Other News In Brief

Nominations Open For Belfast Sport Awards 2019

The nominations for the Belfast City Council Sport Awards are officially open, after Lord Mayor Deirdre Hargey launched the 2019 phase on Thursday 17 January.

The awards are now in their 12th year and celebrate the achievements of local athletes as well as volunteers who work behind the scenes.

Mayor Hargey is encouraging as many people as possible to enter a nomination.

There are 13 accolades up for grabs across seven categories, including pathway to clubs, healthy lifestyle as sponsored by Active Belfast and coach of the year.

Kicking off the competition, Mayor Hargey said: "2018 proved to be a bumper year of sporting success for many of our local athletes and coaches. We collected 12 medals from the XXI Commonwealth Games in Australia's Gold Coast, Ireland won the rugby Grand Slam and claimed an historic first win on home soil over the mighty All Blacks. 

"The Belfast Sports Awards 2019 not only aims to celebrate the achievements of all those involved in sport and physical activity from grassroots right up to the highest levels, but it wants to shine a light on the great volunteering work and coaching that takes place right across the city."

Alliance Welcomes New Nursing Campaign

The Alliance Party has welcomed the launch of a new international nursing campaign which places a specific focus on tackling homelessness and health inequalities.

Paula Bradshaw, MLA for south Belfast, said the Nursing Now initiative is an "outstanding" way of demonstrating that nurses can play a direct role in improving health, as well as achieving positive social and economic outcomes.

"One key area is in working to counter the negative health effects of homelessness in the broadest sense," she said.

"The campaign will also rightly focus on challenging childhood obesity and mental ill-health, and recognising the vital role of nurses in these areas.

"The public perception of nurses is already rightly very high, but the outcome of this campaign will be to demonstrate that the role of nursing can be much broader than we think, and can have a very wide and positive impact."

NI Economy Grows In Most Recent Figures

The Northern Ireland economy has grown in the last quarter, according to the latest figures which represent a 0.4% increase towards the end of 2018.

Manufacturing and construction were the main contributors to growth, with output increasing by 0.4% in each sector.

Despite this, services, which is the dormant sector of the economy saw its output decrease by 0.3%.

The statistics are measured using the Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index (NICEI).

Annual growth, when compared with the same quarter of 2017, was 2.1% compared with a UK GDP growth of 1.5%.



(JG/CM)