Member's statement: Middle East: Local Response
Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 3 March 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Middle East: Local Response
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5434406
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I want to talk about the events in the Middle East, specifically the local response. I will follow on from remarks made by Mr Buckley a few minutes ago. Yesterday, I stood up and gave my party's view on the deeply destabilising, illegal and reckless acts by the madman Trump and his Government that are creating more conflict in the Middle East. That was my party position. Other parties gave their position. It is totally legitimate for political parties and their leaders to set out political views. However, the First Minister and deputy First Minister, collectively, are in charge of devolved government here. It is their responsibility to set out a response to the issues that pertain to the community living in Northern Ireland as well as set out legitimate party political responses to the conflict. It is completely incoherent, dysfunctional and unacceptable that the First Minister and deputy First Minister cannot, between themselves, agree anything approaching a joint statement. That is the fault of both the First Minister and deputy First Minister and their parties, because they clearly prioritise party political —.
You have had your say, Mr Buckley. They clearly prioritise party political bickering over the public good. We are less than a year since the publication of the COVID public inquiry report, which talked about how political parties prioritise. At the time of COVID, the First Minister and deputy First Minister, again from the DUP and Sinn Féin, prioritised their party political interests over the public good, with the DUP trying to use a petition of concern to block public health measures. It is happening again. Between leaving home for work yesterday and driving home after work, I saw petrol prices go up. Our society is heavily car-reliant because we are so rural. Nearly 70% of our population relies on home heating oil. We know that many people from the North — British citizens, Irish citizens and both from every constituency — will struggle to get back from the Middle East. Those people and their families have real anxiety.
Every one of us has a constituent or knows a friend or family member who is based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates or elsewhere in the Middle East.
The First Minister and deputy First Minister cannot even put together a clear statement of the local response without prejudice to their own political views on the rightness or wrongness of Trump's actions — I think that they are totally wrong, by the way — but that should not stop those who take a Pledge of Office, accept a salary and get driven here in a car every day from agreeing a local response so that the public can have some sense of local political accountability and local political leadership. However, those two parties never see the public good. We just heard Mr Buckley stand up and bicker. We saw the First Minister do her own video yesterday, rather than agreeing with the deputy First Minister. The deputy First Minister tweeted yesterday about how awful Sinn Féin is. The public just want an agreed local response on energy prices, on local people who are stuck in the Emirates and on other potential consequences, including refugees. Let us grow up and serve the public rather than party political interests.
549 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: 0.24 (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 (0.92).
- 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 | 0.10 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.06 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.13 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.12 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.40 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.24 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.92 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.06 |
| Adopts it | 0.02 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.36 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.21 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.19 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.17 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.07 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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