Debate contribution: Southern Trust: IT Outage
Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on .
- MLA
- Mrs Linda Dillon
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 22 September 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Questions for Urgent Oral Answer
- Heading
- Southern Trust: IT Outage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5123916
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you, Minister, for the written statement that we received, but, as with what we have heard today, that statement does not give us an understanding of why everything had to be cancelled on 18 September, given that the system was back up and running on 17 September by 5.00 pm. I appreciate that the Minister said that there will be a review, and that is important. Will the review give us some reassurances about the future resilience of the IT systems across our health service? Will we get detailed information on patients who were impacted beyond the 1,600 patients whom the Minister outlined? He said that work continues and that there will be an ongoing impact. How many more people do we not know about whose appointments, surgeries, red-flag referrals or diagnoses have been impacted? We need to understand how and when all those people will be accommodated. That means not only the 1,600 whom we know about but the knock-on effect that there will be for others. When will we get the detail on the time frame —
— of the review and all the detail that will come from that?
193 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: 0.02 (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 (0.95).
- 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 | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.95 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | 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 | 0.99 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
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