In March, at a meeting of Belfast City Council, DUP councillor Brian Kingston demanded an equality impact assessment of Féile an Phobail’s use of Falls Park.
“I am referring to the Wolfe Tones concert,” he clarified.
Sinn Féin councillor Matt Garrett noted the council had just agreed not to do this in a committee. Instead of equality assessments for individual events there will be annual ‘reviews’, with “all organisations holding events being reminded of [the council’s] good relations policy.”
“If we are going to move to the point of having equality impacts on every individual event,” councillor Garrett continued, “we can’t support that, and we would call for them across all.”
And that was that.
The DUP’s reluctance to have all events assessed was understandable. Féile receives £550,000 from the council every year, mostly as arts funding but around a fifth from a separate £500,000 ‘bonfire diversion fund’ split equally and blatantly between loyalist and republican areas. In one infamous incident, organisers of an event on the Shankill Road thought the term ‘area-based festival’ meant nobody from outside the area could attend the festival.
The good relations fudge is just the latest manifestation of a carve-up that has become increasingly institutionalised at Belfast City Council over the past decade.
When the diversion fund was suspended for the pandemic and missed last July’s bonfires, it was all handed out in August anyway to every group that had previously received it.
Condemnation of this from other parties and the Audit Office forced the DUP and Sinn Féin to change the system: funds are no longer allocated on a ‘discretionary’ basis, meaning decisions and events are open to review - but only, it now transpires, if no particular event is properly reviewed. So the system has not changed at all.
There was already plenty of criticism about the carve-up prior to the pandemic. In 2018, the UUP, SDLP and Alliance complained to the Audit Office that grants of up to £100,000 were being handed out without checks and they were silenced from raising concerns at council meetings.
The following year, Sinn Féin and the DUP voted through an additional £100,000 to the bonfire fund, half to Féile and half to loyalist areas. When Alliance objected, it was accused of snobbery.
While there may be no doubt there is a “sectarian carve-up”, as other parties have called it, the spat in March over Féile and another row last October over bonfire regulation show this is no cosy conspiracy. Sinn Féin and the DUP still hate each other - just not as much as they love dividing up the spoils.
Either side could call the other’s bluff if they wanted. Féile could retire the Wolfe Tones, as a mercy to all concerned. The DUP could veto funding to Féile by sacrificing the loyalist festivals, which few of its voters would miss.
But both parties find it preferable to keep the arguments going, ratcheting up the funding that is the literal currency for their local power and patronage.
Trying to resolve those arguments is a noble endeavour, of course. Such efforts must always continue. However, most of us simply play into the DUP and Sinn Féin’s hands when we wade into classic ‘sectarian’ debates, by adding our own inevitable baggage to the circle of whataboutery. The accusation of snobbery against Alliance is a fall-back line of attack; a way of othering the centre as a third tribe of stuck-up outsiders.
A good way to cut through all this and find common ground is to forget about offence and focus on the spending itself.
The only times the DUP and Sinn Féin have seemed genuinely spooked over the carve-up is when the Audit Office has questioned financial propriety and value for money.
There are plenty of question to ask.
Why does Féile need so much council cash on top of Stormont funding and private sponsorship? The Falls Park concerts are self-financing, organisers insist. That makes the rest of the festival programme, mostly panel debates, book launches and exhibits in public buildings, look rather pricey.
What is the business case for giving loyalist areas the same amount of money? How much does it actually cost a brigadier to hire a bouncy castle?
Most Belfast residents are ratepayers and all depend on council services. The Féile and bonfire carve-up costs £1 million a year - equivalent to the distract rate from 2,000 households.
For that money, the least we should expect is fewer of the same arguments every year.
