The bank made the donation after its employees, customers and members of the public voted for the local charity they wanted to see receive a Christmas gift this year.

Marie Curie provides home-based nursing across all five trusts and inpatient services at its Knock Road hospice in the Belfast and South Eastern Trust. Alongside this, policy reviews and campaigns, it is also the largest charitable funder of research to improve end of life care. There are 97 Marie Curie Nurses and 95 Health Care Assistants, who work every day of the year to care for people in their own homes across the whole of Northern Ireland.

Shaun McAnee, Managing Director of Corporate & Business Banking at Danske Bank UK, said: “As a local bank, it’s really important to us that we support our local community – and that’s true this year, more than ever before.

“With the challenges 2020 has brought for us all, our local charities missed out on some of their usual fundraising activities. We’re really delighted to be able to make donations to five incredible local charities this Christmas, with the biggest donation going to Marie Curie, after a public vote.

“As one of our previous Christmas charity gift recipients, Marie Curie remains very close to our hearts, and I’m sure, is a cause close to many colleagues and customers. We hope our Christmas gift can go some way in helping local people and families living with terminal illness this Christmas.”

Conor O’Kane, Senior Partnership Manager at Marie Curie, added: “From all at Marie Curie, we’d like to send a big thank you to everyone at Danske Bank for nominating us as part of their Christmas charity gift, and for this incredibly generous donation of £7,500. And of course, thank you to all of our fantastic supporters and members of the public who gave us their vote this year.

“There’s no denying it’s been a difficult year for all charities locally, and this donation is a welcome boost for us. It will allow us to provide 375 hours of nursing care for people and their families living with terminal illness at home and in our Belfast Hospice. A massive well done also to all the charities involved.”

Danske Bank made an overall donation of £20,000 to Marie Curie and the four runners up – Alzheimer’s Society Northern Ireland and PIPS Charity received £5,000 and £3,500 respectively, while Dementia NI and Adoption UK (NI) each received £2,000.