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

Debate contribution by Mrs Deborah Erskine on 22 September 2026.

MLA: Mrs Deborah Erskine
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 5739999

Text

I thank the Member for his lengthy contribution, and he is absolutely and fundamentally right on that point. We have all had conversations. As the Member for South Antrim Mr Clarke said, we have all engaged with the police on flags and emblems in our constituencies, so it is important that we do not allow to go out from the Chamber today the notion that we have not had that engagement with the PSNI on the issues. I return to my point: we should be careful about creating circumstances where officers are required to become involved in disputes about whether a particular cultural display is offensive or has remained in place for far too long. There are also financial implications associated with the Bill, and the Minister for Infrastructure will be glad to know that I am concerned about the implications that the legislation will have for her budget. The Bill's explanatory and financial memorandum acknowledges resource and staffing implications for the Department and the PSNI. Those include the online notification system, preparing a code of practice for removing flags and emblems, potentially using contractors and the policing costs when PSNI assistance is required. Yet the cost of developing or modifying the notification procedure cannot currently be quantified, and that should concern us. With crumbling public services, the Bill will add to the issues that the Department for Infrastructure in particular has with resource and spend. It is laughable that a lamp post that the Department would have to intervene to remove a flag from might have a broken street light at the top of it or be due to be removed from a community, yet the Department would, at a cost to the public purse, have to step in to remove a flag that could have been removed through the likes of the community engagement that we on these Benches have just talked about. That engagement happens organically in an awful lot of places and, I would hazard a guess, an awful lot more than has been described in the House.
I totally agree with the Member. That happens more often than not. Community engagement happens all the time in Northern Ireland, but it is not reported on.
Mr Deputy Speaker, if you will give me leeway for one second, that will allow me to point to the point that Mr Frew makes. In this Chamber, we debated the appointment of a climate commissioner. That appointment would cost the public purse £1 million every year. How much will this cost, particularly if we have to put in place a body in the Department for Infrastructure, as has been said in the debate? The cost could be astronomical for something that, again, happens organically in towns and villages across Northern Ireland — it does not get reported on — where there are good community relations, and the Bill could destroy some of that by imposing things on communities.
I thank the Bill sponsor for her intervention. My point is that those areas are in the minority in Northern Ireland, but the problem is that those are the ones that get reported on most and that the media fixate on.
We have just discussed the fact that there is always community engagement going on. I fundamentally believe that the Bill sponsor is going to do a catch-all scenario that would be implemented for everybody, including when it comes to the "low-hanging fruit" that Mr Stewart talked about. I am happy to give way to Mr Gaston.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.24 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.85).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.79).
Subject area: Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials.
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging 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	0.13	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.05	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.18	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.16	No
Controversy escalation	0.16	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.85	Yes
Overall judgement	0.24	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.79
Reports or questions it	0.16
Criticises or condemns it	0.01
Adopts it	0.04

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	1.00
No identity-related subject	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00
Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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