Written question AQW 48873/22-27
Written question by Ms Claire Sugden on .
- MLA
- Ms Claire Sugden
- Party at the time
- Independent
- Date
- 17 June 2026
- Type
- Written question
- Assembly reference
- AQW 48873/22-27
- Department
- Department for the Economy
- Business
- To the Minister for the Economy
- Assembly identifier
- Document 490890
Read the official Assembly record Open Data source
Text
To ask the Minister for the Economy to detail (i) any funding allocated to support students, ordinarily resident in the Republic of Ireland, studying at Northern Ireland higher education institutions, in each of the last five years; (ii) the number of such students that were supported in each year; (iii) the proportion of that funding that was provided through the teaching grant, or other departmental funding streams; and (iv) whether the Department has undertaken any assessment of the economic return to Northern Ireland from that expenditure.
86 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: 0.06 (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 (0.91).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- 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 | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.04 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.91 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.06 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.44 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.40 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.07 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.05 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.04 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 07:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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