Council contractor to cover costs after Irish street signs erected with spelling mistakes

A COUNCIL contractor will cover costs after it was discovered that the Irish spelling on some dual language streets signs in Belfast were spelt incorrectly.

Street signs in La Salle Park (West Belfast), Ashgrove Park (North Belfast) and Haypark Avenue (South Belfast) all appeared with obvious spelling mistakes.

The Irish translation of the word park - páirc had been spelled with an ‘e’ instead of a ‘c’

Street signs are translated by Queen’s University Belfast before being installed by a Belfast City Council contractor.

SDLP Belfast City Council Group Leader Séamas de Faoite questioned how the signs were erected in the first place with the incorrect spelling.

“It’s staggering that we have ended up with Irish language signage with incorrect translations being installed in the south of our city," he said.

"After the SDLP raised this issue with council we established that the correct spelling and translation were used in the committee report for this sign and this was provided to the contractor.

“I welcome confirmation from council that the contractor will cover the cost of replacing these signs, but questions remain about how this was allowed to happen in the first place. We need to see significant checks put in place to ensure that this never happens again, we should not have been put in a position where clearly incorrect signs were installed in our community.

“Obtaining Irish language signs or any other dual language signage for areas that want them took a serious effort from campaigners and councillors and this has been an embarrassing episode for the council. The least we should expect is that when requests for these signs pass through council that we can see them put in place in the correct manner.”

Sinn Féin Oldpark councillor Tomás Ó Néill says residents in Ashgrove Park are “deeply unhappy.”

“Some residents have been waiting over a year for bilingual signage only to discover these errors once the signs were erected," he added.

“Sinn Féin have raised this matter with Belfast City Council officials and new checks and balances have now been put in place.

“However residents that have jumped through every hurdle to achieve bilingual street signs are deeply unhappy at yet a further delay.

“Hopefully this will be the last problem with the implementation of the bilingual street signage policy.

“I look forward to the roll out of  bilingual street signs and the increased visibility of the Irish language across the city.”

Belfast City Council said it is aware of spelling errors on five dual language street signs in three different streets across the city.

It said the signs are currently in the process of being replaced at no additional cost to the council.

“We apologise for this error and will be urgently reviewing our quality assurance processes to ensure this does not happen again,” a spokesperson said.