An Alliance councillor has called on City Hall to match funding for LGTBQ and ethnic minority groups with that given to Irish cultural groups across the city.
Elected representatives at Belfast City Council ’s City Growth and Regeneration Committee this week signed off on a £200,000 'Extended Cultural Programme' for traditional Irish, ethnic minority and LGTBQ events in the city.
However the newly co-opted Alliance Councillor for Balmoral Micky Murray called out the programme on its allocation of £100,000 for trad Irish events, while giving half of that, £50,000 each, for ethnic minority events, and LGBTQ+ events. He proposed the programme fund be split equally three ways, with new money being found to expedite equal funding for the three groups.
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The Extended Cultural Programme came about after the council’s Queen’s Jubilee programme was conceived, following a discussion at the party group Leaders consultative forum earlier this year. The council allocated £100,000 to the Jubilee celebrations.
At the Committee Councillor Murray said: “I am new to the council, so I don’t know what the rationale behind the amount of funding was, but I would like to propose that we either equalise the funding across the three groups, or we try to find additional funding LGBTQ+ and minority ethnic groups.
“At last weeks Police and Community Safety Partnership meeting we were told that homophobic hate crime rose as much as 26 percent, transphobic hate crime was up as much as 100 percent and race hate crime was up as much as 51 percent. So I think this is a great way of being able to address those issues head on.
“Yes I understand in the past there has been a concern about capacity for the LGBTQ+ celebrations, but they are never going to have capacity unless they adequately fund them.”
Green Councillor Mal O’Hara said: “I appreciate the sentiment Councillor Murray has, but this money was agreed a couple of months ago, and the imperative is to get this out as quickly as possible. The difficulty here is if you have to come back with a different proposal then we run the risk of not getting the money out the door, particularly for Belfast Pride and some of its animation activities.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Ronan McLaughlin said: “I do have sympathy with what Micky is saying, however I don’t think in this financial year it could actually be achieved, because we will be looking at trying to achieve another £100,00 if we’re perfectly honest. And without the Finance Director being there, I don’t see where we are getting that at the minute.
“I am more than happy to work on equalising that funding next summer, when capacity in organisations is built up. But I don’t think it could be achieved in the next couple of months."
People Before Profit Councillor Fiona Ferguson said: “I don’t think the two sides are exclusive - is it not possible we agree the tranche of funding here before us tonight, and provisionally agree that an additional amount could be added on the basis it could be found by the financial director. So we would not be preventing that money going out tonight, no one is suggesting that.”
Councillor Murray said he would agree to sign off on the current £200,000 allocation, on the basis council officers would look at finding new money, and would engage with the two groups on how this money could be spent. The rest of the committee supported the proposal.
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