Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On a bonfire in east Belfast in recent days, there was a coffin with a picture of Mr. Martin McGuinness, deceased on it, and in other parts of the Six Counties there were bonfires with election posters of SDLP, Sinn Féin and Alliance candidates, some of whom are elected MPs, MLAs, MEPs, our national flag and various other effigies. A couple of years ago, when a priest sadly took his life in west Belfast, they had an effigy of the priest hanging from a gallows in the bonfire. These are symbols of hate. What troubles me is that children and young people were looking on at the bonfires, so another generation are being infected with the cancer of sectarianism and bigotry.

Had a picture of the Reverend Ian Paisley been placed on a coffin that was put on a bonfire in a nationalist area, and the Sinn Féin representatives who were asked to comment remained silent, everybody would know what would happen. Every radio and television station, and rightly so, would call them to account for their complete lack of leadership and cowardice in the face of bigotry, evil and sectarianism. We have to ask whether the DUP, whose members are the leaders of the unionist community in the North, have been silent on this matter. Why is that party holding the British Government in place? How can we be serious about anti-racism measures and sectarianism on these islands if the SDLP, Sinn Féin, Alliance Party elected politicians have their posters and, much worse, the effigies of those who have died placed on bonfires and that behaviour is not challenged?

Will the Government demand an explanation from the DUP? Will the Government demand an explanation from the British Government as to why it is not challenging the DUP, its partners in Government about its silence on this issue? This is an issue of major importance. People are outraged, they are sick of such behaviour and want an end brought to it in the year 2017?