Debate contribution: First Minister — Pledge of Office

Debate contribution by Ms Michelle O'Neill on 5 October 2026.

MLA: Ms Michelle O'Neill
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 5 October 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Questions for Urgent Oral Answer
Heading: First Minister — Pledge of Office
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5774562

Text

If we are still having this conversation next year and the issue has not been resolved, we will all be in a very difficult spot. You make the point about the fleadh: the fleadh was the best example of how to do culture. The fleadh was inclusive and welcoming. It was about everybody. It was about standing together. It was about music. It was about dance. It was about song. It was not about treading over the rights of another. The approaches are very different. I want to see a resolution. I want the Garvaghy Road residents to be able to sleep at night. I want us to get a resolution that allows us to move forward. However, you have to ask yourself this question: why did you think that it was a good idea to open this up? The only answer that I can take from it is this: the election.
Yes, I will absolutely do that. It was a powerful symbol to all the residents who have been feeling the pressure, the fear, the intimidation and the sectarianism. They felt that really acutely this week, and it was a really good way in which to show them the love and the care that people hold for them and their rights and that they are entitled to live their lives free from fear and intimidation.
I often hear you trying to distil the issue down to 35 or perhaps even —
Do you want to hear me?
You wanted me to come to the Chamber, folks, so listen. Whether it is 35 or five, it is still triumphalism.
It is still an unwanted march. It is still about trampling over the rights of the Garvaghy Road residents. It does not make a difference. The number is not the point. The point is that it is triumphalism and an unwanted sectarian march.
Yes, I agree.
Supremacy will never be tolerated. Those days are gone, and we are not going back.
Do not talk nonsense, for a start.
It is shameful for you to call the people of the Garvaghy Road a "mob" and a "rabble", because that is what has come out of your party. I also heard your party colleague Carla Lockhart talking about taking us into the "abyss". What does that mean?
For me, it is simply a matter of right versus wrong.
You are absolutely right; about 2,500 Orange Order marches pass off peacefully with no issue. The issue with Garvaghy Road is that the march is unwanted. In the first dispute, 21 people were killed. I cannot fathom why anyone wants to reopen that wound and that sore. Why do people want to plunge us into those days again? Why do they want to retraumatise that community? The difference when it comes to this march is very clear: it is a triumphalist, sectarian and unwanted march. No one wants to see that. We are not going back to those days. There are no issues with parades across the board. Over 2,500 parades happen. It is not an issue of rights; it is about what is right and wrong.
The discord and the scenario in which we find ourselves is very much the making of those who wanted to revisit the issue on that community, reopen the sore and engage in triumphalism by walking down the Garvaghy Road against the wishes of the residents. That is who is responsible for where we are. Everybody in the House has a duty to try to dial it down and build on good relations and the progress of the past 28 years. I know where I stand: on the side of what is right, folks.
I am still your First Minister. I can tell you this: I will always choose the side of what is morally right. I know exactly which choices I am making now, and I do so in support of the Garvaghy Road residents.
Again, I stand with the residents of the Garvaghy Road. That is the right thing to do. It will always be the right thing to do. This issue should not have been reopened. We should not be having this conversation today. The Garvaghy Road residents deserve to be protected and to live their lives free from fear, intimidation and sectarianism.

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

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