20/09/2016 BBC Newsline

That's all from the BBC News at Six, so it's goodbye from me,

The headlines this Tuesday evening...

The boss of Ryanair condemns the Stormont Executive for not

They have to fix air passenger duty. They have to get rid of it. Stop

subsidising overseas airlines. The moments just before a train

driver discovered two children wandering on the line

through a railway tunnel. A new insight into the methods

Special Branch used to infiltrate A coming of age, and the school

formal, but how a clampdown by the police on drink laws

is causing an upset. I see lots of dead men here. None of

them are mine. We've an interview with

Northern Ireland actor Jamie Dornan as his latest film hits

the big screen. Three golds and one silver

in the pool in Rio - Bethany Firth comes home

to the biggest prize of them all - And there's a spell of wet and windy

weather on the way tomorrow. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary says

it's a damning indictment of the Executive that it hasn't

boosted tourism and helped local airports by scrapping

air passenger tax. He claims axing or reducing

the charge makes better sense than recent aid deals for City

of Derry Airport, Ireland's abolition of its passenger

tax in 2014 is seen as one reason This report from our business

correspondent Julian O'Neill. The vast majority of

Northern Ireland flights are taxed at ?13 -

money we pay added A better use of money - he argues -

than the recent ?9 million subsidy for United Airlines

and its Belfast-New York flight. Subsidising a rich American airline

which will stay here for as long as it gets the subsidy and they gave

this subsidy ends will leave is not a sensible use of scarce resources

here in Northern Ireland. You have to fix APD. The Northern Ireland

Executive have got to get rid of it. But the figures do not make

it so straightforward. Removing all tax has been estimated

at costing the Executive at least ?55 million,

as it has to cover the loss The recent rescue packages to United

and to City of Derry Airport total ?16 million, and not

all of it is public money. Total abolition would

require more cash. But Mr O'Leary believes at least

some intervention is needed to support airport growth and,

in the case of Derry, to keep what few Ryanair

services which remain there. We are guaranteeing that we will

continue the Derry services to Glasgow and Liverpool for summer

2017 but unless there is some movement here on the APD taxes I

think it is inevitable over time that the Glasgow and Liverpool

services will migrate to Aldergrove. Mr O'Leary was in Northern Ireland

to talk about Ryanair schedules out of Belfast International,

and said the uncertainty of Brexit For the foreseeable future,

expansion will be concentrated And news of a further boost

for City of Derry Airport That is right. Tonight the

Government is saying that as expected it will provide financial

support for a new carrier to operate the Londonderry to London route

service as a replacement service for the one to Stansted which Ryanair

will axe from next March. The money is coming from the Department for

Transport in London so that is separate to the ?7 million already

announced by the Northern Ireland Executive, so a further boost for

the City of Derry Airport. What happens next is that Derry City and

Strabane Council will put a tender out to find a replacement airline in

the knowledge that it can rely on a certain amount of financial support

for that airline from the Department for Transport and London. The

Government has a fund to support regional air routes, this is where

the money will come from and it says it is making the announcement in

principle because it accepts that Derry to London route is important

for the north-west with and tourism sector. The Deputy First Minister

Martin McGuinness said it was a welcome move and says there is now a

compelling case for the Irish government to subsidise a route

between Derry and Dublin. We will need to see about that, thank you.

Shocking footage of two people narrowly avoiding being hit

by the Londonderry-to-Belfast train as it passes through a tunnel has

The company say that over the summer there have been more than 300

incidents of pedestrians wandering onto train lines on its network.

A lifeguard on duty has seen trespassers.

And as the train flies on into the tunnel, this.

The two people can be seen running by the tracks.

They narrowly escape being hit by the train.

It takes almost 17 seconds for the train to stop

There were more than 300 incidents of trespassing on the railway lines

They include people using the tracks and tunnels as a shortcut,

young boys playing chicken on the tracks and people

trying to touch trains as they fly through stations.

Translink is warning that doing any of these things could have

The message to people is clear and simple -

If you play on the railway, there's a chance that

you will get hit by a train and you could be injured and killed.

Modern trains are faster and quieter, making it

harder for people to hear them coming ahead.

It also means there's less time for drivers to take action

The trains go at 90 mph on the network, and their stopping

distance could be up to three quarters of a mile.

So, really, it's very, very difficult for a driver to be

able to see somebody and to be able to stop the train in advance.

Translink says the problem of trespassing often

increases during the summer, but steps have been taken to try

to reduce trespass, and people will be prosecuted where possible.

These two people were lucky to get away with just scratches.

The company is warning the next ones may not be so lucky.

Still to come on BBC Newsline, the mystery over the portraits found

in the attic of a former Belfast poor house.

A man who says he was a former agent within the IRA and Sinn Fein

will tonight feature in a Spotlight investigation into the secret

The programme will also broadcast new revelations on the so-called

Stormontgate affair and murder of Denis Donaldson.

For months I have been in contact with this man. Referred to in

tonight 's programme as Martin. He says he was a spy who brought

Special Branch deep within the IRA and Sinn Fein. This story begins in

the late 1990s. Even in the shadow of the peace process, he says he was

fully aware of the risk he was taking. My handlers would have given

me good advice and a bit of training. It was just basically be

very, very careful with yourself and how you go about things. I was

always very cautious and very strict about security. Of course, the

places we would have meant would have been picked with that in mind.

Over time Martin says he made the transition from being an informant

to an agent, targeting specific individuals at the request of his

handlers. Special Branch would always have half a dozen points to

give me whenever I went to meet them. I would be fortunate enough to

talk, to bump into the right people who were in the inner circles. In

working for Special Branch Martin was following in a long line of

informers and agents within the IRA. A well-placed and long-term agent

could silently damage the IRA from the inside. The IRA was broken up

into nine different structures or a levels of operations. Agents had to

be selected and if possible replaced or manipulated into certain

positions. And allowed to develop and grow. If you looked upon agents

and there was a sort of cancer within, eight slow-growing cancer,

-- they can sort of infect, as I say, other parts of the system.

Informers and agents betrayed the IRA's secrets but the IRA was

watching back. Tonight's programme investigates the clash between the

state and the IRA in the battle for intelligence and will reveal new

details on the events which ultimately led to the unmasking of

Denis Donaldson, a former senior Sinn Fein official, murdered in 2006

after admitting that he had been spying on the IRA for two decades.

And you can see more on that on Spotlight tonight here on BBC One

A former policewoman from County Tyrone has denied

causing the death of a man by dangerous driving

It follows a fatal crash in Omagh last October.

41-year-old Eilish MacSherry leaving court in Dungannon

She was a serving off-duty PSNI officer at the time of the fatal

Two vehicles were involved in a head-on collision.

49-year-old Paul Mills, a father-of-two from

In the dock today, she was quite emotional and she choked back tears

She pleaded not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving

dangerous driving on the Clanabogan Road, failing to stop

at the scene of an accident and driving while unfit

Her defence barrister told the court that he had no instructions

to challenge the primary facts of the case.

He said that his principal issue of concern was MacSherry's "state

of mind" on the night of the fatal collision.

The case was adjourned for four weeks for medical reports.

The future of three Jobs and Benefits offices is under threat.

The offices are located in Cookstown, Ballynahinch

The Department of Communities say they are holding a public

consultation on the potential closures and will continue to engage

with affected staff, claimants and stakeholders.

The Department also confirmed that there are no plans

for any redundancies and where there is a need to reduce

staff, they will be offered suitable posts in another part

The public service trade union NIPSA has condemned the possible closures.

We are very angry and we are very worried in relation to the jobs and

the services in the community, both in Cookstown and Newcastle and

Ballynahinch. Our members only heard today about an hour before it went

public that those officers are potentially closing at the end of

this eight-week consultation period so I am sure you can appreciate how

worried they stop working in those areas are and also the claimants who

came into those offices, where are they going to go to claim benefits?

Actor Jamie Dornan talks to us about his latest film

Some schools in Londonderry have decided to move their annual formals

across the border to Donegal due to the current licensing laws,

which some in the sector have described as completely out of date.

There've been calls for politicians at Stormont to change the law

so the traditional school formal can continue beyond 9:30pm

Here's our North West reporter Keiron Tourish.

It's the most eagerly awaited night of the year

for those students - the school formal.

And at St Cecilia's College, it takes 12 months to

But the law says those who're under 18 are not allowed on licensed

premises which are used exclusively or mainly for the sale

The police have been reminding licensees of the law,

and that's prompted some schools like St Cecilia's

It has been really upsetting for them because they do plan for such a

long time. Some girls had hired dresses and had made hair

appointments, male appointments and maybe they had a partner who was

coming from England or Scotland because many of their partners and

maybe at University of working somewhere else and had organised

flights back on a particular date for the original former and it is

all had to be changed at the drop of a hat.

The students say it's a logistical nightmare.

The formal is now two weeks later on a Thursday in Donegal instead

of the original Friday night in Derry.

To be honest I do think it is a bit of disgrace. Not as many are going

to be coming to the form of this year and that is quite upsetting for

a lot of the students. We have organised so much of it and it is

not ruined, but we have to start again. It is a nightmare. The income

generated from school formals can be quite significant. One source in the

hospitality sector says the loss of such an event could be as much as

?10,000. One solicitor who represents

hoteliers and publicans says it's The law needs to be clarified and it

needs to be changed. It is no longer fit for purpose.

The Hotels Federation says formals generate ?1.4 million

across Northern Ireland, and others in the industry also say

We are not selling these kids alcohol, we are selling them meals

and entertainment. It is not about we are trying to corrupt them. They

are in a very controlled environment. We will lose out on

this and there will be less people employed because of it.

Just this week, a bill was placed before the Assembly to allow

underage functions in licensed premised as long as no

If passed it would be the middle of next year before

The Justice Minister Claire Sugden says she expects a working group

on the sensitive issue of fatal foetal abnormalities to report back

In February MLAs rejected an attempt to change the law here to enable

abortions to be carried out in cases when doctors believed an unborn

child had a terminal condition, and would die in the womb

Ms Sugden says an expert working group has met three times.

The working trip will report to the Health Minister and myself and

provide a number of recommendations in respect of this particular area.

It will be then up to the Health Minister and myself to find out how

we can find a way of moving forward because this will not be mine with

the Health Minister's position along, any legislative changes that

is being recommended will have to go through the wider Executive.

Also at Stormont, the growing medical specialty of prenatal

hospice care is the focus of a conference that started today.

It's the care given to babies with a fatal foetal abnormality

The two-day conference will look at how such services here can be

improved, and it's hearing from international specialists.

Even in my country we still have a long way to go because people still

don't know it is out there. It is critically important to inform

people of the resources that are needed and how it can only support

the families on this journey and provide this compassionate care to

these vulnerable family and babies who really need the help and care.

Staff at the 18th century former charitable home Clifton House

in North Belfast have found almost 30 oil paintings in the building's

attic, but who the subjects are is a mystery that they're keen

They're the mystery faces which give a glimpse into Belfast's past.

These 27 portraits were discovered at the former poor house

It was in a dusty attic of this building where these 27 pictures

were found but that was just the beginning of the mystery. There are

so many questions about these portraits and staff at Clifton House

are searching for answers. We know that they were all residents in

Clifton House residential home and that they were painted sometime

between 1940 and 1980 but unfortunately due to the age of the

paintings and of those residents, we have very little other records in

our database. It's believed the man

behind the paintings was Tobias Everard Spence,

the former President of the Belfast Charitable Society,

based at Clifton House. I think it is very unusual. I think

the interesting thing, he obviously did it over a period of time. He

kept coming back. I imagine it was something that really interested the

people living here. I think generally in my experience people

quite enjoy having their reported painted. It would have been a way

that he might have created some entertainment for them. It is a

great record as well of the range of people living here, the different

personalities living here. While there's no price

put on these paintings, they could be invaluable to family

members of those who sat for Mr Spence, and it's hoped

they'll be reunited. We have certainly had a number of

enquiries and a couple of relatives who want to come in and actually

look at the paintings and try and identify if it is a family member of

theirs. It would be lovely to see the paintings being hung on somebody

else's wall again. Actor Jamie Dornan returns

to the big screen this week - this time as Irish Commander Pat

Quinlan in the war film It's a story that has been largely

airbrushed from history about a small group of Irish troops

who find themselves under siege Local audiences first got to know

Jamie Dornan as a psychopathic serial killer in BBC

Northern Ireland's drama The Fall. I said you are struggling to

understand things that way your experience.

Now the Holywood, County Down-born actor is a Hollywood,

You see a lot of dead men here. None of them are mine.

For his latest film, to play an Irish Army officer,

Trying to train up and look good with a gun in your hand, you'll also

have to learn it and we would be hanged for the most part because

they weren't naive to work full. We did two weeks of Boot Camp. The most

viable product but was bonding with the lads. The principal cast, two

Englishman and the rest were Irish. Probably bonded quicker, the Irish

lads, but the in disguise. -- in disguise.

The Siege of Jadotville is based on a largely forgotten story

about a group of Irish soldiers on United Nations peacekeeping

They held off Congolese troops until they ran out of ammunition

When I started I started to discover the story had been crushed and

everybody had been told not to talk about it but in the Army, those men

within the army itself, a close community, were made to feel

ashamed. Jamie Dornan's back on the small

screen in just over a week's time What can you tease us with going

into series three? There is a lot of big twists this series. It is the

final series. There are big things that happened that I just couldn't

touch upon without ruining it. I have been trying to work out ways of

looking stuff but they are cheap to know how to say it without wrecking

the story. I hear there is a lot of hospital drama. There are certainly

a bit of that because of where we ended up at the end of season two

but I would just say what it. They are coming!

And if you can't wait for The Fall, the new film is on release now.

Bethany Firth, Team GB's most decorated Paralympian in Rio,

returned to Belfast today and her homecoming was upstaged by

Banners, bunting, barking and Hollywood royalty -

Bethany Firth's homecoming pretty much had it all.

Separated for six weeks, when your pet dog Russell decides

to flex a little muscle, the medals - three golds and one silver -

This is the days enduring image on what was an

BBC Newsline's Nigel Ringland reports.

Normally Hollywood actress Kim Cattrall of sex and the city fame is

the centre of attention when she walks through an airport. Not today.

This was the superstar everyone was gathered to see. Happy to be home,

the biggest welcome for Paralympic Golden girl Bethany Firth came from

Russell. It was hard to know who was happier to see who. I am so

overwhelmed and I was very emotional to see everyone here and there is a

great support. I went of social media so I didn't get to see all be

so bored so I can't wait to go home and look at it. Maybe it was Russell

who was happiest to see you. I think it was! How much have you missed

him? So much, I have been away from home for so long. Now they just get

time with him which would be so good. I know when you're out there

in Rio you had so many messages of support, what would you like to say

to everyone who was in touch with you and your mum and dad? Yankee so

much. It brought a little bit of Northern Ireland to Rio from me and

I love that so much and I couldn't have done it with the IB support. It

is hard to believe that Bethany only took up swimming seven years ago as

a way of overcoming her fear of water. The rest is history. She was

a reluctant summer. We got her into the pool. It wasn't a big deal. Mum

thought we would have difficulty. She had packed two swimsuits

thinking Bethany would hide one of them but we got into the pool and

she went up like a fish, she was naturally talented. The magnitude of

her success, three gold medals and one silver saw her return as

Paralympic GB's most successful competitor. In her four races she

had three PBs and the only one she didn't, she had a tummy upset that

day, she still won it uncomfortably. It is a hard question to ask at the

moment but she has four gold medals and at only 20 years old? She should

be able to go on for at least two more Games if that is what she wants

to do. She should be more in her prime even in four years' time than

now. Tokyo 2020 is a long way off. First a well-deserved holiday for

the local start of a summer in Rio. The Paralympics Ireland team returns

to Dublin tomorrow and we'll we will be there to welcome them.

World amateur boxing champion Michael Conlan is scheduled

to make his professional debut on St Patrick's Day

He's the first ever Irishman to sign professionally for American Bob Arum

of Top Rank promotions, joining a stable which includes

multiple world champion Manny Pacquiao.

The deal is understood to be the most lucrative ever signed

Here's Michael's father and amateur coach John Conlon.

I am really happy for him. It is something that Michael always

aspired to do eventually at the end of his amateur career so his career

is over in the amateurs and a door opens in the professional game. Were

you convicted by a given your association with the amateur game

and in the corner in Rio? But really. The plan always from Michael

was after this Olympic Games, really you kind of look at the Olympics and

achieve two cycles, this was his second cycle, and unfortunately it

didn't work out friends he is going to go pro. Don't smile, we

understand it is the single most lucrative contract in the history of

any Irish writer to sign pro. If such understanding? Correct. --

fighter. He is going to be comfortable? I hope so. He is a

smart man. He will had a big involvement in negotiations. He

knows where he wants to go and what he wants. I think he is very happy

the deal. Not giving much away. He is in Vegas at the moment but he is

due back in a couple of days. Injured duo Craig Gilroy

and Luke Marshall will miss Ulster's Pro12 match in Glasgow

on Friday, but Irish internationals Rory Best and Jared Payne return -

a timely boost given that Ulster have lost on their previous five

outings away to the Warriors. It gives the team a lot of

motivation and a lot of confidence. Obviously they are awesome players

and mass of leaders in the team. They just raised the bar. It brings

out the best in everyone. It is very exciting for them coming back. They

think because the team is doing well, they want to impress and do

even better. It is always nice to get more and more experience. It is

great for us getting them back. Local football -

Ballymena United begin the defence of the County Antrim Shield

against Championship side Harland Wolff Welders

at the Showgrounds tonight. When you are winning people are

looking forward to the next game. There is healthy competition for

places. I know Gary Smith very well and he has them playing very well so

it will be a really tough encounter. I remember when I was watching game

I went to watch Ballymena against Holland and Wolf welders at the

welders ground and it was a tough game. We're expecting a very tough

encounter on Tuesday night. Kick-off is at 7:45pm. I don't have a dog but

if I would have one like Bethany has. Let's get the

weather. What is in store? Some wet and windy weather. At least today

was fairly benign. Not always the sunniest. A fair amount of cloud in

the air but there was also some breaks towards the north

particularly and the East. This is how it was shaping up at Limavady

earlier today. Lovely blue skies. Fairweather cloud but even where it

was cloudy, fairly present -- pleasant Valley Martin. A few bursts

of showery rain in the West in the last hour or two but they will need

a mainly dry night. Initially there are often large amounts of cloud but

a bit of a breeze picking up from the south through the night and that

will start to break it up again. In the countryside, down into single

figures but the town is holding up at around 11 Celsius. Tomorrow the

wind continues to pick up ahead of that band of rain approaching from

the West. Not too bad during the morning for many of us. Although the

wind will be a feature continuing to pick up, you should be a little dry

and wet weather. The best sunshine probably over central and eastern

areas. The cloud gathering. Persistent rain getting into parts

of the West by around lunchtime. Edging Easter was probably towards

the east coast by mid-afternoon. Some heavy bursts mixed in. They wet

and windy spell for all of us for two or three hours and it could be

fairly unpleasant for the Eastern countries come the evening rush

hour. Things improved towards the West. Right into the day. That

weather spells everywhere tomorrow night with easing winds. A chilly

night to come and some areas could get missed fog and even a touch of

grass frost. Italy start of the autumn the Canucks on Thursday. Day

or night more or less equal in length of the Sun crosses the

equator but we will see bright weather. The breeze picking up again

with showers towards the north and west. Not too dissimilar on Friday.

Friday night and Saturday, more wet and windy weather on the way. Thank

you. I will be back with the latest news at 10:30pm. Keep in touch on

Facebook and Twitter. From everyone on the newsline team, thanks for

watching.