Sinn Féin’s explanation for the latest funding carve-up at Belfast City Council is that “not all applicants can be successful”. This statement was as cynical as it was dismissive.
A small number of community groups are the only applicants who can be successful – that is the point of the systems Sinn Féin and the DUP keep creating.
The independent Audit Office has repeatedly criticised how both parties divvy up grants at councils and at Stormont but its recommendations are soon brushed aside. When auditors required changes to Belfast City Council’s ‘bonfire diversion fund’ in 2018, for example, they expressed “concern” that these were reversed in 2021.
The latest carve-up is of a £10 million ‘Neighbourhood Regeneration Fund’, providing capital grants for new buildings. The committee of councillors shortlisting projects for south Belfast, which lacks a Sinn Féin and DUP majority, produced the ‘wrong’ answers: top of its list was £800,000 for the Sólás children’s special needs charity. So Sinn Féin and the DUP had this cut to £25,000 at a higher-level committee. They also reduced to zero the proposed £224,000 for an art gallery in the city centre. The combined £1 million saving – over half the total funds earmarked for south Belfast – was to be redistributed to the other four shortlisted applicants.
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The Market Development Association and the Greater Village Regeneration Trust would have their funding more than doubled to £650,000 each. The former has applied to build a new community centre and the latter to extend its premises.
Sólás, a charity for children with special needs, is now set to receive about £308,000 for a building project following a decision by Belfast City Council. PICTURE: SÓLÁS
There were also large increases for the Lower Ormeau Residents Action Group, which is building water-sports access facilities on the Lagan, including a pontoon and footbridge; and Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, which is converting the former School of Music into an art and dance studio.
When the BBC revealed this on Monday afternoon, Sinn Féin and the DUP had second thoughts. The Sólás grant was partially restored to £308,000 at a full council meeting that evening, although proposals from other parties to restore it in full or refer the matter back to the south Belfast committee were rejected.
Shortlisting was only the first stage of a three-stage application process. It was always intended that councillors would review and whittle down winning projects over the coming year. That does not explain how one shortlist could be so casually quashed, then reviewed again within hours of media exposure.
The shameless sense of ownership Sinn Féin and the DUP have over this and similar funds reflects an aggressive majoritarianism: they outnumber everyone else, so they will make the rules
There cannot have been any meaningful consideration of objective need in this swift shuffling around of £1.3 million. Sólás and the art gallery had presented detailed cases for their projects. What were the cases for suddenly doubling funds to two community centres, in a nationalist and a unionist area respectively? Had their construction costs doubled? Were any cost increases mentioned for the Lagan pontoons or the dance studio?
The press and public are not permitted to know as these decisions were taken in private session. Sinn Féin also had cameras switched off and journalists excluded from Monday’s full council meeting. Whatever was said, there was little time to ponder the various legal duties to uphold equality, accountability and value for public money. It appears all these responsibilities were thrown out of the window, then carried back into City Hall and thrown out of the window again.
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The Neighbourhood Regeneration Fund is a substantial pot of cash by any measure and an enormous sum for a council, equivalent to almost a fifth of Belfast’s annual budget (although it will be spread over several years).
The shameless sense of ownership Sinn Féin and the DUP have over this and similar funds reflects an aggressive majoritarianism: they outnumber everyone else, so they will make the rules. For the DUP, of course, majoritarianism never went away. Sinn Féin only had a problem with it while it was in the minority. As far as both parties are concerned, Belfast’s residents are getting what they voted for and having their rates appropriated accordingly.
It is a timely reminder that there are worse things than Sinn Féin and the DUP refusing to work together. They can agree to work together far too well.
Belfast City Council carve-up shows Sinn Féin and DUP can work together far too well
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11.01.2024
Sinn Féin’s explanation for the latest funding carve-up at Belfast City Council is that “not all applicants can be successful”. This statement was as cynical as it was dismissive.
A small number of community groups are the only applicants who can be successful – that is the point of the systems Sinn Féin and the DUP keep creating.
The independent Audit Office has repeatedly criticised how both parties divvy up grants at councils and at Stormont but its recommendations are soon brushed aside. When auditors required changes to Belfast City Council’s ‘bonfire diversion fund’ in 2018, for example, they expressed “concern” that these were reversed in 2021.
The latest carve-up is of a £10 million ‘Neighbourhood Regeneration Fund’, providing capital grants for new buildings. The committee of councillors shortlisting projects for south Belfast, which lacks a Sinn Féin and DUP majority, produced the ‘wrong’ answers: top of its list was £800,000 for the Sólás children’s special needs charity. So Sinn Féin and the DUP had this cut to £25,000 at a higher-level committee. They also reduced to zero the proposed £224,000 for an art gallery in the city centre. The combined £1 million saving – over half the total funds earmarked for south Belfast – was to be........
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