A bright, cold, day earlier this week saw me head out for a constitutional along what is now rather a pleasant route along the banks of the Lagan past the Odyssey and up to the Titanic Museum. With the hazy afternoon sun making the East Belfast bank of the river look particularly pretty, and the tourist information signs informing me of the Belfast Maritime Trail, I changed my mind and instead turned left at the Lagan Weir and decided to …
Minister for Social Development Nelson McCausland – whose department’s remit of “urban regeneration, community and voluntary sector development, social legislation, housing, social security benefits, pensions and child support” includes the safety of the bridges, drinks promotions and zipwires – released the final report into the safety of the Lagan Weir footbridge this morning. As well as raising money to buy sonar search equipment to help with any future underwater searches, the family of Joby Murphy have made repeated calls in …
In the end the Department of Social Development took a shade longer than the four weeks permitted under FOI to answer my simple questions about their investments in the Laganside Events and Laganside Community Activity Grants. Figures for the 2011/12 grants for the two funds were supplied in the meantime through another DSD source. But that left the remaining query asking for the total amount spend on the Laganside grants over the years the schemes have been in operation. The …
Nelson McCausland, Minister for Social Development, appeared before the Assembly’s Social Development Committee on Thursday 23 February. [Audio temporarily available on NI Assembly website, and should appear shortly on BBC Democracy Live.] In his opening statement, he explained about the decision to withdraw the non-essential Laganside Events Grant and pointed out that it only contributed 5-10% of many events’ budgets (as charted in a blog post last week). The minister explained that he’d no need to know where Finance Minister …
Moochin PhotomanPhotographer and visual artist based in Belfast. I have facilitated community based workshops with groups as diverse as visually impaired individuals in Dungannn, Travellers across Northern Ireland, Young Offenders and many community groups across Belfast. My work has exhibited extensively here in Northern Ireland in group and individual shows and has been shown in North America and i had my first solo international exhibition in New Zealand. I have been the recipient of a number of grants from the …
