Member's statement: General Election 2024: Executive Ministers
Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 28 May 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- General Election 2024: Executive Ministers
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4492042
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Mr Speaker, I welcome you back to the Chair, as Mr Brett did. I also associate myself with the remarks that were made about the abhorrent and appalling actions of the Netanyahu regime in Rafah over the past few days and endorse what was said about Palestinian statehood and Ireland recognising it. That is a huge step forward, but, sadly, it is not enough at the minute for the innocent people cowering in Gaza. We know that the public of Northern Ireland do not think very much of this institution, and they do not think very much of politics or politicians here in general. We have been back in the Chamber and around the Executive table for less than four months. In that time, we have debated motion after motion, most of which have acknowledged the collapsing state of our public services. All of the parties that entered into the Executive and, indeed, the Opposition have acknowledged the parlous state of our finances and our public services. The public, in that context, rightly and understandably expected their politicians at a devolved level to be 100% focused on dealing with those issues, particularly those who were fortunate enough to take up ministerial office and sign the Pledge of Office. Therefore, it is profoundly disappointing, to say the least, that, in the past few days, after the election was called, we have found out that at least two Executive Ministers will run for office. Three and a half months into the Executive's being restored, with our public finances in a state of utter collapse and our public services in ruin, Ministers who solemnly took the Pledge of Office are running to leave office. We wonder why people distrust politics. We wonder why people have contempt for Stormont. Then, the Health Minister, with the NHS among the worst health services in western Europe, resigns, as we found out, at midnight tonight, and the Justice Minister, days after telling us of the parlous state of our justice system, says that she will resign to run for a Back-Bench position. My party will always acknowledge the importance of Westminster. We hope to send as many SDLP MPs back as possible to stand up for this place and, hopefully, get rid of the Tory regime. However, when leaders who have carved out a niche, including, it has to be said, the leader of the Alliance Party, in calling out others for walking away from devolution at the first opportunity walk away or seek to walk away from devolution, that, I am afraid, has to be called out. We can all play party political games, but, when we came back here in February, we said that our priority was public services. It is a shame that —
— certain Executive Ministers are not standing by that.
469 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: 0.11 (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 (0.96).
- 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 | 0.05 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.04 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.05 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.12 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.34 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.11 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.96 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.04 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.57 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.23 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.09 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.06 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.03 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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