WATERFORD CITY AND County Council said they will be erecting new pride flags around the city on Monday with the Minister for Equality.

Mayor of Waterford City, Damien Geoghegan, said he will be meeting Minister Roderic O’Gorman on The Mall to raise the flags on Monday afternoon. More flags will then be raised “at various different locations throughout the city”, Geoghegan said.

“I’d like to thank the minister also for travelling to Waterford and making arrangements,” he said. “And for showing solidarity with the people of Waterford on this occasion.”

At the weekend, Geoghegan said that Waterford City and County Council intended to install more flags and look at ways of securing them.

Today, he said the Council is currently working on better ways of securing the flags.

“The intention is to put them up in a more secure fashion, in a more secure manner,” he said. “It’s a pity that we have to do that, but they’ve obviously been attacked and destroyed now on two separate occasions.”

On Sunday night, 6 June, the two original pride flags were removed from outside the Menapia Building on The Mall and burned. A man in his forties was arrested in connection with the incident.

The flags were removed a second time from their poles last Saturday in what Geoghegan called a “truly despicable act”.