15 June 2025

The SDLP Opposition will this week demand a clear, coordinated response from the Executive on the appalling riots of the past week, including greater resources for the PSNI, enhanced hate crime legislation and timelines for publication of refugee integration and racial equality strategies – as well as asking the police and monitoring bodies to confirm clearly what involvement loyalist paramilitaries have had in the violence.

The Opposition will be ensuring the Communities Minister is held accountable for his irresponsible and inflammatory posts about the housing of vulnerable people in Larne leisure just hours before the premises was attacked by arsonists.

The SDLP will also be writing to the Chief Constable and Independent Reporting Commission to request public clarity on the involvement of loyalist paramilitaries, either formally or informally, in the violence of the last week – and other surges in racially motivated violence, including last summer’s riots in Belfast.

Opposition Leader Matthew O’Toole MLA said:

“The violence we have seen over the past week has shamed this society. Words of condemnation are important, and shamefully certain unionist politicians have found it impossible to even offer condemnation without equivocation or double talk.

“Now the real test of our devolved institutions is whether they can act on the heinous events of the past week. The SDLP Opposition will be seeking to hold them to account for what they do in response to the events in Ballymena and elsewhere. Will we see the Finance Minister work with the Justice Minister to increase PSNI numbers beyond simply the short-term additional funding promised in recent days? And will the Justice Minister move to update our outdated hate crime laws, something she said was a priority but has seen no progress since Stormont returned? When exactly do the First Ministers plan to engage seriously on the epidemic of race hate we are seeing in Northern Ireland given their responsibilities for good relations and racial equality?

“And of course, we will be insisting on clear accountability for a Communities Minister whose disreputable and irresponsible social media posts appear to have flown in the face of his pledge of office.

“The Executive cannot simply let the events of the past week slide by with the kind of inaction and passivity which has become their trademark – people’s lives are at stake and the SDLP Opposition will be pressing for meaningful action to protect those people and tackle hate in our society.”