PRIMARK will have to foot the £296,000 bill for security staff manning the cordon around its charred building, it has emerged.
Belfast City Council has covered the cost since the cordon was first erected due to public safety concerns following the blaze in late August.
However, the city's deputy mayor Emmet McDonough-Brown said the council would be seeking to recoup the costs from Primark given it is taxpayers' money.
"It's ratepayers' money, public money, and certainly we believe that money should be returned to the ratepayers of Belfast by either Primark or their insurers or whoever that liability should fall to," he told the BBC.
"Public money is valuable and it can't be spent lightly...Certainly our expectation would be that they should pay and we will be aggressively pursuing every avenue to make sure they do pay," he added.
In response, Primark said it has insurance in place that covers the fire.
It said that any claims against that policy will be handled by its insurers directly and it would not be appropriate for the company to comment further.
