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17 Sept 2003 : Column 817W—continued

Equality Commission

Mr. Mallon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will involve the Equality Commission in the review of the operation of section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 2000 envisaged by paragraph 10 of Annex 3 to the Joint Declaration. [125921]

Mr. Spellar: The structure of the review is currently under consideration with the details to be announced by September 2003. The Equality Commission is an important stakeholder and we intend, as envisaged in the Joint Declaration, that it should be directly involved throughout the process.

Fishing

Mr. Donaldson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when, and for what year, the last annual report of the Foyle Fisheries Commission was published; when the outstanding annual reports will be published; when the outstanding annual reports of the Loughs Agency relating to fisheries will be published; and what has been the reason for the delay in producing these reports. [121422]

Mr. Pearson: It was normal practice for the Foyle Fisheries Commission to publish the Annual Report of its operations together with its financial statements for the period in question. The last Annual report with Statement of Accounts for the Foyle Fisheries Commission was for the year 1996.

17 Sept 2003 : Column 818W

The Report and Statement of Accounts for the Foyle Fisheries Commission for the periods 1997–99 will be published in July this year.

During 1997, the Department of Finance and Personnel (NI) introduced new standards for the format and information to be presented in the accounts for Non Departmental Public Bodies, which caused significant technical difficulties for the Foyle Fisheries Commission in its completion of Financial Statements. This in turn resulted in significant delays during audit of the accounts for this period. The accounts and report for this period have since been finalised and are now ready for publication.

The operational report of the Loughs Agency for 2000 was provided and noted by the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) on 22 June, as required by the North South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) (NI) Order, 1999. This report will be published later this year when the financial statements for that period have been certified by the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland and the Irish Comptroller and Auditor General.

The reports for 2001 and 2002 will be published upon the completion of the audit of the financial statements for those periods. These financial statements are currently with the Northern Ireland Audit Office who anticipate their completion by this autumn. The Annual Report and Accounts will be submitted to the NSMC and published following completion of the audit.

Gap Funding

Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many successful gap funding applications there have been in each constituency in Northern Ireland. [123794]

Mr. Pearson: The number of successful Gap Funding applications by Parliamentary constituency in Northern Ireland is set out in the following table.

Table: Number of successful gap funding applications by Parliamentary Constituency in Northern Ireland

Constituency	Successful gap funding applications (peace)	Successful gap funding applications (BSP)
Belfast East	32	—
Belfast North	93	2
Belfast South	61	—
Belfast West	83	3
East Antrim	22	—
East Londonderry	19	2
Fermanagh and South Tyrone	29	1
Foyle	72	10
Lagan Valley	17	—
Mid Ulster	28	5
Newry and Armagh	33	1
North Antrim	23	1
North Down	6	—
South Antrim	7	1
South Down	20	—
Strangford	14	1
Upper Bann	22	3
West Tyrone	37	—
Unclassified	13	63
Total	631	93

Note:

Unclassified successful Gap funding Applications are those that clearly benefited two or more Parliamentary Constituencies, and therefore cannot be classified within any specific Parliamentary Constituency.

17 Sept 2003 : Column 819W

Health

Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the death rates were from coronary heart

17 Sept 2003 : Column 820W

disease in each Northern Ireland constituency in each of the last five years. [128283]

Mr. Pearson: The ischaemic heart disease death rate per 1,000 population is shown in the following table, for each Northern Ireland constituency and year between 1998 and 2002. The number of deaths due to ischaemic heart disease for each constituency and year is also shown. Areas with older populations generally have higher death rates and this will explain some of the differences shown as follows.

Ischaemic heart disease death rate per 1,000 population and number of deaths due to ischaemic heart disease by constituency and year (1998–2002)

	1998		1999		2000
Parliamentary constituency	Death rate	Deaths	Death rate	Deaths	Death rate	Deaths
Belfast, East	2.7	215	2.6	208	2.6	210
Belfast, North	2.7	243	2.9	261	2.4	210
Belfast, South	2.0	186	2.2	210	1.9	181
Belfast, West	1.8	165	1.6	148	1.8	164
East Antrim	2.3	189	2.0	165	2.1	176
East Londonderry	2.2	193	2.1	187	2.1	181
Fermanagh and South Tyrone	2.3	211	2.5	228	2.3	204
Foyle	1.8	189	1.4	146	1.3	141
Lagan Valley	2.1	208	2.1	209	1.9	195
Mid-Ulster	2.0	171	1.6	140	1.9	167
Newry and Armagh	2.3	228	1.7	171	1.8	182
North Antrim	2.4	236	2.6	259	2.1	212
North Down	2.4	208	2.4	201	2.4	204
South Antrim	1.8	178	1.7	166	1.4	138
South Down	2.0	210	2.0	205	1.4	148
Strangford	2.0	188	2.0	190	1.7	164
Upper Bann	2.1	213	2.3	234	1.8	188
West Tyrone	2.2	187	2.3	201	1.7	146
Unallocated(13)	—	36	—	39	—	23
Northern Ireland	2.2	3,654	2.1	3,568	1.9	3,234

	2001		2002
Parliamentary constituency	Death rate	Deaths	Death rate	Deaths
Belfast, East	2.5	202	2.4	187
Belfast, North	2.1	184	2.4	199
Belfast, South	1.8	173	1.4	131
Belfast, West	1.6	143	1.6	140
East Antrim	1.7	145	1.6	138
East Londonderry	2.0	177	1.6	141
	Fermanagh and South Tyrone2.3		210	1.9	177
Foyle	1.4	151	1.2	132
Lagan Valley	1.6	160	1.8	181
Mid-Ulster	1.7	149	1.6	143
Newry and Armagh	1.8	187	1.7	169
North Antrim	2.0	203	1.6	166
North Down	2.1	178	2.0	170
South Antrim	1.3	132	1.6	158
South Down	1.7	180	1.6	172
Strangford	1.7	172	1.6	154
Upper Bann	1.8	187	1.8	183
West Tyrone	2.1	179	2.0	172
Unallocated(13)	—	36	—	35
Northern Ireland	1.9	3,148	1.7	2,948

⁽¹³⁾ Each year a small number of deaths cannot be allocated to a parliamentary constituency within Northern Ireland—these deaths have been included in the Northern Ireland total.

Hospital Admissions

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many hospital admissions there were on average per week in Northern Ireland during each of the last four quarters. [124689]

Angela Smith: The table sets out the average number of in-patients (ordinary admissions and day cases) admitted to hospital per week in the last four quarters.

Quarter	Average number of inpatient admissions per week
1 April 2002–30 June 2002	9,273
1 July 2002–30 September 2002	9,110
1 October 2002–31 December 2002	9,542
1 January 2003–31 March 2003	9,614

Note:

Data for 2002–03 are provisional and may change.

Source:

Hospital Inpatient's System.

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many individuals were admitted to Northern Ireland hospitals in the last year who were not residents of the province. [124690]

Angela Smith: In 2002–03, a total of 3,992 patients whose address was outside of Northern Ireland were admitted to hospitals in Northern Ireland (ordinary admissions and day cases). The source of this information is the Hospital In-patient's System. Data for 2002–03 are provisional and may change.

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Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the average cost was of hospital admissions in Northern Ireland in (a) 1982, (b) 1992 and (c) 2002. [130253]

Angela Smith: The information requested is provided as follows:

Average cost of hospital admissions(In-patients including day cases)£

	Average cost of an admission
Year ended 31 March	Actual price	Adjusted to2002–03 prices
1982	630	1,490
1992	918	1,223
2002(14)	1,126	1,159

⁽¹⁴⁾ There may be small definitional differences between the year ended 31 March 2002 and earlier years due to differences in available sources of information.

Notes:

1. The figures provided exclude expenditure and activity information in relation to long stay and specialist hospitals.

2. It should be noted that a straight forward comparison of costs over a 20 year period is difficult, given the substantial changes in the range and nature of procedures undertaken in hospitals. In addition the lengths of stay and therefore costs will vary dramatically within one year, depending on the speciality and the patient's condition.

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