Mary Lou McDonald: Condemns Belfast Knife Attack, Demands Justice

Taoiseach, we must address events in Belfast over the last 48 hours. A knife attack on Monday night that was barbaric, vicious and depraved, the stuff of nightmares. The victim suffered horrific slash injuries to his eyes, his face and neck. And were it not for the selfless bravery of members of the community, including Mathieu McTeagran, putting himself at risk, jumping from his car and using his son's hurl to stop the brutal assault, the victim would surely have lost his life. I want to acknowledge and to thank the first responders on the scene and to acknowledge the swift action of the PSNI who apprehended the suspect of this heinous crime. He is now in custody and he now faces the full weight of the law and must pay a heavy price for this brutal crime. My thoughts of course are with the victim and his family as they live through this nightmare and as he continues to be treated in hospital. It was right that political leaders in the North came together to unequivocally condemn this attack and to call for the swift delivery of justice. The assault provoked genuine shock, disgust and anger across communities. He shook last night groups of masked men, burned families out of their homes, targeted and attacked innocent people, terrified and endangered small children. We witnessed racist intimidation and violence orchestrated by loyalist and far-right thugs. People hell-bent on whipping up hatred for their own ends. Many of those leading this violence are the same people who will burn tricolours on the top of bonfires on the 12th of July. What occurred last night echoes back to the pogroms on Bombay Street in 1969, when families and children were burnt out of their homes by loyalist mobs. Why? Because they were Catholic. Why? Because they were Irish. Many were forced to leave, fleeing for their lives across the border into Dundalk and beyond, refugees in their own country. This was inflicted on Irish nationalists time and again. And when we said never again, when we said that we would never allow anyone to be treated this way again, we meant it and we meant anyone. Not Irish, not any community. Nobody has the right to spread fear, to intimidate, to terrify innocent families. And we have a duty to communities to show political leadership, to stand up for what is right. The good, decent people of Belfast have lived through division and hatred before. They wear the scars and the pain of those times. And they will not allow it to happen again. They will not allow their peace and their better future to be robbed from them. Taoiseach, in the aftermath of this violence, threats have been made to the life of Belfast's Mayor, Rois Muiradh Donnelly. She will not bow to these threats of violence against her. She will continue to stand with every community in Belfast and continue to call out racist thugs. Taoiseach, I want to ask you to join with me in offering support to the victim of Monday night's vicious assault and to take this opportunity to condemn unequivocally the appalling violence, orchestrated violence carried out against innocent families last night. Thank you Taoiseach. Well, first of all, may I say that the events of the last few days in Northern Ireland have filled us with horror. The attack on that individual, that young person two nights ago, was absolutely savage, horrific, and our thoughts are with the victim and his family. Beyond our comprehension that a person could wield such violence on another individual in such a manner. A very graphic representation of that on social media, I think, has shocked many, many people. That said, and I like you would salute the courage of Matthew McTiernan for his intervention, his very brave intervention to save essentially the life of the victim. The violence of last night has to be wrongly condemned. I want to pay tribute to all of the political leaders yesterday who responded in the first instance to the attack on the previous evening and the unified message condemning any attacks on individuals and families and on homes. And what we witnessed last evening is absolutely appalling. That families would be burned out of their homes because of race or ethnic reasons. And there is a, and I would join with all members of this house in condemning unreservably the attacks of last evening. They were orchestrated. The situation, and we've had evidence of this in other countries where situations like this get manipulated, exploited is a stronger word, sorry, and which results in the violence of the type we saw last evening. And I think all of us have to be very vigilant, very clear in standing up for fundamental values, particularly human values in terms of the dignity of every single individual in our society. We uphold the dignity of every individual. And we defend that irrespective of what transpires or what occurs. And that we also fully support the rule of law. In this instance, we fully support the PSNI in terms of its investigation of both the crime against that young individual and also the violence and the criminal activity that was in evidence last evening across the north, but particularly in Belfast. And we will work, and Garda Siocana will continue to work with the PSNI in terms of the broader issues that relate to this. But more fundamentally, we must call on all citizens to support the police, in this instance the PSNI, to get swift justice in respect of the appalling attack to Netsko, but also in terms of those who targeted individuals in their homes, who burned out people from their homes, which brings back, yes, appalling incidents of that kind in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but has a particular manifestation in today's world. And I just watched some of the commentary from some social media outlets and indeed from some media platforms of a particular orientation or political disposition, which I think, to say the very least, was decidedly unhelpful in terms of how they portray the events of the last 48 hours. There can never be any implied justification for the attacks of last evening. There can never be any attempted rationalisation of it either. No one has the right to take the law into their own hands, and no one has the right to say to someone, you're not living here anymore. Thank you. Deputy Mac Donald. Of course Taoiseach, everyone has the right to live in safety, and that vicious, depraved assault causes all of us disgust. Savagery like this has no place on our streets in no part of Ireland, and of course the perpetrator of an act like that must face the full weight of justice. The organised mobs, and this was organised, who burned families out of their homes, who terrified children. These are the same people, by the way, who in July will burn Irish tricolours on the top of their bonfires. They need to be facedown. Their organised racism needs to be facedown. And to carry out actions like that, and then to threaten the life of Belfast's first citizen, Rush Murdonnelly, reflects just how serious this matter is again. Can I invite Taoiseach again to assert that we will jointly face this down, and can I ask you to address the issue of those threats to Belfast's first citizen. Well, such threats are appalling, and must be wrongly condemned, and unfortunately it's become an increasing phenomenon in this era, that there are increasing numbers of threats to public representatives across the board, and to threaten the Lord Mayor in the context of yesterday and the day before is appalling, and has to be condemned. All threats to public representatives have to be condemned, and unfortunately both the Gardaí and the PSU are pursuing too many cases where threats are made to the lives of politicians in this House, in the Northern Assembly, in this case the Lord Mayor, and we all join in condemning that. And also, yes, we have to face down racism. We also have to make sure that our Gardaí here, and the PSU in the north, are adequately resourced and supported without any equivocation in all communities to pursue these people, and to pursue these people who seem to think that they can create an alternative legal framework to get their way. They must be resisted by all of us.