Plan for a Titanic visitor centre in Belfast is approved at Stormont.
The Northern Ireland power sharing administration has agreed to provide £50 million towards an ambitious tourism project. The venture is the initiative of Harcourt Developments, a Dublin based company, who have bought up hundreds of acres of land in the Belfast docklands where Harland and Wolff once built and launched the Titanic. Harcourt Developments will put £20 million into the development.
First Minister Peter Robinson believes that the project will have a positive impact not just for Belfast but for the whole of Northern Ireland. Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness says that the announcement will be of interest to the people of Cobh in County Cork, where the Titanic visited.
The benefits for the developers will be far reaching.
The centre will breathe new life into an area where it owns vast tracts of land.
It is hoped that the development will be completed by 2012 to mark the 100th anniversary of the launch of the Titanic.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 27 November 2008. The reporter is Tommie Gorman.
