Stormont bodyto considerflying tricolour

THE diehard Sinn Féin desire to see the Irish tricolour hoisted at Stormont will soon be considered by a commission including Londonderry MLAs William Hay and Pat Ramsey, the Sentinel can reveal.

The NI Assembly Commission - of which Mr Hay and Mr Ramsey are both members - will soon meet to consider the contentious issue.

Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey - who controversially brought the Irish tricolour into Belfast City Hall during his stint as Mayor of that city - asked the Commission whether it would consider flying the “Irish National Flag in order to better represent Nationalist and Republican communities who use Parliament Buildings.”

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DUP MLA and Commission member Peter Weir said that whilst the Commission had not yet given consideration to the flying of the Irish tricolour this looks set to change.

“The Assembly Commission has not given consideration to the flying of the Irish National Flag,” said Mr Weir. “However, the Commission has a statutory duty to have regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group.

“The Commission has agreed to have a future meeting specifically to consider Good Relations issues,” he said.

Consideration of the matter is certain to stoke controversy given divisions over flying flags previously.

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From 1954 and the enactment of the Northern Ireland Flags and Emblems Act the RUC were often forced to remove “emblems” including flags of any kind other than the Union flag but mostly the Irish tricolour.

Nationalists and republicans provocatively defied the law and often sparked riots in the lead up to the Northern Ireland Troubles, most notably in 1964.

More recently, in 2000 and shortly after the Belfast Agreement, the then Secretary of State Peter Mandleson introduced new regulations to enforce the flying of the Union flag over government buildings after a row over the matter at Stormont.

Mr Mandleson’s regulations provided for the Union flag being flown on 17 days of the year, on seven government buildings, including Remembrance Sunday and royal occasions.

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