Graffiti, posters and the like have long been used as a mechanism for instilling fear and entrenching division on the grounds of race, religion or other protected characteristics. Multiple NI authorities bear responsibility for removing graffiti and signage, including the Department for Infrastructure, the Housing Executive, local councils and the police. Yet all too often official bodies either lack sufficient policy direction on how to respond to hate expression or fail to implement it where it exists.

The Committee for the Administration of Justice, in its 2022 report into hate expression in the public space and the official response to it, found “the involvement of elements of paramilitarism in hate expression” to be “the express reason as to why public authorities are reluctant to intervene to remove items” (p. 82). Its report noted that that “paramilitary involvement tends to be downplayed” in particular “as regards the involvement of elements of loyalist paramilitarism in racist intimidation from housing” (p. 16).

The Housing Executive’s Hate Harassment Toolkit explicitly recognises both that graffiti and signage can be a tool of hate and that the Housing Executive bears responsibility for removing it (p. 21); but this has not deterred its use. In a January 2025 report the NI Federation of Housing Associations analysed recent residential deployment of hate graffiti and signage, identifying its use both as a “‘power grab’, as graffiti is placed around an area to ‘scare’ off the ‘other’ community”, and on an individual level, with certain homes targeted to force designated residents out (p. 23). Recent examples of the latter include the summer 2024 campaign of intimidation that used graffiti, threats and criminal damage to make foreign-born NHS nurses and their families leave their homes in the Ballycraigy estate in Antrim and the summer 2025 one that forced Catholic and foreign-born residents from their homes in Oldpark, North Belfast.

anti-immigration posters erected in the Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey remained up for seven weeks as the PSNI and DFI each waited, apparently, for the other to take action. The PSNI eventually took them down.

Meanwhile, recent evidence of the official ‘reluctance to intervene’ described by CAJ in 2022 is not hard to find: in late summer 2024, for instance, anti-immigration posters erected in the Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey remained up for seven weeks as the PSNI and DFI each waited, apparently, for the other to take action. The PSNI eventually took them down.

The Minister for Justice highlighted the harm caused by such delays:

“I welcome what the PSNI have done. I think that was the right decision… I also think it’s important that we look at how other departments can make a contribution to ensuring that this kind of stuff isn’t left to fester, isn’t left to hang on walls, because, when it’s left there, it creates the impression that there is some level of tolerance of the views that are expressed on those posters – and there absolutely isn’t, and can’t be and shouldn’t be.”

The Minister indicated that the PSNI would support other bodies in removing hate materials if they were fearful of threats or intimidation when doing so but called on the whole of the Executive to become involved in what she called ‘a societal problem’.

The Marrinan Hate Crime Review Final Report recognises that “hate speech offences are generally considered separate to and apart from hate crime laws” (para. 26) and are treated as stand-alone criminal offences under specific laws that “criminalise conduct which would not otherwise be criminal” (para. 98).

In one example, Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 prohibits the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour as well as the display and distribution of written material or related activities intended or likely to “stir up hatred or arouse fear” on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender or disability. This legislation was used, for instance, in October 2025 a Lisburn man was charged with seven counts of criminal damage and one of displaying written material to stir up hatred or arouse fear, related to racially-motivated graffiti at a number of locations, including the constituency office of DUP MLA Paul Givan.

CAJ’s 2022 report also pointed to the Protection of the Person and Property Act (NI) 1969, which makes it an offence to unlawfully cause a person to leave their home (or employment) “by force, threats or menaces, or in any way whatsoever”, as well as the Protection from Harassment (NI) Order 1997, as potential mechanisms for prosecuting hate graffiti and signage.

In an April 2025 submission to inform the NI Assembly’s Justice Bill, CAJ related some recent efforts to urge authorities to respond more promptly and effectively to hate graffiti and signage:

“following the escalating situation of housing intimidation through racist posters, and our concerns the approaches by PSNI and DfI were unlawful, we initiated correspondence on a legal challenge with both public authorities. The PSNI subsequently have reviewed their policy and intend to issue revised Operational Guidance. DfI, who have a raft of powers to remove material, have retained their existing policy position and we have remained engaged with them regarding our concerns that their position is unlawful” (para. 12)

The submission asked justice authorities to ensure that the forthcoming Justice Bill fully implements Recommendation 15 of the Marrinan Review: a statutory duty on public authorities to take all reasonable steps to remove hate expression from their own property and from the broader public space.