Other News In Brief

New Contraceptive And Sexual Health Hub Opens In Ballymena

A new Contraceptive and Sexual Health Hub at Braid Valley Hospital, Ballymena, has officially opened.

The new facility is the first dedicated unit for the entire Northern Health and Social Care Trust (NHSCT) area and will provide potential expansion in the future to deliver a whole range of services within sexual health.

The hub facilitates an enhanced degree of access for patients to both contraception and sexual health services within the same building. This will allow an opportunity for a transformational move towards integrated services including clinics with dual trained staff who can deliver one stop shops for contraception and STI screening within one appointment.

£2.6m Secured For Environment Projects In NI

A total of £2.6million from the revenue raised by the carrier bag levy has been secured for environmental projects in Northern Ireland.

The funding will be used to help sustain and improve NI's natural environment.

A total of 36 projects across 33 organisations have received grants of between £6,290 and £252,500 from the Environment Fund.

Among the initiatives funded are projects to recruit and train volunteers for large scale bird monitoring surveys; carry out habitat and species conservation activities; maintain and promote long-distance walking routes; and encourage recycling.

The Environment Fund is one of the mechanisms through which the proceeds of the carrier bag levy have been used to enable not-for-profit organisations and councils to deliver key environmental priorities across Northern Ireland.

Alliance Concerned Over Ballykelly Move

Alliance MLA David Ford has said that he remains very concerned by the potential damage to the services offered by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) when the Department's new headquarters opens at Ballykelly.

He said: "It is clear that 90% of staff in Dundonald House do not want to move to Ballykelly, and that few of the civil servants who do want to move to Ballykelly have any real experience of the work to be done by DAERA headquarters staff.

"At the Assembly Committee, senior civil servants spoke of their concerns about business continuity - of ensuring that their services continue to be run effectively and efficiently in the future. Unfortunately, they were unable to assuage my concerns over the damaging effects of the political decision by Ministers to move headquarters functions from Stormont to Ballykelly.

"We already knew that DAERA had lost considerable expertise when many specialists took early retirement recently. Now the Department also faces losing a vast array of experience, as staff in some of the General grades are redeployed to other jobs in Belfast and a new group has to be brought in to do the existing work from the new base.

"Managing a team which is partly based in Dundonald House and partly based in Ballykelly is likely to add to management difficulties, and to cost.

"The new building is due to be open in 2018, but it is estimated that even in 2021 it will only be half-occupied by DAERA staff. At a time of financial pressures, spending over £30 million for so little benefit raises serious questions about the way the Executive is managing public money."

(CD)