Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): I welcome, by StarLeaf, Mrs Suzanne Wylie, chief executive of Belfast City Council (BCC); Ms Siobhan Toland, director of city services at Belfast City Council; and Ms Marie Ward, chief executive of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. I invite you to brief the Committee.

Mrs Suzanne Wylie (Belfast City Council): Thank you, Chair and Committee. As you said, Chair, I am joined by Siobhan Toland, the director of city and neighbourhood services in Belfast City Council. I will let Marie do her introductions.

Ms Marie Ward (Newry, Mourne and Down District Council): Thank you, Suzanne and Chair. As you said, Chair, I am the chief executive of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. I am joined this morning by Eoin Devlin, the assistant director of health and well-being, with responsibility for environmental health.

Mrs Wylie: Chair, with your indulgence, we and Marie will make a quick presentation that summarises the written evidence that has already been submitted to the Committee.

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): Yes, go ahead.

Mrs Wylie: Thank you, I will start. As you are aware, the Committee invited both our councils to give evidence this morning as part of your scrutiny of the decisions by DAERA and the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council to withdraw staff on 1 February from points of entry over border control posts. You will be glad to know that we considered your terms of reference and the information that you already received through the various sessions held so far, so this opening statement is set in that context.

As I said, I refer you to the written submission. It provides a very detailed timeline of the decision-making process that Belfast City Council had for its port health inspections over that period. The council provides a wide range of well over 90 different services and has over 2,700 staff. As you would expect, my members, the management team and I take the health and safety of our staff very seriously indeed. Over the years, as a council, we have had to deal with a wide range of contentious issues, and we always consider staff safety to be the primary issue when we are assessing any potential threat or safety concern, along with any other information that we have and how that impacts on service delivery. Consequently, we have built up an extremely good relationship with the PSNI over the years in relation to its threat assessment processes and communication procedures, and we take that into account when making those difficult decisions.

Turning to Belfast port, I draw your attention to the site map in the written submission so that you get an overview of the location and environment in which Belfast City Council staff actually work. At the time in question, we had 20 BCC-employed staff at the port who were carrying out documentary checks, identity checks and physical checks, and they were working on a shift basis. Those staff were housed in Corry Place, which is shown on the map in the appendices of the written submission. We also carry out the physical checks in that compound, which is a dedicated compound for Belfast City Council staff, and the staff do that for goods from third countries and from GB.

For goods from GB, BCC staff are reliant on the DAERA staff, who are located in a different location in Belfast harbour, and you can see that on your map as well. When the lorries come off the ferries, if they are required to have an inspection by BCC staff, they are directed to Corry Place by DAERA staff. A risk assessment is, of course, in place for all our staff at Corry Place, as required by law.

As you can see, Corry Place is inside a controlled area, with barriers and CCTV. The harbour also has a dedicated police service, which was alert to the community tension that was being reported. That service, obviously, works very closely with the PSNI.

In order to ensure that you understand the written evidence relating to who is involved and who we are referring to, I will outline the chain of command for the service itself. It includes a director, who is represented here today, a city protection manager and a port health manager.

As you are already aware, during the last two weeks of January 2021, a number of press reports showed intimidating graffiti that appeared in the Larne area relating to border post staff. Those reports were picked up by the director, Siobhan, who is here, and the port management team, which engaged in communications with DAERA, its veterinary service and the harbour police. Both organisations were unaware of any specific concerns relating to Belfast port at that stage, but the harbour police agreed to provide some additional patrols and to call in to the Corry Place unit so that it could assist our staff with any additional security concerns or measures that they might wish to see put in place. That was done for assurance purposes.

Two of my staff also attended a subgroup meeting, known as the EU exit task and finish working group, on 28 January, which was chaired by the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. The Chief Veterinary Officer and the chair discussed the recent graffiti, primarily in respect of Larne port. The issues were further discussed in relation to Larne port the following day at the DAERA multi-agency update, which, again, was attended by two of my staff.

You will be aware that, on 29 January, the news broke about the EU's initial stance on vaccines, and political tensions increased. More graffiti appeared in Belfast, but we found no evidence of that graffiti making threats to staff at Belfast port. It related primarily to calls for no Irish Sea border, and some of it criticised political parties.

I was alerted to the issue on Sunday 31 January, when I was contacted by mobile phone by the AERA Minister at 9:30 pm. He wanted to bring my attention to what he described as escalating community tensions, referring to the graffiti that had appeared in Larne and expressing his serious concerns for staff at the ports. He also said that when he had talked to the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council at the time, she had also expressed serious concerns. During that call, I agreed to investigate the issues locally in relation to Belfast City Council and its staff.

Early next morning, I discussed the issue with the council's director of city services; I also contacted the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. Various communications took place between my staff and the port staff managers, the harbour police, the PSNI and DAERA. The PSNI, through various sources, advised that their information indicated that no specific security issues had been identified in respect of the Belfast City Council site or our staff at that time. They also said that, for assurance purposes, they would increase patrols along with the harbour police and that they would immediately contact me and any staff if any significant threat issues arose in the normal way, as had been agreed previously.

I again had a remote meeting later on that day at 4:45 pm, which was hosted by the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. That meeting was attended by the AERA Minister and various DAERA officials, including the permanent secretary and the chief executive of the Food Standards Agency.

The Minister and the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council expressed their serious concerns at that meeting about the level of community tension, and they also highlighted the extent of the threatening graffiti that had appeared in Larne. They also talked about reports of the surveillance of cars at Larne port and mentioned another unspecified issue of significant concern, which had been reported through anonymous channels. The chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council also highlighted that the party leaders in Mid and East Antrim had been alerted to those issues and that they were minded to take action to withdraw staff, but that that would be discussed further at their council meeting later that evening.

Following the 4:45 pm meeting, I spoke for the second time that day to the Belfast PSNI commander and relayed the information to him on the concerns that had been raised with me in the virtual meeting. He, once again, stated that the PSNI's view was that there was no organised or credible threat to Belfast City Council staff and that I would be contacted immediately if that situation changed. He asked that I would speak to ACC McEwan, as he had been discussing the same issue with other partners. However, I had to attend a Belfast City Council meeting myself that evening, which began at 6:00 pm and went on until well after 11:00 pm, as some of our meetings tend to do here in Belfast.

It was 8:00 the next morning when I spoke to ACC McEwan and he reiterated the police's position that I had been informed of the night before. I asked for a written threat assessment, which was reiterated the following day along with the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council, at a PSNI-hosted partners' meeting, which was on 2 February.

On the evening of 1 February, during the council meeting, it became apparent that Mid and East Antrim Borough Council had taken the decision to withdraw its staff from Larne port. That was followed later by an announcement from the AERA Minister that DAERA port staff were also being withdrawn. At that stage, the council was still in session.

In the background, the director of city services was in close contact with the port health manager. On hearing the news of the withdrawals, the manager asked our staff, as a precaution, to focus on office duties and temporarily pause physical checks until more information was available.

In the following days, the PSNI continued to provide assurances on the threat level that was assessed with numerous meetings. The written threat assessment was formally received on 4 February. Ongoing discussions took place with staff, trade unions and other agencies. A special meeting of the Belfast party group leaders was called on 2 February, at which they agreed that the pragmatic approach taken at Belfast port was appropriate after taking into consideration the PSNI assessment of the threat level being low and not organised, and also the security measures that were in place at Corry Place itself.

The safety of staff, of course, as you would imagine, has since been kept under constant review, with updates to my staff at the port and also to the risk assessment, and additional precautionary security measures being put in place. It transpired that, whilst BCC port staff could and did carry out physical inspections on third-country consignments from 2 February, it was not possible for them to resume physical checks on GB consignments until 10 February because of their reliance on DAERA staff.

I want to take the opportunity to highlight to the Committee concerns that have been raised by me and others across local government with partner agencies and Departments that will need to be resolved in order to allow us to effectively perform our statutory functions after the end of the grace period for

consignments. Those concerns relate to finance and resources for that work, shared data management and systems, and inspection facilities. Thank you very much, members. I will hand over to Marie.

Ms Ward: If it is OK, Chair, I will just follow on from Suzanne. You will have the written submission from Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. I want to set out for members that Newry, Mourne and Down took on responsibility for the action only after 31 December 2020. Prior to that, there was no EU-approved business continuity planning in the district. We took that responsibility only after 31 December.

The council works closely with the Food Standards Agency and DAERA to undertake the role. At an operational level, that requires council staff to engage and work closely with DAERA staff and the staff located in the temporary inspection facility at Warrenpoint port. It is important also to highlight that Warrenpoint port has a low throughput, with, on average, only two sailings from Heysham to Warrenpoint per day that carry goods that may require checks.

Through internal and external recruitment processes, the council put in place a team of staff who have been working in Warrenpoint port since 3 January 2021. The staff complement in the service is 3·5 full-time-equivalent environmental health officers, one senior environmental health officer on shift, and five environmental health officers trained to provide standby cover. It is not a 24-hour service. It covers two shifts, which operate from 4.30 am to 12.30 pm and 1.30 pm to 10.30 pm. The facilities at Warrenpoint port are situated in the confines of the controlled area of the port and are not visible from outside the port boundary. CCTV is in place in the controlled area of the port.

On 1 February 2021, quite late in the evening, we became aware, through news reports, of the withdrawal of staff from sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks at the point-of-entry border control post at Larne. Newry, Mourne and Down District Council staff continued to work at the point-of-entry border control post at Warrenpoint throughout the period. On the evening of 1 February, Newry, Mourne and Down council officials made contact with colleagues at Belfast City Council at Mid and East Antrim Borough Council to establish whether their staff had been withdrawn from the ports. The initial action that was taken by Newry, Mourne and Down District Council was to contact the one staff member who was due to attend shift at 4.30 the next morning to ask that they work from home as a precautionary measure. It was quite late in the evening, and the staff member did not receive the message or check their phone until they had actually arrived at the port at 7.30 the next morning and commenced work.

The DAERA staff member who was due to work in Warrenpoint port was also in attendance at 4.30 am.

Subsequent to the decision to ask the member of staff to work from home for that short period between 4.30 and 7.30, contact was made with the PSNI locally to establish whether there was an increased risk to staff attending the point-of-entry border control post at Warrenpoint port. We were informed that there was no information or intelligence available at that time to suggest that there was any risk or threat to staff at the port.

Following discussions with the assistant director of health and well-being, the head of environmental health (commercial) and the safety, health and emergency planning manager, the decision was made that staff would not be withdrawn from duties at the port. Staff were fully briefed and reassured by myself as chief executive on the available information and decision made in keeping staff at the port. They were given the opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns at the meeting with myself and with their line managers on an ongoing basis.

A meeting of the party leaders' forum of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council was held on the evening of 2 February to brief them on the situation, and they were content with the actions that had been taken.

Health and safety risk assessments in relation to personal safety were reviewed and updated. Although, through continued engagement with the PSNI, the council was informed that the threat assessments remained low, additional control measures were implemented to provide additional assurance to staff. They were agreed and implemented in partnership with the PSNI, DAERA and Warrenpoint Harbour Authority. They included increased PSNI patrols at the start and finish times of shifts. In addition, the PSNI spoke to staff and provided reassurance, advice and contact numbers. There was a new procedure for staff to remove and put on council- and port-branded clothing and high-vis PPE once inside the port boundary, and Warrenpoint harbour security increased surveillance inside the port at shift start and finish times. Finally, spaces for car parking in the controlled area of the port were identified and made available to DAERA and council staff.

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council continues to attend the SKIES meetings with the PSNI, DAERA and council colleagues, at which we are informed of the status of the threat assessment, and we continue to keep any risk to staff under review.

Like Suzanne, there are issues that we continue to raise in relation to finance and resources, shared data and the temporary facilities. Those issues need to be resolved to ensure that we can continue to deliver our service.

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): Thank you very much. I am going to move straight to members.

Mr McGlone: Thanks very much indeed for giving of your time. I know that you are busy people with other duties.

In the interests of correctness, is the EU exit group a task force and working group or a task and finish working group? I want to get the terminology right.

Mrs Wylie: As far as I know, it is a task and finish working group.

Mr McGlone: It has been referred to in correspondence that we received as a task force working group. Is that a SOLACE working group?

Mrs Wylie: That is correct.

Mr McGlone: What is it supposed to do? What is its purpose? What is its remit?

Mrs Wylie: I have here the draft terms of reference for the EU task and finish group. That is its title.

Mr McGlone: Right.

Mrs Wylie: I think that the Committee has already written to SOLACE for a copy of its terms of reference, and that will be provided.

Mr McGlone: That is OK. That is good enough that those will be provided to us.

Mrs Wylie: Obviously, they are to look at the issues from EU exit impacting on local government, in particular the port health issues.

Mr McGlone: Great. Thank you for clarifying that. It has been presented to us that the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council was acting in a SOLACE role. I would expect that, in representing Northern Ireland, as that particular post seems to do, that you would have been consulted prior to any correspondence, especially to the Cabinet Office, but to anyone using that title, to establish what difficulties, problems or issues you may be encountering.

Was there any consultation with either of your councils prior to the issuing of that letter?

Mrs Wylie: I can only speak for myself. There was no consultation on the particular letter that you referred to.

Mr McGlone: That is OK.

Mrs Wylie: However, I have to say that it was a very busy time for all of us.

Mr McGlone: I get all that, but it was presented to us as representing local authorities.

I presume that that did not happen with Newry, Mourne and Down District Council either. Maybe that is wrong.

Ms Ward: No. As Suzanne said, we were not — I was not — consulted on that letter.

Mr McGlone: OK. Thank you. Very briefly, did anyone from the Cabinet Office contact either of your councils on those matters or related matters?

Mrs Wylie: Not that I am aware of.

Ms Ward: No. Not that I am aware of.

Mr McGlone: OK. You may not be aware, but, to be precise, could you clarify that for us? You never know when an email was sent in or whatever, and we want to get completeness and accuracy when we are working our way through this. If you do not mind, could you do that? I do not mean now, but if you could check that out, please.

An issue was referred to us. Again, I want to clarify it, but, from my perception of the written evidence that you presented to us, things seem to have been OK. During that period of heightened attention on Larne, did you experience any difficulty in contacting the PSNI or, indeed, the harbour police in Belfast? Likewise, did they maintain regular contact with you at senior or other levels?

Mrs Wylie: From a Belfast perspective, we did not have any difficulty contacting or receiving information from them. We were not, however, involved in their SKIES partnership or gold command meetings in advance of February.

Mr McGlone: There were no problems in contacting them or any difficulties or problems with the flow of information from either the harbour police or the PSNI in both of your cases.

Mrs Wylie: No, none.

Ms Ward: From and Newry, Mourne and Down Council perspective, there were no issues in contacting our local PSNI officers. Again, we were not involved in the SKIES or gold command meetings.

Mr McGlone: That is OK. Likewise, did DAERA maintain regular contact with you at a senior level?

Mrs Wylie: It did. I will let Siobhan speak, because she would be the one in contact with the Department.

Ms Siobhan Toland (Belfast City Council): DAERA had an operational readiness stand-up meeting most mornings of the week, which moved to two or three mornings a week. That is where we got a round robin of all our partner agencies' operations. Those meetings ran in the week of 23 January to 25 January and the weeks preceding and after. They continued to operate. There was regular contact through that structure. Operationally, there was also very strong contact with DAERA officers.

Mr McGlone: That is good to hear. I ask from a basis of pure ignorance of the mechanism for doing it, but what is your structure or channel for communicating with EU officials?

Ms Toland: Again, that would mostly be arranged through those DAERA stand-up meetings. The Chief Veterinary Officer attended those as well, and he coordinated the visits from EU officials. I am aware that, for instance, an EU official — a vet — inspected Belfast Corry Place port on the Friday preceding 25 January. They had a good day with our team. That communication would have come through DAERA and Robert and his staff.

Mr McGlone: Was that similar with Newry, Mourne and Down District Council?

Ms Ward: Yes. We had regular contact operationally with DAERA. We also worked closely with DAERA officials on a daily basis and had contact through the Chief Veterinary Officer.

Mr McGlone: That is good to hear. I would have expected it from that person.

I want to move on to protocols or practices. You are chief executives of big local authorities with councillors from multiple parties and, indeed, maybe one or two independents. You have read the letter written by Ms Donaghy, the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. I am not sure in what role she wrote it. Ostensibly, she told us that it was acting in her capacity as a SOLACE representative. However, she signed it as the chief executive of the local authority. The letter contains some interesting views that, some would venture, go down the political route. Given that there are differences of opinion and of emphasis, is it protocol or procedure either to run such major contentious issues across a full council meeting to establish whether the local authority's true view is being represented or through the normal mechanism, which I presume you have, of a collegiate of leaders of political parties? This is, after all, a very sensitive and contentious area, some of which strays into the party political.

Ms Ward: I will give the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council perspective first. We set up a Brexit forum of the various political representatives a couple of years ago. The forum meets to discuss key Brexit issues, and issues go to our enterprise, regeneration and tourism committee and, subsequently, to the council. Brexit-related matters have been managed in that way.

Mrs Wylie: Likewise in Belfast City Council, we have a formally established Brexit committee. Any decisions on resources or the overall position of the council will come through the strategic, policy and resources committee and be ratified by the council. Of course, letters can be written by the chief executive or the senior team if there are operational issues.

Mr McGlone: Yes, I appreciate that letters can be written on operational or resource matters. However, that letter strays into a major issue of international concern. I presume that there are protocols and procedures that you follow to establish that you are correctly and professionally reflecting the entire view of the council if it is your judgement call.

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): OK.

Mr McGlone: Thank you, Chair. I am finished.

Mr Blair: I thank both chief executives and their teams for the information provided. It is worth acknowledging to them that Committee members are mindful that this has been a very challenging year on a number of fronts for council staff at all levels and areas. We thank the staff for their efforts in difficult times.

I have three questions that should be relatively brief because we have touched on some of the issues. My first is for Marie and Suzanne. From your presentation and the information supplied, it appears that you are satisfied with the information provided by the police and its response to any queries. Is that the case?

Mrs Wylie: Yes, that is the case. That happened as a result of discussions at numerous levels with the PSNI from a Belfast perspective. I was directly involved in some of those discussions, as were my staff and team. Emergency planning protocols were used as well.

Ms Ward: Chair, that is the same for Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. There have been local discussions with the PSNI and through the SKIES formal structures.

Mr Blair: Thank you both for that answer. I declare that I am a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. It is good news to hear that, and best that I inform you of my role on that body as well.

Turning to the SOLACE issue, I am satisfied that the correspondence dated 31 January, which took up a considerable amount of time at our previous meeting, does not mention SOLACE as an organisation on any of its seven pages. I want to ask you both for clarification. It seems that, as far as you are concerned, there was no SOLACE correspondence that chief executives got sight of, either before or after 31 January. I am talking about any SOLACE correspondence that referred to problems with the EU exit or management at ports.

Mrs Wylie: We have addressed the issue of the letter to the Cabinet Office: neither Marie nor I was aware of it. Previous correspondence had been issued to the Food Standards Agency and DAERA, which were copied to the chair of SOLACE.

Mr Blair: It would be normal process for the other SOLACE members to see the correspondence.

Mrs Wylie: Yes. Or it would be copied to the chair.

Mr Blair: Of course.

I make it clear that I do not expect you to answer for the actions of others, but it seems that you have a very clear timeline of events, correspondence, meetings and consultation with the police and others. That presents a clear picture of events, but it seems that there was a flurry of activity in and around 1 February, which culminated in the decisions that were taken that evening. Is it fair to say that most of the events of 1 February were driven by the Department at ministerial level and by Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and that some of you had to react and respond to those events?

Mrs Wylie: As I said in my presentation, we were aware that tensions were rising over that weekend. Certainly, political tensions were rising over that weekend, given the stance of the EU. We were aware of some additional graffiti going up around Belfast, but, as I said, it was not directed at staff per se. On 1 February, the concerns from the AERA Minister and Mid and East Antrim Borough Council representatives were concerning to us, which is why we raised them with the PSNI again to check the threat assessment in Belfast. I am sure that Marie can speak for herself in relation to Warrenpoint.

Ms Ward: From a Newry, Mourne and Down perspective, we became aware of the decision through the media reports that came out quite late that evening. I could be wrong, but I think that it was the 10.00 pm news and social media that drew our attention to it. That is when we started to make calls and do assessments for our own staff.

Mr Blair: Thank you both for that.

Mr Harvey: I am going to be a wee bit biased and direct my question towards Newry. First, it is good to see you both again, Marie and Eoin; I am sorry that it could not be in person. I had the privilege of working with Marie in Newry, Mourne and Down District Council for a good few years.

Fortunately, Marie, you continued to work pretty much as normal and had minimal concerns. That said, you took all the precautionary measures possible to make sure that staff were protected. Although it was a slight concern that a member of staff did not receive a message advising them to work from home, it is understandable when you look at the time; it was 4.30 am. You are to be congratulated for all the actions that you took and your close working with the PSNI and other agencies. I have no doubt that you continue to monitor the situation closely, because we all know that staff are paramount in all of this. Thank you, Marie.

Ms Ward: Thank you, Harry. It is lovely to see you too, albeit in the virtual world. For clarity, the initial phone call that was made to the member of staff, which they did not receive because I assume that they were probably in bed

Following that phone call, however, discussions took place with the local PSNI. In the event, we were informed that there was no information or intelligence available at that time to suggest that there was a risk of threat to the staff member going to Warrenpoint, so we did not then proceed to try to contact them again in the middle of the night to try to stop them going, because we were content with the PSNI's assessment.

If it had been a converse discussion, we would have made every effort to reach that member of staff before they had left the house to attend work at 4.30 am. As I said in the written submission, in the interests of providing comfort and security to the staff, we implemented additional measures to provide reassurance to staff members, working with our colleagues in the PSNI.

Mr Harvey: Thank you very much. I will finish by saying that I am content with all the actions taken by you and the other councils. It was good to see you. All the best to you.

Ms Ward: Thank you, Harry.

Mr McGuigan: Thanks to both chief executives for coming along and giving evidence to us today. As everyone has said, I understand that this is a very busy time for you. I am going to fire out a number of questions.

Is it correct that you were both present at the meeting on 28 January of the SOLACE subcommittee, task force, task and finish group, or whatever its title is?

Ms Ward: No.

Mrs Wylie: No. Our members of staff would have been present at that.

Mr McGuigan: OK, fair enough. Are there minutes of its meetings?

Mrs Wylie: There are notes taken at the meetings. I have now received a minute of the meeting on 28 January. I received it last week. I am sure that that was in response to your letter to the SOLACE chair about minutes being made available to the Committee.

Mr McGuigan: You received the minutes of a meeting on 28 January last week, after our Committee had met.

Mrs Wylie: To be fair, I requested a copy of the minutes last week.

Mr McGuigan: Fair enough. We will see the minutes, so there is no need to go into that.

I have specific questions for Belfast City Council. I have read your report on engaging with the PSNI and listened to the questions today.

We received evidence last week from Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. I am looking at the briefing paper, and, under 1 February, where Ms Donaghy had a conversation with you that morning, it states:

It goes on to talk about her concerns:

Further on in the day, the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council emailed DAERA about setting up a meeting later that day, at 4.45 pm. The briefing paper states:

Had you concerns about the PSNI? Concerns have been highlighted to us by another chief executive.

Mrs Wylie: My recollection of the discussion and of my response to the issues that were being raised that morning is slightly different.

I had already spoken to the director of city services by the time that I spoke to the Mid and East Antrim Council chief executive. She had assured me about the conversations that had happened, certainly about those with DAERA the previous week and right up until the 28 January, and also about those with the harbour police, who had been in contact with the PSNI at that stage. At that point, my view was that, for Belfast, the issues were not as concerning. I wanted, however, to listen to the concerns that were being raised by Mid and East Antrim Council, and by others, of course, because we had to be fully cognisant of all the facts before we could make any recommendation to our members and make any call on the safety of our staff. I therefore do not recall saying that there was a lack of clarity from the police, but I may have said, "I need to get more clarity from the police on the issues that you have been raising".

Mr McGuigan: That is helpful. I have gone through the Belfast City Council evidence in particular. Up until 29 January, there had been regular contact with the police and trade unions, and there had been no particular issue of concern, as John said. I have got a clear indication from reading the evidence that there was a flurry of activity from 29 January until the Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister resigned and could no longer take action on the matter. It has been pointed out that there seemed to be a lot of contact from the Minister and Mid and East Antrim Council. In the context of the fears and concerns that were being spread, was there mention of paramilitary activity or of number plates of staff cars being taken at any of the ports? If such concerns were being raised, did either of you verify them with the PSNI?

Mrs Wylie: I do not think that Marie was involved in that particular conversation at that time, so this is for me to answer. Marie can come in if she has anything to add. Serious concerns at grassroots level, from a Larne perspective, were raised at those discussions, and concerns about wider community tensions for our region were raised. Alleged connections to organised crime were mentioned, but those were not being suggested as fact in conversations that I heard. Rather, it was being alleged that that was the case. Yes, there was reference made to a video being taken of cars at Larne port, to slowing-down cars at Larne port and to the number plates of cars being recorded.

That was of concern, and, as chief executive of Belfast City Council, I wanted to make sure that that was not the case when it came to Belfast port. That is why, immediately after those calls, I directly contacted the commander for Belfast. He confirmed that the threat level was low and not

Ms Ward: For clarity, from the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council perspective, I was not involved in those discussions, so I have nothing further to add.

Mr McGuigan: There was therefore regular contact with the PSNI. When that was deemed necessary, both chief executives were happy and satisfied that the information that the PSNI was giving on the nature of the threat was accurate. There was therefore no reason or rationale for distrusting the PSNI assessment or for thinking that either council had better information than what was being provided by the PSNI.

Mrs Wylie: I can speak only for myself, because I am responsible for the health and safety of Belfast City Council staff. My questions to the PSNI related to the staff at Corry Place. Corry Place is set out differently

and is much more controlled than Larne port. I was satisfied with the information that the PSNI provided me with. The PSNI appeared very confident in its views.

Mr Irwin: The chief executive of Belfast City Council has said that the police identified no specific threat. That was in relation to your port in Belfast and not to Larne, I presume. You would have been getting information about your own port, is that right?

Mrs Wylie: My specific questions to the PSNI were about the safety of my staff and about any threat to my staff in Belfast, in the context in which they were working. The written overall threat assessment, however, was provided on 4 February, and, as you know, it talked about a low level of threat

Mr Irwin: The information that you received was in relation to Belfast port, not Larne port, however.

Mrs Wylie: It was specifically

Mr Irwin: It was a verbal report, not a written one, is that right?

Mrs Wylie: Until 4 February, a verbal report from senior officers in the PSNI was provided, as it was for meetings that were held. As we mentioned, there were the SKIES partners' meetings, as they were called, with the PSNI, which we were not initially involved in as councils. We were then invited, from 2 February on, to attend. Those meetings were held daily during that week.

Mr Irwin: I have been in both ports, dealing with ferries in the past. We have been told that Belfast port is probably the safer of the two and that it is not as vulnerable as Larne port. We have been told that there is only one way in and one way out of Larne port, so it may be slightly more vulnerable than Belfast port. Is that the case?

Mrs Wylie: I do not know Larne port, but, from meetings that I was involved in at the time, I know that the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim Council had articulated concerns about its having one way in and one way out. As set out in our paper, there is a map of where our staff are located in Belfast port. They are within a controlled area, with barrier access only and CCTV at set points. In the port, dedicated Harbour Police are there 24/7.

Mr Irwin: OK. Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): Thank you very much. No other members have indicated that they wish to speak. Suzanne, Siobhan and Marie, thank you very much for attending this morning and answering all our questions. You provided very full answers.

Can I get your agreement to publish the councils' briefing papers on the Committee's web page?

Mrs Wylie: Yes.

Ms Ward: Yes.