Topical question AQT 1581/22-27

Topical question by Mr Mark Durkan on 23 September 2025.

MLA: Mr Mark Durkan
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 23 September 2025
Type: Topical question
Assembly reference: AQT 1581/22-27
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5129682

Text

Mr Durkan asked the Minister for Communities whether he will publish in full the options and advice that he received from officials before he decided that the north-west would get nothing from the Northern Ireland Football Fund, as, when asked last week, the Minister decided that attack was the best form of defence and did not really answer.

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

Follow-ups by the same MLA in the Chamber

These were assessed together with this record:

23 September 2025 – Gabh mo leithscéal. I certainly did not slur any officials, nor did I slur any clubs. Obviously, any and all clubs that…

Assessment

Not flagged

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: 0.11 (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 (0.81).
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

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.08	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.02	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.11	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.09	No
Controversy escalation	0.07	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.81	Yes
Overall judgement	0.11	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
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 area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.50
Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies	0.48
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.01
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.01
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:10 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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