Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Let’s hold street parties instead of bonfires
Environment body slammed PSNI accused of ‘cowardice’
A FUND should be set up to pay for unionists to learn about their culture – and stop them burning dangerous bonfires, a senior Sinn Fein member said.
The party’s leader on Belfast City Council has also rounded on State agencies for their handling of events on the Eleventh Night.
Jim Mcveigh accused the PSNI of “cowardice” and described the Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s “silence” over damage caused by the huge pyres as “pathetic”.
He said: “How is it possible when you think of the environmental damage done, the dirty nature of the way these things are stored to the burning of them, and the stuff that it’s putting up into the air, yet the NIEA have done nothing, have said nothing.
“We know the type of environmental damage these bonfires can do and yet the NIEA, the agency responsible for the environment, are silent.
“If this was a spillage into a river they’d be all over the news with what they’re doing.
“Yet year in, year out there’s not a peep from the NIEA about any of this stuff.”
The West Belfast councillor also called on the Housing Executive and Belfast City Council to pay for repairs to an apartment block damaged by a massive bonfire on the edge of Sandy Row in South Belfast.
He said that rather than wait until next year a “long overdue debate” needs to happen in the coming months.
And he called for “political leadership” from unionism to enable progress.
Cllr Mcveigh said Sinn Fein is “not opposed to all bonfires, but we are opposed to bonfires on playparks, or beside people’s homes or that any of these hate crimes associated with them”.
The veteran republican criticised the PSNI, claiming: “Their role in this has been pathetic, it’s been cowardly.
“They have turned a blind eye to activities that are illegal.”
Mr Mcveigh promised his party would confront all relevant agencies, adding: “What we want in the weeks and months ahead, now the Twelfth is over, is an engagement with all these agencies.
“To ask them, to demand that they step up, show some courage and we begin to work out a solution. They cannot be allowed, going forward, to remain silent.”
Calling for a new law, he said: “There’s environmental law, there’s fly-tipping, there’s hate crime.
“You look at some of these bonfires, take the Ravenscroft one. Health and safety, environmental law, it’s on public property.
“There’s hate crime material on some of these bonfires.
“We need the laws we have to be respected and enforced by the relevant agencies.
“Belfast Council at last showed a bit of courage by taking those injunctions even though they had little or no impact.
“They at least sent a signal this council, going forward, wasn’t going to turn a blind eye to this stuff, wasn’t going to do stupid things like keeping material only for it to be returned and burned. It’s certainly acted as a catalyst for what we think is a long overdue debate.”
Asked if he has any sympathy for police not rigorously enforcing the law for fear it could inflame tensions, Mr Mcveigh said he has “no sympathy whatsoever”.
OUTCRY
Drawing a comparison, he claimed if a coffin containing an effigy of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair appeared on a Guy Fawkes bonfire in England “there would be an outcry over that”.
He added: “This notion that it’s OK to burn effigies.
“I was as offended when the Divis bonfire [several years ago], which we fought tooth and nail to
PSNI have turned a blind eye to activities that are illegal JIM MCVEIGH WEST BELFAST YESTERDAY
stop, had Union Jacks on it. That was sickening, disgraceful, nasty, xenophobic, sectarian, call it what you will.
“There has to be zero tolerance for this sort of thing.”
Cllr Mcveigh also drew a comparison with the recent appearance of Ira-style banners at the Champions League match between Celtic and Linfield.
He said: “They have been condemned by Celtic, you’ve UEFA taking action.
“Sport can’t tolerate nonsense like that, of any sort, whether it’s Rangers, Celtic whomever. Here UEFA intervened, Celtic condemned.
“But there was a banner on one of the bonfires about one of the Celtic players who’s black and a reference to eating bananas. I’m not aware of any unionist politician, or even the police for that matter, saying anything about that, criticising that.
“If that had happened in England, Wales or Scotland there would rightly have been a huge political outcry.
“But here it’s say nothing because if we confront these people there’ll be murder.”
Cllr Mcveigh admitted Belfast City Council’s bonfire management strategy was “a disaster”.
And in a controversial move he called for a strategy along with a “substantial fund, a fund that should be contributed to by central government, local councils, other agencies”. He said it would involve suggesting to communities where there are bonfires, “particularly where there are these nasty bonfires, like Ravenscroft, Hope Street, etc, don’t have a bonfire, celebrate your culture in a different way”.
He added: “We will support you financially in other ways over a number of months in the run-up to the Twelfth.
“Learn about your history, have debates, show films, take people down to the Boyne, take kids away to do kayaking etc. Do all of that, but you don’t have a nasty, dirty environmentally-damaging bonfire right in the middle of a public amenity or you don’t put stuff on it to offend people.
“People forget we had our bonfires in the 70s. I was only a kid but I collected for bonfires, the anti-internment bonfires.
“But political leaders on our side in the 70s, like Gerry Adams, recognised all these bonfires were doing was destroying our own communities.
“The politics was being forgotten about and a debate began about an alternative and the alternative became the West Belfast Festival. Street parties instead of bonfires.”
We need the laws to be respected and enforced by relevant agencies JIM MCVEIGH WEST BELFAST YESTERDAY