Debate contribution: Family Courts
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 22 October 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Family Courts
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4608457
Read the official Assembly record
Text
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to address a matter that was raised by a Member for East Belfast on 14 October. The Member referred to comments that I made during the Second Stage debate on the Justice Bill on the Committee's request for a Keeling schedule. In my response, I indicated that a Keeling schedule had never been produced for an Assembly Bill. I have since been made aware by the Member that that was inaccurate. In raising the point of order, the Member identified three Keeling schedules that had been provided to Committees as well as a clear commitment that had been given to produce a schedule for one other Bill. She asked me to reconsider providing a schedule for the Justice Bill. I am grateful to the Member for raising the matter. I thought it important to take the opportunity to apologise for my statement being factually incorrect and correct the record. I hope that Members will accept that I was speaking during the debate on the basis of information then provided to me by officials and that my mistake was inadvertent. One of the schedules that have been identified was provided to the Committee for Justice in 2014 on the Legal Aid and Coroners' Courts Bill. It may raise eyebrows that we were unaware of it. However, that Bill predated my time in post as Justice Minister by some time and went through the House during a period when I was not a Member. Further, the officials who managed the Bill in 2014 have since left the Department, so there was no corporate memory in the Department of a Keeling schedule ever having been prepared. We will write to the Committee for Justice shortly in response to a number of requests for information in respect of the Justice Bill, including its request for a Keeling schedule.
314 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: 0.02 (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 (1.00).
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.24 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | 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 |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 1.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
| Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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