27/04/2014 BBC Newsline

to you. There's more throughout the evening on the BBC News Channel. I'm

back with Good evening. A man in his 40s has

died in a road accident outside Portadown. He was hit by a car after

getting out of a taxi on the Gilford Road. It happened at around 2pm this

morning. The Police are appealing for anyone who witnessed the

accident to contact them. And reports are coming in of a

serious accident in County Down - It's believed two vehicles have

crashed on the Banbridge road in Dromore. The road has been closed to

traffic. There are no other details at the moment.

Hundreds of people have taken part in a protest at Belfast City Hall

about animal abuse. There were calls for councils and politicians here to

put animal rights higher on the agenda. Eunan McConville reports.

Plenty of protesters turned up for this demonstration. There have

certainly been plenty of protest here at City Hall over the recent

past, but this one is very different. Hundreds of people behind

me want more to be done to safeguard animal rights.

Hi could you abandon this animal? To think that someone could do that

to my pads is unthinkable. Until they start taking these people

to court and making a big thing of its, why are people going to be

afraid to abuse animals? The crowd was told that Northern Ireland has

good animal protection legislation but that more can be done to

implement it. The welfare of animals in Northern

Ireland act was passed in 2011 and according to the USPCA early

expectations have not been fulfilled. This legislation is the

best kept secret you could ever come across.

Out of 26 council websites, only one mentions this legislation. There is

total confusion out there. Able do not know when to reign, who to ring

or what to do. Northern Ireland is broken up into

five areas and it is up to councils to get a point animal welfare

officers for those areas. The Department of Agriculture is

responsible for farm animals. Whether these protesters will be

listened to dash only time will tell.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has invited Pope Francis to visit Ireland. He

made the request when he met the Pontiff in Rome at today's double

canonisation of Pope John Paul II and John XXIII. Mr Kenny said that

if the invitation was accepted he would hope Pope Francis would also

travel to Northern Ireland during his visit.

While it is not an official responsibility of the government,

the authorities extend an invitation. We will do everything to

make that visit a real success. Gaelic Games and Derry have been

well beaten by Dublin in their National Football League final at

Croke Park. Earlier Monaghan beat Donegal in the Division Two decider.

Michael Markey reports. Derry fans young and old travel to

Croke Park with more hope than expectation. After four minutes, or

boiling gave them an early lead. However their enthusiasm was short

lived. We knew there would be a massive

test against us. We don't want to give Dublin a lead like that. The

all-Ireland champions picked up where they left off in the second

half and started to score. They gave Dublin a 12 point lead.

We know we can play a lot better than that. With so many young lads,

you have to occasionally get a bad one out of the way. I hope we will

learn a lot from today and perform a lot better when we come back to

Croke Park. In every piece of last year's Ulster

championship final, Monaghan won by six points to secure the division

two title. Now this week, BBC Newsline will be

reporting from Scotland ahead of September's vote on independence.

Our reporter Kevin Magee is in Glasgow.

We will be testing the appetite for Scottish independence, both here in

Ibrox and across the city. At Celtic Park, both sets of supporters have

traditional links with Northern Ireland. Will that influence how

they vote? It is the right time for Scotland to

be Independent and do everything for ourselves.

We are voting no. I am British through and through.

Coverage begins on radio Ulster in the morning.

And Donna Traynor will be reporting live from Glasgow on tomorrow's

programme and from Edinburgh on Tuesday. Now the weather forecast.

Good evening. It has been a pretty great day across many parts of

Northern Ireland. This will probably be the last day that we see decent

spells of sunshine. As the week goes on, we are looking at increasing

amount of cloud with rain and showers. It will also be turning

noticeably colder. Today has been very nice with just one or two

showers close to the south-west. They are fading away and many of us

will experience a dry end to the day. Cloud will be bringing spells

of light and patchy rain from the East. As a result, it is a fairly

mild nights lower than six or seven degrees. Tomorrow will be a cloudy

day with some rain around fourth top almost anywhere it could be quite a

damp and murky start. Writer skies over the northern half of Scotland

and for West Wales and the south-west, but these areas are

still prone to a few showers. Generally cloudy elsewhere across

the country. In the forest south of England they are still prone to some

have read -- heavy, thundery downpours. In Northern Ireland is

not a great deal has changed. We still have cloudy skies with patches

of rain and drizzle raking out almost anywhere. Particularly for

Northern areas. Not amounting to a great deal and temperatures are not

bad at 13 or 14 degrees. Through the week, cloud and showers and after

Wednesday the temperatures will fall.

Our next BBC Newsline bulletin is at 22.15pm. Until then you can keep up

to date with local news on BBC Radio Ulster or on the local news online

service. From everyone on the BBC Newsline team, goodbye.