Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist 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 5739427
Read the official Assembly record
Text
OK, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I take that point. However, a lot of this detail adds to the principles. I will not ask the Bill sponsor to intervene on every question that I raise, but maybe she will address some of them when she is summing up. Clause 1(4)(e) states:
"whether the flag or emblem is displayed for the purposes of celebration or commemoration".
Is it wrong or right to commemorate? Is it a negative or a positive to commemorate? I could commemorate a lot of stuff that I believe to be true, right and righteous and that has everything to do with sacrifice, but terrorist outfits could say the same for the terrorist dead — people who were blown up in the course of their activities. Does commemoration mean the same for them as it means for me?
The Bill states:
"whether the flag or emblem is displayed in a disrespectful manner".
What is meant by "disrespectful manner"? The crux of my questions and the reason for my asking them is the fact that the Bill sponsor is putting the onus on the Department. The Bill states:
"For the purposes of this Act, there is a presumption that it is in the public interest to remove a flag or emblem if, in the opinion of the Department, one or more of the following apply".
That puts a further onus on the Department. The Department for Infrastructure not only has to remove the flag but has to decide whether it is a good flag or a bad flag. The Bill creates a flag police in the Department for Infrastructure, and I am not sure that that is the best place for it, when we consider the advice that we get from time to time from the PSNI about the removal of flags, the putting up of flags and everything that goes with that. Clause 2 is "Sensitive places", and my colleague has already touched on that. What is "a shared communal place"? It lists "an interface area". There is great tension in interface areas, especially in Belfast. There is not so much in North Antrim or anywhere else, but there is in Belfast. You can see a scenario where the law enforcement agencies — in this case, the Department for Infrastructure along with the police and the contractor — could well take flags down from one side of an interface on one day and then decide, after eight hours, to move into the other side the next day, and that would cause a great gnashing of teeth. There will be an escalation of violence at the interface: not only will more flags be displayed, but there will be actual violence. The crux of the matter is that we are dabbling in something that we have struggled with for decades, and the Bill will not do it. The Bill states:
"The Department may regard the following as a place where public services are provided— (a) school, (b) medical facility, (c) leisure centre, (d) library".
I will in a minute. How far away from a library does that mean? Is it half a mile? Is it a mile? Is it out of sight? Remember that young people can go to a library to get a book about flags in order to learn about the flags of the world, and that is not perceived as a problem. Then the Bill states:
"The Department may regard the following as a shared communal place— (a) shopping centre".
A shopping centre is a piece of private land.
Yes.
The Member can sum it up in her winding-up speech at the end, but what about the car parks of a shopping centre, because that is still private land? There will be issues with that. The Bill also states:
"any other place that persons of all national and cultural identities could reasonably be expected to have access to."
What on earth does that line mean?
What will it mean for the legal enforcement of the Bill? I will give way.
672 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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