Debate contribution: Places of Worship: Attacks
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 9 September 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Places of Worship: Attacks
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4511534
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The first thing to say is that the order of business is not agreed by me; it is agreed by the Business Committee, and all parties have Members on the Business Committee. If people are annoyed about the content of the Order Paper, that is for them to take up with the member of the Business Committee who represents them. However, with respect to the time that I have available to me, as I have said, I am about to introduce an extensive piece of legislation. That is the first one. It has already been prepared. The policy development work has been done, and it is ready to go. When I came back into office, I realised in February that it would not be possible. It would have been the fourth of a series of five Bills. I realised that that would put it into the next mandate, which I did not want to happen. Before what happened over the summer occurred, before those considerations, I expedited the most impactful parts of that legislation. I have engaged with the sector: the BAME community, the Islamic community, the LGBTQI community and many others who will be impacted by it. Most of them recognise that the most impactful pieces of Judge Marrinan's report are those that create the aggravator and allow additional categories of protected characteristics to be added to the aggravator and those that will provide for special measures in court. We will proceed with the remainder of Judge Marrinan's report in the Department through policy development, because some of it will require cross-departmental working and full Executive buy-in. I wanted to get the most impactful part of it through in this mandate, because I completely agree with the Member that the behaviours that we have seen on the streets of Belfast and other towns and cities across the UK and these islands are not acceptable. It is not who we are or aspire to be. I want to be sure that there is every opportunity through the courts to make sure that people face the consequences of their actions.
349 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: 0.06 (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 (0.86).
- The text criticises or condemns the framing or division (0.91).
- Subject area: Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations.
- 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 | 0.08 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.06 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.86 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.06 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.09 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it (chosen) | 0.91 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.91 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.06 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.01 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.01 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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