Member's statement: Our Lady and St Patrick Primary School, Downpatrick: Congestion
Member's statement by Mr Colin McGrath on .
- MLA
- Mr Colin McGrath
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 13 February 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Our Lady and St Patrick Primary School, Downpatrick: Congestion
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4206148
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I welcome the opportunity to make a statement about the education of our children, which we all know is exceptionally important, and the ability of parents, at times, to get to schools. I am sure that we all have schools in our constituencies where there is often serious congestion outside the school gates that causes significant problems. In my constituency, there is a problem outside Our Lady and St Patrick Primary School on Edward Street, which causes much annoyance to those parents who are trying to get to the school and to the residents who live in the area. We have witnessed large lorries and large vehicles making their way down that street, mounting the footpath to get past, forcing children as young as P1 age to be pinned up against a wall. That puts the absolute fear into them as they make their way to school. There is a solution. I met last year with representatives of Sustrans and brought them down to witness what was taking place. The solution is a school street scheme. Such schemes exists in the South, in England and in other places. Effectively, where there is an identified problem, a restriction is put on traffic flow outside the school during the periods when children are arriving and departing. That is enough to make that space safe. It reduces the pollution in those confined spaces that we are forcing our children and young people to consume, and it means that they can get in and out of school freely. We do not have that scheme in place. We were told by the Department that we could not have it because there was no Minister, but I am hopeful, now that we have a Minister for Infrastructure, that we might at least see a pilot project taking place to see whether we can evaluate the benefits. I advocate for that to happen in Edward Street in Downpatrick. I wrote to the Minister on that this morning, and I hope that it is something that we will see. If it takes place and is successful, it should be available in other constituencies. Then, we can allow our children to get to and from school safely.
368 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: 0.02 (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 (0.93).
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.93 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | 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 | 0.66 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.19 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.11 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.03 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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