Alliance MLA sets out new bill designed to remove paramilitary flags - plus national ones that are being used for 'intimidation'
Paula Bradshaw has set out her blueprints for a new law to remove flags from public property.
The Alliance MLA was quizzed about her new bill at Stormont’s infrastructure committee today, where Sinn Fein’s Maoliosa McHugh said people must not “pretend that this isn't an issue” and urged MLAs to “grasp the nettle and say a better future is there for all of us”.
The new bill is called the Display of Flags and Emblems Bill, and was set before the NI Assembly yesterday.
It "will place a duty on the Department for Infrastructure to remove flags or emblems that are harmful, exclusionary, discriminatory or associated with proscribed organisations from public or sensitive places".
It applies to flags and emblems “attached to public street furniture and displayed in a public place”.
It makes clear that the "lead responsibility" for this will lie with the DfI, "whilst recognising the important role of the PSNI in supporting enforcement".
Specifically, it says that flags must be removed if "in the opinion of the department" they are paramilitary in nature, "intimidatory or threatening", or "likely to stir up hatred or arouse fear".
Next, there will be a presumption to remove if a flag is in a "sensitive" area and is deemed "antagonistic, or not conducive to good community relations" or as "demarcating that place as belonging exclusively to persons with a particular national or cultural identity".
The bill states that a “sensitive” area could be a shopping centre, arterial road, a new housing development, a park, "a place where public services are provided," or "any other place that persons of all national and cultural identities could reasonably be expected to have access to".
It also orders the DfI to set up a online portal where people can "give their views on the display of a particular flag or emblem in aparticular place at a particular time".
“I’ve been working on this bill for nine years now,” South Belfast MLA Ms Bradshaw told the committee today.
"While the legal space on flags has not changed during this period, I’d say the public space has.
"We’re seeing more and larger flags erected in our increasingly integrated society.”
She said neighbourhoods are more “mixed” and “diverse” than they were a decade ago.
Her bill will “allow for respect of cultural celebration and commemoration while preventing intimidation, territorial marking, and the coercive use of symbols”.
She said that “individuals and organisations will be able to display flags and emblems on street furniture… but there will also be the ability of those who do not want to see the flags and emblems in their neighbourhood to give their views and for those to be recorded and considered by the department”.
Ms Bradshaw gave an example of what she sees as the problem.
"A couple of years ago, I was contacted by the parents of a pupil who attended Fleming Fulton School,” she said.
"You will all be aware that this is a special educational needs school, and the girl also had major health complications.
"The family would describe themselves as being from a Catholic background, and were dismayed when two Union flags were erected either side of the gates to the school.
"They felt that since these were the only flags on the Upper Malone Road, that they were being erected to intimidate people from their background from attending the school.”
She contacted the DfI, and asked them to involve the police in taking them down.
She was then told “they would have to consult with local community representatives, and after a few days the response was that they weren't to come down and that, if they were, 15 more would go up”.
She concluded: “Does anyone in this room feel that approach that’s currently undertaken is acceptable?
"Who are these community representatives that the PSNI are consulting with, and why does their right to freedom of cultural expression trump the rights of a child to privacy, family life, and most importantly, to their education?
"I have nine years of this type of example.”
Ms Bradshaw said the cost of her new law is “not millions – it's tens of thousands of pounds, and I would contest that there are businesses in my constituency, for example, who feel that it will be money well spent, because there are so many flags around where they are trying to attract customers from all sides of the community”.
Mr McHugh, MLA for West Tyrone, said: “No one wants politics in their face 365 days a year: no-one.
"It doesn't make any difference what flag it is we're talking about, no one needs that.”
He added that “until we get to that stage where we have political buy-in – and I mean political buy-in by all parties, rather than them putting their heads in the sand and pretending that this isn't an issue – we won't really get to that point where we do have progress”.
He added that it is “a perennial issue that I've been involved with for a long number of years” and that parties should “grasp the nettle and say a better future is there for all of us”.