Debate contribution: Restricted Procedures
Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on .
- MLA
- Mr Mike Nesbitt
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 3 November 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Restricted Procedures
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5213290
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for her question. I was not aware that that was happening until that report was published, and I found it quite shocking. The range of activity and the scale of Health and Social Care are such that it is challenging to stay across every development. I did not welcome what I heard, because we are in very constrained financial times. The question then becomes — I do not have the answer to this yet — whether people are actioning and signing off on those procedures because they think that they are in the best interests of patients and service users or whether it is because people are not properly focused on the fact that we have that unprecedented and, frankly, unmanageable, pressure on our budget. I would like to think that it is the former, but, even at that, we have to review the situation and make sure that every penny that we spend is spent properly. Every pound that is misspent in the Department of Health is a pound that is not spent on education, on housing or on all the other areas that are in charge of the social determinants of ill health. We therefore have to spend every penny wisely, not just for Health but for everybody else.
215 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: 0.03 (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 (0.90).
- 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 | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.90 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | 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 | 1.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
| Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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