Debate contribution: Towards a Shared Island
Debate contribution by Mr David Honeyford on .
- MLA
- Mr David Honeyford
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 3 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- Towards a Shared Island
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4774703
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I also wish the Minister well in his new role. I have been at, I think, every Shared Island event and meeting that has happened in the South. Part of it comes from what reconciliation is and what it looks like in 2025. We are 27 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, so what does reconciliation look like in the next five, 10 or 15 years? For Alliance, reconciliation is a core value of our party. We work for a shared future. We sit outside the two ideologies of constitution — unionism and nationalism — but we give an inclusive alternative base for sharing and reconciliation. We do not form policy based on or filtered through the two uniteds — whether you want a United Kingdom or a united Ireland. We simply base our policy on evidence and research and the simple value of delivering better for everyone. I was asked last week, or the week before last, to give the top three issues in Northern Ireland. My answer was health, education and the economy, and you can flip them around depending on the day, but all three require a shared island approach if we are to deliver solutions for people and to deliver better. Health should be fundamentally based on getting the best possible care: an all-island solution to deliver better, reduce waiting lists and provide better care as quickly as possible, with easy access for treatment.
Organising healthcare throughout the island would yield massive benefits. Children's cancer services are an example of that. A constituent of mine has a young girl who had to travel to Manchester for treatment. At her lowest and most vulnerable point, she had to go on a commercial flight, with all the potential to pick up bugs and infections, rather than there being a solution on the island that she could have availed herself of.
In education, let us look at giving our young people opportunities to study throughout the island, as well as to go across to England, Scotland and Wales. We need to remove the barriers to that. One of my kids went to university in England, and I have one in Dublin. In 1998, 10% of Trinity College students were Northern students, but, today, that figure is less than 1%.
Yes, go ahead.
Thank you. Yes, absolutely. I totally agree. Recently, the Economy Committee looked at creating a north-west hub on the Magee campus. That is an example of collaboration. We could work with the Letterkenny campus to deliver a university there for young people on both sides of the border and enable them to access the highest level of education. As regards our economy, we need to sell this island as one. Just as we do with tourism, we need to use relationships North and South to allow our businesses to scale, grow and export. Invest NI should work in collaboration with IDA Ireland, not try to compete with it. We are nowhere close to the economic figures of the South, and we are only 78% of the average UK gross value added (GVA). We need to focus on an all-island economy that exports to GB and has dual-market access and exports to the EU and world markets. We do not have manufacturing or dual-market access strategies, however. A lot of the manufacturing in the South is outside Dublin, so this would all feed into creating regional balance. I started with reconciliation and I will end on it: what will reconciliation look like moving forward?
587 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: 0.05 (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).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.94).
- Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.86 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.05 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.94 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.06 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.96 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.02 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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