Debate contribution: Racially Motivated Riots
Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 15 June 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Matter of the Day
- Heading
- Racially Motivated Riots
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5613080
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Once again, I extend my and my party's sympathy and solidarity to Stephen Ogilvie, who suffered that appalling attack last week, and his loved ones. That appalling attack was responded to by a number of people in a truly appalling way. Some people have talked about "real people"; other people have talked about "legitimate concerns". That phrase has been used again and again. To be clear, people can have legitimate concerns about any number of policies, and they are entitled to talk about immigration. Even if I do not agree with their views, they are entitled to raise those questions. People are entitled to a political opinion with which I disagree, and they are entitled to ask questions about how the perpetrator of the initial attack, for example, was in this place. I want to talk about legitimate concerns. I want to talk about legitimate concerns over what happened on the streets of this city and in this region last week. On Tuesday night, I was phoned by my colleague Councillor Dónal Lyons, who was with a number of families who had been put out of an apartment building on Sandy Row. They were standing in the rain. He asked me if I knew any keyholders nearby. I said that the only one I knew was me, so I opened my constituency office. There were about 30 people, including young families, amongst whom was a one-year-old baby who did not have nappies. I had to go home and get my child's nappies to give to that family. They sheltered in my constituency office. They were there for hours. We brought blankets, made them tea and toast and tried to reassure them until we could establish the location of the council's safe place and how it was going to be stood up. There was no bus transportation, so we drove them slowly, in convoy, across Belfast. A nine-year-old boy was in the back of my car. I was trying to talk to him, with his parents. I was trying to imagine how it would feel for my nearly nine-year-old boy to be got up out of his bed at night by people who were trying to burn his house down. I drove past his primary school, and he asked his mum whether he could go to school the next day. He said that he loved school and had been awarded "Pupil of the Week". We talk in the abstract about people who live in our society. We talk about people who save lives, who work in care homes and who educate our children as if they are abstract. We talk about legitimate concerns and say that communities have legitimate concerns. I have legitimate concerns when I have to drive children in the back of my car to a safe place because someone has tried to burn their house down. That is my legitimate concern. I have legitimate concerns when our entire society is shut down because of AI-generated graphics, when small businesses have to shut, when workers have to lose wages and when schools have to close. Those are my legitimate concerns. I also have a legitimate concern about the fact that we come here to debate the issue but do not have Ministers here to make a statement about it. The First Minister and deputy First Minister should be here. We should be hearing how those people will be housed, because they are still homeless. Despite the myths, they are people on skilled-worker visas, so they cannot, in many cases, go to the Housing Executive. I want to know how we will deradicalise these communities and protect them over the summer. There is a range of things that I want to hear, but I only have three minutes.
We should be talking about all of that today. The First Minister and deputy First Minister should be here.
This is an emergency.
What happened in Belfast and our region last week was a disgrace.
663 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.16 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.70).
- The text criticises or condemns the framing or division (0.90).
- Subject area: Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.19 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.05 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.08 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.09 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.70 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.16 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.05 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.02 |
| Criticises or condemns it (chosen) | 0.90 |
| Adopts it | 0.03 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.95 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.05 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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