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

Debate contribution by Ms Paula Bradshaw on 22 September 2026.

MLA: Ms Paula Bradshaw
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 22 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5739396

Text

I thank the Member. You will be aware that I have included billboards on public property. They are included. As my colleague Andrew McMurray said in the debate, we want to see consistency in approach. Whether it is a Sinn Féin billboard in a certain area or any other billboard, we just want to see consistency. On the issue of law-abiding citizens, if people are trying to celebrate a royal wedding or commemorate something in their constituency, I do not see any reason why they cannot engage with the Department and say, "By the way, we're going to have this street festival for a week. Here's why we are putting up flags. Here's when we are taking them down". What is unreasonable about that? If you are content and assured and feel very much a sense of belonging in your community, there is no issue there. It is about the people who put up flags that have swear words, intimidating flags or flags that celebrate terrorists. Those are the flags that the Department would have an automatic duty to take down. Again, I do not see how that is unreasonable.
It is.
Will the Member give way?
You will recall that I put the proposal out to consultation, and I prescribed certain categories of time periods. The FICT report suggested a week, so I put a week, two weeks, a month and two months. I got a lot of criticism from the Orange Order and unionist parties about the fact that — .
I listened, Timothy. That is the point. I got a lot of criticism from people who said, "The marching season is three months", so I asked, "Should we remove that time frame and allow —?". If the flags go up for five months and the marching season lasts for three months, I think that a reasonable person — again, it keeps coming back to the reasonable person test — would say that five months is an excessive period of time. However, after the marching season — up to the end of September, for example — we have to allow for the fact that it may take a few weeks for people to get ladders or cherry pickers. Again, we are trying to be reasonable. That is the reason for the wording.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not qualifying”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.15 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.87).
The text criticises or condemns the framing or division (0.92).
Subject area: Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials.
The overall probability was at or below the not-qualifying threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.18	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.07	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.21	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.21	No
Controversy escalation	0.17	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.87	Yes
Overall judgement	0.15	At or below not-qualifying threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.07
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it (chosen)	0.92
Adopts it	0.01

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.95
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.05
No identity-related subject	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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