Debate contribution: Fires in the Mourne Mountains
Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on .
- MLA
- Mr Andrew Muir
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 7 April 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Question for Urgent Oral Answer
- Heading
- Fires in the Mourne Mountains
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4890852
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you, Diane. Yesterday and today, I spoke to the Health Minister, who has overall responsibility for the Fire and Rescue Service, and we will remain in close liaison. I will take the points that you raised to Mike, the Health Minister. All of us in the Chamber and in society have a role to play in this matter. If we are aware of anyone or have any information whatsoever about the deliberate and malicious setting of the fires, we owe it to ourselves, to wider society and to the environment to report it to the police or, if we do not feel capable of doing that, to Crimestoppers. I know that that may be difficult, because we may be reporting a neighbour, but we need to bring the culprits to justice.
Thank you for that important question. It is important that I say that anyone who deliberately and maliciously lights fires in the countryside should be held to account. I am blind to the culprits, but I am also aware of the concerns about the burn period. Today, I urge everyone to refrain from using the last week of the period for prescribed burning in Northern Ireland. I know that there is a week left, but I ask people to draw it to a halt today because of the significant impact that these incidents are having on the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and its resources and on the risk to lives, livelihoods and our environment. I hope to bring a strategic way forward on wildfires to the Executive very soon. In that, I will request that we consult on a different approach to burn periods in Northern Ireland. I am very conscious of the situation in the South, where it ends six weeks earlier than it does here. We need to consider that, and, alongside that, we need to look at better upland management for Northern Ireland. We have to change what we are doing here. I know that that will be difficult for people, but we cannot continue in the current way.
346 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: 0.03 (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 (0.91).
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.91 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | 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 | 0.94 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.05 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:18 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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