Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Stewart Dickson on .
- MLA
- Mr Stewart Dickson
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 14 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5686133
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for giving way. Particularly for the last number of years that I have been in the Assembly but, indeed, for most of my elected life as a councillor, I have had requests from residents about flags that they do not want in their streets and areas, and there is no proper mechanism available to formally channel those complaints. I do not think that people object to flags to celebrate particular events, but they object when they turn to rags on lamp posts and when they are erected in places where people clearly do not want them. At the end of the day, there is no clear line of authority to have the flags removed. Many residents in my community spend a lot of time making quiet phone calls to certain people in the community to plead with them to take flags down, often at the end of a particular season. That is no way to regulate the community in which you live. The reality is that we need a form of regulation that has the appropriate teeth to deliver enforcement.
184 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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