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29 Nov 2005 : Column 377W—continued
Fire Officers
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many fire officers in Northern Ireland have reported sick with a stress related illness in each of the last five years. [32224]
Mr. Woodward: Information provided by the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service is given as follows. This relates solely to full-time firefighters. Information is not available for retained firefighters.
| April to March | Number |
|---|---|
| 2000–01 | 42 |
| 2001–02 | 48 |
| 2002–03 | 35 |
| 2003–04 | 33 |
| 2004–05 | 35 |
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Freedom of Information
Mr. Roger Williams: To ask the Secretary of State forNorthern Ireland how many Freedom of Information applications his Department has received; how many have taken more than 20 days to process; and how many of these gave rise to complaints about the time taken. [31215]
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many applications for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 have been received by each of the Northern Ireland Government Departments in 2005. [32523]
Angela E. Smith: Since the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came fully into operation on 1 January 2005, the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister has published statistics on the performance of the 11 Northern Ireland Departments on a quarterly basis. Similarly, figures for the Northern Ireland Office are included in the Department for Constitutional Affairs quarterly update for Whitehall Departments. The total number of requests received by each Department between 1 January 2005 and 30 June 2005 are set out in the following table. The table also notes the number of requests that took more than 20 days to process. Figures for the third quarter, 1 July 2005 to 30 September 2005, should be available towards the end of the year. Only two Departments have received complaints referring to the time taken to process a request. The Department for Regional Development has received one complaint, while the Department of the Environment has received three.
(28) Figures include requests made under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIRs).
(29) This figure includes the number of requests made under the FOI Act, where the 20-day period was extended to allow consideration of the balance of the public interest, and the number of requests made under the EIRs, where the 20-day period was extended because of the complexity or volume of the request.
(30) The DCAL figure includes requests made to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
GPs
Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people have registered with general practitioners in East Belfast in each year since 1998. [31998]
Mr. Woodward: The information requested is provided in the following table.
Notes:
1. The Central Services Agency only holds archived data on new registrations from 2001, data for earlier years are not available.
2. The practices within East Belfast have been identified as being within Belfast, East parliamentary constituency.
Source:
Central Services Agency
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Maritime Safety
Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what assessment he has made of the merits of employing fully trained lifeguards along beaches and publicly used coastline in Northern Ireland; [18145]
(2) if he will list the beaches which are manned by qualified lifeguards in Northern Ireland; [18226]
(3) what assessment he has made of the merits of funding for coastal local government districts who have no lifeguards manning the coastline in their borough; [18228]
(4) what requirement there is on local government councils who have responsibility for coastlines and beaches to have them properly manned for public use. [18229]
Angela E. Smith: No assessment has been made by the Government of the need for fully trained lifeguards on public beaches in Northern Ireland, nor of the funding for this activity.
While most of the beaches in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of district councils, there is no statutory requirement on them to provide lifeguards along publicly used beaches.
However, I am aware that both Down district council and Newry and Mourne district council now have trained beach lifeguards stationed at Tyrella and Cranfield beaches respectively. In addition, I welcome the work being undertaken by Limavady, Coleraine, and Moyle councils and the National Trust to improve safety on their public beaches along the North Coast, by working in conjunction with a range of agencies including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents; the Royal National Lifeboat Association; the Coastguard; the Ambulance Service for Northern Ireland; and the Royal Life Saving Society.
29 Nov 2005 : Column 380W
Graffiti
Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many prosecutions there have been against people found putting graffiti on property in each of the last five years in (a) East Belfast and (b) Castlereagh. [31995]
Mr. Hanson: Prosecution data for the specific act of putting graffiti on property cannot be separately identified. The figures shown in table 1 include prosecutions for the offences of criminal damage, possessing an article with intent to damage property, and malicious damage. The geographical breakdown is based on offenders addresses that fall within the PSNI District Command Units of East Belfast and Castlereagh. Such a breakdown is not available for 1999.
Data relating to 2004 will be available in early 2006.
| Belfast East | Castlereagh | |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 63 | 29 |
| 2001 | 48 | 21 |
| 2002 | 38 | 28 |
| 2003 | 59 | 33 |
(31) Includes criminal damage, possessing an article with intent to damage property, and malicious damage.
Note:
Data are based on the police District Command Unit in which an offender's address falls. The District Command Unit structure became operational in April 2001. However, for the purposes of comparability, calendar year 2000 and first quarter 2001 data are also provided based on 2001 DCU structure.
Housing
Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many houses have been built in (a) Belfast East, (b) Belfast North, (c) Belfast South and (d) Belfast West in each year since 1980. [31942]
Angela E. Smith: Accurate data to answer the question are not readily available. However, the Annual Housing Land Availability Monitor prepared by DOE, Planning Service provides information from 1998 on the annual amount of residential units built in Belfast city council area set out as follows. Castlereagh and Newtownabbey council areas are also included for information.
Note:
Figures produced as of 2004 Housing Monitor Survey
Source:
Planning Service—Housing Land Availability Monitor
Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many social housing schemes are planned in each council area in the Province, over the next three years; and if he will make a statement. [32101]
Mr. Hanson: The target across Northern Ireland is to start 1,500 new social houses per annum over the next three years from the identified programme.
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive is responsible for assessing housing need and for prioritising the units in the development programme.
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The programme is reviewed each December to take account of new priorities. The planned programme for 2005–06 is reasonably firm but some adjustments will be
29 Nov 2005 : Column 382W
made to the latter two years to take account of slippage and reassessed priorities. This may result in increases in some council areas and reductions in others.
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