Debate contribution: Racially Motivated Riots
Debate contribution by Mrs Cathy Mason on .
- MLA
- Mrs Cathy Mason
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 15 June 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Matter of the Day
- Heading
- Racially Motivated Riots
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5613148
Read the official Assembly record
Text
What we have witnessed over the past week has been abhorrent, as, unfortunately, has been some of what we have heard in the Chamber this afternoon. Families have been terrorised, and people have been forced from and burned out of their homes in the most brutal way. Those scenes take many of us back to the past. Men, women and young, innocent children, for goodness' sake, have gone to bed frightened in the communities that they call home — in their safe place. At times such as this, leadership matters. Unfortunately, we have not seen leadership from all. The absence of leadership from our Communities Minister has been glaringly obvious. While families were being driven from their homes, Housing Executive staff worked day and night to find emergency accommodation — somewhere for those families to lay their heads for that night — yet there was deafening silence from the Minister who is responsible for that accommodation. While community workers and volunteers were on the front line trying to calm tensions, to support vulnerable families and to keep our young people away from the thuggish behaviour, many were seeking to hear a strong, unequivocal response from the Communities Minister, but they got no such response. People looked to those in positions of leadership for reassurance and direction, but many felt that that response was absent from some. That silence has been felt deeply. Many of those affected will feel that they have been failed and will ask where that leadership from some was when they needed it the most. The people carrying the burden of the crisis stepped up, Housing Executive staff stepped up, community organisations stepped up and local residents stepped up. Many will ask this very simple question: where was the Communities Minister when families were being forced from their homes? His silence is deafening. We must all stand together against racism. Hatred will not win.
317 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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