Debate contribution: Speech and Language Therapy: Criminal Justice System
Debate contribution by Miss Órlaithí Flynn on .
- MLA
- Miss Órlaithí Flynn
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 20 February 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Speech and Language Therapy: Criminal Justice System
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4381124
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I am pleased to support the motion, which calls for enhanced support and training in our justice system to help support people with speech, language and communication difficulties. I am glad to see that the motion commends speech and language therapists for the great work that they do in prisons to support adults with those difficulties. Despite the statistic that shows the prevalence of those vulnerabilities — a couple of Members mentioned that more than 60% of the prison population are affected — and the growing number of people who come forward with complex mental and physical health needs, prison staff receive limited training about those vulnerabilities, including about speech, language and communication needs. Unless they are identified and the people with them are properly supported, those needs will act as a barrier to people receiving appropriate referrals, assessments and treatment programmes. Speech and language therapists working across the prison estate can help to support the identification of those needs, provide people with a proper diagnosis and train the workforce on the important links between mental health, speech, language, communication and swallowing needs, as well as on how to respond to those needs. I fully endorse calls made in previous reports into these issues to support prevention and early identification of mental health problems and to train the whole prison workforce to understand the links between speech, language, communication and mental health. Mental health difficulties alone can create communication problems for people. Even if someone does not have an existing speech, language or communication difficulty, a chronic or acute mental health episode can impair their ability to communicate with other people. Specific mental health conditions can have associated communication and swallowing difficulties. Those conditions include depression, schizophrenia, dementia and psychosis. There are also many people in prison with a primary mental health diagnosis who might also have dementia, a brain injury or other long-term conditions. That indicates, again, that there is a greater need for critical speech and language therapy support in that environment. Speech and language therapists can enable people with mental health disorders to develop the skills that they need in order to access information about their condition and give them the ability to express themselves more effectively. Crucially, they can support the wider prison staff and multidisciplinary teams to communicate effectively with people who are battling those issues. Due to the high prevalence of speech, language and communication needs and other complex needs in the prison population, it is important that the entire prison workforce is able to recognise those vulnerabilities and is equipped to deal with them when they arise. In 2019, our Audit Office published a report that was specifically about mental health in the prison system. That report is relevant to today's motion about speech and language therapists. It outlines how, back then, organisations across all stages of the justice system faced significant pressures as a result of the growing mental health needs among the general population. Just as the health system has found it challenging to respond to that huge growth, our justice system is now coming into contact with that increasing number of people who have not been able to access the key health and social care services that they need. I hope that the motion will help support the Minister. It is for not just the Department of Justice but the Department of Education. In the past, the Minister of Justice was supportive of different pilots and programmes for mental health, justice and health — there were pilots for custody suites and multi-agency triage teams — so I know that the will and the want is there, but she will need support from colleagues, particularly in the Department of Health, to take forward the detail in the motion.
627 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 (0.94).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.94 | 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 |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.99 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:42 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.