Other News In Brief

Call For Housing Crisis In L'Derry To Be Addressed

The Social Development Minister is being urged to address the housing crisis issue in L'Derry immediately.

SDLP MLA Colum Eastwood said the party is seeking a radical new build and retrofit programme that will provide fit-for-purpose accommodation and create employment.

Mr Eastwood said: "Under the watch of successive DUP ministers in the Department for Social Development there was a 60% rise in the number of people in housing stress in our city.

"According to recent figures for Derry there were in excess of 3,300 people on the waiting list for social housing with more than 2,300 of them living in housing stress in 2014. The minister must realise that these are not just statistics, they are real families facing very real crisis. These are people who are at their wit's end waiting for proper living conditions.

"The most recent Derry District Housing Plan and Local Housing Strategy proposed the development of 1,194 and was rightly welcomed as a positive move. However, that will not in itself address Derry's much greater housing need."

UUP Pays Tribute To William Noble CBE

The Ulster Unionist Party has paid tribute to its party member William Noble CBE, who has died at the age of 106.

A Service of Thanksgiving is being held today, 28 April, at St Patrick's Parish Church, Jordanstown.

Roy Beggs MLA said: "It is with sadness that today we say goodbye to William Noble CBE. However, it is sadness tinged with warm memories and appreciation for a very long life, which was lived to the full. Mr Noble was a lifelong Unionist and his mother was an activist in the Duncairn area of Belfast when it was represented by Edward Carson.

"It was wonderful that so many tributes were paid to him when he turned 106 in January. Not only was he Northern Ireland's oldest man, he was literally Northern Ireland’s most senior Ulster Unionist."

Three Rescued From East Belfast Fire

Three people have been rescued from a fire at a block of flats in east Belfast.

Emergency services attended the scene at Parklands at around 2.45am on Tuesday.

Fourteen residents had to be evacuated from their flats and two men and a woman were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.

An investigation into how the fire started has been launched.