Debate contribution: Racial Equality Legislation

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 13 October 2026.

MLA: Mr Matthew O'Toole
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 13 October 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Opposition Business
Heading: Racial Equality Legislation
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5789996

Text

I did not intend to speak, because I probably speak enough in general in here, and I have spoken a lot today. However, because it is an Opposition motion — my colleague Mark Durkan will deliver the winding-up speech in a few minutes — and having experienced so much as a constituency MLA of the awfulness of what is happening to our black and minority ethnic community in Northern Ireland and on this island more generally, I had to speak up. Representatives from the African and Caribbean Support Organisation Northern Ireland (ACSONI) and the North West Migrants Forum are here today. They provide such leadership and moral courage, not just to the rest of their community but to those of us who are elected representatives and have to stand robustly against what has been happening for the past few years. I am proud, as, I am sure, the Member who spoke previously is, to represent probably the most diverse constituency on the island of Ireland. I treasure it. It is fundamental to what South Belfast is. However, over the past three years, we have seen an ever-deteriorating situation where people of colour fear for their lives, their livelihoods and their families. We have moved on a few months from June, but we should not forget the gravity of what happened here in June. We had what amounts to a pogrom on the streets of this region, and that is not too strong a word. People were being hunted from door to door because of the colour of their skin. Families were put out of their houses. I had to shelter a number of Indian families in my constituency office, including primary-school children, who were literally sheltering in fear of their lives. That is not an exaggeration. The same thing happened the year before and the year before that after a racist rally in the middle of Belfast. We need to be alive to the seriousness of what is happening. This is not simply about a race relations strategy or nice-to-have legislation coming out of the Bermuda Triangle, or whatever the analogy was that Mr Nesbitt used about the Executive Office. It is about people's lives, the society that we want to be and the duty that we owe to our citizens, of whatever colour or background, to keep them safe and to ensure that they have basic dignity and human rights in this society. People will judge us on that, and they have judged us on it over the last little while. It is shameful and shocking that the Executive Office has not been able to update its relevant strategies and produce promised legislation. However, more generally, we need a strategy and leadership from those in power to stand against this and also to give some hope and direction, including to those young people who are tempted by loyalist paramilitaries — let us call it for what it is — out onto the streets to engage in violence. It needs to stop, and we, as the official Opposition, will keep the issue on the agenda.

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

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