Debate contribution: Children’s Mental Health: Cross-departmental Cooperation
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 30 September 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- Children’s Mental Health: Cross-departmental Cooperation
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4564155
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I never fail to be amazed by the zombie-like collective memory loss about the part that the parties here played in the escalation of our mental health crisis through the deployment of fear and the lockdown philosophy. It amazes me that that has not been raised in any of today's debates. To prove my point, I will place on record the school attendance statistics. In 2017-18, 16·9% of children missed 10% or more of school. In 2018-19, that figure was 15·8%. However, in 2021-22, 35% of children missed over 10% of school. In 2017-18, 4% of children missed 20% or more of school. In 2018-19, that figure was still 4%. However, in 2021-22, it was 10·7%, and, in 2022-23, it was 8·7%. If you drill down into those figures, you see that it is even worse. In 2021-22, 4,145 pupils did not attend school for over 50% of the time. Of those, 1,280 missed over 80% of school. However, in 2017-18, 1,731 children missed 50% of school, and only 523 missed 80% of school. The deployment of fear and the lockdown philosophy doubled every one of those statistics. These are children. I would like to know how we are going to fix the mistakes of the Department of Health and the zombie Assembly. Unless we know the root cause of the problems, we are not going to solve anything. That will start with each Member looking in the mirror and at the part that they played in the deployment of fear, which scared our children. I am not saying that those stats are all down to mental health, but you can see the clear correlation.
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
282 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: 0.14 (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 (0.99).
- 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 | 0.06 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.10 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.19 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.11 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.55 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.14 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.99 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.01 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.55 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.39 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.05 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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