Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 16 June 2026.

MLA: Mr Timothy Gaston
Party at the time: Traditional Unionist Voice
Date: 16 June 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5624529

Text

Ms Sheerin, I can certainly assure you that I am no pawn for the DUP. I signed the petition of concern out of conviction and principle as soon as I knew that it had been laid because — you know what? — it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do because I could not trust Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance or, of course, Mr Carroll from People Before Profit to make a decision that would safeguard my children and their future. I will take no lectures from Sinn Féin — especially not from you, Ms Sheerin —
It is good to hear that you now have an interest in victims, given that, for many years, those in your party did not. They were the victim-makers. Maybe that is a part of history that you do not want brought up. You do not want to talk about that bit of history, but, while I am in the Chamber, I will make sure that you and the rest of your party are never allowed to forget it. I will move on to the Alliance Party. I give the Alliance Party credit for at least mentioning this in its manifesto. Buried away on page 23 of its 94-page manifesto is the sentence:
"Change the age of criminal responsibility from ten, which is one of the lowest in Europe, to 14."
The party gave that a lot of thought: it put in one line about it. Continuing that train of thought, I want Members to cast their minds back to the Second Stage debate on the Bill, which was on 1 October 2024. During my contribution, I cautioned Members against any attempt to amend the Bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility, reminding the House of:
"the horrendous murder of two-year-old James Bulger by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables." — [Official Report (Hansard), 1 October 2024, p70, col 1].
True to form —
— an Alliance MLA got to their feet to make a point of order. I will take an intervention in a minute. That MLA stated:
"On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought that, particularly at the Second Stage of a Bill, Members should speak to the principles of the Bill." — [Official Report (Hansard), 1 October 2024, p70, col 1].
The party of the Member who said that that was not a principle of the Bill has tabled an amendment on it. I say that so that we can keep up and to ensure that everybody is aware of the duplicity of the Alliance Party, because this is what it intended to do all along: it intended to have a Bill that would be wide enough to allow it to farm out to other MLAs in the party things that it could not get through the Executive, so that they could bring those things through and do the Minister's bidding. I am happy to give way to my North Antrim colleague.

500 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Flagged Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism

Jev’s structured answers met every documented threshold for flagging as culture-war activity.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.78 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
Criteria met: Dog-whistle messaging (0.67); Controversy escalation (0.61).
The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.74).
Subject area: Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism.
All thresholds for flagging were met.

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

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.50	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.45	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.04	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.67	Yes
Controversy escalation	0.61	Yes
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.26	No
Overall judgement	0.78	Above flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.26
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it (chosen)	0.74

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism	0.58
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.36
No identity-related subject	0.05
Another identity-related subject	0.01
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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