On Tuesday evening, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald confirmed in a social media post that she would step in to provide the funding needed to keep the project operational.<\/p>\n
This comes as Communities Minister<\/a> Gordon Lyons claimed on BBC Radio Ulster that the issue “did not reach his desk” and blamed the “Sinn F\u00e9in-led Department of Finance” for stopping the funding.<\/p>\n On 13th February this year, a Department for Communities offical wrote to the Department of Finance<\/a> acknowledging that the funding which had been provided by DoF when the project transferred to DfC in 2022 was due to run out in March, and requested an additional \u00a390,000 to fund the project to March 2027, warning that if the project were to cease operation that it would have “several significant implications.”<\/p>\n A DoF official responded on 16th February, confirming that they had no plans to fund the project beyond March 2026, and that the expectation was that DfC would factor future requirements post-March 2026 into the same budget exercises.<\/p>\n On 18th February, a DfC<\/a> official acknowledged that it had been agreed that DfC would factor future requirements into budgeting exercises and that that DoF had not further plans to fund the project, but requested a meeting to discuss options going forward, warning, “If further funding is not secured there is a risk that as the database cannot be maintained, the information will be lost, and all public funding to date will be wasted.”<\/p>\n The official added: “Additionally, given the appointment of the Irish Language Commissioner<\/a> and the upcoming publishing of the [Irish Language] Strategy, which specifically references placenames and signage, it is likely that the Northern Ireland Placenames Project will be high on the political agenda. As such, we need to identify potential funding sources to continue the work.”<\/p>\n A DoF official followed up on 24th February to query if DfC had held discussions with QUB<\/a> regarding the long-term funding of the Project; whether DfC have current plans to extend its project and whether they have considered funding arrangements after March 2026, including completion of the business case and feeding into recent multi-year budget planning exercises by each Department.<\/p>\n A follow-up email was sent by the Department of Finance<\/a> on 3rd March confirming that in 2022, it was agreed following a bilateral meeting between the Finance and Communities Ministers, as it was a language project, it sat better with DfC, but that DoF would fund it for a further three years to enable a handover. The official also confirmed that “This project is now not within [Land and Property Service’s] vires to fund any further, as there is no business need in LPS for the project.”<\/p>\n A ministerial meeting note from that bilateral Zoom meeting which has also been seen by Belfast Live<\/a>, shows that on 20 January, then Communites Minister Deirdre Hargey and then Finance Minister Conor Murphy met alongside their retrospective officals.<\/p>\n “Minister Murphy outlined the work of the project to research the history of place names, and that this had been linked to and supported by Ordnance Survey work within LPS. Funding has ended at 31 December 2021, and Minister Murphy is of the view that whilst the work should be supported, it is a language project,” the note reads.<\/p>\n “Minister Hargey noted this and that she would be happy to meet with the project lead [REDACTED], but that currently no budget would be available in DfC to fund this project.<\/p>\n “Minister Hargey further noted in order for her to consider supporting the project she would require the transfer of the resource required to operate it. Minister Murphy asked .[REDACTED] about the feasibility of this, and [REDACTED] undertook to will check this proposal with the LPS management board. The figure allocated within DoF is 270K over a 3 year period. Officials to pick up on this further.<\/p>\n “There was a short discussion of the wider budget proposals for the next three years and the January Monitoring Round.”<\/p>\n On 10th March, a DfC official contacted the Department of Finance<\/a> to request additional information on the agreement from 2022. They also requested funding of approximately \u00a370,000 to allow DfC to fund the project while they complete a full review by September 2026 and establish a sustainable long-term plan for placename work in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n The official also requested clarification on the position that the work no longer falls within LPS vires, as a number of rates bills are requested in Irish each year, and translation requests are processed through DfC\u2019s Translation Hub, stating that “the NIPNP remains the sole authoritative source for Irish versions of street names in Northern Ireland.”<\/p>\n A further email sent by the Department of Finance on 31st March confirmed that officials from both departments met that day, and it was the Department of Finance’s position that, “currently respective Dept Finances are agreed that it was 3-year transition funding following transfer of the responsibility back in 2022.”<\/p>\n A Department for Communities<\/a> spokesperson said: “The Northern Ireland Place Name Project has received funding at various times from a number of Northern Ireland departments. Most recently, the funding period provided by the Department of Finance, and overseen by DfC, concluded at the end of March 2026. A three-year Letter of Offer was issued in 2022. This funding was transferred following a minister\u2011to\u2011minister agreement and was not subject to specific conditions. No baseline budget was transferred to DfC in 2022 to support the longer\u2011term delivery of this work.<\/p>\n “During March 2026, the project sought agreement from DfC to carry over a small underspend, which continued activities until the end of April 2026. That brought an end to the DoF funding.<\/p>\n “In the absence of an agreed budget, and in common with other departmental programmes, it was the Department\u2019s intention to allocate notional funding until June 2026. However, due to staffing issues within Queen\u2019s University Belfast, it was not possible to utilise these funds.<\/p>\n “No policy decision has been taken to cease the funding. Funding was provided in 2025\/26 under the terms of the original transfer, and a bid was submitted as part of the DfC\u2019s 2026\/27 budget process.<\/p>\n “Arrangements are in place to ensure that the Project\u2019s database remains accessible to researchers. The Department is actively considering options for the long\u2011term delivery of this function, alongside interim arrangements to maintain the service.”<\/p>\n Sign up here for our Party Lines newsletter<\/a> and get the latest political analysis and headlines from Belfast Live’s Political Reporter James McCarthy direct to your inbox twice a week.<\/p>\n For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage<\/strong> here<\/a> and sign up to our daily newsletter<\/a> here.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Department for Communities officials warned that \u00a36m in public money that had been spent to date on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[21747,38881,107235,1144,285,41386,11191,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-940124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-department-for-communities","9":"tag-department-of-finance","10":"tag-irish-language","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-queens-university","14":"tag-stormont","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116524093463372308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0_JS343541892-1.jpg\")
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