Debate contribution: Audit and Re-imaging of Memorials
Debate contribution by Mr Jon Burrows on .
- MLA
- Mr Jon Burrows
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 11 November 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Audit and Re-imaging of Memorials
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5349757
Read the official Assembly record
Text
We are guided by three key principles when we deal with issues of legacy. They are that innocent victims have their integrity and dignity preserved, we do not allow history to be rewritten and we uphold the rule of law. That is the lettering that runs through the stick of rock in our amendment.
When it comes to innocent victims, it is entirely wrong that people in our society worry about opening a newspaper, watching TV or listening to the radio in case they hear about the commemoration of ghouls such as Brian Robinson. He was loyal to no one but a small group of gangsters, just as republican terrorists were evil people, loyal only to themselves. That is why it is so important that our amendment says that we need to acknowledge that victims are re-traumatised by those memorials, by loose language and by dealing with the people who inflicted loss on them, be it the loss of a loved one, one of their limbs or their mental well-being, as anything other than criminals. I do not use the term "ex-combatants"; they were terrorists.
I generously gave way to the Member. I hope that my tone has been respectful. Certainly, anyone who listens to my contribution or reads it in Hansard will see that I have been disrespectful to no one. That is another attack on my integrity, despite the fact that I have just called out, as clearly as could be, loyalist and republican terrorism. I will move on. Our amendment strengthens the motion, because it ensures that we do not allow history to be rewritten. We need to deal with the elephant in the room. Those who were victims or those in uniform who tried to uphold the law are entirely different from those who were terrorists, loyalist and republican alike. We cannot allow that truth to ever be blurred. That is why I say that the motion is good, but our amendment strengthens it. The Shankill bomber was wrong. The Shankill butcher was wrong. There can be no equivalence between them and people who tried to do their job. If a police officer did something wrong, like those who got involved in the Glenanne gang with UDR members, I would see them as a traitor to their uniform. They should be given an additional sentence for that breach of trust. I have never justified any criminality by anyone who wears uniform. Let me say this: those who murdered people at Greysteel were wrong. It can never be right or complex: that can never be the narrative. Yes, academics will look at such things from an academic point of view, but those people were wrong. They went into a bar, shouted, "Trick or treat" and sprayed the pub with bullets. They do not deserve any memorialisation.
I will not give way any more. If they are on an illegal memorial, it should be taken down. This is where I come to the rule of law. We have allowed the rule of law in Northern Ireland to be sacrificed to the path of least resistance. Our amendment strengthens it again. Farmers in my constituency cannot get a farmhouse or henhouse through planning and will not build it until they get planning permission, yet people build memorials to terrorists with impunity. How can that be right? How have we got ourselves into that position? How can people on the other side of the House justify that? If the memorials are illegal, bring them down. Do not let them be built again. That is why our amendment says that an audit should not only be taken but published. Let us be clear about how many memorials in our country are illegal by virtue of having no planning permission and by virtue of what is on them. Let us see that in black and white. The memorials to British servicemen that the Member on the Benches opposite talked about are not built without planning permission and are not breaking any law. They commemorate servicemen just as an Garda Síochána and the Irish Army commemorate their dead. I would never tolerate a memorial to a loyalist involved in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings being placed alongside a memorial to an Garda Síochána and being called the same thing. That is not a new Ireland to which unionists can subscribe. Those are truths, and that is why our amendment is strong.
I will not give way, because I am just finishing up. Right and wrong are important. We will speak for them. Our amendment strengthens the motion, and I commend it to everyone.
770 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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