Tony Blair will become the first British prime minister of the modern era to shake hands formally with republican leaders when he meets Sinn Fein’s president, Gerry Adams, at the multi-party talks in Belfast today. Although only 10 minutes have been set aside for the encounter the arrangements appear to have been the subject of intense and careful thought on the Government’s part. Mr Blair and Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, have been concerned to take into account both republican and Unionist sensitivities in settling the details of the meeting. The current plan is for a dome that would cost about pounds 750m, with much of the funding coming from the lottery.But many Labour MPs feel that the money would be much better spent on millennium projects in their own constituencies, with investment in education and health a priority.The Independent has been told that soundings have been taken among members of the shadow cabinet, and there are few signs of any enthusiasm for continuing support.”I wouldn’t say that anyone is more than lukewarm at best,” one source said, “apart from a solitary figure in an arboretum in Northamptonshire” – a reference to Michael Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister, who was appointed a millennium commissioner by Mr Blair soon after the election.. Senior Conservatives yesterday indicated that the Opposition is about to withdraw support from the Millennium Dome project – which was initiated by the last government.

While official sources said it was “early days” and “a grotesque exaggeration” to say that the party was about to drop bipartisan support for the Greenwich scheme, other more authoritative sources suggested that support had already been withdrawn and it was only a matter of time before an outright, public attack was launched.
Given that Tony Blair took the decision to go ahead with the project against the advice of many of his senior ministers, insisting that the Government had to mark the millennium with a high-profile project, the Tory U-turn could leave the Prime Minister embarrassingly isolated if the scheme goes wrong. We cannot eliminate this risk, all we can do is keep that risk to a minimum,” he added.Panorama; BBC1; 10pm tonight.-Glenda Cooper. Dr Martin Deahl, a consultant psychiatrist at the Homerton Hospital, in east London, tells the programme: “There are people walking around who I think are potentially dangerous. Wen a serious offence is committed the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end because I just pray to God it’s not one of mine.”Dr Deahl called for it to be made easier to section people and bring them into hospital and in some case to ensure that patients continue their medication after release to forcibly inject them.”If we are going to let people out into the community .. there has to be some increased risk. They must also have a plan for their care and a home to go to.But there are fears that people are not always getting the care that they need.

“The professionals are not looking at the extent of problems faced by people being discharged into the community. I’m sick of hearing people say `these rare tragic events’.”The survey’s findings mirror the Boyd report in 1994which found there had been 34 homicides in 18 months. The report denied the “common perception” that mentally ill people are likely to behave violently and says that in the context of 600 to 700 killings a year, homicide by psychiatrically ill people is “very rare indeed”.Under legislation passed after the Zito case, every released patient must have a “care keyworker”. “I feel very cynical about the response that has taken place since Jonathan’s death,” Mrs Zito told BBC’s Panorama. At least 40 per centhave been committed by people unknown to their victims.So far nearly 40 cases have had reports completed although the findings have not always been published.The 104 include cases such as that of Darren Carr, who killed the two children he minded and their mother.Anthony Smith, who killed his mother half brother; and Christopher Clunis, who killed Jonathan Zito, astranger, in a Tube station.