Debate contribution: Sectarian and Racist Intimidation

Debate contribution by Mr Stewart Dickson on 16 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Stewart Dickson

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

16 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Sectarian and Racist Intimidation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5111950

Read the official Assembly record

Text

A sincere word of thanks to my colleague Kellie Armstrong for proposing the motion, and, indeed, to all the Members in the Chamber tonight who spoke on this very difficult subject. I thank them for the fact that I can genuinely say that we have coalesced around all the discussions and areas. As the Minister has just said, we are not going to agree on everything, but there is a commonality of thought and process in the Assembly this evening with regard to all of this. I do not propose to go through all those who have spoken, but I will maybe remind one or two people about things that they said. A whole-Executive response is required when it comes to the issues that have been set out for us this evening. Therefore, I say to those Members who felt that the motion was perhaps directed at one Department rather than another that, in reality, this is a whole-Executive debate. I also remind Members that the Justice Minister will be dealing with all the issues through her sentencing Bill, which will introduce a statutory aggravation model for hate crimes. Other Members made a clear and valid point this evening. Long before we get to the justice system — the police, the courts, the prisons or whatever — we need to roll everything back and look at where we are at with education and healthcare and at how we build proper and safe communities. Doing that will not save us from the need of the police and the courts to deal with those who break the law. Of course it will not. We should, however, be doing a great deal more — a massive amount — right from day 1 of people's lives to ensure that they have the best start, through having the best of education, the best of healthcare and the best of support in communities. We should then be able to deal with many of the issues that sadly arise in many communities because of the broken society and world in which we live. It is saddening that we are discussing recent attacks on individuals in our communities. This past summer, we witnessed some horrific scenes not only in North Antrim but in my constituency of East Antrim. Reference was made to the terrible attack on Larne leisure centre. There were very serious threats to life, and we must condemn those threats. We have heard words of condemnation in the Chamber this evening. We need to realise, however, that we have to go beyond words of condemnation towards the practical realities of what will help us take Northern Ireland forward. It is up to the Executive Office to bring forward a refreshed good relations strategy as a successor to Together: Building a United Community. The Executive Office needs to step up, because we cannot allow the scenes that we witnessed this summer to continue. The words of Ministers, who have the privilege of holding office, are important, and we value the words that they said at the time of and following the incidents. It is, however, not just about words. We need them to turn their words into actions. In my constituency of East Antrim this summer, I met people and listened to their stories about what had happened to them. I dealt with people who had been driven out of their home. One family had lived in my town for many years. They owned their home and worked in the health service, yet they were driven out by a group of thugs in the middle of the night. Despite protests about migrants coming here and taking our homes, that family ended up in social housing. Hopefully, they will be able to return to their property and restore it. Another lady and her family had come from a war zone, where they had been caught up in a terrible conflict. They also came here looking for safety, and, sadly, the community was not in a position to give them that safety. That is wrong. It will take a multi-departmental approach to fix those societal issues. I have called, and I continue to call, on the Executive Office to do more, but I also call on all Departments to do what they have to do in order to build a better community for all in Northern Ireland to live in. I will touch on an issue that other Members raised this evening. Recently, there has been so much misinformation out there. I spoke to the First Minister and the deputy First Minister when they came to the Committee for the Executive Office last week, and I commended them for their words about those incidents in the summer. I also said to them that, when they hear misinformation, they have a duty, as do the rest of the Government — Ministers in all Departments — to counter it with the truth. It is important that Departments come together and put up notices in every public building in Northern Ireland, be it our libraries, health centres or wherever, that say, "No, you do not get a laptop, a mobile phone and hundreds of pounds paid to you when you come to Northern Ireland as a migrant or an asylum seeker".

I want Ministers and others to state clearly what people do get. In particular, I want the Minister for Communities to do that, because he is responsible for many of the benefits that are given to people, or at least for the agencies that issue those benefits. I will give way to the Minister, who wanted to speak.

I hear what the Minister says. We need to get a sense of proportion. The numbers in Northern Ireland are tiny, and the impact on systems here is small in comparison, perhaps, with the rest of the United Kingdom. We need to set out the facts and explain who the small number of people are and where they have come from. The reality is that most people who come to Northern Ireland come here to work, do other jobs and contribute to society. Let me just tell you briefly about the contribution that those people make to our society and community. Recently, I spoke to a constituent who happens to come from Pakistan. He teaches in one of our universities. His wife and two children are here. They are contributing. They pay tax and National Insurance. He has to earn an income above the threshold to work in the United Kingdom. In addition to that, he has had to fork out over £23,000 for the right to remain in the United Kingdom while he is employed here. Most if not all of that money goes towards his healthcare, because he does not get free healthcare. We need to debunk the myths and explain to people the pressures that that puts on families and others who are here. That is not to suggest that we should not work from the ground up in the communities that I have worked and served in for the past 50-odd years, helping people in poverty to get food, helping people to raise their families and helping to deliver a fair and good education for them.

Yes, I will.

Thank you, Members, for listening to the debate. Very finally, as elected representatives, we have a duty to debunk the lies and untruths. We have a duty to give leadership and clarity. Sectarianism and racism are two sides of the same coin.

1,252 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:16 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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