Attempt to halt dual language street signs in Belfast - despite numbers of residents opposing outweighing those in favour - fails at council

A last ditch attempt has failed to stop a Belfast City Council decision to erect Irish dual language signs on four streets in the city – despite the numbers of residents opposing outnumbering those in favour.

At the April meeting of the council, a DUP amendment to block a committee decision to stop signs going up at Wynchurch Avenue, Sunningdale Park North, Ben Madigan Park South and Wellington Park Terrace did not have sufficient numbers in a final vote.

The four streets were all previously deferred as applications for Irish dual language after they all met the threshold for signage erection, but at the same time had greater numbers opposing them.

At the April meeting of the council’s People and Communities Committee on Tuesday, elected members were asked to agree a proposed mechanism for dealing with deferred applications, after several years of wrangling about what to do in cases where applications met the threshold of 15 per cent, but were outnumbered by residents in opposition.

Since 2022, when the new dual language street signage policy was introduced, all applications deferred on the basis of opposition outnumbering support were “put at the back of the queue” – to be reconsidered after those in the considerable waiting list were dealt with.

At the committee Sinn Féin councillor Róis-Máire Donnelly proposed moving forward with erecting dual language street signs on the four streets.

She said it was “in line with the minority rights guidance we have signed up to in this policy.”

On a poll in the chamber 11 voted in favour of Ms Donnelly’s proposal, from Sinn Féin and the SDLP, while nine voted against, from the DUP and Alliance.

At the full council meeting this week, a poll on a DUP amendment to stop the signs going up went the same way.

Twenty six votes in favour of the DUP amendment from the unionist parties and Alliance lost to 31 votes from Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Green Party, and People Before Profit.

DUP Councillor Ruth Brooks said before the last vote in the chamber: “Only in Belfast could a dual language policy be set so low it practically trips over democracy…”

Sinn Féin councillor Tomás Ó Néill said: “I don’t understand why people are scared of the Irish language. I don’t understand the constant opposition to it everywhere. There are serious cuts being made to welfare, there are far bigger issues.

“I am listening to high ranking politicians crying on the radio because they don’t want to see a couple of words of Irish – I really don’t get it.”

In 2022 councillors agreed a new policy on dual language street signs.

Sinn Féin, Alliance, the SDLP, the Green Party, and People Before Profit Party all supported the new street sign policy, while the three unionist parties, the DUP, UUP and PUP, were against it.

The new policy means at least one resident of any Belfast street, or a councillor, is all that is required to trigger a consultation on a second nameplate, with 15 per cent in favour being sufficient to erect the sign.

Non-responses will no longer be counted as “against” votes, and there will be an equality assessment for each application.

Before that the policy required 33.3 percent of the eligible electorate in any Belfast street to sign a petition to begin the process, and 66.6 percent to agree to the new dual language sign on the street.