Pure politics on Irish signs: Councillor revealed as starting rule-breaking bid that's refusing Belfast public a say, after committee voted to ditch own policy
A rule-breaking bid to put Irish signs on a Belfast city centre street can be unveiled as purely a political decision – started by a councillor and approved without allowing the public a say, even though the council is supposed to give every citizen a voice.
As the News Letter revealed last week, a Belfast City Council committee has decided to throw out its own policies and build dual language signs on Raphael Street without asking whether anyone wants them.
The council has now confirmed to the News Letter that a councillor representing that area filed the initial request for Irish signage – meaning the public won’t have any input into the decision at any point.
That’s even though all of Belfast’s citizens should be given a voice in this case, as the street is zoned inside the council’s designated city centre.
The decision has alarmed the leader of the local authority’s DUP faction, councillor Sarah Bunting, who unsuccessfully tried to get the council to stick to its rules.
She’s now worried the move will set a precedent where politicians can request and approve dual language signs across the city off their own bats, not bothering to see what the public wants and putting an enormous amount of unchecked power in the hands of councillors – power the policies were supposed to temper.
Requests for dual language signs are normally filed by residents of a specific street, though councillors can do it as well. It only takes a single request to trigger a process in which surveys go out asking any street residents on the electoral register whether they think it’s a good idea; if 15% or more of those residents back the move, the signs will be built.
For city centre roads like Raphael Street, however, there are extra checks and balances in place. After a successful survey there, the council’s supposed to advertise an Irish sign bid to see how the general public feels, effectively offering every single person in Belfast a voice.
Adverts should be placed in the News Letter, Irish News and Belfast Telegraph, state the council, “to give the community of users an opportunity to provide representations in relation to the proposal”.
But there’s no one listed on the electoral register as living in Raphael Street, meaning there’s nobody to poll – and a council committee has now voted to ditch the newspaper ads, skipping ahead to building the signs without checking what anyone thinks.
For Ms Bunting, the decision to set aside the council’s own policy “highlights that certain parties will push through the decisions which are politically convenient for them, instead of taking the decision based on the views of residents and city centre users”.
“What’s more concerning is that, due to no residents living in the street, the application for dual language signs has to have been made by a councillor for the area,” she told the News Letter.
“Are we now saying councillors can make the decision on their own as to where dual language signs should be placed, and will this potentially set a precedent across the city?”
A council spokeswoman confirmed that the application for dual language signs on Raphael Street was made by a councillor elected to represent the district, though their identity has not been revealed.