Debate contribution: Mental Health: Community and Voluntary Sector Referrals
Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on .
- MLA
- Mr Mike Nesbitt
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 10 June 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Mental Health: Community and Voluntary Sector Referrals
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4495323
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member. I must add this caution: there are so many all-party groups that I am not sure that it will be logistically possible for Ministers to start engaging across that whole sector. I sat on a number of all-party groups, so I very much recognise their importance. It is also important that the right officials from Departments attend all-party groups when it is relevant. For example, back in the day, I was very fond of sitting on the all-party group on social enterprise, and the then permanent secretary of the Department of Finance, Sue Gray, was a regular attender at those meetings. There is a way of better coordinating engagement between all-party groups and Departments at a very senior level. I also say this to the Member. Thinking back to my experience as a victims' commissioner in the Commission for Victims and Survivors, we had maybe 100 groups that were set up to help some of the most vulnerable — people who had been hurt in the conflict, both physically and mentally. The people who were running those groups did not set them up to be chief executives, accountants or human resource managers, yet they seemed to spend a lot of the time doing those things. They spent a very significant amount of their time chasing funds on an annual basis to keep their bodies running. I am very interested in how better we support the voluntary and community sector and effectively free it up to do what it set itself up to do, which is to help vulnerable people.
263 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: 0.03 (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 (0.85).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism.
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.85 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | 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 |
|---|---|
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.86 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.09 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.05 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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