north Belfast<\/a> had advised healthcare staff to show their IDs to the rioters as they passed \u201ccheckpoints\u201d set up by the gangs.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely vile and disgusting,\u201d said Ms O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve raised it directly with the Chief Constable. I know that our team in the Policing Board also raised this issue, and I\u2019ve asked the Chief Constable to do a full investigation into this, because I\u2019ve been told by members who work in one of our local hospitals that they stood with police and were told to show their ID to masked men on the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that happened, there needs to be a serious investigation. No nurse or no person going into the workplace to stop at any mob and give their ID. That\u2019s absolutely disgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI think we have to get to the bottom of whether or not that did happen. I put it directly to the Chief Constable, who, in the first instance, dismissed it, but then, whenever I went back to him again, he had to take on board that actually both myself and the Health Minister (Mike Nesbitt) were told this by members of staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Royal College of Nursing engaged with the PSNI on the issue last week.<\/p>\n
While the race-related violence has died down since Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, the weekend did see some isolated incidents in parts of Belfast and beyond.<\/p>\n
Two men were arrested after criminal damage was caused to a property and vehicle in the Donegall Avenue area of south Belfast, while a house in north Belfast was targeted in an arson attack.<\/p>\n
A Together Against Hate rally took place outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday afternoon, with an estimated 3,000 demonstrators in attendance.<\/p>\n
In a statement Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said: \u201cOn the first night of the recent disorder, amongst those rescued by Police and Fire colleagues from their homes, were health workers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere have also been reports of disgraceful threats and intimidation directed to our nurses, carers and other healthcare staff.\u201cIn order to help protect and reassure health staff, I and my teams have been working directly with our Health Trusts and the hugely important Independent Health Sector to listen to their worries and see how we could help. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have also spoken directly with the Royal College of Nursing and UNISON as representative bodies of nursing and healthcare professionals. As a result of these extremely positive engagements Police have committed significant resources to being in the vicinity of our hospitals to reassure and protect staff. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have also held drop-in crime prevention sessions. This support has been greatly received.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the first night of the disorder police were dealing with multiple seats of violence and protest activity across Greater Belfast and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement continues: \u201cWe did receive reports of vehicles being stopped by masked individuals in the Greater Belfast area. Officers responded immediately and a significant mobile policing presence was maintained for a period of time to provide reassurance and prevent the commission of offences. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are aware of reports circulating that police officers may have advised nursing staff outside the Mater Hospital to show their ID to masked men. We are checking our records of Tuesday evening to establish if we can identify any specific reports. I have also engaged directly with the Chief Executive of the Belfast Trust and with senior staff at the Mater Hospital in order to obtain any specific examples they might be aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police must get to the bottom of claims that officers advised healthcare staff to show IDs to masked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1029262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[283190,1434,23524,1144,1610,282574,16,7913,15],"class_list":["post-1029261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-hadi-alodid","tag-michelle-oneill","tag-mike-nesbitt","tag-northern-ireland","tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland","tag-stephen-ogilvie","tag-uk","tag-ulster","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116757384670652969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1029262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Live:](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781576205_691_NMBVCNRYFBGX7HGNTEVJ4FYTRU.jpeg\")
<\/a>![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Y4EXQ6ELXJHCZDDKFQZWMWZOWA.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n