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A legal action by Stormont ministers against police in the North for refusing to help remove a contentious loyalist bonfire days before it is to be lit has been described as a “very worrying development”.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the court proceedings by SDLP infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon and Sinn Féin communities minister Deirdre Hargey over the bonfire in Belfast’s Tiger’s Bay is “highly controversial”.
The Adam Street bonfire — among hundreds to be lit on what is known as the Eleventh Night, the eve of the 12th July peak loyalist marching season — is located close to a sectarian interface with the nationalist New Lodge area.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which had identified it as one of a small number of bonfires “of concern”, has refused to provide cover for Belfast City Council contractors to remove it over fears of disorder.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Infrastructure said the location of the bonfire, on land belonging to Ms Mallon and Ms Hargey’s departments, is “unacceptable”.
“Legal action to require the PSNI to ensure that the bonfire is cleared has now commenced by the Department for Infrastructure and the Department for Communities as land owners,” she confirmed.
Mr Donaldson has ordered his DUP ministers to challenge the action and formally request that the matter be brought before the powersharing Executive.
“The law on ministerial conduct is very clear, the ministerial code requires that where a minister is going to take action involving significant or controversial matters or matters involving more than one department, it requires Executive approval,” he said.
‘Sensitive matters’
Mr Donaldson, who visited the site this week, said he would be “very concerned” if contractors were brought in to “forcibly remove” the bonfire.
“These are sensitive matters and I want to see a sensible approach,” he told BBC’s Talkback. “It is time to dial down the rhetoric and take the heat out of the situation.”
Mr Donaldson said it was “quite a small bonfire” without posters and flags that were provocative to nationalists in the area. But he condemned the reported driving of golf balls from the bonfire site into New Lodge and the playing of loud music in the early hours keeping nearby residents awake.
While he accepted it was at an interface, Mr Donaldson said the bonfire was set back from a main road with further fences and walls separating it from New Lodge. There was an urgent need to “deescalate the situation”, he added.
“It is a very worrying development that we have Executive ministers, without reference to the Executive, taking legal action against the police,” said Mr Donaldson, describing the action as “alarming” and “very serious”.
North Belfast Sinn Féin MP John Finucane denied that his party and the SDLP were “trying to out-green each other” over the controversy.
‘Horrific standard of life’
Residents have for the “past number of weeks and months been subject to a horrific standard of life, which I am struggling to find a comparison which would be tolerated in any other part of our society,” he said.
“There is nothing against bonfires,” he added.
“If you want to have a bonfire and that is how you celebrate your culture, then that is fine. When you bring that to an interface, when you allow that to be a magnet for those who want to launch attacks on a daily and nightly basis on residents, then you need to call that out, you need to show leadership, you need to be very clear that this is something that can not be tolerated.”
Mr Finucane said portraying the legal action as part of a “cultural war” was “inaccurate” and “reckless and that is not what this is about.”
The PSNI had set a “very worrying precedent” by refusing to provide cover for contractors to remove the bonfire, he said.
Describing the legal action as “unprecedented”, he said both ministers “now feel the situation is so dire and so serious that they now need to go to court.”
A PSNI spokeswoman said: “As there are ongoing judicial proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment any further.”