently in a report by the British Medical Association, which represents 139,000 doctors throughout the United Kingdom.

“This is not in the least surprising considering that drink-related illness is using up so much of the National Health Service budget. We simply cannot afford to allow the health of the nation to be undermined in this way.

“No one is saying that normal social drinking should be targeted. It is high alcohol level drinks which need to be targeted and, especially, the commercial practice in some public houses of selling drink and ‘shots’ in cut-price promotions to encourage binge drinking among young people must be outlawed. It is time to put a stop to this,” said Assemblyman Dr Coulter.

Rev Dr Robert Coulter, the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly member for North Antrim and UUP Stormont Commissioner, has called for the smoking age limit to be raised to 19.

Dr Coulter, who is also UUP Health Spokesman, was speaking in support of an Assembly motion noting the increase in the age restrictions on purchasing tobacco that has been implemented in Great Britain, and calling on the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to implement the same age restriction in Northern Ireland, as a matter or urgency.

Assemblyman Dr Coulter added: “The current age restriction of 16 years was established in 1937, at a time when the health dangers of smoking were unknown.

“A clear body of evidence from the British Medical Association, which was highlighted in 2006 when the issue was debated in Scotland, shows that addiction increases the earlier a person begins to smoke. The earlier in life a person smokes, the harder it is for them to give it up.

“In 2006, the BMA also called for an increase in the age at which people could buy drink or cigarettes. It is important to bracket those two addiction problems together, because they both account for a great deal of the spending in the Health Service budget.

“It is also important to note the threat of passive smoking. It is not simply the potential smokers who will benefit from an increase in the age at which tobacco can be purchased: day and daily, the people around them will benefit.

“The BMA’s ‘Adolescent Health’ report, published in 2003, argues that reducing the availability of cigarettes through age restrictions not only helps to reduce tobacco use, but when reinforced by the establishment of smoke-free public places and backed by media campaigns and school programmes, can reduce what the BMA called ‘the prevalence of smoking’.

“Such an integrated approach is more likely to succeed, since it recognises the complex causes of smoking, especially in relation to adolescent behaviour.

“Another example of that integrated approach can be found on the island of Guernsey, which offers a smoking quit-line, backed by free nicotine patches.

“Fining shopkeepers who sell tobacco to people who are under 18, which was introduced in South Africa, should be considered as part of an integrated approach. That approach has been taken with alcohol and knives, so why not with tobacco?

“It is clear from the statistics that adolescents are the most effective group to target in an anti-smoking drive. Scottish statistics show that 6% of 13-year-olds and 19% of 15-year-olds are regular smokers; approximately 14% of 15-year-old boys and 24% of 15-year-old girls smoke.

“Although that is a reduction from 30% for both boys and girls, the figure remains significantly higher among girls. The changing pattern from 30 years ago is that smoking is a much more persistent problem among teenage and young adult girls than boys.

“The significant gender shift in tobacco addiction is of great concern to the medical profession, as is the prevalence of binge drinking among teenage girls and young-adult women.

“In 2005 and 2006 respectively, the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments passed legislation on this matter; it is only reasonable that the Northern Ireland Assembly follows their examples.

“Australia, Malta, Norway, Finland and the Republic of Ireland all have a purchase age of 18 for tobacco, and South Africa is considering measures to reduce smoking prevalence.

“Six out of eight Canadian provinces set the cigarette purchase age at 19, and several states in the USA are considering raising the legal age from 18 to 19 to stop high-school students buying cigarettes and sharing them with their classmates.

“Action must be taken against substances, such as tobacco and alcohol as well as drugs that significantly impair the health of the people who use them and, in due course, contribute significant additional costs to the Health Service.

“In future, those costs could prove so great that the Health Service would break down. It also raises the spectre of the need for selective treatment for people who use such substances.

“It would be prudent to impose a ban on smoking until the age of 18, or even 19, and to take positive action to improve the level of public health that we all know is necessary to protect the Health Service budget and to look after the well-being of our young people,” said Assemblyman Dr Coulter.

Local Ulster Unionist Assemblyman, Sam Gardiner MLA, led a delegation of senior Ulster Unionist MLA’s to meet with senior staff at Craigavon Area Hospital. The top level Ulster Unionist delegation included the Party’s Deputy Leader Danny Kennedy MLA, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MLA, its Health Spokesman and a Member of the Assembly Health Committee, John McAlister MLA for South Down who is also on the Assembly Health Committee. The Hospital senior team was led by Colm Donaghy, the Chief Executive.

Commenting on the meeting Mr Gardiner said :

“This was an extremely productive meeting and there was a really good atmosphere about it. Co-operation was the order of the day and Colm Donaghy and his senior team answered our team’s close questioning fully. I am delighted to say that Craigavon Area Hospital is introducing its own anti MRSA measures ahead of the Health Department. Craigavon will then be seen to be pro-active in this field.”

“I know there is a first rate team of doctors and nurses in Craigavon and medical treatment second to none. If we overcome this cleanliness issue, which undermines clinical care in all our hospitals, then it will make a huge difference to health care in the greater Craigavon and Mid-Ulster area. I have every confidence that, with public representatives and hospital staff working together the people will get the standards they deserve. At the end of the day, it is the duty of the MLA’s to get the best public services they can for the people. That is what I and my delegation were about. We are about working in harmony with the professionals to get the best for our people.”

UUP Health Committee John McAllister responded to comments made by Peter Robinson on the Health Budget to the Assembly Scrutiny Committee this morning. The UUP man said that there was breakdown between the Finance Minister and his wife Iris, the Chair of the Health Committee, who said that an increase in the Direct Rule budget of 2005 of 9% for health was insufficient.

Mr. McCallister said, “obviously there has been something of a breakdown in communications in the Robinson household. Finance Minister Peter Robinson is telling the Northern Ireland public that his miserly increase in spending on our NHS of 3.8% is enough. Iris Robinson, however, told the House of Commons in April 2005 that that year’s Direct Rule budget increase on NHS expenditure of 9% was insufficient. To quote Mrs. Robinson:

‘although a proposed increase of 9% … in the current expenditure of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety may, on the surface, appear generous, health inflation continues to grow at a much steeper rate. By 2007-08, the percentage rise that direct rule Ministers have committed themselves to will be less than 6%. The positive public messages from Ministers do not equate with the demands and restrictions that they are placing on senior managers away from the media spotlight’. (House of Commons, 5th April 2005.)

That said, perhaps we should not be too hard on the Robinsons. They have, after all, led the DUP to perform some spectacular u-turns in recent times. This merely adds to the list. A 9% increase in health expenditure in 2005, Iris Robinson said, was not enough. Today Peter Robinson tells us that 3.8% is enough.”

Following DUP MLA Tom Buchanan’s decision to dismiss investment in our National Health Service as “simply tossing in more and more money”, UUP South Down MLA and Assembly Health Committee member John McCallister has called on Mr. Buchanan and his colleagues to stop undermining the NHS in Northern Ireland.

Mr. McCallister said, “DUP MLA Tom Buchanan has now joined his colleagues Iris Robinson, Alistair Ross, and Mervyn Story in defending the Finance Minister’s decision not to fund the NHS in Northern Ireland to UK levels. I had expected more of Mr. Buchanan as a fellow-member of the Health Committee. I had expected that he would have put our NHS first. Instead he smugly tells the public that our health services do not require investment – or, to use his own dismissive description of investment in the NHS, ‘simply tossing in more and more money’. Nor does Mr. Buchanan stop there. Instead of praising the professionalism and dedication of our hard-working health professionals, he talks about the ‘failings of the NHS’.

“Mr. Buchanan says that his party ‘wants to see the maximum resources directed towards health’. If this is so, why has the DUP Finance Minister refused to fund the NHS to UK levels? If this is so, why has the DUP Chair of the Health Committee taken upon herself the role of a cheerleader for the Finance Minister?

“The Appleby Report into Northern Ireland’s health services unequivocally demonstrated the need for increased investment in our NHS. Appleby said of Northern Ireland’s health services, ‘a significant increase in resources is required in the coming years’. The Finance Minister Peter Robinson, supported by Health Committee Chair Iris Robinson, disagrees: his Draft Budget fails to provide increased investment for our health services.

“The DUP’s stance on this issue – as with so many others – has radically changed in recent times. As recently as 2005, Iris Robinson was telling the House of Commons that ‘significant investment is required’ in Northern Ireland’s health service and that the DUP ‘advocate increased funding’. Now Tom Buchanan, presumably at the behest of the Finance Minister, is dismissing investment in our NHS as ‘simply tossing in more and more money’. Obviously some DUP u-turns – such as accepting power-sharing and the devolved institutions of the Belfast Agreement – have been very welcome, if over-due. A u-turn on the importance of investing in the NHS, however, is self-evidently not in the interests of Northern Ireland.”

Sam Gardiner MLA, Ulster Unionist Assemblyman for Upper Bann, has called for a review of hospital visiting hours to reduce the spread of infections.

Speaking in the Assembly Mr Gardiner asked Health Minister Michael McGimpsey to look at this issue following meetings he has had with the Chief Executive of Craigavon Area Hospital. Mr Gardiner had previously raised the issue of MRSA related deaths in Craigavon.

Responding, Minister McGimpsey said :

“The report from the second audit of environmental-cleanliness standards will be an important next step in considering areas in which we can ensure that improvements are made. One such area is regulating visiting and the movement of the public in hospitals, which are often like public thoroughfares. A return to some of the old standards regarding visiting hours and ensuring that only those with business in the wards should be there is an important function that must be looked at, and I will certainly do so.”

Mr Gardiner commented :

“Before my intervention in the Assembly, I had already had a very helpful and constructive meeting with the Minister. We must explore ways in which real and practical solutions can be found to the win scourges of MRSA and C difficle. I will be leading a team of Assembly members to a meeting with the Chief Executive of Craigavon Area Hospital in the near future.”

“I will be giving details of our discussions to the press soon afterwards.”

UUP MLA and member of the Health Committee, John McCallister MLA, has expressed his disbelief that the DUP’s Health Committee Chair Iris Robinson has - yet again - sought to defend the Finance Minister Peter Robinson’s under-funding of the National Health Service.

Mr. McCallister said, “one would have hoped that by this stage Iris Robinson would have had the integrity and courage to put the NHS first, rather than continue her ill-tempered and frankly ridiculous defence of Peter Robinson’s under-funding of the NHS.

“To call Health Minister Michael McGimpsey ‘left-wing’ because he is defending the NHS demonstrates Mrs. Robinson’s desperation. The fact that all mainstream British political parties believe in properly funding the NHS has obviously gone unnoticed by the DUP. Perhaps I can explain things in simple terms for Mrs. Robinson and her colleagues. To defend our NHS is not left-wing. It is a mainstream British value.

“That the Chair of the Health Committee is putting partisan interests before the NHS is shameful. The new Northern Ireland that Mrs. Robinson has suddenly and not before time decided is a good thing, needs and deserves a NHS funded to the levels secured for our fellow citizens elsewhere in the UK. Of course, I do not expect Mrs. Robinson to agree - after all, she has decided that defending the NHS is a left-wing stance. It therefore falls to an Ulster Unionist Health Minister to remind the DUP that the NHS is a UK-wide, British institution that should be funded to UK-wide levels”.

John McCallister MLA for South Down and member of the Assembly Health Committee, congratulated the Health Minister Michael McGimpsey for again stating that he has only supported a Draft Budget for consultation and has not committed to support the Finance Minister’s Draft Budget.

Mr McCallister said, “considering that during today’s Question Time the Chair of the Health Committee has – yet again – chosen to defend the priorities of the Finance Minister rather than the National Health Service, I commend the Health Minister for standing up for the NHS. The Draft Budget, as the Minister pointed out over the protests of the DUP benches, fails to provide adequate funding for a modern NHS. Because of the Finance Minister’s Draft Budget – supported by Iris Robinson, Chair of the Health Committee – families and communities across Northern Ireland will not receive health care comparable to that in the rest of the United Kingdom.

“The Minister was right to state that the people of Northern Ireland should have a National Health Service funded at least to the same levels as the NHS in the rest of the UK. It is incredibly disappointing that DUP MLAs during Question Time – particularly Iris Robinson and Alastair Ross – indicated their contentment with second-rate funding for our NHS. Thankfully a Ulster Unionist Health Minister disagrees and is determined to put the NHS first”.

Ulster Unionist Assembly member for Fermanagh & South Tyrone, Tom Elliott MLA has urged the Stormont executive to pass the necessary legislation in Northern Ireland that would introduce similar legislation as came into force in the rest of the UK on 1 October 2007 banning the sale of cigarettes to under 18’s

Tom said: “The consultation was launched by the Assembly Health Committee this week to seek the views of the public and it will be next year before the legal age can be changed. I consider it a missed opportunity that the same legislation did not come into force at the same time as other parts of the UK and it is now necessary to have a 12 week consultation exercise on raising the age of sale of tobacco products from 16 to 18. I would have thought that the Draft Smoking Order (2006) which put in place the smoking ban in public places from 1 April 2007 should have included this provision to ban tobacco sales to those under 18.

All cancer charities have clear evidence that about 9% of all 11 to 15 year olds smoke and we know that the majority of smokers become addicted to cigarettes before they reach the age of 18 and by raising the age it should help reduce the number of smokers. Currently, half of all teenagers who smoke will die from diseases caused by tobacco if they continue to smoke throughout their life. Anything that can be done to reduce the number of smokers is welcome and I trust that the necessary legislation will be introduced in Northern Ireland, as quickly as possible.

At present we are the only region in the UK where this ban is not in place and it should greatly assist retailers in detecting under age smokers and bring tobacco into line with purchase of alcohol, fireworks and glue. Retailers will have a legal obligation not to sell to under 18’s when the law is changed and will face heavy fines if they do so. I believe that most retailers in Northern Ireland do apply the restrictions very well but one of the biggest problems in Northern Ireland is the illegal selling of smuggled cigarettes to children and parents. A recent case illustrates the extent of the problem when an “ice cream seller” had assets of nearly £1 million seized through sales of smuggled cigarettes in Northern Ireland It is estimated that at least 25% of cigarettes smoked in the UK are smuggled and no duty paid and the duty lost could go towards financing our hospitals, schools and other essential services and driving legitimate retailers out of business. This problem must be addressed if we are to reduce the number of underage smokers, otherwise the problem will go under ground.”