Debate contribution: Tackling Paramilitarism

Debate contribution by Ms Connie Egan on 15 October 2024.

MLA

Ms Connie Egan

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

15 October 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Tackling Paramilitarism

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4592578

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I condemn paramilitary activity and organised crime. I hope that all my colleagues throughout the Chamber will agree that that needs to be thoroughly eradicated from our society. It is criminal gang behaviour that creates a chill factor in communities that want to move past division and focus on moving forward. As the motion notes, that behaviour prevents the overall stability of peace and progress in Northern Ireland.

The longer the legitimacy of paramilitaries is enabled in our everyday practice and we do not tackle the hidden harms and impacts of exposure to violence, the longer it will take to build a future of safety and fulfilment for those who deserve so much more.

The draft Programme for Government estimated that paramilitary activity costs the Northern Ireland economy at least £750 million a year — division creating not just social and cultural hate but costing progress on this place's finances. Whether it is the resource pressure or the demand of so-called protection money from local businesses, it all adds up. All we need to do is look at the Department of Justice's Ending the Harm campaign to highlight the vast amount of hidden harms that paramilitaries and those associated with them cause. As legislators, we have a responsibility to consistently and continuously call out the groups that control, coerce and harm the communities that we represent and serve. An academic from Queen's University recently said:

"We can recognise there has been progress over the last decades. People's lives are better and safer, but this is not the case for everyone."

One strand of that exploitation is paramilitary-related gendered coercive control, including demands, threats and harms to women in those communities. An example of that is the exploitation of poverty and motherhood to prey on women's vulnerabilities, including control of children. Those women are being forced to navigate their safety in an environment in which they have double the fear. We must deliver change for innocent, everyday people in our communities who find themselves at the hands and control of those dangerous, third-party forces and for people whose lives have already been so manipulated and exploited by those groups that they find themselves complicit in crimes in the structures in which proscribed organisations exist. In June, we got new data on the perceptions of paramilitarism from the Northern Ireland life and times survey. Still, 18% of those surveyed felt that young people were being influenced too much by paramilitary groups, and 16% felt that paramilitary groups had a controlling influencing on their area. We are making progress but there is still an inescapable hold on so many in our communities. We need a cross-departmental, zero-tolerance approach so that we, as leaders in our communities, can model behaviour and send a clear message to those who are exerting power over others. In recent weeks, I have heard from victims of paramilitary criminality. They have been hurt that Ministers met an umbrella group that represents paramilitary organisations. There should be no conversation to be had with those groups other than to tell them to disband. I think that I am one of the few MLAs who was born after the ceasefires. Paramilitaries and those involved in criminality have had 30 years now to transition. It is far too long. If you have not done so already, you need to leave the stage. My generation was promised peace and prosperity, and a life free from the coercion of those groups. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many in the communities that we serve. In my constituency, I see paramilitary flags on lamp posts, some outside primary schools. I hear of coercive control, of drugs debts and recruiting in those communities. People feel that they cannot escape them. It is not good enough that we have not tackled that 25 years later. Peace and freedom from those criminal gangs must still be a priority for the Assembly, protecting those whom we serve. That is why Alliance has been calling for peace to be a pillar in the Programme for Government. It must be strengthened and solidified as a stand-alone mission so that we can tackle paramilitarism once and for all. However, we need to be clear that it takes every person in the House and every Minister to come on board. I thank the Opposition for tabling the motion.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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