Debate contribution: ADHD Services
Debate contribution by Mr Peter McReynolds on .
- MLA
- Mr Peter McReynolds
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 9 February 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- ADHD Services
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5369727
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate as chair of the all-party group on ADHD, and I thank those who tabled the motion and my colleagues who helped to draft our amendment. I cover infrastructure and policing for the Alliance Party, but I have always felt a real sense of the injustice that is taking place against the ADHD community here. I have mentioned it before in the Chamber, but it all started for me when a young man presented himself at my constituency office, looking to talk to me about something that I thought was completely unconnected to ADHD. He told me that he had tried to take his life 17 times. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety — those are common misdiagnoses — but he had been told that he would have to wait eight to 10 years for an ADHD diagnosis. That floored me, given his medical history, and I assumed that there must be some other avenue that he could explore. I started to look into it, and the more that I did, the more that I found lengthy and inconsistent waiting lists; numbers that one GP told me are essentially a guess, as they are plucked from thin air; postcode lotteries across Northern Ireland; people self-medicating to cope with how ADHD manifests itself in their lives; higher rates of suicide; and people being forced to go private, pay significant sums of money and then pay again for monthly access to medication. The real kicker for me was hearing about constituents whose GPs have decided to withdraw access to medication that they described as "life-changing" and "transformative" and to withdraw from shared care, which sets a timer for when their lives will start to go backwards. I heard that in a phone call yesterday morning with Joanne in east Belfast. She showed me the letter that she had received out of the blue from her GP, which said that the life-changing medication that she has been receiving for the past number of years would run out from 1 May. For those reasons, I submitted a petition to the Assembly in 2024. Signed by over 4,500 people, it called for the urgent commissioning of ADHD services here. I am proud to have used my role as chair of the all-party group on ADHD to shine a light on the absolute injustice facing thousands across Northern Ireland and the lost generations of adults who have been labelled "lazy", "disruptive" or "unfocused". The fundamental and essential next step will be the publication of the ADHD report, which my petition called for in 2024 and which we included in our amendment. It will tell us what the level of ADHD services would be, what a commissioned service would and could look like, and what resources it could take to deliver them. We in the all-party group on ADHD and, certainly, the secretariat of ADD-NI, are desperate to read that report, to have something to aim for and to give the community hope that change is coming. At present, we are in limbo, with many people being forced to pay for life-changing and transformative care in a service that should and must be commissioned. The community want it, but GPs want it too to be able to support and get the best out of people living with ADHD. I welcome the debate, and I am grateful that ADHD is staying on the agenda, but we seriously need to get it done. Too many people are suffering, living in misery and having to cope as best as they can. We can make a real difference if we want to do so. I encourage support for the motion and our amendment.
624 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: 0.04 (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).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.96).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.98).
- 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 | 0.06 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.96 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.98 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.02 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 1.00 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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