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4 Mar 2003 : Column 928W—continued

Foetal Health

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many individuals have received compensation in each of the last five years as the result of disability from injuries incurred while in the mother's womb. [88071]

Mr. Browne: I am sorry for the delay in replying.

The information requested is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Legal Action (Funding)

Mr. McGrady: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on what grounds the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment has been granted public funding to pursue private legal action against the media. [90185]

Mr. Paul Murphy: Financial assistance is provided to civil servants to pursue legal action against third parties if it is considered to be in the interests of the employing Department that proceedings should be instituted. In this case, financial assistance was provided to uphold the reputation of the Permanent Secretary in the interests of the Department.

Mr. McGrady: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many civil servants in each of the past 15 years have been granted public funds to pursue libel actions. [90186]

Mr. Paul Murphy: Three civil servants have been authorised to receive financial support to pursue libel actions in the past 15 years. Two other civil servants were authorised to receive financial support for preliminary advice in matters relating to their reputations.

Financial assistance is given to civil servants to pursue legal action against third parties if it is considered to be in the interests of the employing Department that proceedings should be instituted.

Linguistic Diversity

Mr. Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to whom the draft linguistic diversity policy of the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland has been presented. [98198]

Angela Smith: The draft linguistic diversity policy of the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland has not yet been presented to anyone. The policy continues to have draft status at present because the outgoing Board of Trustees did not have an opportunity to approve it before the end of their term of office.

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However, it is hoped that the new Board will formally adopt the policy shortly, so that it can be widely circulated as part of the full, external consultation exercise required under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, prior to implementation.

Manufacturing Employment

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many jobs were lost in each sector of the manufacturing industry in Strangford in each of the last 10 years; and how much government funding was provided to manufacturing industry in each of the last five years. [97668]

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Mr. Pearson: Information on redundancies is currently only available at either Job Centre Area level or for Northern Ireland as a whole. The Newtownards Job Centre is the only job centre located within Strangford parliamentary constituency (PC). There have been a total of 927 redundancies since 1997 (the earliest year for which disaggregated information is available) in the manufacturing industry. Information on redundancies by sub-sector within manufacturing by year since 1997 is provided in Table 1.

Over the last five years, the Invest NI legacy organisations (Industrial Development Board, Local Enterprise Development Unit and Industrial Research and Technology Unit specifically) offered assistance of £11.56 million to companies in the manufacturing sector within the Strangford constituency. Details of the assistance offered is set out in Table 2.

Table 1: Total confirmed redundancies in the Newtownards Job Centre area1997–2003

	Manufacturing sector	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
DA	Food products; beverages and tobacco	26	23	38	22	1	25	0
DB	Textiles and textile products	142	43	50	498	0	0	0
DH	Rubber and plastic products	0	0	0	21	0	0	0
DM	Transport equipment	0	0	0	0	14	24	0
D	Total manufacturing	168	66	88	541	15	49	0

Table 2: Key assistance offered to manufacturing companies in the Strangford constituency for the last 5 years

	£ million
1997–98	2.57
1998–99	2.99
1999–2000	1.93
2000–01	2.19
2001–02	1.88

Mobile Phone Masts

Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the latest available scientific research on the safety of mobile phone masts. [89402]

Mr. Browne: The Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP), chaired by Sir William Stewart, published a report on the subject of mobile phone technology in May 2000. The Group examined the health implications of this technology and carried out an assessment of existing research. It concluded that the balance of evidence indicated that there was no general risk to the health of people living near to base stations on the basis that exposures were expected to be small fractions of the guidelines.

Recognising, however, that there were gaps in knowledge, the Expert Group recommended further research and as a result a joint government/industry research project, to which my Department is contributing £30,000 over three years, was announced in 2001. The Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme invites research applications both in relation to masts and to mobile phone handsets. Research on the group of projects funded under the first call is now well under way. The names of the projects selected from the second call are expected to be announced in due course and an advert for a third call appeared in appropriate publications in week commencing 16 December.

Nurse Recruitment

Rev. Martin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many new nurses have taken up their post in each board area in Northern Ireland over the last two years. [98260]

Mr. Browne: The information requested is detailed in the following tables.

Figures in the following tables relate to nursing staff (including midwives) in each Health and Social Services Board that have taken up their post in the last two years—joiners are defined as those who were not in employment at the start of the year but who were in employment in the NI Health and Personal Social Services at the end of the year.

Nursing joiners between September 2000 and September 2001

Board	Headcount	WTE(8)
Eastern Board	799	708.51
Northern Board	213	177.29
Southern Board	157	136.83
Western Board	177	154.98
Total	1,346	1,177.61

Nursing joiners between September 2001 and September 2002

Board	Headcount	WTE(8)
Eastern Board	1,361	1,218.40
Northern Board	201	168.05
Southern Board	214	181.67
Western Board	377	340.70
Total	2,153	1,908.82

⁽⁸⁾ Whole-time equivalent

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Railway Services

Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what his plans are for the future of the Whitehead to Larne railway line. [94078]

Angela Smith: Further to my answers to Question ref. 82681, Official Report, 25 November 2002, column 24W, and Question ref. 82682, Official Report, 28 January 2003, column 770W, I can confirm that the plans for the retention of services on the Whitehead to Larne railway are set out in the "Regional Transportation Strategy for Northern Ireland 2002–12" (RTS). The intention is to retain services on this line, subject to successful results from the introduction of new trains and improved infrastructure on the "core" network in the early stages of implementing the RTS. Hence, in the short to medium term services will be retained on the Whitehead to Larne railway line, subject to normal safety procedures. However, no major improvements will be carried out until the assessments referred to above are concluded.

Rohypnol

Rev. Martin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the availability of Rohypnol in Northern Ireland; and what mechanisms are in place to ensure that Rohypnol is attained by the public solely for its prescribed purpose. [98374]

Mr. Browne: Rohypnol (Flunitrazepam) is subject to the same legal controls and prescribing restrictions in Northern Ireland as are in force within the rest of the UK. It is a prescription only medicine (POM) which may be only prescribed on private prescription. It is a Schedule 3 drug under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2002 and as such prescriptions written for it must comply with both prescription and handwriting requirements under the Regulations.

Stocks of the product are subject to safe custody requirements. The Misuse of DrugsInspector (NI) is responsible for inspection and monitoring activities and enforcement action where appropriate. Routine and unannounced inspections are carried out on practitioners, pharmacists, trust and private hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesalers, and research and clinical trial establishments to ensure compliance with legislative controls, agreed standard operating procedures, good practice guidelines and safe custody requirements.

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