Row as council U-turns and agrees to Irish signs on Belfast street despite just 17% of residents in support

A decision by a Belfast City Council committee to block the erection of Irish signs on an east Belfast street where almost half of the occupiers opposed the move has been reversed.

Last month the DUP and Alliance Party blocked an application for Irish language street signage to be introduced at Shandon Park, off the Knock Road, during a knife edge vote.

However, at the July meeting of the full council this week, that decision was reversed when a combination of unionist and Alliance votes was not enough to stop support for the signs from the rest of the chamber.

On a vote to erect the signs at Shandon Park, as proposed by Sinn Féin, 30 elected representatives were in favour - from Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Greens and People Before Profit - to 25 votes against, from the unionist parties and Alliance.

Residents in the exclusive postcode voiced outrage after flags including the Union Flag and Ulster Banner were placed on lamposts in the area, days after the committee decision in which councillors blocked Irish street signs from being placed in the street.

One 80 year old resident said they had not seen a flag there in 60 years. It was later reported these flags had been torn down.

In a council survey for Shandon Park, 41 occupiers (16.8%) were in favour of the erection of a second street name plate in Irish, while 121 occupiers (49.59%) were not in favour, and seven occupiers (2.86%) had no preference either way. The remaining households did not respond. Those in favour passed the 15% threshold required for erection.

A report for the council’s People and Communities Committee stated: “A number of comments were provided by those who responded to the survey mainly concerned about the costs and that the money would be better spent on other public services.”

In 2022 councillors agreed a new policy on dual language street signs. Sinn Féin, Alliance, the SDLP, the Green Party, and the People Before Profit Party all support the new street sign policy, while the three unionist parties, the DUP, UUP and PUP, are 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% 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% of the eligible electorate in any Belfast street to sign a petition to begin the process, and 66.6% to agree to the new dual language sign on the street.

Last month at the council’s People and Communities Committee, a DUP amendment proposed the Shandon Park signs be excluded from a group of streets to receive Irish signage. This received 10 votes in favour, from the DUP and Alliance, and 10 votes against, from Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Greens. Committee Chair, DUP councillor Ruth Brooks, got the casting vote, and voted in favour of the proposal to exclude Shandon Park.

All committee decisions at the council, apart from the Planning Committee which has “delegated authority,” return to the next scheduled full council meeting for ratification. In this case the decision was reversed.

At the full council meeting this week, DUP councillor Andrew McCormick said: “We keep coming back to this topic, each and every single month, because the policy is bad. A bad policy supported by the Green Party, who clearly cannot read the room in Ormiston.

“Every month we hear the same argument about minority rights, another ironic argument whenever Sinn Féin use their majority to impose Irish language in communities where it is not wanted or it is not needed. In fact they are trying to impose this in a district electoral area where they got 174 votes out of over 14,000 that were counted.

“They speak eloquently about supposed equality, when they are happy to use their majority in refusing equality for others, namely, with (Army) veterans. Equality for me, but not for thee. The consequences of this, not for the first time, is community division where none has previously existed.”

Alliance councillor Jenna Maghie said: “Our position, and what we have done for minority rights, is a record that cannot be criticised. This policy clearly has discretion baked in, and I can’t think of a clearer case thus far, where that discretion should be made.

“Seventy-five per cent of the people who live on this street didn’t vote for the proposal. I can’t understand why people who are disagreeing with us, agreed to a policy with that discretion. And I would love to know a case where that discretion might be exercised, if this isn’t one of those.”

She added: “Shannon Park is beautiful, and an incredibly settled community, with loads of people who have lived there for a really long time. I have had discussions with people who voted either way, and who didn’t vote at all, and the one thing they are absolutely united on is their reaction to what happened after the committee (meeting), when for the first time in living memory of an 80-year-old there, a flag was erected on that street.

“The reaction here tonight should not be to demarcate territory that hasn’t been asked for by residents. I would like to encourage anyone who is minded to repeat that action on Shandon Park to think pretty carefully about the will of the residents on that street.”

Green councillor Anthony Flynn said: “We have a policy in place in terms of the 15% threshold. At the time we had a decision to make on that threshold, and it could have been lower, or it could have been higher. And there were certain parties who set that threshold, who perhaps are moving back on that today."

He added: “When someone enforces flags on a community as intimidation, that is not the point where I will say, actually I’ll change my opinion on that.”