Topical question AQT 547/22-27

Topical question by Mr Brian Kingston on 23 September 2024.

MLA: Mr Brian Kingston
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 23 September 2024
Type: Topical question
Assembly reference: AQT 547/22-27
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4544008

Text

Mr Kingston asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister, after stating that youths from Ardoyne have been causing sectarian nuisance over the past four days at Hillview Retail Park and in that part of north Belfast, entering Tennent Street and Cambrai Street, with tools that they were carrying being recovered by the police, which has resulted in security gates on both sides of the community being closed early by the police, whether they agree that, in the interests of good relations, everyone in the community should use their influence to bring such behaviour to an end so that people and shoppers can live in peace.

106 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Follow-ups by the same MLA in the Chamber

These were assessed together with this record:

23 September 2024 – Given that yesterday was the fourth day, as the First Minister said, it cannot be left as a matter for the police:…

Assessment

Not flagged

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: 0.22 (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 (0.71).
The text criticises or condemns the framing or division (0.71).
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

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.47	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.15	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.07	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.50	No
Controversy escalation	0.13	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.71	Yes
Overall judgement	0.22	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.03
Reports or questions it	0.02
Criticises or condemns it (chosen)	0.71
Adopts it	0.24

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	1.00
No identity-related subject	0.00
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 11:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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