Pearse McDermott opens the presentation for the Law Society.

He says it appears that the bill has two objectives:

• to abolish all physical evidence in court in advance of a trial
• to introduce direct transfers to the Crown Court in all indictable cases

Mr MacDermott says the bill will not have the desired effects of reducing delay in criminal cases, reduce costs and prevent witnesses having to give evidence more than once.

He explains the current committal procedure in the magistrates' court.

Mr McDermott says this operates as "a very important filter" to remove weak or flawed cases.

Image source, NI Assembly

He says the main cause of delay in criminal cases is at the investigation stage and there is a myth that lawyers drag out cases to increase their fees but, in fact, there is a set fee.

At this point, Mr McDermott's video link breaks down.

When it's fixed, committee chair Paul Givan says: "At least you didn't turn into a cat."

If you don't get this reference, read this. It's very good!

Committee chair Paul Givan opens the meeting to the public.

He takes the members through some initial committee business before introducing the first item of business.

Solicitors' representatives from the Law Society are offering their opinion on the Criminal Justice (Committal Reform) Bill.

The witnesses are Pearse MacDermott and Eoghan McKenna.

The Law Society of Northern Ireland is the regulatory and representative body for solicitors.

Image source, NI Assembly

We're back for this afternoon's meeting of the Justice Committee. Here's a quick look at what they'll be considering this afternoon.

Image source, NI Assembly

Colm Gildernew brings that lengthy meeting of the Health Committee meeting to a close.

Time to grab a very quick bite of lunch.

We'll be back just before 14:00 for the Committee for Justice meeting, which is initially looking at the Criminal Justice (Committal Reform) Bill.

It has two main aims. Firstly, it will support victims and witnesses by removing the option of calling on them to provide oral evidence in advance of trial.

Secondly, it will allow certain cases to be directly transferred to the Crown Court without first having to go through the traditional committal process.

Back soon!

The meeting resumes.

Ulster Unionist Alan Chambers has a point to make about the minutes of last week's meeting.

He asks for clarification from the chair, Colm Gildernew, "around some of your actions at the meeting last week".

He says he also wants some input from the committee clerk "on technical aspects".

Mr Chambers says his point concerns the definition of the word "amendment".

It's connected with a proposal made by Órlaithí Flynn concerning gay conversion therapy.

Image source, NI Assembly

Mr Chambers is unhappy with how the chair dealt with the matter.

The committee clerk (above) says he needs to speak to Mr Chambers about the matter but as far as he can see what the committee did last week was in order.

The technical discussion continues for some time.

Mr Chambers says "the Commissioner of Standards can have a look at it".

The members then turn to a discussion of committee business.

Colm Gildernew thanks the officials for attending the committee.

He says it is a "significant setback" that there are still no multi-year budgets.

Jonathan Buckley and Paula Bradshaw make brief points on GP services.

The members then take a short break.

Órlaithí Flynn raises her concern about the funding for mental health.

Brigitte Worth, from the Department of Health, says there is a list of all the specific mental health amounts included in the initial budget assessment in November and that totals about £46.9m of specific pressures.

Image source, NI Assembly

Image source, Ni Assembly

Gerry Carroll says that after coming through a pandemic "it's very, very concerning" that there has been no increase in health funding.

The People Before Profit MLA wants some details of the "£12.5m sale of property and assets".

Health official Andrew Dawson explains the breakdown of this figure, including £8m received by health trusts for carrying out clinical trials.

Paula Bradshaw, from Alliance, asks about priorities that have not been allocated money yet.

"I am looking at the £8.1m for the three cycles of IVF treatment," she says.

Brigitte Worth says this section is being looked at as part of the prioritisation excerise around the £250m additional funds available.

"We obviously don't have enough money to do all of them," she says.

"But we will be looking at which of them need to be prioritise. We just haven't been given anything specifically to address those particular pressures."

She acknowledges that couples will be disappointed.

"Being the finance director in the Department of Health can be particularly difficult," she adds.

"I don't think we have anything on our list of priorities that we think is unimportant."

Image source, PA

Ulster Unionist Alan Chambers says the Bengoa Report on reforming the health and social care system in Northern Ireland "has been sitting on the shelf for four or five years gathering dust".

He asks the officials when they would expect to see progress on Bengoa "from a financial position".

Ciara Dolan says the report was published in 2016 and "it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that it has been gathering dust".

She says the department has invested almost £300m in transformation "which covers the whole spectrum of the health and social care system".

Sinn Féin's Carál Ní Chuilín wants to know what funds have been set aside for current public inquiries and compensation.

Brigitte Worth, from the Department of Health, says public inquires are part of their consideration.

"I cannot confirm a position on funding but would feel fairly confident in expressing a sense that I would be very surprised if they were not be sufficiently funded. That is ultimately for the minister to decide."

Image source, NI Assembly

Jonathan Buckley returns to the question of the cost of agency staff.

The DUP MLA says the funding arrangements of the health service are broken and "this element of it needs to be addressed going forward".

More generally, he says the allocation of funds represents a stand-still budget.

Ms Worth says the department is working with the Health and Social Care Board to consider "all of the things that we would have wanted to do and to work out which of those should be prioritised".

Cara Hunter, from the SDLP, asks about the £127m allocated for ICT programmes.

Andrew Dawson, from the Department of Health, takes up this question and says the amount covers a wide-range of projects.

He goes on to give a breakdown of them.

"With regards to them being delivered on time," he says. "It's complex, we always aim to give a robust analysis of whether something can be delivered on time and in budget.

"Those figures are our best estimate as to the amount we can spend in 2021-22. That will probably be subject to change."

Image source, NI Assembly

Image source, NI Assembly

The DUP's Pam Cameron asks about a lack of funding for the review of adult social care.

She also wants to know about the health minister's commitment "for reforming the care home sector and placing care and staff terms and conditions on the same flooring as those within the NHS".

Brigitte Worth says this is one of the areas where the department will have to consider how it can be funded.

"It is a very substantial requirement and that will obviously make it harder to fund," the official says.

Ciara Dolan, from the Department of Health, tells Colm Gildernew that no transformation projects have been paused as a result of Covid.

"Transformation is the only long-term solution we have to creating a sustainable service," she says.

"In terms of where we are in this budget settlement, it is not ideal.

"We are anticipating £49m for transformation, that is not enough. What we really need are multi-year budgets because we need to be able to plan."

Image source, NI Assembly

Colm Gildernew wants to know how the £250m for Covid-rebuild will be allocated?

Ms Worth explains that the department has received a total of £380m funding for Covid - £25m for vaccine roll-out costs, £105m for response.

"In terms of the £250m that is the area we are still looking at work on exactly how we will priroritise that funding," she says.

"It is the only additional funding we have for any discretion."

We are looking at that money to avoid having to ask the health service to make any savings, she adds.

Image source, PA

Image source, NI Assembly

Department of Health official Brigitte Worth begins the briefing.

She says it is "an incredibly challenging budget settlement" and that even before the pandemic the health and social care system was "already under mounting pressure".

On rebuilding services and reducing waiting times, Ms Worth says "unfortunately the funding available under our draft budget allocation just does not allow us to make any significant headway into this issue".

She says the funding level will not allow the department to undertake a transformation programme "with any level of ambition".

The overall budget of £6.6bn represents £495m of additional funding compared to the previous year.

There is no additional funding for safe staffing, although the department has been assured that funding will be made available at the spring monitoring round.

Ms Worth says the minister has insisted on a number of occasions that "what we really need is a multi-year budget to enable us to plan the services that we can deliver on a sustainable basis".

Next up, we have a briefing from Department of Health officials on the draft budget for 2021-2022.

The officials are:

• Ms Brigitte Worth, DoH• Mr David Keenan, DoH• Mr Andrew Dawson, DoH• Ms Ciara Dolan, DoH

Colm Gildernew thanks the minister and chief medical officer and the members take a short break before the next item on the agenda.

Image source, NI Assembly

The minister's UUP party colleague Alan Chambers asks Mr Swann if he can confirm there are positive trends in the transmission rates in care homes.

"We are starting to see those early green shoots. Each care home has been visited once and hopefully over the next few days they should all have received their second visit," says the minister.