Opinion

Time for proper controls on bonfires

Although it will be almost a year before any further contentious bonfires are scheduled, it is entirely appropriate that the authorities should start introducing new related measures which will protect residents in all sections of our divided society.

Some groups, mainly but not exclusively in loyalist districts, have been determined to build ever larger pyres which seriously endanger adjoining homes and businesses as well as placing lives at considerable risk and causing significant environmental issues.

It is ludicrous that many of these threatening constructions are sited on public land without any kind of permission, and the widespread practice of placing offensive sectarian slogans and stolen political symbols on them adds insult to injury.

Belfast City Council is due to shortly debate a Sinn Féin motion which would ensure that bonfires are treated like any other proposed event on civic property and covered by a proper application process.

Party representatives have pointed out that the most innocuous of gatherings need to be fully covered by procedures which seemingly do not apply to the burning of enormous piles of combustible material.

DUP councillors, while accepting the obvious risks involved, have insisted that loyalist traditions should be respected and bonfires should somehow be self-regulated by their organisers.

All the evidence from recent years indicates that self-regulation is never going to work when large crowds, many of whom have been drinking heavily, assemble beside what are effectively towering infernos.

An appalling episode in Portadown last July saw one of the blazing piles suddenly collapse to the ground, with dozens of spectators running for their lives and narrowly avoiding dreadful injuries or even death.

One young man had to be airlifted to hospital after falling from a pyre under construction in Co Tyrone during the same period, and the most disturbing incident came when another teenager was engulfed in flames beside a bonfire in north Belfast and left in a critical condition.

It needs to be stressed that the same degree of scrutiny has to be applied in nationalist districts, particularly after a pyre in Derry's Bogside last month included a disgraceful placard naming a murdered PSNI officer as well as other totally unacceptable messages.

Some significant progress has already been made with the phasing out of nationalist bonfires in Belfast which previously marked the anniversary of the introduction of internment, but the objective must be reaching an agreed and legally enforceable overall outcome.