Debate contribution: Display of Flags, Emblems and Banners

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 30 April 2024.

MLA

Ms Sinéad McLaughlin

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

30 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Display of Flags, Emblems and Banners

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4487377

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the motion. As with so many issues that have been debated in the Chamber over the past few months, it is a pity that, in 2024, we still have not made the progress that is needed on flags, emblems and banners. Shame on us. That failure is a sign not just of the dysfunction of the Executive Office or that of the Government but of how far our society has yet to go in building a shared future. Twenty-six years after a peace agreement, it is a source of real frustration to people across our community that flags, emblems and banners are still used far too often to impose control on them and to demarcate territory and inflame tensions. This week, in Derry, we have seen Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA) flags going up all around the city centre. That was done deliberately to coincide with the murder trial for Lyra McKee. It was intimidatory and hurtful. We need somebody, or some legislation, to take those flags down. We have no time in which to do the soft negotiation; it is happening now, during a murder trial in Belfast. As for our business community, the unlawful flying of flags, particularly those belonging to paramilitaries, from lamp posts clearly undermines our economy and our tourism sector. The inability of statutory agencies to get a grip on the issue also poses a really concerning challenge to the rule of law. We should all be united in saying that the next generation should not be forced to grow up under the shadow of flags on our lamp posts, particularly when the flags belong to organisations that should have been disbanded long ago. In order to make that case, however, this generation of politicians has to act. We cannot just kick this into the long grass any more. This mandate has to be about seeing progress, finally, once and for all, on these thorny issues. Much has been made of the FICT commission and the resulting report. I do not underestimate, in any way, how difficult the job is, because the issues are thorny and intractable, but the report risks becoming another ornament that gathers dust on the shelves of the Executive Office — an ornament that has cost the people here £800,000 for the pleasure of having it drafted. Although I pay tribute to the commission's painstaking work, the fact is that, unless we do something with it, there is virtually no point to the report at all — absolutely no point.

Certainly.

Thank you. I think that the people have made their voices clear. The politicians are behind the people on this one. As part of implementing the report, we must finally put into place a code of practice and construct a legal framework around it that has some teeth. For the SDLP, the motion does not even go far enough. Our amendment, which was not accepted, would have committed the Government to putting the necessary legislation into the Programme for Government. The issues are very difficult, but we cannot keep going with the status quo or accept that a report like that can be allowed to disappear into the Executive Office. It is absolutely healthy to have a view on the national question. To me, changing the way this place works is how we build a much more inclusive and open society. Resolving issues of identity happens not by pretending that we are all the same — we are not — or by ignoring the questions of identity but by facing and addressing them. That is why I advocate a new Ireland with reconciliation at its core, but that reconciliation will be permanently stalled if we cannot address the issue or allow it to be held to ransom and locked in limbo in perpetuity through a lack of compromise and consensus. That is the prerequisite for a shared society and for the shared island that we want to see. Solving those issues and building a truly shared future, through genuine and honest engagement, will be a difficult task, but it is a necessary one, and it should start with the work that we are discussing today. We support the motion.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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