Robin Swann outlines that he is aware the RQIA undertook an inspection of a children’s residential care home.

The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) has de-registered the care home.

The health minister says the South Eastern Trust has redeployed staff to address “critical vacancies within the care home to maintain service provision”.

He adds that the trust has engaged with families and children to ensure “decisive action” was being taken.

“The trust have now taken full leadership, management and oversight responsibilities for the children’s service,” he explains.

Image source, NI Assembly

Colin McGrath of the SDLP asks the health minister when the department first became aware that there were issues at the children’s home.

“Surely the staffing issue didn’t occur overnight?”

Minister Swann responds that the RQIA review was carried out in January.

“It shows a proactive response from RQIA and South Eastern Trust in terms of how quickly they mobilised,” he adds.

Robin Swann, the Health Minister, has been called back to the assembly chamber to answer an urgent oral question.

It’s been lodged by Colin McGrath of the SDLP.

The clerk reads the question into the record:

“To ask the minister of health to provide an update on the actions his department will take to safeguard children and staff at care homes following the RQIA decision to deregister a centre run by Praxis care after inspectors found significant shortcomings that placed children and staff at risk.”

Interesting points raised during Question Time to representatives of the Assembly Commission:

• The women parliamentarians of NI exhibition currently on display at the assembly will be “retained for future use” and outreach programmes
• The Commission is continuing to implement public health guidance relating to Covid-19 at the assembly
• The stationary office at Stormont has been closed to MLAs and their staff since the commencement of Covid-19 regulations
• Political consensus wasn’t reached at the commission on the issue of a Northern Ireland Centenary Stone
• This financial year (2021/22) it’s expected the gas and electricity energy costs for parliament buildings will be just under £480,000

Next on the agenda is questions to representatives from the Assembly Commission.

It's the body which oversees how the assembly property, staff and services function.

Key issued raised with Health Minister Robin Swann during Question Time:

• The clinical response model (CRM) for the NI Ambulance Service will require additional recruitment funding
• The European Social Fund has been extended to 31 March 2023
• Health boards across NI are setting up long Covid clinics “at significant pace”, says the minister
• Abolishing parking charges at hospitals could see some being used “by commuters and staff as a park and ride facility”, says Mr Swann

Image source, NI Assembly

It's time for topical questions, 15 minutes to cover issues not dealt with in the first 30 minutes of Question Time.

The SDLP's Patsy McGlone says last June 184,000 people were waiting more than a year for their first hospital outpatient appointment and a further 66,000 patients waiting more than a year for surgery or hospital treatment.

Mr McGlone adds that there was also an announcement regarding a £700m "road map" to begin to address the waiting lists.

The health minister responds that the "elective care framework" resulted in a number of initiatives, including the introduction of "mega clinics to maximise patient throughput".

DUP MLA Mervyn Story asks the health minister "to outline the impact that abolishing hospital car parking charges will have on health care budgets in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust".

Robin Swann says "free car parking will not only lead to a loss of income but there is potential for car park spaces, particularly in some hospital sites to be used by commuters and staff as a park and ride facility".

He says patients and visitors of sick relatives may be denied spaces.

Image source, NI Assembly

The SDLP's Dolores Kelly asks the health minister "to outline the availability of services for children under the age of 16 with symptoms of long Covid".

Robin Swann says Covid-19 in children is usually of a short duration with relatively mild symptoms.

He says he is also aware that children can suffer long illness "and that the impact upon them can be devastating".

The minister outlines some of the services that are being made available for patients with long Covid.

"All boards are progressing at significant pace in setting up long Covid clinics," he adds, saying that there have been some delays in the Western Trust area.

Image source, NI Assembly

Independent MLA Claire Sugden asks the health minister about access to GP services.

"Is the shortage of GPs due to poor workforce planning of your department over 10 years?" she asks.

Robin Swann says the wouldn't put the blame at the feet of his department but at the challenge of coping with one-year budgets.

He says his department has begun reviewing the number of training places for GPs.

Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly asks the health minister "what contingencies his department has in place to offset the loss of health funding provided by the European Social Fund (ESF)".

Robin Swann says the ESF "has enabled people with a wide range of disabilities to access and stay in supported employment".

"The fund has been due to finish at the end of March 2022, however the programme has been extended" until 31 March 2023, he says.

Image source, NI Assembly

Health Minister Robin Swann steps up to the lectern ready to take questions from his fellow MLAs.

SDLP MLA Mark Durkan asks "whether he will bid for the funding to deliver the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Clinical Response Model".

The minister explains that the NI Ambulance Service carried out a review in 2017 which recommended a significant increase in workforce and "a new clinical response model (CRM) to introduce more effective performance targets and improve efficiency and safety".

He says implementation of the CRM will require additional recruitment funding.

Mr Durkan says people and places haven't seen the improvements.

"That's completely unacceptable if it was Domino's pizza," says Mr Durkan.

Image source, Getty Images

MLAs are back in the chamber after taking a short break for lunch.

They turn their attention to Question Time.

It's an opportunity for members to hold ministers and their departments to account. It takes place every Monday and Tuesday at 14:00.

Thirty minutes will be spent on listed questions with a further 15 allocated to topical questions.

In the spotlight this afternoon is Health Minister Robin Swann and representatives of the Assembly Commission.

It’s been a busy morning for MLAs in the chamber and there’s no sign of things slowing down.

MLAs turn to a final stage debate on the General Teaching Council Bill.

We’re going to take a short break from live reporting, but you can continue watching events in the chamber by clicking on the video link at the top of this page.

Reporting will resume at 14:00 when the Health Minister Robin Swann and representatives from the Assembly Commission will be in the chamber for Question Time.

“Human trafficking, whether from, to or through Northern Ireland is a trade of human misery,” says the justice minister.

Naomi Long is winding up the debate on the Justice Bill.

She says there’s a need to understand the fear and anxiety which many victims of trafficking may have in filing reports to the police.

Image source, NI Assembly

Mrs Long then responds to a number of issues raised by MLAs during the discussion, including budgetary concerns.

Image source, NI Assembly

Rachel Woods says the Justice Bill will "improve the operation and effectiveness of the justice system".

The Green Party MLA says the legislation will succeed "only if it's well-resourced, if people are aware of it and if people are trained in it and know how to use it".

She says the bill has been "a missed opportunity" and in her opinion "in many ways this entirely down to the DUP".

The TUV's Jim Allister says there's "much that's valuable and worthwhile in the bill".

However, he says he fears it might be jeopardised as amendment 19 could result in it being in "flagrant breach of article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights".

Image source, NI Assembly

Sinéad Bradley of the SDLP sits on the Justice Committee and hopes the measures in the Justice Bill “serve to deter” people from carrying out offences.

“Obtaining images of another person’s private parts without consent is never okay,” says the South Down MLA.

“When this bill comes into effect, it could be considered criminal.”

Image source, NI Assembly

The justice minister’s Alliance colleague John Blair is a member of the Policing Board.

He says he’s all too aware of the “devastating scale” and prevalence of sexual violence against women in society.

This bill will hopefully “mark the beginning of the end of unreported sexual offending and send a strong signal that we stand to protect victims and the vulnerable in our community,” he concludes.

Mervyn Storey chairs the assembly's Justice Committee.

The DUP MLA says that the many changes and amendments made to the Justice Bill have "improved and strengthened this legislation".

He says it provides "additional protections for some of the most vulnerable in our society, victims of sexual abuse and child exploitation, victims of human trafficking and modern slavery".

Image source, NI Assembly

Sinéad Ennis says she is proud to be associated with "the positive and progressive work of the assembly".

She adds that she is "prouder still of the legislation we have passed that is designed to protect women and girls and minority groups from sexual violence and exploitation".

The Sinn Féin deputy chair of the Justice Committee outlines some of the issues addressed by the bill.

"Victims are not to blame. Their abusers are to blame," she says.

Image source, NI Assembly

MLAs now turn to their third final stage debate of the day.

This time Justice Minister Naomi Long is called to move the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill.

She’s currently self-isolating and so joins the plenary session by video link.

Mrs Long explains that the provisions in the bill “are well known” but make an “important contribution” to combating violence and abuse.

“It remains the case that most victims of sexual offences tend to be female,” says the minister.

She puts on record her thanks to committee members for their scrutiny, input and assistance in getting the bill to its final stage.

Image source, NI Assembly

Deirdre Hargey, the Communities Minister, is called to wind the final stage debate on the Private Tenancies Bill.

She says she’s long been a housing campaigner.

“I have the clear legal advice that the amendment” proposed by Gerry Caroll “would have killed the bill,” says the minister.

“I have ensured the concerns of the housing sector and the legal advice was heard within the chamber,” adds the Sinn Féin representative.

The bill passes its final assembly hurdle on oral vote.

Image source, NI Assembly

Gerry Carroll of People Before Profit says he believes the Private Tenancies Bill is a “missed opportunity”.

“During Covid, the last few years, we saw legislation in place which restricted people’s ability to leave their house,” he says, but when it comes to the “cost of living crisis we’ve heard cries of horror from inside this House, more loudly from some of the landlords who are represented on the opposite benches”.