Eleventh Night: Politicians call for bonfire regulations

About 250 bonfires, like this one in Portadown, were lit across Northern Ireland over the weekend

Events around this year's Eleventh Night celebrations "demonstrate the need for the regulation of bonfires", according to Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly.

The policing board member said it was "totally unacceptable to put people's lives, homes and the environment at risk".

At one bonfire at Silverstream Crescent in north Belfast a 17-year-old boy sustained burns to his face and body.

According to the police, about 250 bonfires took place over the weekend.

It is thought the teenager caught fire after adding accelerant to the bonfire in Ballysillan.

Mr Kelly described this as a "tragic incident" and said there could have been "catastrophic" consequences after the collapse of a large bonfire in Portadown.

"There is also an onus on police and statutory agencies to recognise their existing responsibilities to keep communities safe and to uphold the rule of law without fear or favour," he said.

"The sectarian hate crime which has accompanied many of these bonfires must end and in 2021 there can be no tolerance of attacks on people's homes at interfaces. That is not culture."

Fellow policing board member Dolores Kelly also called for more controls, but said some progress had been made.

• Why are bonfires lit in Northern Ireland?

• Bonfire at Belfast interface 'cannot proceed'

A report from the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Expression (FICT), set up by Stormont in 2016, has yet to be published.

The commission, announced as part of the Fresh Start Agreement, was supposed to help the parties reach consensus on contentious issues surrounding flags, emblems and identity in Northern Ireland, and produce recommendations for the executive to take forward.

'Regulation and penalties'

Mrs Kelly, an SDLP MLA, said: "There is no law at the moment in relation to bonfires, but there are regulations around the effects bonfires have on the environment, in terms of health and safety and indeed where they are sited.

Dolores Kelly also called for "good-practice guidelines" and penalties to be brought in

"There needs to be enforcement of existing regulations and we're not seeing that, people are shying away from their responsibilities across - I would say - all of the statutory agencies, including local councils.

"There has to be some sort of model, good practice guidelines, regulations and penalties," she told BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster programme.

'Community engagement'

Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie said bonfires "need to be safe, they need to be controlled, they need to be well-supervised and they need to have expert professional engagement to deal with the construction, the lighting and the safe distances".

"Everybody has to look at themselves and ask themselves, is this worth it, that any of our young people could end up in this way?" he told The Nolan Show on Tuesday.

"There were a number of near-misses over the Eleventh Night bonfire period.

"I get the point that bonfires are a fair expression of identity and culture, they happen around the world."

He said the Ballysillan bonfire, at which the teenager was injured, "was not controlled properly and those responsible for it would need to take responsibility for it".

"There has to be a police investigation into this, there has to be a health and safety executive investigation into this, we need to look at this and we need to learn from this," he added.

Mr Beattie was a member of the FICT panel and said there must be "community engagement" to tackle bonfire issues.

"If you alienate the community then they ignore anything we bring forward," he added.