Sinn Féin press for Irish street sign in university area of Belfast despite not reaching 15% threshold

Sinn Féin are pressing for Irish signs at a street in the Queen’s University area despite the application not meeting the 15% threshold.

The party has asked Belfast City Council to show “discretion” and allow an application for University Street to go to a vote at City Hall.

A survey for English and Irish language dual signage at University Street received 14.28% of respondents in favour.

None of the respondents objected to the dual language signs. 126 surveys were issued, 102 were not returned, with 18 in favour. 90 were domestic surveys, and 36 were commercial

Sinn Féin Councillor Matt Garrett said at the April meeting of the council’s People and Communities Committee: “As a committee we can use discretion, and discretion has been used where we don’t put up signs when 15 percent has been actually met.

“We could equally use our discretion in my view where there are streets that don’t meet the threshold.”

He proposed the council resurvey the street.

He said: “I don’t think there is a balanced approach to the survey in this particular case. There are also mitigating (factors). It is in the Queen’s area – they recently did a poll amongst its students, who overwhelmingly at over 90 percent wanted the Student’s Union to have bilingual signage.”

• Currently, 922 streets are waiting to be processed for dual language signage applications, in the order they were received.

The council is getting through an average of eight streets a month – that would mean it would take 115 months, or nine and a half years, to clear the current backlog.

DUP Councillor Sarah Bunting said at the committee meeting: “I do find it interesting that Sinn Féin now want to talk about discretion.

“At the moment we have a clear policy, 15 percent, which we believe is a really low bar. But now we are talking about resurveying streets that didn’t meet the threshold, because the university is doing something.

“But it is not the university we are resurveying. I think this is absolute madness. If we don’t respect the 15 percent, as low as it is, then we are effectively saying applications can just keep coming back again and again until they get the result they want.”

The plan forwarded by council officers to fill a gap in policy regarding those streets that fail to meet the 15 percent in applications for dual language signage has been opposed by Sinn Féin.

Despite this all parties agreed to defer a decision on the plan until next month.

In a report for the council’s People and Communities Committee this month, officials outlined their recommendation. They wrote: “The committee is asked to agree to the closure of all subsequent applications for the same language already submitted.

“The committee is further asked to consider a time limit for the acceptance of further applications for the same language where a street has previously not met the threshold at street survey, and the current applications have been closed as outlined above.”

It adds: “It is therefore proposed that the time limit for re-application be set to two years from the date the first application was closed. Members should note that any new application would join the end of the queue.”

The officer’s proposal will return to next month’s committee for a decision from elected members, as well as a further report on University Street.