Motion or amendment: Role of the Irish State during the Troubles - Amendment 4
Motion or amendment by Mr Timothy Gaston on .
- MLA
- Mr Timothy Gaston
- Party at the time
- Traditional Unionist Voice
- Date
- 7 March 2025
- Type
- Motion or amendment
- Business
- Motion Amendment · Private Members' Motion · to “Role of the Irish State during the Troubles”
- Heading
- Role of the Irish State during the Troubles - Amendment 4
- Assembly identifier
- Document 431666
Read the official Assembly record Open Data source
Text
Role of the Irish State during the Troubles - Amendment 4
At end insert:
‘including, but not limited to, any role in protecting republican terrorists, a lack of cooperation with security forces in Northern Ireland and any alleged collusion between southern authorities and republican terrorists.’
45 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Not flagged on a second assessment, because Jev’s answers did not settle it. The reasons are given below.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.65 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- Criteria met: Dog-whistle messaging (0.62).
- The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.50).
- Subject area: Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism.
- The answers did not meet either automatic 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.
Second assessment
Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works
- Verdict
- Not flagged
- Public interest or divisiveness
- Mainly advances the public interest
Against the published rubric
The amendment adds specific matters to a motion on the role of the Irish state during the Troubles: "protecting republican terrorists", a "lack of cooperation with security forces" and "any alleged collusion". These concern alleged conduct by a state and its authorities, not the character of a community. The words "any" and "alleged" frame them as matters for examination rather than settled accusations. It does not attribute paramilitary violence to nationalists or Irish people as a whole, and it raises no symbolic or cultural grievance.
Public interest or divisiveness
State collusion with paramilitaries and cross-border security cooperation are substantive legacy questions; a public tribunal has already examined such allegations. They are judged by the same standard as calls to investigate British state collusion with loyalists. The motion sits within the recognised flashpoint of competing accounts of the Troubles, but the amendment's evident function is to define the scope of accountability for state conduct rather than to stoke hostility towards a community.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.35 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.23 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.03 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.62 | Yes |
| Controversy escalation | 0.23 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.21 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.65 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.47 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.02 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.01 |
| Adopts it (chosen) | 0.50 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.85 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.11 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.02 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.02 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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