Belfast Fleadh Cheoil 2024 bid: Row over 'junket' to New York for council staff

At Belfast City Council’s meeting of its city growth and regeneration committee, People Before Profit councillor Fiona Ferguson criticised a trip for senior staff members, including the chief executive and lord mayor, to attend an event in New York next month to discuss the bid with US Comhaltas vote holders.

The council intends to send local musicians and four council staff to the showcase at a cost of at least £20,000.

At the committee the director admitted that figure only included the expenses for 12 musicians, and did not include expenses for four council staff. The SDLP unsuccessfully tried to reduce council staff attending the showcase to two members.

One of the biggest festivals of traditional Irish culture in the world, the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann attracts many tens of thousands of international visitors each year. In its 60-year history the festival has only been held once in Northern Ireland, in Londonderry.

Ards Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, a cross-community non-profit organisation promoting and fostering Irish traditional music, song and dance in the Ards area, has joined with Belfast Council to make a bid for the festival.

In March a vote takes place to confirm the location for the fleadh. Several voting members are resident in the United States as part of the executive committee for the US Comhaltas.

The council report on the bid states: “This showcasing opportunity will highlight Belfast’s music, as well as our city’s wider contemporary cultural offering to a range of influencers, major tour operators, media, and other travel operators.”

It adds: “As part of the bidding process, it is normal that bidding towns and cities visit the US Comhaltas as well as the Great Britain Comhaltas in conjunction with their bidding partners to discuss their bid with the voting members.”

Ms Ferguson said: “With the times we’re living in, while we are being asked to set a rate far above the usual, and not just because the cost of living, but also because of the need to give workers a necessary uplift, I think this looks terrible. I don’t think the public would see this as anything other than a junket.

“It’s a shame, because the artists on the list are an incredible representation of the music we have here, and it would be great to give them such a platform. But when we are talking about putting up the prices of services of the council, I find it hard to justify this decision, which again is a shame, as we all enthusiastically support the fleadh.”

DUP councillor Gareth Spratt said: “It is wise in this climate that we as councillors try to be prudent with ratepayers’ money.

“But I do think we do have to showcase the city in the best possible light. We can’t attend these events and expect the US delegates to stand in line to meet a single person from Belfast City Council. You have to think about the size of the room, the group – and if our officers have recommended attendance, we have to take that seriously.”

The committee director told councillors the return Drogheda received from Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in 2019 was “well north of four times the investment”. He said: “We would comfortably expect that Belfast would receive 700,000 to a million visitors because of its connectivity.”