Belfast City Council could be forced to end its policy of flying the Union flag from the City Hall every day of the year, after an internal report warned it may breach new equality laws.
The Irish News has obtained a report circulating within the council that warns the flag-flying policy could lead to political and religious discrimination cases.
While Northern Ireland Office guidelines allow for the Union flag to be flown from government buildings on 15 days each year, the Union flag flies from the City Hall for 365 days.
Councils are not bound by the Flags (Northern Ireland) Order 2000 act.
But the new council report warns that its flag policy could lead to nationalist employees taking religious/political discrimination cases.
The council also allows the flag to be flown from its offices at Duncrue Street and the Ulster Hall for 19 days every year.
But the report warns that a Fair Employment Tribunal "might not look favourably" on the flying of the Union flag at council-owned buildings – other than the administrative centre, the city hall – on any occassion.
The council report warns: "Senior counsel concludes that there is a degree of risk that the flying of the Union flag at the city hall on days other than designated flag days, and at other premises even on designated flag days only, could be held to infringe the concept of a neutral working environment for those who work in those buildings."
And the report warns that any Fair Employment Tribunal would be unlikely to accept the sole defence that the council's flag policy was the "custom and practice over many years".
While Belfast's 51 councillors control policy on flying the flag from the dome of Belfast City Hall, they have no authority over the flag 'flown' inside the Lord Mayor's parlour.
When elected as Belfast's first republican lord mayor last year, Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey chose not to remove the Union flag from the parlour, but instead placed an Irish tricolour alongside it.
The report now warns that councillors cannot duck the controversial issue of flag waving.
"If the council failed to give consideration to the question of whether flying the Union flag at the city hall every day in the year might be excessive or provocative," it would, senior counsel states, "be at risk of being found to have failed to comply with the provisions of its Equality Scheme."
The implications of flying the Union flag on council offices could also have an impact on Antrim, Ards, Banbridge, Castlereagh, Coleraine, Newtownabbey and North Down councils which each fly the flag throughout the year.
