Debate contribution: Hate: Executive Approach

Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on 22 September 2025.

MLA

Mrs Linda Dillon

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

22 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Hate: Executive Approach

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5124293

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I appreciate the intervention. I am not sure how much I agree with it. I have not agreed with a lot of what the Member has said over the airwaves before he came into the House. We will probably agree to disagree quite a bit, Mr Burrows.

I appreciate the motion, and we will support it. In June, we saw racist intimidation in Ballymena, Larne, other areas across the North and, indeed, in my locality, Dungannon. We witnessed continued sectarian and racist attacks, again across the North, forcing families to flee their homes. To me, that is heartbreaking. It is reflective of a sectarian state that once forced many families to flee their homes. It is unacceptable and needs to be called out for what it is. Attacking family homes and intimidating women and children is criminal thuggery. We had confirmation from the PSNI — it has been referred to by Members who have spoken previously — that, at a recent public session of the Policing Board, there was evidence of the involvement of loyalist paramilitaries, including the UDA, in north Belfast. Figures from the PSNI last month showed that recorded race hate crime is at an all-time high, something that we should be absolutely ashamed of to our core. Asking for additional resources is one element — the Policing Board is on the record on a number of occasions as saying that policing needs greater resources — but we also need to look at how we use the resources that we have. I agree with my colleague that prevention will always be much more cost-effective than cure. Let us look at what prevention measures we can take. Let us work with those communities and all those people and learn what the challenges are for them. What, do they think, would make a difference in their lives? I look around the Chamber, and there is nobody who reflects, almost to a man and a woman, the people whom we are talking about. Let us be honest. We need to listen to what those people say; what their fears are; how, they think, we can best address them; and how, they think, we should work with them. We have a responsibility. As political leaders, we are just that: we are leaders in our community, and it is our job to support and look after every member of our community regardless of race or ethnicity. That responsibility extends to social media. Too often, we see false claims and inflammatory language online that pour petrol on the fire. All of us, as public representatives and community leaders, must be careful with our words and avoid feeding narratives that target minorities from whatever background they come. Families who are targeted must see that there are consequences for those who carry out the attacks. That means that there needs to be a PSNI response. The police need to step up their investigations, make arrests and bring charges more quickly, decisively and visibly. Visibility is important, and, in fairness, some good work has been done on that, but it is really important for people to know that they are being listened to and that somebody out there cares about what is happening to them. We also know that policing alone cannot fix this. We need to ensure that we work with communities to build trust with them and to work alongside the local community and stakeholders to prevent hate crime, as well as detecting and charging those who perpetrate it. It is important that we have adequate legislation to ensure that those who are perpetrators of hate crime or crime where hate is an aggravator are held fully accountable for their actions. We also need to acknowledge that, if we are serious about building safe, shared communities, we need to see societal change. It is for us in the Chamber to lead in our community and in everything that we say and do. We talk about victims a lot in the Chamber. These victims, like every other victim, must be prioritised. That means supporting families who are under attack, standing with them and ensuring that everybody knows that they are part of our community, that we support them all day, every day, and that we value them equally as part of our community, ensuring that they get the protection and support that they deserve. It is not about dressing up hate and intimidation as a cultural expression or false claims of concern about the safety of women and girls.

I have attended events in the areas that had the worst race-hate incidents and crime over the summer. Those events were held by women to talk about violence against women and girls. The irony is that I did not see one man in the room, even though it was men who were out attacking homes and frightening the life out of women and children in their —

— own homes.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:15 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification