Tiger's Bay bonfire: Michelle O'Neill defends court action

The location of the Adam Street bonfire is inviting tension and trouble, said the deputy first minister

NI Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill has defended a failed legal bid to force police to help contractors remove a bonfire in north Belfast.

The Sinn Féin vice-president said ministers had "a duty to uphold the law" by taking the action.

The bonfire in Adam Street is in the unionist Tiger's Bay area and is close to an interface with the nationalist New Lodge.

Unionist politicians have said the bonfire is "a celebration of culture".

Police had said the Adam Street bonfire was one of a small number in Northern Ireland causing concern.

However, they refused to help contractors remove the bonfire as they said it would create a "real and immediate risk to life".

Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon of the SDLP and Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey of Sinn Féin took the court action, but it was dismissed by a judge on Friday.

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday Politics programme, Ms O'Neill said: "It's disappointing to see the outcome of the court ruling but I do think it was absolutely the right thing to do."

She claimed bonfires were illegal and that the Adam Street bonfire builders were trespassing on government-owned land.

"So the ministers have a duty to uphold the law and actually take the case to the courts."

Michelle O'Neill said her main concern was for those living near the bonfire

At the court hearing, a barrister acting for the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) told the court of untested intelligence which indicated a potential ballistics threat to officers and contractors if an attempt was made to remove the bonfire.

Responding to reports in The Sunday Times that loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) had brought weapons into the area, Ms O'Neill said: "Why is it acceptable to anyone in this day and age that their threat is more dominant than the rights of the citizens that are being attacked in these areas?"

• Bonfire row 'should not have involved police'

• Ministers fail in legal bid for bonfire removal

• Why are bonfires lit in Northern Ireland?

She added that bonfires in interface areas "invited" tension and trouble and the motivations of those building them should be questioned.

She said: "Putting a bonfire on an interface area does beg the question: Is it there only to antagonise?

"These bonfires should not be happening in interface areas.

"Those who want to celebrate the Twelfth, that's absolutely their entitlement, they should do that, but bonfires in interface areas are not acceptable.

"I just hope that we have a weekend where we're not looking at the scenes we witnessed a number of weeks ago whenever we saw tension in interface areas, none of us want to see that."

Speaking on Saturday, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) assembly member for the area William Humphrey said the court case should never have been brought and was a "complete waste of taxpayers' money".

He said: "We're coming up to the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, the glorious revolution, there is a tradition of bonfires being lit in the Protestant/unionist community going back to the glorious revolution - and that's what we're here to do, celebrate our culture.

"The bonfire is here because we've had houses built where it was previously situated."

Large crowds gathered at a bonfire in the Corcrain area of Portadown

Hundreds of Eleventh Night bonfires will be lit in loyalist communities across Northern Ireland over the weekend, most of them late on Sunday night, to usher in the main date in the Protestant loyal order parading season - the Twelfth of July.

Some bonfires were lit on Saturday night, including in the Corcrain area of Portadown in County Armagh.