Speeches by Hanna.

“You think it has the capacity to promote to businesses in Britain the ease, viability and advantages of trading east-west. That is great. What issues have you received advice from them on?”

“When?”

““East-west trade” is a very broad concept. What do you mean specifically? What did they advise you on that you did not already know?”

“One of the items that we discussed with Baroness Foster was the lack of understanding from businesses in Britain about how they should and could trade. We recommended that you appoint a GB representative. Do you plan to do so?”

“Minister, I will pick up with you again. You are correct to identify that businesses want to be able to trade north, south, east and west without friction. We met both InterTradeIreland and Intertrade UK, and I wanted to ask you about the latter. In your response, you endorsed our view that Intertrade UK has the potent…”

“You think it has the capacity to do that. I do not know which member you are referring to.”

“Community cohesion is deeply threatened by the violence and menace that took place on the streets last month, which included deliberate orchestration and paramilitary flags and trappings that now fly as bold as brass from lampposts in my constituency and in many others. We can no longer pretend that loyalist paramilita…”

“I will finish on this. You have said, “Of course there are great ideas and great action,” but that is reactive. There is no proactive strategy to address and prevent those issues, despite the fact that we have had three years of deliberate waves of racist violence. I will leave you with one point that you must see in a…”

“Minister Patrick, in 2020, The Detail, an investigative journalism outlet, reported that there were more immigration checks in Northern Ireland than in London. Anecdotally, we hear those checks have only increased. In fact, we hear from some that Northern Ireland is effectively one big border for a lot of people in ter…”

“You said you have spoken to the First Ministers and to the Executive. We have discussed this afternoon and elsewhere the corrosive impact of paramilitaries and the failure to get a grip on that, as well as completely stalled action on some of the quality-of-life issues around waiting lists, lack of housing and economic…”

“You are correct about the frustration, and I acknowledge that on many other issues you are policing political failures, one of which has been the failure to update race hate legislation for over two decades. As you know, many of those representing minority ethnic communities are raising that. Does the absence of update…”

“Of course, and we have spent the afternoon properly. As I say, nobody is negating people's genuine anxiety over, for example, the crime that was the trigger point, as somebody said, for some of the disorder last week. Clearly, there is co-operation, data sharing and extensive checks, but it is unclear if the Government…”

“Is there an adequate response in terms of a cohesion strategy from the Executive?”

“Thank you very much, Davy. We have heard that racially motivated crimes are at the highest level since records began. You rightly raised the response from the voluntary sector; groups like Anaka did much of the heavy lifting on supporting and housing some of the many, many people who were put out of their houses. Do yo…”

“We do not have time to get into this at length, but you have raised the Chief Constable’s confirmation that paramilitary actors were involved in the disorder. You have also raised the reports of checkpoints and healthcare workers being asked for ID from masked men, who we presume were organised. Do you think that there…”

“I appreciate that this is not entirely a policing problem. Right down to paramilitary emblems flying from lampposts all over my constituency and others, there is a tolerance of a level of paramilitary involvement in Northern Ireland that is not, one way or the other, being properly addressed and eradicated.”

“I think you are characterising them as teething issues in terms of growth. I think we are all sympathetic to the deficits in the legislation, but we just want to get an analysis from each of you. Holly, would you mind answering the same question and talking about the issues related to leadership and management, rather …”

“Perhaps my question was too broad; we are aware of some of the deficits in the legislation, but I want to focus on your understanding of which of the issues are a result of leadership and management.”

“Josephine?”

“Thank you.”