Six figure cost of Irish signs to date revealed - and council has barely begun to get through backlog
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Figures indicate this will be drawfed by the cost to come, with many more applications already in the pipeline and the prospect of fresh ones following them.
It is not possible to say exactly how much it would cost to process all the applications that are already in the system, but the numbers indicate that it will run quite a bit deeper into six figures.
Reacting to the sums involved, unionists have renewed their criticism of the council’s policy.
The DUP described the spread of such signs as a “political vanity project”, and questioned the spending priorities of the council – as did the UUP and the TUV.
The News Letter had obtained the figures via the Freedom of Information Act.
The council told the News Letter that, up until May 11 this year, £98,767 had been spent on manufacturing and installing dual language signs as part of its general Irish language policy.
Meanwhile, £93,655 had been spent on a similar project in the ‘gaeltacht quarter’, a large zone covering much of west Belfast.
The combined total is £192,422.
The council has stressed that the two projects are separate.
The £98,767 sum relates to its general Irish policy, which was brought into force on July 4, 2022, and requires dual langauge signs to be installed if 15% of a street’s occupants agree to it.
So far, 329 new streets have been approved for new signs under this policy.
However, the council cautions that “this will not equate to the number of signs that have been erected, as signs can only be processed as resources allow, in accordance with the policy”.
In other words, the £98,767 spent so far does not cover every one of the 329 streets that have so far been given the green light to date.
Applications for another 937 streets are currently awaiting approval – and the vast majority look set to get it, since only around 12% have so far failed to hit the 15% criteria (and even when they do, councillors can opt to approve them anyway).
The gaeltacht project began in 2024 and has now finished.
It involved installing dual language signs on 301 streets between Barrack Street on the edge of the city centre to the Springfield Road in the west, south down to Andersonstown.
To put the total sum of £192,422 in context, the council’s annual planning budget (covering things like planning applications and building control) runs to around £2.7m.
Sarah Bunting, group leader of the DUP bloc on the council, said: "People don't pay their rates to fund political vanity projects.
"They pay them to ensure Belfast is clean, safe and well-run.
"At a time when Belfast city centre is making headlines for all the wrong reasons about anti-social behaviour, open drug use and the visible decline of many public spaces, ratepayers will rightly question why almost £200,000 has been spent on Irish language street signs…
"This isn't about opposing the Irish language.
"It is about priorities."
The UUP said: "At a time when Belfast City Council continues to increase rates and many residents are struggling with the cost of living, ratepayers will rightly question whether spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on replacing street signs represents the best use of scarce public funds…
"Belfast deserves policies that unite communities and prioritise value for money.
"This policy has achieved neither."
And TUV deputy leader and city councillor Ron McDowell said: “The cost to community relations is great as people have had signage imposed on them they not only do not need but positively oppose and resent.
"What these figures do is expose the enormous financial cost of the nationalist/republican branding which has been going on over the last few years.
"However it is dressed up the fact is that £200,000 in ratepayers’ money has been squandered on a policy which has done nothing to promote the Irish language and has resulted in greater polarisation.
“That’s an eye watering sum particularly when one considers the day to day challenges faced by the people of Belfast.
"When I consider the problems people come to me with and the other uses this money could have been put to I am outraged by the squander."
Sinn Fein and the SDLP were also asked to comment, but no response had been received.