‘Hate flags’ everywhere in Derry ‘driving really poor relations’ Sinéad McLaughlin tells TEO Committee

Transcript

00:00This year in Derry there is so many flags in our city and there are hate flags as well

00:10and they're everywhere. It is driving really poor relations and we have nothing in our remit and

00:20the authorities to tackle these areas of hate crime and sectarianism because we haven't dealt

00:27with the equality issues. We would sort out so much and make so much progress within Northern

00:33Ireland if we got the structures right, the definitions right and the legislation right

00:38and we would release the authorities to deal with some of the bigger issues and we would drive a

00:43more cohesive and inclusive society and we would deal with our inequalities in a much better way

00:50and that definition and closing those gaps is fundamental for us to actually drive our economy,

00:58to drive wealth and prosperity and we've been held back by these. It might sound as if we're

01:06kind of nearly being academic about some of this stuff because we're talking about it in that

01:11academic piece about what we need in legislation but it's holding whole of society back, it's

01:17holding our housing back, it's holding our government back, it's holding everything back

01:21and that's why we get into the cycle of actually doing nothing because it's too difficult because

01:28we haven't dealt with it. How do we move the definition piece for example on without making

01:36any part or any political party feel that they're under threat as a result of it?

01:42Well on a number of those things, picking up the hate crime piece and the issue of say racist

01:47expression and public space which has been a very live issue over the summer, whilst we welcome

01:53bits of the hate crimes bill being prioritised and aggravated sentences model is very important,

01:59we know there's less time in this mandate to us, it's very important that recommendation 15 of the

02:06hate crimes review which was the statutory duty to remove, to take reasonable steps for relevant

02:12public authorities to take reasonable steps to remove racist, sectarian and other forms of hate

02:16expression from public space is also taken forward as a matter of urgency as part of this package

02:25as well as a lot of the measures around misogyny that were in the hate crimes piece as well to

02:30make sure that they're urgently addressed as well. We think that recommendation that really focuses

02:35on the most harmful forms of expression is the way to begin to move on this and hopefully there

02:42will be no one who's against the removal of blatantly racist hate expression that

02:47constitutes intimidation etc from public space.