Plans for a massive concert at Belfast City Hall to celebrate St Patrick's Day lay in ruins last night after a crunch vote resulted in the event being rejected.
Last night campaigners for the event voiced their outrage that councillors had voted against the £80,000 concert, which was initially given the green light by a council committee.
St Patrick's Day is celebrated with an annual parade and it was hoped that the March 17 concert would attract Irish acts of the calibre of Christy Moore and Ronan Keating.
But last night campaigners for the concert claimed that 25 unionist and Alliance councillors had voted against the plan, while 22 nationalist members of the council had backed the proposal.
Instead, a concert will be held in the Ulster Hall, which campaigners for the outdoor event say will be limited to a maximum of 1,700 revellers compared to their estimated 100,000 for the City Hall extravaganza.
Irene Sherry, chairwoman of Carnabhal Naomh Padraig, said she was "disgusted" by the decision.
"The carnival committee have been having ongoing meetings with city council officials for the past number of months and believed that the council would organise a major city centre celebration for St Patrick's Day, which would get away from the negativity over flags and emblems," she said.
"The carnival in the past five years has attracted up to 100,000 people each year. Now Belfast City Council only want to have a concern for 1,700 people. It doesn't make sense.
"This event could have been developed to become a major tourist attraction like Dublin, New York and London. It is the only city which doesn't want to welcome tourists."
Earlier Sinn Féin councillor Michael Browne said: "Thanks to the efforts of the St Patrick's Day carnival committee it has been demonstrated in consecutive years that tens of thousands of Belfast people will come into the city centre for a St Patrick's Day event.
"It therefore beggars belief that the council would consider rejecting the opportunity of being associated with something so potentially popular, opting instead for a replacement which will cater for a small fraction of the attendance witnessed in any of the last four years."
DUP councillor Nelson McCausland had previously described the £80,000 proposal as a waste of money.
Speaking two weeks ago he said: "It think it would be wasteful to spend so much money on an event which may not have the expected attendance.
"An event held somewhere like the Ulster Hall would only cost around £20,000 to run and ticket sales would bring in an additional £7,000 which would cut down the cost."
