A Fermanagh and Omagh District Councillor is calling for Hallowe'en fireworks to be reinstated in the district following a two-year absence.

At April’s meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in Enniskillen town hall, Erne West Ulster Unionist Councillor Mark Ovens proposed that the fireworks displays in Enniskillen and Omagh be reinstated.

Despite Erne East Councillor Victor Warrington, Ulster Unionist, seconding the proposal, no formal vote on the matter took place, and Council business moved on.

Speaking following his proposal, Councillor Ovens said: “Like so many other families across the county, and businesses in the town, I’d love to see the Council actually stepping up and once again being proactive with events such as Hallowe'en.

“For the second year in a row, the ability to even take a decision has been removed from councillors.

"There are 40 democratically elected members of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council. We are rightly accountable to local people, and that is why ratepayers rightly want us to be able to help decide how or where their hard-earned money is spent.

"Whilst I’d like to see the fireworks displays reinstated, ultimately if it went to a vote of the local councillors, and a majority voted against, then I'd take it on the chin and move on."

Councillor Ovens told this newspaper that he was growing ‘increasingly concerned’ about where decision-making powers really sat within the Council.

He claimed: “I’m becoming increasingly concerned at the number of instances at which I am realising even the most basic information and oversight is being withheld from us.”

Detailing some such instances, Councillor Ovens said: “ Last July, whenever I made the proposal to reinstate the 2023 [fireworks] displays, the Chief Executive stated, ‘If the Council wishes to make provision for the next financial year they can do so’.

"Yet during the most recent rates setting process, I asked twice for an option [for fireworks] to be included but on both occasions, the request was ignored.

“Nonetheless, every time our ability to make decisions is wrongly withheld from us, it just makes me more ambitious to get it back.

"Like most other councillors, I didn't run for election to only nod through whatever senior management tell us to do.”

Councillor Ovens has vowed to again raise the issue of fireworks for the district at the next meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council.

“The debate over this year's Hallowe'en fireworks displays in both Enniskillen and Omagh is far from over.

"I fully intend to bring it back next month, and by then I hope other councillors from right across the Chamber will join with me in asserting their democratic right to actually be the decision-makers in this instance.

“Ultimately parties will decide among themselves what way to vote on any [such fireworks'] reinstatement, but it’s a choice that they - and not Council officers – will make,” he told this newspaper.