Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Jon Burrows on 14 September 2026.

MLA: Mr Jon Burrows
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist 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 5686295

Text

First of all, I am not proposing new offences. I am not proposing new absolute duties on the Department for Infrastructure. You have just posed a good question. There are terrorist flags in our country that the Police Service refuses to take down. Ms Bradshaw admitted that the problem was not the lack of law but the lack of stomach, resources and capability to take the flags down. What have we done? We have proposed creating a new law that simply picks on a Department and says, "It's all your fault; you sort it out". The PSNI has said, "We're not taking down those flags. We don't consider it safe or operationally viable to do so". It gives a number of reasons, and I often disagree with them. The PSNI should be less risk-averse when it comes to terrorist flags and find ways to get them down. However, who in their right mind would put that absolute obligation on the DFI, backed up with only an optional obligation on the PSNI to assist? We agree on the problem, but we disagree on the solution.
It is. It belongs in the wastepaper basket, not the statute book. We should get back to our job. I have been blunt about that because this is serious stuff. This is not a non-binding motion; it is serious stuff. The Bill would put DFI at risk. It could create offences, and it would create expectations that we simply could not meet. I will give a pledge to each party leader; in fact, I will write to each party leader this week and ask them to write back to me to agree to stand in the Great Hall next Monday, shoulder to shoulder, and say that every memorial, flag, emblem or building that commemorates, orates or eulogises a terrorist should be removed. I doubt that Ms O'Neill will join me. Here is the rub: the Bill has a degree of noble intent, but it is not clear, fair or enforceable. I am sorry to say so, but it belongs in the wastepaper basket. Let us not put all our collective failures as a society at the feet of the men and women from the DFI, exposing them to unnecessary risk, and let us not create an expectation among the public that we cannot meet. I urge every Member to dispose of the Bill as soon as possible.

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

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