Debate contribution: Hate: Executive Approach

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 22 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

22 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Hate: Executive Approach

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5124318

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As the debate has progressed, we have started to go down rabbit holes and little culs-de-sac, rather than focusing on what should be front and centre in the overall debate, which is the suggestion that racism and sectarianism are a stain on our society, albeit elements of the motion are about what should happen within the criminal justice system once somebody has carried out such actions. We should collectively say that, if we have a person at that stage, we have failed. If people continue to go out and carry out such actions, it means that all our policies and the various strategies have not done their job. We have lost sight of the fact that, when it comes to defining these things amongst ourselves, we all probably agree on about 95% of it. It is just that 5% at the end where we have our differences. It is a little bit frustrating that it is the 5% that we focus on, and, in some respects, it is that 5% that then gets amplified to the community, which then thinks that there is division on these things. There are quite a number of first principles that we all agree on, and that is what we should try to amplify. I think about those who have fallen victim to abuse. It is important that we send out a message to them that we do not like that and that we want to stop it. We want to try to stop that type of behaviour in our community. We do not want to see people carrying out racist or sectarian abuse. However, we also know that, in order to stop a lot of that abuse, we need to see leadership. All of us need to stand up and say that what we can see in our community is wrong and that there needs to be no more of it. As a group of leaders in our community, we need to agree on that and spread it round our community. What has been very frustrating over the summer and the past number of months is that, when there have been certain events, they have almost become weaponised and politicised, with different views on whether it should or should not have not happened, whether it was or was not right and what was or was not there beforehand. That has allowed a space where people feel that their behaviours are justified. They think that it is OK to carry out their actions in the community, because they think that even people like ourselves cannot agree on what is racist, what is sectarian, what is allowed, who is in control in our communities and who we permit to be in control in our communities. When we get elements of that wrong, we see what happens: the space opens, and in they go. It is filled up by people who bring that destruction into our communities. We see people go in and attack others, quite often simply for the colour of their skin. People who are working, contributing, paying taxes and giving back to our community are getting attacked because others think that they arrived on a boat. People think that those boats made it all the way across seas, up Belfast lough, down the M1 and on to the top of a bonfire, and that that is what delivered people into our community. We need to stand up and say, "That is wrong. That is the wrong message". The message is that 99·9% of the people who are here are here on legal and proper grounds. They contribute to our society and work hard, but we seem to lump everybody in with the small percentage who are considered to be illegal immigrants. We need to find other ways — legal ways — of addressing that. We need —

Thank you for that. Yes, that was maybe just in the interpretation. I am suggesting that there is a sense in the community that we are completely overrun with people. It is that sheer perceived volume that people use to motivate their actions, but it is not rooted in reality, and that lack of reality allows people to increase —

Yes. Go on ahead, very quickly, please.

The point is made. We need to get the facts out there. The problem is that, in here, some representatives amplify too much, and the noise that they make gets out, goes down the hill and gives people the justification for the actions that they display. If we stand here and say that the behaviour is wrong, the behaviour is wrong. We can all make sure that we get the facts, but it should not justify hate. Those facts, by the way, will come in various Executive policies and strategies, like the racial equality strategy, which we are only halfway through, and the tackling paramilitarism programme, which we need to see changes to. Those can all be used as a vehicle to try to address the behaviours that are out there in our community.

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

Assessment

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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.

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