City Civic Posts Agreed

The two main NI cities have last night both elected nationalist or republican mayors.

Belfast has a Sinn Fein Lord Mayor for only the second time in history while SDLP Councillor Gerard Diver has officially taken office as mayor of Londonderry.

The new Lord Mayor of Belfast is Sinn Féin's Tom Hartley, who will replace outgoing first citizen Jim Rodgers of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Mr Hartley received 25 votes, seeing off the challenge of the DUP's Diane Dodds who got 23 votes.

The new Belfast Deputy Mayor, David Browne of the UUP, abstained from the ballot with the DUP's Diane Dodds accused him of "opportunism", but he rejected her claim he had made a pact with Sinn Fein, saying: "I just wouldn't vote for Diane Dodds."

Meanwhile, Mr Hartley, 62, said he would follow the example of former Sinn Féin Lord Mayor Alex Maskey who had laid a Remembrance Day wreath at the Cenotaph and pledged to represent all the people equally.

"I want to bring in the marginalised and those who don't feel a sense of ownership, like young and old people.

"We've got to bring in those who see themselves outside the civic structures, like the gay and lesbian communities. So, there's a big job to create this sense of ownership of Belfast," he said.

Up in the North West, the outgoing Mayor, Drew Thompson, presented his replacement, Mr Diver with his chains of office at an annual general meeting of Derry City Council on Monday night.

Mr Diver said building bridges between the two communities was a priority for his year in office.

DUP councillor Maurice Devenney took over from Sinn Féin's Patricia Logue as Deputy Mayor.

(BMcC)