Debate contribution: St Patrick’s Day: US Visit

Debate contribution by Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly on 2 February 2026.

MLA: Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 2 February 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Heading: St Patrick’s Day: US Visit
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5356489

Text

Mr Speaker, with your permission, I will answer questions 6, 9 and 11 together. The US is the largest economy in the world. As our second-largest export market and our third-largest source of imports, it is a critical market for our economic development. Our relationship with the US is a long-standing one reflected in our ties to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, strengthened through the peace process and continuing today with major investments, such as Bank of America’s commitment to create up to 1,000 jobs. The Northern Ireland Bureau will host its annual St Patrick’s Day breakfast in partnership with Invest NI, Tourism Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast and the Ulster University to showcase the Executive’s priorities. We will decide our plans for St Patrick’s Day once we have confirmation of the full range of events — and, indeed, invitations — scheduled to take place in Washington DC.

149 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: 0.04 (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 (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

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	0.03	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.01	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.02	No
Controversy escalation	0.03	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.19	No
Overall judgement	0.04	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
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 area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.59
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.15
Another identity-related subject	0.08
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)	0.06
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.05

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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