Debate contribution: Racist Incidents

Debate contribution by Ms Carál Ní Chuilín on 12 November 2024.

MLA

Ms Carál Ní Chuilín

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

12 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Racist Incidents

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4658415

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. First, I will make remarks on behalf of the Committee, given the change with Connie and Stewart, and I am pleased to do so. I will take some of my time to speak as a Committee member and then, separately, I will speak as one of the riff-raff, anti-fascist protesters who were out on the street. The Committee motion has received cross-community support. Every Member mentioned concern about the issue. After the recall in August and what most of us have described as "the summer of hate", the Committee heard from a panel of people from different minority ethnic groups and others who spoke about the need for legislation. They are all aware that there is a strategy; they just do not feel that it works for them. We all need to look at that as part of the scoping exercise. We talk about lived experience. Those people talked about their experience, and not one of us was unaffected by it. We obviously need to look at that. Some Members made allegations or claims and other Members refuted them, but, at the end of the day, that is about experience. As with everything else in life, we will have to back up claims with evidence, but that is not the case when it comes to someone who feels that, in their experience, certain things have happened with some of the statutory bodies. When you hear how that has impacted on them and their families, you know that questions certainly need to be asked. The Committee has been diligent in trying to get beneath the issue of what else can be done. We have the T:BUC strategy, Communities in Transition, the ending violence against women and girls framework and the racial equality strategy. We are looking at where things stand for refugees. We are looking at equality and good relations. As part of a Committee inquiry, we are looking at equality gaps. Given the size of the problem, we agree that it did not start in the summer. The summer was an expression of what has been going on for some time, but it was at that point that many of us just said, "Enough is enough". We heard from people from Derry, or Foyle or the north-west — whatever you are comfortable calling it — who were referred to community leaders. That did happen. We heard that from individuals who came to us as part of these debates but did not go in front of the Committee. Their lived experience needs to be heard. When we spoke to statutory bodies, including the PSNI, about what happened in the summer and what we can do to prevent something like that happening again, the issue of resources came up time and time again, as did our attitudes, particularly in this place. It was important for the Committee to table the motion. It is important that all the scoping exercises have a start, a middle and an end and that they move quickly so that we know their conclusions very soon. I will not go through what Members said; we were all here, so we heard what everybody said. On a positive level, we all said that what happened over the summer cannot happen again and that we need to look at interventions. I will set that aside and talk about what happened during the summer and prior to it. The term "legitimate concerns" has become a watchword for saying, "Yes, there was racialism, but we have concerns too". I have never once heard the Tory Government being blamed for a lack of Budget here or the lack of money to access GPs and to help with housing.

I appreciate your intervention. It is quite timely. However, there is something even more sinister in that. I think that it all depends on the colour of the people who have immigrated here. We need to call that out. I know that Gerry did not mean what he said, but some of us consider ourselves to be decent working-class people as well. Working-class communities have faced the brunt of deprivation and being starved of money for decades. They are the communities that constantly feel the worst impact. What do we do? Rather than listen to the concerns that people have about childcare, schools, housing, community safety, their ability to feel free and their ability to grow and resource their own areas, we get taken down a road in working-class areas, where there has been a concentration of people who have made this place their home, even if it is temporary. It is not the Executive; it is the British Home Office through Mears, and Migrant Help needs to do more.

I do. If you notice, I used a different phrase — "genuine concerns" — about housing. The term "legitimate concerns" has been used as a catch-all phrase for not calling racism out, frankly, and that is the bottom line. Indulging the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) and hearing its "legitimate concerns" about housing and education has been nothing short of pathetic, and it adds to the feeling that there is access for some but none for others, and that needs to be called out. Is the LCC a legitimate group? Yes, it absolutely is, but the police said that loyalist paramilitaries were involved in the riots during the summer. The police said that in public, at the Committee and at subsequent meetings. Let us not let on that they were not involved. My other concern, regardless of where it happens — this needs to be said — is that very young children and young people were involved in those riots over the summer. Very young children and young people have been involved in riots at interfaces previously. People of our age, my age and younger and older, have said things, so those young people are being involved, and they are shafted. They are left to go through the criminal justice system, and nobody cares about them. That is a fact. The people who are being terrorised and who look after us in our hospitals and schools are left devastated. Their lives are devastated, particularly if they come from countries that have seen war and terror. They have gone through the most traumatic of experiences but come here, get a brick through their window and their car burnt.

People then say, "Well, there are legitimate concerns". That needs to stop. I do not care about faux outrage from anyone in the House. You cannot stand over that at all. I will leave my comments there.

Yes. I have little time left, but I am happy to give way.

I hear what you are saying. You have a right to hear what your constituents and others say. However, I expect you to call out any racism, and I know that you would do that. I will leave it at that. I thank everybody who contributed to the debate.

1,165 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:32 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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