Debate contribution: Just Transition Commission

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on 2 December 2025.

MLA: Mr Andrew Muir
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 2 December 2025
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Heading: Just Transition Commission
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5272051

Text

As Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, I am committed to power-sharing and to working with my Executive colleagues. However, I am finding the gridlock that we have in getting papers agreed by the Executive increasingly frustrating. The extent of that gridlock means that we now have to maintain a spreadsheet of the papers that we are looking to get agreement on. I am awaiting Executive agreement on six papers. I have been waiting for almost a year for agreement on one of the papers — the green growth strategy. We are also waiting for agreement on papers relating to an independent environmental protection agency, ways that we can improve our levels of recycling, a fisheries Bill and a water environment Bill, and we are awaiting agreement on a technical paper on sheep carcass classification. There has been engagement with the Executive Office regarding those, but it is important that we can progress those papers at the next Executive meeting. I am doing the work, and I need others to be able to support me and allow us to progress it. It is extremely frustrating that there is gridlock at the Executive due to one party — the DUP.

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

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: 0.21 (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).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.91).
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	0.13	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.06	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.09	No
Controversy escalation	0.06	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.44	No
Overall judgement	0.21	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.91
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.01
Adopts it	0.08

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.70
Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty	0.13
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.10
Another identity-related subject	0.06
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)	0.01

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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