Member's statement: Confidence in the Justice System

Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 3 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

3 June 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Confidence in the Justice System

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4985703

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Before I come to my remarks, I will respond to Dr Aiken, who earlier, I think, compared a Bill that is being discussed in Dáil Éireann to the Nazis. Dr Aiken is entitled to robust views on Israel, but I genuinely ask him to consider his earlier remarks, because they are remarkably intemperate. Yesterday, in the Chamber, I asked the Justice Minister about a subject that has received much commentary and is of high public interest in Northern Ireland: the sentence given to Mr Winston "Winkie" Irvine. I respect the fact that the Justice Minister did not want to comment on a specific sentence — it is right that any Justice Minister is clear about judicial independence and not straying into that area — but I also asked her about broader confidence in the justice system and, indeed, broader concerns about this society and some of the moral hazard that we have created by allowing people to continue to exert coercive control over communities while drawing money from the public purse and, it appears, being able to enjoy some level of public esteem or some level of private power and influence to the extent that the great and the good write letters to try to get them a lighter sentence.

There is a broader question for the justice system when an individual — any individual, by the way — is not charged with terror offences or even membership of a terrorist organisation when lots of UVF paraphernalia are found at a property belonging to them and when, as soon as they arrive in Maghaberry jail, they are put in the segregated loyalist wing. Those are real questions for our society, and broader policy questions arise from them. Lots of people in the constituency that I represent feel frustrated that they can do nothing when a UVF/UDA flag appears in their street, and the same would be true of IRA or dissident paraphernalia. People want to live in a society that has moved on from all that. They want something different and something better.

However, they feel that we have created some kind of strange, post-conflict Shangri-La where, if you have some kind of affiliation or influence or you are deemed to be the right kind of person, you can draw money from the public purse, gain access to senior people — politicians, diplomats or senior members of the police — get invited to cushy panels paid for by the public purse or at someone else's expense, and, frankly, get treated in a more lenient way by the justice system, including, when you get sent to Maghaberry, getting immediately put on to a segregated wing.

Those are real questions. Yesterday, I was disappointed to hear the Justice Minister avoid those questions — nothing to do even with the specifics of one sentence but with the broader justice system. It gets right to the heart of the situation that we have created: the weird Shangri-La —

— for people who continue —

— to exert coercive control in our society. It has to end.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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