Bonfire call-out bill nears £4m
Dealing with bonfires has cost the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service £3.7m over the past five years, Stormont figures have revealed.
Fire crews had to attend a total of 1,352 incidents at bonfire sites between May and July in 2009, at a cost of £894,076.
Data for the 2010 parading season has not yet been disclosed.
The figures were revealed by the Assembly after a Freedom Of Information question from the SDLP’s Thomas Burns.
The South Antrim MLA described the costs as “ridiculous”. He said that the largest percentage of the money is being spent on dealing with anti-social behaviour in the build-up to the Twelfth.
“The costs are rising every year and this cannot be allowed to continue,” Mr Burns said.
“This has nothing to do with the orange culture or tradition, it is simply anti-social behaviour of the worst kind and it is costing us a fortune to deal with it.
“Callouts to bonfires on the eleventh night are not the problem, it is the anti-social elements that are hanging around bonfire sites in the weeks and months leading up to the twelfth that are causing all the trouble.
“Ferrell youths sit around on old sofas drinking, lighting small fires, setting fire to rival bonfires and generally causing bother into the early hours of the morning.
“I call on the PSNI to do more to rid communities of this nuisance element which blights many neighbourhoods and puts an unnecessary strain on our emergency services for weeks every summer.”
