Long-awaited flag report to be published

Sinn Féin's Chairperson Declan Kearney - publishing the report without implementation plan is 'a mistake'

A long awaited report into flags, identity, culture and tradition in Northern Ireland will be published by Stormont's Executive Office later.

The details will finally be released five years after the body was set up to consider how to deal with some difficult issues around identity and culture.

The Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition was established in 2016 by the then First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

However, the collapse of Stormont in 2017 contributed to the delay in delivering the final report.

It's understood the report has cost more than £800,000 and while it makes a number of recommendations, there is no agreement from the Executive Office with responsibility for it, to take these forward.

At a press conference at Stormont on Tuesday, Sinn Féin Junior Minister Declan Kearney was critical of the lack of agreement.

He said he believed that publishing the report without an implementation plan was a "mistake".

He added: "I would much rather see scaffolding established in order to ensure an orderly implementation of those proposals within the report that I believe are deliverable.

"There are then clearly challenges which remain, but if we had had a framework of next steps then we could tackle those.

SDLP MLA Sinead McLaughlin said: "The First Ministers have had the FICT report for more than 16 months, it has been eight months since the Assembly voted to compel them to publish the document.

"And now we learn that in that time they have produced not a single idea on how to implement any of the recommendations. It's a farce.

"The Commission was designed to address the longstanding issues of culture and identity that have divided Stormont politicians for far too long.

"Now, having received their recommendations, Michelle O'Neill and Paul Givan can't seem to agree on what to do with them.

"These issues go to the heart of divisions in our society and the failure to reconcile our people. It is far too important a challenge to allow this document to become an £800,000 ornament at Stormont Castle."

The issue was mentioned at Stormont's Committee for the Executive Office meeting on Wednesday afternoon ahead of publication.

Ms McLaughlin, Committee Chair, again expressed disappointment over the lack of agreement on implementing any recommendations made. "It's a failure of politics, its dysfunctionality, at the very least, it's dysfunctionality," she commented.

She proposed inviting the two joint chairs of the Commission to provide a briefing to the Committee in the near future.

However Sinn Féin Pat Sheehan MLA rebutted that it was the DUP who blocked publication of the report for a long time. "It's the DUP who is blocking the publishing of an implementation plan," he added. "You can talk all you want about, 'you just have to get through this blockage' but the fact is, there is a blockage and there is one party responsible for it.

"I think that every other party in the Executive would be quite happy for an implementation plan to be published along with the report."