Topical question AQT 1981/22-27

Topical question by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 2 February 2026.

MLA: Mr Matthew O'Toole
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 2 February 2026
Type: Topical question
Assembly reference: AQT 1981/22-27
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5356510

Text

Mr O'Toole asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister, after noting that the public in Northern Ireland are scundered at the performance of the Executive and that, although it would be two years tomorrow since the First Minister and deputy First Minister took office, a poll published in the past week showed that barely a quarter of the public feel that the Executive have improved their lives, and further noting that the Assembly debated a grand total of nine minutes of legislation in the Chamber last week, whether, given that, when the First Minister and deputy First Minister took up office, they promised to work tirelessly for all the people of Northern Ireland, they can stand over the record of the Executive.

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

Follow-ups by the same MLA in the Chamber

These were assessed together with this record:

2 February 2026 – Deputy First Minister, I appreciate your effort in trying to defend the record of the Executive, but the truth is that…

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: 0.27 (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 (0.93).
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	0.05	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.03	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.09	No
Controversy escalation	0.07	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.24	No
Overall judgement	0.27	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.93
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.01
Adopts it	0.05

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.55
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.40
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.01
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)	0.01
Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism	0.01

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:18 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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