Flags creating ghetto mentality says Dallat

EAST Derry SDLP Assembly Member John Dallat believes there is a deliberate move to ensure that flags continue to fly in the Waterside and other areas of Coleraine well beyond the marching seaso and he has called on all interested parties to ensure that "the tail does not wag the dog".

In a statement to the Times, he said: “It is not my practice to get into arguments involving flags but it has become clear that there is a deliberate move on behalf of tiny unrepresentative group to ‘ghettoise’ whole communities by maximising the number of flags attached to flag poles and ensure that there is no set time for bring these down.

“There has been a great deal of toleration by people in the expectation that things will improve, that we can have a neutral environment and every neighbourhood will be the same and not marked out by sectarian symbolism.

“I am calling on all elected representatives and statutory bodies to support local groups who are striving to bring to an end this out of season activity which now threatened to become a permanent feature of a society divided by the very people who are involved.”

Sinn Fin MLA Billy Leonard has said that the loyalists flags around Coleraine and elsewhere should be taken down and that their continued presence into September proves that those responsible don’t really want the area to move on.

He said: “Many people just interpret that as the usual territory marking particularly when there are loyalist areas with no flags and mixed areas covered in them. And there are also questions for groups such as the Flags Forum; nobody has heard of any attempts to remove the flags now that they have been up for months.”