Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on .
- MLA
- Mr Doug Beattie MC
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 7 December 2022
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Assembly Business
- Heading
- Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4178491
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Merry Christmas to you all. It is warm in here, is it not? It is a bit of a shame that many of our people sitting in their homes right now are cold. Many businesses are looking at their energy bills and saying that they will just not survive this winter. Many service providers are wondering what they can cut just to provide the basic level of service. It is warm in here, is it not? That £600 energy support scheme would have helped other people to be warm also. I know that the recall petition is gesture politics and is born of frustration. I just do not see what we gain from hurling insults across the Assembly while others suffer with the cost-of-living crisis. The reality is that, as was the case for three years with Sinn Féin, the DUP simply does not care. It does not care about people being hungry. It does not care about people being cold. It does not care about waiting lists. It does not care that services are being undermined. It does not care that nurses are going on strike. It does not care that some of our most vulnerable older people will die cold and hungry. The DUP cares about the DUP and about taking votes back off the TUV. That is all that it cares about. The DUP and Sinn Féin are two sides of the same damn coin.
They have shared champagne breakfasts together and taken overseas trips together for the past 16 years, and they have pushed Northern Ireland into the dirt for their own political gain. Mandate. Mandate. I am sick to death of hearing the word "mandate". If your mandate is not the 1·9 million people in Northern Ireland who we work for, you are an absolute busted flush. We have to work for all our people. I am sick of it. I am sick of the word "mandate". The protocol was a bad deal, and it was a bad deal that was facilitated by the DUP. It undermined the UK territorial integrity in 2019, and it undermines the UK's territorial integrity now. However, handing all the power to those who brought in the protocol is absolutely crazy. The Northern Ireland protocol will be dealt with through negotiation between the UK and the EU, or it will be dealt with by legislation. Whether or not we have an Executive up and running will not change that fact. Anyone who tells you that the collapse of the Executive brought anybody to the negotiating table is telling you lies. Global forces brought them back to the negotiating table. The cost of the protocol brought them back to the negotiating table, not this. While some sitting in this Chamber today will feel good about themselves because they are able to raise this issue, the reality is that people out there will still suffer. There are good people out there, there are good people in here and there are good people in the DUP. I know that you do not want to do that, and I know that you think you can scream and whinge and whine like a girl from the sidelines. That is up to you —
That is up to you, but I will not be bullied.
Thank you, and do you know what, Mr Acting Speaker? I am a big enough man to say, when I get something wrong, that I got it wrong. I will apologise —
I got it wrong because I used that terminology. It is exactly the same: they sit and they think that they can barrack and bully you into doing something when we are simply not going to. We are not going to. We will have this Executive up and running, and we will provide for the people of Northern Ireland regardless. It is as simple as that. It will happen because we will get to the same place on the protocol whether we have an Executive or not. The difference is that the people will suffer because of it.
679 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: 0.36 (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).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.71).
- Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
- The overall probability was low and the text did not adopt any identity-based framing.
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 | 0.25 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.21 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.03 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.54 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.26 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.39 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.36 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.71 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.15 |
| Adopts it | 0.14 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.50 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.24 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.17 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.05 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.03 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
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