Flags: South Belfast

Part of Adjournment – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 4:45 pm on 27 September 2016.

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Photo of Claire Hanna Claire Hanna Social Democratic and Labour Party 4:45, 27 September 2016

I thank those Members who have taken the time to participate in the debate. It is disappointing and a little bit unusual that there is no Minister in the Chamber today. I appreciate that this is a complex issue and, indeed, could probably have landed in one of three or four Departments. I understand, however, that it was assigned to the Executive Office and that none of the four Ministers is available, despite the normal publication cycle of the Order Paper.

(Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr Kennedy] in the Chair)

No one is saying that flags are the biggest or most pressing concern for the Assembly to discuss, but, nearly two decades after the establishment of the Assembly, it is an issue that we have to make progress on and remove from the "too difficult" pile, where it is with victims, the past, the 11-plus and a number of other issues. Our party and others, including the Alliance Party, which has a long-standing and honourable position on the issue, have been seeking regulation for several years. If that is not going to come centrally, we need to push for it.

A commission on flags and identity has been created, which, after a year, has released the names of its members, but we have yet to hear any news from it. As it is primarily made up of representatives of political parties in the Assembly, it is fair and interesting to hear from those parties in this debate.

The issue of flags sucks up an enormous amount of traditional media and social media time, but, hopefully, we can discuss it here in a way that gives us time to draw out points and that is less fraught than some other discussions. For clarity, by irregular flag flying, I do not mean flags flown from private residences or public buildings.

I defend the right of anyone to fly a legal flag from their home, provided that it is not in support of an illegal organisation or of violence. There are, of course, separate regulations and guidance for public buildings.

In practice, certainly in South Belfast, the issue is primarily related to flags reflecting a unionist or loyalist identity. In a report from Queen's, the ratio is reported as being 13:1. However, in discussing the issue and potential solutions, we will absolutely include all such manifestations of identity, including the hunger strike banners that are being displayed on parts of the Ormeau Road. Although I consider them to be in a different category, flags of the Northern Ireland football team and GAA clubs, which have been up and down at various times in South Belfast during the summer, are entirely regulatable. A 2010 Queen's study suggested that sporting and other displays made up approximately 5% of the total of things flying from lamp posts, but, if there is support for these displays, there should be a lawful way for people to apply, setting out the aims and the purpose of the flying. It is not the primary subject of the debate, but, if a set of principles were agreed, they could be applied to, for example, new murals appearing as well.

Most acutely problematic — they should not be regulated but obviously immediately removed — is the display of paramilitary flags. I noted these as recently as this summer at locations in South Belfast. At the root of the wider problem is the perception by very many people, me included, that, in a lot of cases, those flags are being used to mark territory, to intimidate and to divide. This is an issue raised with me by literally dozens of people every summer. I know that many of them contact all their elected representatives, so those of you from South Belfast will have heard from them as well. It frustrates me greatly to be able to do nothing. Those of us who are elected to represent people are literally powerless in this matter until there is some regulation. There are patchy improvements, and I am glad to report that flags came down in the very mixed neighbourhood of Rosetta just this weekend. I commend the people who were involved in local decisions and had the ability to get flags down in certain residential streets in Finaghy. There are slips too, and flags appear each year in places where they had never been before.

South Belfast is probably the most diverse, vibrant and participative constituency in Northern Ireland. Our neighbourhoods are home to people of all faiths and none and all political backgrounds. Of course, they are home to many people from new communities. I know that many people opt to live in South Belfast precisely because it is so open and welcoming. This is not just an issue of community relations and preventing what in some cases is identity being used as a weapon; there is an economic issue. There is evidence that is quantified year on year by the Northern Ireland life and times survey that flags can produce a chill factor that discourages people from shopping in particular areas.

It is an issue of confidence in law and order. How can people have confidence that the Executive are serious about tackling paramilitaries when in many cases their logos fly unmolested from our public property? They are organisations of community control, extortion and drugs, and, if their logos are able to fly, that shows that we are not in any way serious about addressing them. Although I appreciate that it is absolutely not always the case, national flags that do not bear paramilitary logos are often erected by gangs of men, sometimes with their faces obscured, and it is not that cold in South Belfast in May. That is not just a perception of mine: in the life and times survey, 66% of people across all communities stated their perception that flag flying was done by paramilitaries. I am also aware of families who have received intimidation when a flag outside their house was removed, not by them, I might add. The police will confirm, as will many of us who have had conversations about the cat-and-mouse chasing to get the flags down, that the people who they are conducting those conversations with frequently are in paramilitary groups. I know genuinely that no Member of the Assembly is in any way condoning that behaviour, and I know that there are people with much more benign aims who put up flags and other things, but the fact is that there is a disparity. Your poster about your lost cat or charity disco, which is considerably less divisive, will be removed a lot more quickly.

There is a serious lack of clarity, and I think that there is a deliberate political fudge on what is and is not permissible. For that reason, we believe that fresh legislation is overdue. I want to be clear that the SDLP's preference and ambition is for neutral public space that is free from the flying of this sort of symbol. We are not blind to the fact that not all of them are malign. I understand that not everybody is seeking to just mark territory. Also, we know that that aspiration is not shared by all parties in the Chamber.

We think it is time for a fair compromise. Fair compromises are possible. I believe one took place at City Hall on designated day flying. In this case, we think it should be based on the principle that individuals and small groups do not get to decide on the character and atmosphere of an entire neighbourhood and that one event or political viewpoint cannot dominate a whole neighbourhood for months on end. As stated, we support the right of any individual or family to fly a legal flag but do not support someone unilaterally, with no consultation, projecting that view on everybody else for the whole summer and longer.

For the many constituents who contact me on this, it is the duration of flag flying that distresses them most. I grew up a few metres off the Lisburn Road. In fact, in 30 years at five addresses in South Belfast, I have never lived more than 200 metres from a main route that has been flagged and a main parade route, and I will state for the record that I have never in my life objected to an Orange parade along those routes. When I was growing up, flags went up about a week before the Twelfth demonstration and came down about a week after. People probably were not dying about it — we were not dying about it — but we lived and let live because we understood how important that key parade route was to very many people. We understood there was a balance: the flags went up and came down in a fairly timely fashion. That compromise has been lost now in many areas, as flags are left to rot for months on end.

I did a small survey last summer to gauge the level of local support for flags. I did it in one ward, and I think it could be done in others. Malone Ward runs, as South Belfast representatives know, from Balmoral Avenue to Marlborough Park. I walked up one day, and there were 23 flags on lamp posts. I did a consistent survey in every street in the ward, which is home to about 4,000 people in about 200 households. I found that four houses were flying flags, so I do not think it is fair to say that that is representative of the neighbourhood. I am not saying it is a plebiscite in every area — other factors will be taken into consideration — but I do not think the views of four households should have been projected on to every household in that ward and in a very busy shopping area for so many months.

Much reference is made to the 2005 flags protocol, which was devised between the PSNI and various Departments. It has been eroded in almost every aspect. The proliferation of flags on arterial routes was supposed to have been prevented, and flags were definitely not supposed to be flown in integrated areas. Finaghy, the Lisburn Road, the Ormeau and Rosetta fit that bill probably more than any streets.