Thirty-three failed Irish sign bids to return to Belfast Council: Almost half have more people against than in favour

And reports reveal almost half of the failed bids have more residents against them than in favour.

The streets are located all over the capital city, though the bulk of those where more are against Irish signs than want them are in south and east Belfast.

Surveys of a street are issued if a single resident or councillor representing the area applies for dual language signs. If at least 15% of householders are in favour of them, they’ll be built.

A report detailing all bids that failed to make that 15% threshold is to come before a council committee on Tuesday night.

Some of them demonstrate simple indifference to the idea of Irish signs – for example, on three streets no one answered the surveys at all – while others show pockets of opposition.

In three areas – Hawthornden Road in east Belfast, Knightsbridge Park in the Stranmillis area and Cherryvalley Gardens around Gilnahirk – roughly half of the residents voted against building them, while fewer than one in 10 householders were in favour.

Four residential roads saw no one in favour of adding Irish signs, while even some traditionally nationalist areas around Dunmurry and west Belfast couldn’t muster up enough support to clear the 15% threshold.

Details of who filed the failed applications aren’t included in official reports, though the fact that surveys have been issued on streets where there is no support for Irish signage whatsoever would imply that area politicians are behind at least some of them.

Last week Sinn Fein launched a push to give councillors the final say on erecting dual language signs, including areas that fail to make the 15% quota, arguing politicians should have the ability to dip under the threshold and approve bids anyway.

During a meeting of the city authority, the nationalist party’s group leader Ciaran Beattie stated a 2014 judicial review of an old, stricter policy the council used to have concluded that councillors “have discretion to go under” a much higher threshold that existed at the time.

“It’s a bit concerning why [streets that failed under the 15% rule] have not been brought to the committee to allow them to use discretion,” Mr Beattie said.

“We would like this to be brought into consideration as well, the judicial review made in 2014, and for that to be considered alongside the way we are currently applying our policy, because we think it is probably legally incorrect.”

The idea outraged unionists, who blasted the move.

Speaking after the meeting, the DUP linked the signs suggestion to a statue of IRA hunger strike Bobby Sands that was built in west Belfast without planning permission or the knowledge of the owner of the site it sits on.

The party’s council group leader, Sarah Bunting, argued Sinn Fein “simply wants Irish language signs imposed wherever they believe they ought to go, regardless of whether local support exists or not”.

Describing the 15% policy as already “flawed and undemocratic”, she told the News Letter: “There’s little point even having a process if Sinn Fein’s answer to failed applications is that councillors should ignore the outcome and approve them anyway.”