Sinn Féin accuses Belfast Council of 'putting the brakes on' Irish street signs

Sinn Féin are accusing Belfast Council officials of breaching dual language street sign policy by “putting brakes” on the process while legal opinion is being gathered.

A Belfast City Council committee this week saw tense exchanges between the Sinn Féin party group leader Ciaran Beattie and council officials, with the Sinn Féin councillor at one point saying “I don’t know what you are huffing at” to officers.

Councillor Beattie is accusing officers of halting the street sign process, while officers are stating the process continues, while not appearing on committee agendas.

Last month elected representatives agreed upon the parameters of a review of its controversial dual language street signs policy. Councillors agreed to a variety of proposals, including one by Sinn Féin, that the Irish Language and Ulster Scots Commissioners be involved in the process.

The review will look at many aspects of the policy, including another proposal by Sinn Féin that results should be calculated as a percentage of only those that have returned a survey, rather than all occupiers of the street. The council will receive a legal opinion on this.

The review will also look at the “discretionary status” of the council’s decision-making on streets which do not meet the fifteen percent threshold at survey. There have been a number of decisions to allow streets dual language signage despite them not meeting the threshold.

Belfast Council DUP Party Group Leader Sarah Bunting said earlier in the summer that Sinn Féin Party Group Leader Ciaran Beattie was engaging in “mental gymnastics” after he said “100 percent” of certain streets were asking for Irish and English dual language street signage, despite those not meeting the threshold of 15 percent support.

At the June meeting of the council’s People and Communities Committee, Councillor Beattie appeared to suggest that the council dismiss all those who did not reply to surveys for dual language signage on any given street, and instead focus on the proportion of figures from those who did respond.

Council figures show that significant numbers of residents do not reply to the dual language street surveys, and regularly non-respondents account for the majority of any given street.

The policy says when an application is received the council will canvas by post all occupiers in that street and seek their views on the request to erect a street sign in a second specified language. It states: “Options for a response will be yes, no, and no preference.”

At the September meeting of the People and Communities Committee, held on Tuesday (September 8) Councillor Beattie said: “Irish language street signs have been moved off (tonight’s) agenda, and I don’t think that is acceptable.

“We did ask for legal clarity on two lines of that policy, three months ago. On two sentences. It wasn’t a call-in, it was not something to put the brakes on it, it was asking for a legal opinion.

“It has taken three months, and the street signs have been hampered because of that.” He successfully proposed the matter be referred to the council’s important Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, which manages its budget, and oversees its main corporate policies.

He said: “This is policy, and I believe the council is in breach of its own policy. For any officer in any department to take a decision to put the brakes on it, is not adhering to our current policy.”

He added: “We have over 900 hundred in the system, and to stall these even further is not adhering to policy.”

A council officer said: “The report we brought back last month set out that we were continuing to undertake the street surveys, continuing to collate those surveys, but we were just pausing on reporting them to this committee, whilst we got the legal advice on the calculation of the results of the surveys.

"We didn’t want to present surveys to the committee that we would then have to re-present, should the way we are calculating be (deemed) incorrect.

“We are pausing this part of the process because of that legal advice. We will report it back to the committee as soon as we have the advice, and we will bring the backlog of the ones we have already processed to this committee as soon as we have that advice. That amounts to around 30 surveys at the minute, waiting to come back to the committee.” She said she “did not know the difference” between the matter staying with the People and Communities Committee and it going to the S,P and R Committee.

In 2022 councillors agreed a new policy on dual language street signs would finally be implemented - 18 months after the policy was originally given the go-ahead in the chamber. Sinn Féin, Alliance, the SDLP, the Green Party, and the 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 current 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.

If 15 per cent or more of all occupants surveyed in a street want to have a dual language sign in the language requested, this will be 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.

The policy has drawn controversy, with some unionist politicians saying the 15 percent threshold is too low, despite it being common practice for minority languages across the world. Others say that nationalist parties have “changed the goalposts” by pushing for Irish language street signs in streets which did not meet the 15 percent threshold.

Irish-language advocates view the signs as a long-overdue right and a celebration of identity, while some unionist politicians argue they are being used to mark territory and stoke division.