Debate contribution: Shankill Gospel Hall: Racially Motivated Attack

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 8 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

8 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Matter of the Day

Heading

Shankill Gospel Hall: Racially Motivated Attack

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5600284

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for West Belfast for tabling the Matter of the Day. We are having the debate with a depressing sense of resonance and symmetry, because the riots in Ballymena last summer, which scarred and shamed this society, began on 9 June 2025, which will be one year ago tomorrow. One year on, what has happened to mark that anniversary? A gentleman from an Indian background who brought his family here decades ago to contribute to this society and wanted to invest, create jobs and opportunity in a working-class part of Belfast has been burnt out of that opportunity.

The working-class people of that community have been burnt out of the opportunity of additional investment and jobs in their area.

Those decent people, the vast majority of whom will be utterly disgusted by the events over the weekend, have been dragged into the mire by a small number of people who are consumed by hatred and violence. As my colleague Mark Durkan said, we know that the end point of hatred in this society is nothing good, so we should be standing against it. However, it is depressing to see the double-talk and the talking out of both sides of the mouth from some in the Chamber and from some in our society more generally about this, as there was last year. The rise of racism and far right nonsense online is an extraordinary risk. It is a risk to the constituency that I share with Paula Bradshaw, who just spoke, which is probably the most diverse on the island of Ireland, but it is a risk to all of us who want a society for our children and grandchildren and the people whom we represent based on respect, tolerance and equality. Instead, we are being dragged back into something much, much darker. I want to challenge the idea put forward by some that there are legitimate concerns. As we discovered last year in Ballymena, when people of colour or people who are not from this part of the world are burnt out of their homes, when pogroms are launched against them, when they are told that they do not belong here or are not allowed here, the comment that we often hear from people who take no responsibility for those actions and then, of course, condemn acts of violence is that we should listen to the legitimate concerns that are being expressed. When someone has invested legally in a business in a disused building, there is no legitimate concern that justifies torching that building. I will say to people in the Chamber and outside it who have positions of responsibility to think about where we are going and the society that we want our communities and our families to live in —

— and step back from this grotesque rhetoric.

473 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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