February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Police overtime, fire service call-outs and the clean-up of dozens of sites were cited as major costs in the report by the Department of the Environment.
The government report also cited concerns about a “large increase” in the amount of cancer-causing agents released into the atmosphere by the fires, which are held each year on the eve of the Twelfth of July, the big loyalist festival in the North.
In some urban areas, wood stacked several stories high are set alight, along with tires and other flammable material. The fires sometimes involve the burning of effigies of the pope and other loyalist hate figures.
Police report violence at bonfire sites each year, and in some cases the fires spread to nearby buildings.
Supporters of the bonfires say they are an important feature of loyalist culture.
After the report was issued, a member of the Rev. Ian Paisley’s DUP has called for loyalist neighborhoods to be balloted on whether the fires should be held. William Hay, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said residents should have a confidential say in whether or not bonfires are held in their districts. He spoke of concerns that the bonfires had turned from being “a family night out” into a source of drunken brawling.