Debate contribution: Sensory Room: Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children
Debate contribution by Mr Danny Baker on .
- MLA
- Mr Danny Baker
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 4 November 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Sensory Room: Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5217219
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Cheryl, thank you for securing the debate this evening and for sharing your story. Society and the system make our children with additional needs vulnerable. This is about a very basic ask; it should be there in the first place. In my constituency, I find it very frustrating that so many families need us intervene in order for them to get some of the most basic equality measures. In education, children with additional needs are offered places that do not exist. We do not do that to mainstream children, so why do it to children who need that support? In health, I have been blown away by some of the cases that I have to deal with. I think of children who need a dental appointment: very recently, I had a case of a child having to wait eight months for an appointment, and it was only with my intervention that that took place. My child does not have to wait eight months to get a filling or have an abscess treated. I cannot wrap my head around it: eight months of a wee child biting the hand off themselves in pain.
That is happening day and daily, so that is a system that is completely failing. If we cannot even deliver a sensory room in 2025 and not have that, there is something seriously wrong. Going forward, we need to start getting everything right. We need to make sure that families are heard at the table. It is not just about an architect designing a room or a building; it has to be there to meet the needs of that child, and it is simply not happening. It is not happening across the board, and it needs to start happening now. There is commentary coming from across the water that is starting to bed in here where we are now trying to see the reasons why children have autism as if we are trying to understand that. It is appalling language where some people are wanting to bring this. These are children in our society who are being made vulnerable because the system is broken, and we need to start getting it right. Families need to stop having to fight for absolutely every single thing, and policy and Ministers and us as MLAs need to start understanding the challenges from the bedroom to the bathroom, from the bathroom to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the classroom or into the ER. Thank you for sharing your story. I have no doubt that it is a difficult decision to bring your child there. They are maybe not too sick to bring, because what they have to go through is so traumatic, but it is the knock-on effect that that could have had going forward. It something that we all have to work together on, and that is not me trying to single out any particular Minister, whether it is Education, Communities with welfare, or Health. It is about us all working together to get it better going forward. We need to start getting it right now.
517 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: 0.07 (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 (0.56).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- 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 | 0.07 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.07 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.09 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.91 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.07 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.56 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.02 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.41 |
| Adopts it | 0.01 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 1.00 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| 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 13:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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