Debate contribution: UK COVID-19 Inquiry: Institutional Reform
Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on .
- MLA
- Mr Robbie Butler
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 9 December 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- UK COVID-19 Inquiry: Institutional Reform
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5295784
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I have a speech written, but I might digress from it because the debate has moved into a slightly different sphere. In the first instance, my party would have loved to support the first part of the motion, because it talks about the reform of the institutions for the common good. However, I listened to Mr Sheehan's speech, and he did not reference the first part of the motion at all. Sinn Féin has spotted the two parts of the motion: one to ignore and one to lean into. Now, we have looked at it from a balanced perspective. Members in the Chamber have different views on what happened during COVID and what has happened since. Sadly, the motion has lost every bit of good that it could have had. I was one of the MLAs who was here during New Decade, New Approach, when we worked for weeks through talks, about 200 or 300 yards away from the Chamber, to try to restore these institutions. Part of those talks was about reform. That is hard to deliver and, if you do not deliver reform in the House with the authority of all the voices in the Chamber, you doom yourself to failure. I ask the Members who tabled the motion to reflect on the fact that it is a missed opportunity. I want to turn to Baroness Hallett's module 2 findings for a moment or two. The findings are damning — absolutely damning. Evidence showed the clear failure of leadership in this place. Sinn Féin, evidently, failed spectacularly when it did not obey the laws that we had passed here collectively. That was not mentioned today. The ongoing process that we had at the very top between the DUP and Sinn Féin and the failure to put people before party became evident when we could not make decisions. I want to deal with that very quickly because I am sure that, some day, we will have a better debate about what happened during COVID. I am genuinely pleased that we had a Health Minister in Robin Swann, who did not delete his phone or WhatsApp messages and has been able to contribute fully to the COVID inquiry. I do not claim that I got everything right in the whole COVID debate. However, what I will say is that I have a background in dynamic risk assessment. When you dynamically risk assess something such as the COVID pandemic, you do not have all the facts, so what you do is listen to those who do have the facts — the scientists and medical experts — and put your faith in the people who are giving you the best advice based on what has been proven. We are certainly not experts. We could have acted more speedily. Would we have got everything right? We absolutely would not have done because it was an imperfect storm. Nothing was going to protect —.
I do not actually see how one man had that power. We passed legislation. There were 90 Members in the House and an Executive. Had that Executive been functioning properly, and has there been trust among Members, we would not have been in the mess that we are discussing today. Therefore, I do not accept what the Member has said. I agree with Mr Buckley's assertion. The second part of the motion actually asks us to disregard strand one of the Good Friday Agreement.
That should have been separated out. If that is what the Alliance Party wants to do, that should be a separate motion in and of itself. I genuinely lament the fact that we could not simply have debated a motion on how we collectively bring leadership, collaboration and cohesion to the Executive, because the people of Northern Ireland darned well deserve that. It is not just about COVID. The first part of the motion speaks to the fact that we have not had a Government here for 12 years out of 25. That is an indictment of why we cannot govern at times. If and when there is a serious motion to debate the reform and betterment of the Good Friday Agreement for the future prosperity and well-being of the people of Northern Ireland, my party will not be found wanting. However, we will not set aside aspects of the Good Friday Agreement for anybody's political whims.
731 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: 0.26 (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 (0.87).
- Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
- 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 | 0.18 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.06 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.04 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.12 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.17 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.51 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.26 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.87 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.01 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.08 |
| Adopts it | 0.04 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.78 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.17 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.03 |
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.01 |
| Another identity-related subject | 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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