Flags report: Final document was ‘orphaned’ by delay says Naomi Long

The Alliance Party leader, speaking to BBC Radio Ulster, criticised the absence of a plan to put the report’s proposals into practice.

She said the long- awaited report had now been “abandoned”.

She also slammed the long delay in publishing the report, which was given to the Executive “nearly two years ago”.

“I think it’s absolutely scandalous that £800,000 was spent on a report that we have had to wait almost two years to see,” she said. “We were told it would be published with an implementation plan.”

She continued: “I’ve been writing to the Executive Office and my party’s had a debate in the Assembly on this in March, asking that it be published with an implementation plan so that we could start to take up some of those themes, and where there wasn’t agreement try to find agreement and where there was agreement try to implement it.

“Instead, it’s now just being orphaned with nobody taking responsibility for it, which I think is absolutely scandalous.”

The minister added: “These are issues that affect people’s everyday lives – bonfires, flags, paramilitary trappings on buildings, all of those things that people are constantly concerned about and raise with us regularly. Instead of taking political leadership and trying to drive a programme of work to address them, this is now simply being abandoned.

“Unfortunately, I did say at the time of the Haas talks that that might well be the outcome which was one of the reasons we were very lukewarm on the outcome of those talks.”

On whether the report’s findings would be put into practice by the devolved administration, she said: “It certainly doesn’t seem to be going to be implemented by the Executive Office.

“We will seek to try to drive forward some progress where we can on that report as a party.

“But obviously it should be being done on a cross-departmental basis, and it should be driven forward by the Executive Office. It’s a complete failure of leadership on their part.”