{"id":536241,"date":"2026-06-15T12:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/536241\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T12:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:25:19","slug":"belfast-city-council-denies-request-for-documents-about-bobby-sands-statue-planning-row-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/536241\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast City Council denies request for documents about Bobby Sands statue planning row \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belfast City Council <\/a>has cited \u201cenvironmental regulations\u201d and an ongoing probe for withholding details about a planning investigation into a statue of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The council first launched the investigation after the statue was unveiled without planning permission in May on Housing Executive owned land in west Belfast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill was criticised for attending at the time along with other Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> representatives.<\/p>\n

By April 8 this year, the council said the investigation had been dropped as \u201cit was not considered expedient to take any further action in this instance\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Belfast<\/a>\"Live:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Irish News submitted a freedom of information request at that time for any council documents or internal communications relating to the decision.<\/p>\n

By April 23, a bad-tempered debate at Belfast City Hall <\/a>saw a DUP motion passed condemning the statue and calling for the decision to be \u201creconsidered\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in was unsuccessful in passing an amendment seeking a review of all such structures in the council area, where there are hundreds of loyalist and republican monuments and murals without planning permission.<\/p>\n

Responding to the Irish News, a council spokesperson said that as the information requested was \u201cenvironmental\u201d it was exempt under the Freedom of Information Act, but that the council was still obliged to consider the request.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can confirm that the Council holds the information you have requested,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, the Council has decided that the information it does hold cannot be disclosed, at this stage, into the public domain,\u201d they added, as the council meeting of April 23 \u201chas sought to re-open the case\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheBelfast City Council is currently reconsidering a decision to close a planning enforcement investigation into the Bobby Sands Statue in west Belfast (Brian Lawless\/PA) <\/p>\n

They said disclosing the information to the public at this stage \u201cwould prejudice the current enforcement investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe information requested is serious in nature and is not in the public domain,\u201d they said, adding that \u201cthe likelihood and severity of harm that the disclosure of the information requested would cause constitutes a real and significant risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

The response then listed arguments for and against releasing the information to the public at this stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Council balanced the need for openness and accountability against the need to ensure the Council\u2019s ability to conduct inquiries of a criminal nature is not undermined or prejudiced, to safeguard the law enforcement process and protect the course of justice,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Once the current case is concluded, they added that the council \u201cmay review its decision to disclose the requested information\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belfast City Council has cited \u201cenvironmental regulations\u201d and an ongoing probe for withholding details about a planning investigation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[73270,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,3525,15144,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-536241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-belfast-city-council","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-planning-permission","tag-statue","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116754116701138454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}