Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr David Brooks on .
- MLA
- Mr David Brooks
- Party at the time
- Democratic 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 5686541
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Absolutely. Everything in the Bill seems to be relatively subjective. Certainly, the decision-making powers seem to be subjective. How some of the things are decided would depend entirely on who is sitting in the Minister's chair in the new mandate. They could be decided on in an entirely biased fashion, depending on who it is. The Bill leaves that possibility completely open. What will the Bill sponsor do with flags of the Ulster Defence Regiment or Orange standards? How will she deal with the Starry Plough, which is perceived by loyalist communities as being associated with republican paramilitaries, particularly the INLA? I am sure that Mr Carroll would draw attention to, as we all know, its historical Irish socialist context. It does not matter whether we are looking at loyalist flags, nationalist flags or republican flags: this is not a simple matter. The Bill sponsor likely gets emails similar to the ones that I get but, I suspect, gets many more from Alliance voters who want to know what can be done about flags. She needs to be honest with them about the complexity of the issue, however. It is not as easy as just having a flat ban on flags. If the Bill sponsor wants to ban some flags some of the time, she has to draw parameters around what those flags are. As Mr Carroll said, what will she do about Palestinian or Israeli flags in communities that want to express their solidarity in that way? Again, I am happy to give way. It may be that the Member's view, like that of many people, is that Northern Ireland should stop picking sides in conflicts across the world. That may be the case, but what will we do about the communities that feel that they wish to express solidarity and fly those flags in that way such as Mr Carroll and his community, whose view is very different from mine? That does not matter: what matters is how those flags would be ruled on. How would Ukrainian flags, on which there is more consensus, be ruled on? Is flying them appropriate? Is it time-bound?
How will we do that when a different international context arises and people want to express solidarity in that way? How will we manage impromptu displays that go up not because there is an event or a community celebration coming up but because people want to express something about their views? It is not simple, and she should be brave enough to explain to those who think that it is, or who wish that it were, or who just want flags to go away that it is not that simple. Unless you have an outright ban or a Parades Commission-type body, which she has told us that she does not seek and which this party would resolutely oppose, it will not be done. Everything that she proposes, including the structures and the huge amount of information that she wants to be submitted for the flying of flags, will sound to people very much like the beginnings of a Parades Commission-type structure. You might be handing it to the Department, but any Infrastructure Minister would have to come to a decision about structures that enable them to adjudicate. You have, very helpfully, as in most things, sidestepped that and want to hand it to the Committee. Unless the Committee were to decide to do that work for you, a Minister would have do it at the other end. I have no doubt that that would look very much like a Parades Commission-type set-up. Another point that has been raised here today is that legislation is worthwhile only if it is reasonably enforced and adhered to. I suggest that nobody in this place, not even the sponsor — regardless of what they want to be the case or think should be the case and of what demographic of constituents they seek to reach in the debate — truly believes that the Assembly, Departments or the police would be able to sustain any serious attempt to remove flags. All of us will have suggestions of where such resource, if we had it, should be spent. It is completely pie in the sky — Mr Burrows referred to this — to believe that we will have the Department for Infrastructure — to the detriment of its current duties, which it is struggling to fulfil — running round the country, climbing lamp posts to take down flags that will be replaced within hours, likely with several flags. To some degree, it does not matter whether we think that that is right or wrong; can we enforce it? Does our police force have the resource to enforce it? Does the Department for Infrastructure have the resource to do so? That is another question that remains unanswered. I am not sure that the Committee would be able to sort that for you. A significant amount of money would have to be pumped into the Department for Infrastructure for the sole purpose of running around the country taking down flags. The Member's colleague Nuala McAllister, who is sitting beside her, will know that, when there are controversial bonfires in Belfast, the solution has come to be that we hire, at great expense, top-secret contractors — they are dressed from head to toe in black and masked up so that people do not know their identity — to go in and try to remove a bonfire under police escort and support. Is that what we would have for the removal of flags? Flags would be constantly replaced if they were taken down. She cannot possibly believe that the authorities would be able to identify, across every town and village in this country, the people who put up flags every time that they are taken down.
972 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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