Member's statement: COVID-19 and Lockdown: Deaths
Member's statement by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 9 December 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- COVID-19 and Lockdown: Deaths
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5295568
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your grace. I thought that, in your generosity, you had discovered the Christmas Carroll there.
I speak about an event that I attended this morning, a collective healing through honouring our loved ones. It was a meeting to launch a report on all the people who died during the pandemic and the lockdowns. The process of grieving was explored with the individuals who took part in the study, and a question was asked whether the individual felt that they were able to grieve the passing of their loved one. While 17% stated that they could, 55% reported that they had not been able to do this and 28% were unsure. Self-reported mental health rates revealed that 56% described it as either "poor" or "very poor". Some 32% stated that it was "average", while the remaining 12% gave their mental health a rating of "good" or "very good". When asked about receiving support following the person's death, a large proportion, 37%, indicated that this was not offered to them. For those who got support, the source of this was largely family, 40%, or friends, 15%. That included 80% who reported that they did not get the support needed for the grief that they experienced during the pandemic and lockdowns. The conclusions from the report include that a number of salient themes were evident through a review of responses on both the survey and from the support session evaluations. The most prominent of those themes was the traumatic impact of experiencing a death during the pandemic. That was impacted by the systematic and structural restrictions enforced by the Government in the management of the pandemic. The absence of opportunities to have traditions associated with death and dying, whether religious or cultural in nature, was cited often in the feedback. Saying goodbye to loved ones or being present during their final moments was not available to the majority of respondents. Those psychological and emotional omissions were described as having a significant toll on the individual and the family, amplified by the variations in manner and tone of communications or interactions with professionals at the time of the loved one's death. Those people seek a physical memorial through which their loved ones who died in the pandemic and during the lockdown should be remembered, but the greatest memorial that we can give those people is that never again will our people, communities and society be locked down as they were during the pandemic.
414 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: 0.06 (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 (0.67).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- 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 | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.04 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.06 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.67 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.06 | 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 |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.40 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.37 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.19 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.03 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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