Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Ms Paula Bradshaw on .
- 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 5740259
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I think that the Member is missing the entire purpose of the Bill. It is about ensuring that our public property, in the form of our lighting columns, is not abused through the use of flags or emblems. The alternative would have been for me to bring forward a Bill that placed a duty on the Department to remove all flags — anything that is affixed to such property. Your colleague Mr Buckley referred to article 87 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993. That imposes a fine only on people who know what happened, so the existing legislation does not cover this. You have said, "Oh, there's these tests", but I have tried to allow a process to be gone through. The alternative for me would be —. A lot of my voters would be like, "No flags at all", so an alternative could have been to just have a duty to remove all flags.
What?
157 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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