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Illegal Dumping Unit

Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what budget has been allocated to the Department of Environment's illegal dumping unit. [60419]

Angela E. Smith: The remit of the enforcement team includes illegal dumping, serious breaches of licensing conditions, unauthorised waste movement and Producer Responsibility obligations. The overall budget for these activities is £800,000 for 2006–07.

Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cases of illegal dumping were investigated by the Department of Environment in each of the last three years. [60421]

Angela E. Smith: The Department investigated 1259 cases of illegal dumping in 2004 and 1326 in 2005. To date in 2006, 302 investigations have been carried out.

Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what measures his Department is taking to reduce the occurrence of illegal dumping in Northern Ireland. [60423]

Angela E. Smith: The Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment has a dedicated enforcement team which investigates incidents of illegal dumping and prepares cases, where appropriate, for the Public Prosecution Service (PPS). PPS is sending more cases to the Crown court for trial, which both recognises the severity of the offence, and imposes increasingly heavy fines, such as the £50,000 fine imposed on a Cookstown man in September 2005.

The introduction of the flycapture" database, on which all district councils record all incidents of fly-tipping, will strengthen the pool of shared intelligence allowing joint action to tackle serious incidents and serious offenders.

The Department continues to work closely and successfully with other enforcement agencies and following public consultation will seek to introduce strengthened legislative powers, by the end of 2006, to restrain further this criminal activity.

Industrial De-rating

Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will assess the impact on businesses in Northern Ireland of the end of industrial de-rating. [60417]

Angela E. Smith: The phasing out of industrial de-rating, which was fully consulted on as part of the overall Review of Rating Policy, came into operation on 1 April 2005 when businesses entitled to industrial de-rating became liable for rates at 15 per cent. of their full
 
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rate assessment. It will be 1 April 2011 before businesses will have to pay full rates. By that stage they will have had some eight years since the first announcement was made to remove industrial de-rating to prepare for full rate liability.

Given that the policy has been in operation for only one year it is not practical to forecast what the final impact of the removal will be. However, as with all new policies, the Government will review the removal of industrial de-rating and in this case a reasonable period of time is considered to be two years from the date of implementation, ie beginning in April 2007.

Invest Northern Ireland

Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the (a) nature and (b) extent of Invest Northern Ireland's involvement with the Farm Fed Chickens Company (i) was before and (ii) has been since the announcement of the closure of the company. [60836]

Angela E. Smith: Invest NI has worked closely with Farm Fed Chickens both before and after the announcement of their closure.

The most recent Financial Assistance Agreement offered to the company was in July 1996 offering support totalling £762,000. In 1999 financial assistance was also offered under the START programme for a R&D project.

More recent support has taken the form of a Competitive Assessment Diagnostic in December 2002 followed by a reassessment in August 2003, both of which resulted in improvement recommendations being provided to the Company. In October 2005 the Company was offered Sales and Marketing support under the Food Strategy Programme. Invest NI also offered to complete a DTI benchmarking exercise for the company in November 2005 to further identify strengths and areas for improvement.

Since the closure was announced, Invest NI has maintained regular contact with Farm Fed Chickens' Managing Director and has also liaised between the Coleraine Enterprise Office and the Company to offer employees advice on the 'Start a Business Programme'.

Inward Investment

Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what measures his Department has implemented to attract inward investment to Belfast to encourage private sector growth. [60416]

 
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Mr. Hanson: Invest NI continues to implement a strategy that promotes all areas of Northern Ireland as attractive and viable locations for new inward investment opportunities in what is a very competitive global marketplace.

To achieve this, Invest NI's marketing and sales resources are focused on those sectors and geographical markets most likely to generate projects to match the Northern Ireland business proposition and contribute to the development of an innovation-based economy.

In recent years the shift from manufacturing to predominantly tradeable service-based sectors has seen a significant change in where projects are located within Northern Ireland. Investors from these sectors place an increasing emphasis on locations with large labour pools, excellent infrastructure and close proximity to universities or centres of excellence. Consequently, Belfast and Londonderry are often the main focus of potential investors' interest.

Local Government (Strike Action)

Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps are being taken to prevent the planned strike by local council employees in Northern Ireland [61424]

Angela E. Smith: I understand that trade unions in Northern Ireland have proposed to take industrial action because of proposals to remove the 85 year rule from the Local Government Pension Scheme. This change must be made in order to comply with the European Employment Directive 2000/78/EC which establishes a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation and which will be implemented into UK law with effect from 1 October 2006.

Strike action is entirely a matter for trade unions and their members.

Medical Staff

Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how many medical staff from each of the hospital trusts in Northern Ireland have received injuries at work as the result of abusive attacks from patients under the influence of (a) alcohol and (b) drugs in each of the last five years; [60424]

(2) how much sick leave has been taken by medical staff in each hospital trust in Northern Ireland as a result of injuries caused by patients under the influence of (a) alcohol and (b) drugs in each of the last five years; [60425]

(3) how much compensation has been paid to medical staff in each hospital trust in Northern Ireland as a result of injuries received from patients under the influence of (a) alcohol and (b) drugs in each of the last five years. [60426]

Mr. Woodward: In 2004–05 there were 5,449 attacks on staff employed in the HPSS. It is not possible to attribute how many were the result attacks from patients under the influence of either alcohol or drugs as this information is not fully recorded by employers.
 
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The Department is fully committed to improving health and safety protection for all Health and Personal Social Services (HPSS) staff and there are a number of measures already in place to demonstrate this commitment e.g. personal alarms for lone workers, panic buttons and restricted access in A and E, CCTV, joint protocols between Department and PSNI on reporting incidents, publicity campaign that violent attacks on staff are crimes.

It is not possible to equate the incidence of sick leave taken by medical staff in each hospital trust in Northern Ireland as a result of injuries caused by patients under the influence of alcohol and drugs as the information contained on medical certificates may not make explicit any linkage to a violent attack.

It is not possible to state the amount of compensation paid to medical staff in each hospital trust in Northern Ireland as a result of injuries received from patients under the influence of either alcohol or drugs because employers do not hold this information.

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