Debate contribution: Illegal Immigration: Impact in Northern Ireland

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 20 May 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

20 May 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Illegal Immigration: Impact in Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4964470

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Today's debate has been robust, which it needed to be. It has not always been cool-headed, and the purpose in tabling the motion in the way that it was tabled was, in fact, almost revealed by something that was said by a speaker from the DUP Benches: it was designed to be provocative and to provoke a reaction, which it has. The reaction has been, frankly, to remind the DUP, first of all, that the Executive have not published a refugee integration strategy. That is what our amendment says clearly. The primary mechanism in policy terms that the Executive have to address issues that there may be around the impact of irregular migration — asylum seekers who are human beings fleeing war and conflict — is the publication of an unpublished refugee integration strategy. That was not mentioned in the DUP's motion or in its speeches. That party has, in effect, called a Minister who has the most marginal — I spend a lot of my time holding this Minister and others to account — and relatively small responsibility, in statutory terms, for any of the issues that it is talking about. That reveals to me that the entire exercise is about playing populist, right-wing games, as I said, and I regard much of what various DUP Members have said today and the theatrical umbrage that was taken to people robustly calling them out as, frankly, synthetic. Members on the DUP Benches, including Mr Brett and Mr Frew, said repeatedly, as did Mrs Erskine, that we were calling people who expressed concerns about migration "racist": that is a lie. It is an outright lie.

No, I did not. Go back and check the record. I said that your party is chasing the TUV down a right-wing rabbit hole because it is desperate about polls and is playing to a populist gallery. I did not say anything —.

Hang on, Mr Clarke. I did not say

No, no, you are heckling from a sedentary position. I did not say one word — not one word — about ordinary constituents.

I will address a few of the substantive points, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

I will not give way, because I have a limited amount of time. I normally give way. As he knows, I am generous in that regard. On multiple occasions, the amount that the UK Government are spending on asylum seekers and illegal migration, as it is called, was cited. It is important to say that that is a decision made by the UK Government. If you want us to have more control over migration policy, frankly, you should advocate an entirely different arrangement for this place, because we do not control immigration policy here. It was also said on multiple occasions that money that was being spent on asylum seeker accommodation could have been spent on any number of other policy priorities. Of course I want more money to be spent on other policy priorities, and I am concerned about the amount of money that Mears, for example, receives in profits. Yes, I want to see more support and spending on a lot of those things. Your party is in charge of the Executive. You have the power, first of all, not to collapse the Executive every five minutes, and you have the power to direct the priorities of the Executive in a different way. Those are powers that you have here that, I am afraid, you are choosing not to use. Somewhat absurdly, the argument — and I just want to capture this point. I respect what you said, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, about the ruling of the Chair, but I want to challenge the idea that I said anything about working-class communities or individual constituents not being able to have concerns about immigration and about that being racist. It is not, and I did not say that. I want to be absolutely clear about that. What I said —.

I do not have time, I am afraid. I normally give way, but I will not on this occasion. I want to pick up on a couple of other points that were made. Mr Gaston, somewhat absurdly, blamed the protocol. Somehow, the protocol is now responsible for immigration. I would be genuinely fascinated to hear how that happened.

He is going to talk about the Rwanda policy and that judgement. That is one area of immigration policy, and that policy has now been changed by the UK Government. He should reflect on this: if the UK Government's immigration choices are so awful, he might ask himself why we are placed in a position of having to debate them in the Chamber while having very little control over them. He has one MP in the Commons: he might draw some conclusions in that regard. He said that the Gaston family came from elsewhere. I presume that that means that they are the 'Beauty and the Beast' Gastons. I will not ask him which section his family arose from. It is important, when we talk about all of these things, that, first of all, we reflect on basic humanity and practicality. What we heard today was, I am afraid, an indulgence in pocket Powell politics rather than serious solutions

Despite the jeering from Members opposite —

— there were no serious practical proposals.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The speech responds to a motion on illegal immigration by defending asylum seekers as "human beings fleeing war and conflict" and making substantive points. These include the unpublished refugee integration strategy, the fact that immigration is not devolved, the profits of the accommodation contractor and how the Executive sets its spending priorities. Much of it is sharp party-political combat: it accuses the motion's sponsors of "populist, right-wing games" and mocks a member's family background. One line, "pocket Powell politics", amounts to an accusation of racially charged politics against a party, which the rubric treats as an identity-based attack. That line is brief, however, and the speech's main thrust is to rebut the framing of migrants as a burden rather than to advance it.

Public interest or divisiveness

The contribution mainly opposes the presentation of migrants as a threat or a drain. It redirects the debate towards practical levers such as an integration strategy, the limits of devolved competence and Executive budget choices. Its tone is heavily adversarial, though, and includes personal ridicule and a loaded historical jibe that keep the partisan row going. Both the substantive defence and the point-scoring are significant parts of the speech.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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