Debate contribution: Tribeca, Belfast: Development

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 30 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

30 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Tribeca, Belfast: Development

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5143448

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am pleased to speak on the subject. It is one that Mr Brett and I have talked about a lot, and we share some of the same priorities on the city centre. I am glad that he has proposed the debate. The pedestrianisation of Hill Street and the introduction of night buses are all things that we need in order to maximise the amazing potential of our city centre as a cultural, historic, economic driver not just of this city but of the region and the entire northern part of the island. The further development of what is shamefully and irritatingly known as "Tribeca" is one of those things. I agree with basically everyone that that is an ahistorical, vulgar and preposterous title to give such a brilliant and historic part of Belfast. However, given that I am the leader of the Opposition as well as a representative of Belfast — I want to talk about the Belfast context — I will inject a little bit of dissent. That is important because dissent is that great, radical, Presbyterian quality that we associate with the Assembly Rooms in that part of Belfast. I will inject dissent into the consensus in the debate because, while we agree that something must be done, someone watching this debate from outside might think that we are a bit like Mark Twain talking about the weather:

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

Nearly a year ago, on an Opposition day, the Opposition brought a motion to the Assembly about Tribeca and the preposterous failure to deliver on ending the dereliction there.

That motion asked the Minister of Finance to look at city centre dereliction and at a vacant land tax, which Ms Armstrong just referenced. It also referred to doing something about the historic significance of the Assembly Rooms, and I am glad to say that some progress has been made and that the council is moving towards acquiring that site. We called on the Minister of Finance to do a full rates review of what was happening across the site, because responses to questions for written answer from me revealed the fact that widespread and apparently inappropriate rates reliefs were being given to properties that were falling into dereliction on that site. That was discovered because I asked questions about it. We also called on the Minister for Communities and the Minister for the Economy to work with the Finance Minister and Belfast City Council to further proposals for the site.

I want to see all that happen, but it is important to say that the Assembly passed a motion last November to do all those things. The public out there do not want us just to show up and talk about these things again and again; they want something to happen. I am therefore glad that we have consensus today. Whether it comes from an Adjournment debate today or an Opposition day debate last year, let us see some progress being made. I hope to hear from the Minister. I welcome the fact that he is here to talk about it, because, in May and June 2024, I asked him two questions for written answer about the meetings that he was having about Tribeca and potential regeneration work. He said that he had not had meetings but that he planned to have meetings with the chief executive of Belfast City Council. I would like to hear an update on what happened in those meetings and whether there have been any further meetings, because not only is the site full of potential but we have wasted two decades of potential. As politicians and political parties, we have all had some hand in that, but we all now have responsibility, and some of us have more than others, because some of us do not hold ministerial office to deliver on it. It will require a joined-up effort. One option that we, as the Opposition, put forward last year was that the Executive, working with Belfast City Council, should create something like the Laganside Corporation. There were some objections to the way in which Laganside worked, and I am not saying that it was perfect, but it was a company that vested land and delivered a regeneration project. It is perfectly within the Executive's legal powers to do that. Why not? We could use financial transactions capital (FTC). FTC is already being used — I hope — to deliver Casement Park, and I think that the Minister wants to use it to deliver other football stadia. I have no problem with that. Why not use it for this purpose? That is something that we could explore. If not that, what? We cannot go on like this. We cannot have any more debates, whether they be Opposition debates or Adjournment debates, or questions in which we talk about something being done only for nothing to happen. I see people looking around the room and thinking, "This guy is being annoying again. He is standing up and making a nuisance of himself", but I do not care, because that is my job. For too long in this place, we have stood up and all agreed with one another, and then — guess what? — nothing has happened. On the question of whether we are talking about North or South Belfast, here is the point: it is Belfast. Most people who walk down Hill Street, have a pint of Beamish or Murphys in the brilliant Duke of York and then walk round to Donegall Street and North Street say, "Why is this like this? We are in the middle of one of the most happening cities in Ireland and one of the most interesting cities in Europe. Why is there this block of derelict land?" To be honest, guys, we are all worried about where our constituency boundaries lie, but people are not aware of whether they are in North, South, West or East Belfast; they just know that it is Belfast and that it is brilliant and full of potential. As public representatives, we need to get behind it, deliver on it and not let it fall into more dereliction. I commend the Cathedral Quarter BID. Save CQ has been amazing at campaigning on the issue. Individual reps from a load of parties have worked hard on it. Let us do right by them. Let us deliver it, let us be specific and let us have no more debates in which we all agree with one another. Let us actually do this and make the project and that part of the city thrive again.

I had my 40th birthday there.

1,117 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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