Lisburn City Council has returned a new top civic representative, the DUP's Paul Porter, who served last year as Deputy Mayor.

He succeeds his party colleague Allan Ewart as the new Mayor of the city. Meanwhile the SDLP's Brian Heading has taken on the role of Deputy Mayor.

"As Deputy Mayor I will endeavour to promote partnership between people in this city as this is the only way in which we can really progress," said Cllr Heading.

"For far too long people have been divided in Lisburn. The shared community we must build requires positive leadership and cooperation. We need to abandon the politics of grievance and work on common solutions to our common problems.

"People are fed up with sectarian politics and economic stagnation and this is giving way to new thinking and possibilities.

"We must all look forward with a view to grasping that positive shared future which is within reach. That is the best choice for Lisburn and the best way to build a better society."

However, Sinn Féin have slammed the unionist-dominated Council for consistently excluding them from key civic positions. The party's MLA Paul Butler also said the SDLP have questions to answer.

"In 35 years of local government on Lisburn Council, nationalists councillors have been elected only once to the position of Mayor," said Mr Butler.

"Even worse is the fact that Sinn Féin has never held the Mayor's position. What they want is for unionist domination and discrimination to continue at the expense of local government reform.

"The DUP have deliberately collapsed the reform of local government so that they can hang on to unionist fiefdoms such as Lisburn Council," he fumed, also knocking his fellow nationalists: "The SDLP have questions to answer about their commitment to power sharing and equality when they can’t support Sinn Féin councillors for positions on the Council."

Meanwhile, the DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson and Edwin Poots called it a day at Lagan Valley Island as they resolve to put full focus on their parliamentary and ministerial posts respectively.

(BMcC)