Member's statement: Sinn Féin: Northern Ireland

Member's statement by Mr Jon Burrows on 24 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Jon Burrows

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

24 February 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Sinn Féin: Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5404090

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I need to deal with an elephant in the room, which is whether Sinn Féin is committed to promoting Northern Ireland and dealing with reconciliation or is promoting decline and division. I say that because Sinn Féin's conduct in recent months has been so consistently inept that one wonders whether there is a deliberate scorched earth strategy in place. I will start with the basics. The roads are an absolute mess, with potholes everywhere, yet the Infrastructure Minister has called not one meeting to deal with that. I found that out by asking a question. The "First Minister for all" blamed the potholes on climate change. The infrastructure around our sewerage system is creaking. That means that we cannot build new homes for our young people and that house prices are going up as the supply and demand is distorted. It also means that businesses are not able to get planning permission to expand, yet the Department for Infrastructure has sent back £133 million of an underspend. That ties in with Sinn Féin's general view on the economy. The Finance Minister proposed rate revaluations that would have decimated the pub and hospitality sector, putting some pub rates up by 500%. Was that incompetence, or is there a deliberate strategy to undermine Northern Ireland business? In fact, we see that all the time. Instead of talking up the fact that we have the lowest unemployment in Europe, vibrant sectors in cybersecurity and fintech and are attracting banking jobs from around the world, Sinn Féin calls the Northern Ireland economy a basket case. Sinn Féin refuses to go to America at a critical time to promote Northern Ireland but is happy to go to China, which is a communist state. It says that it will not go to America because of human rights abuses, but it will go to China, which has a hand that drips blood from crushing dissent when persecuting Christians. Of course, we then have Sinn Féin's position on other international matters: pro-China, pro-Russia, pro-Iran and anti-Ukraine. In Sinn Féin's mind, Ukraine is not allowed to defend itself. Maybe it is in policing, justice and security that Sinn Féin is at its most morally moribund. Last weekend, its leader, Mary Lou, hailed a man who blew up five people in a pub, yet Sinn Féin votes to exclude a man from this Chamber for saying the word "breathe". It has decimated the reputation of the Police Service by falsely accusing it of being incompetent and sectarian and of spying on people and then criticised the PSNI for not recruiting people from Sinn Féin's community. We need positive leadership from Sinn Féin, not positive discrimination. Last week, Sinn Féin traumatised victims of sexual crimes during the Troubles by comparing the rape and abuse of young women in our community to the prison security regime during the Troubles. You are offending and hurting people, promoting division and failing Northern Ireland. I want you to work to make Northern Ireland a better place, and I ask you to please stop this strategy and get back to making Northern Ireland work.

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

Assessment

Flagged Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

Much of the statement criticises ministers' record on potholes, sewerage capacity, an underspend and rates revaluation, which is ordinary policy scrutiny. But its organising frame is whether a nationalist party is 'committed to promoting Northern Ireland' or pursuing a 'deliberate scorched earth strategy' to 'undermine Northern Ireland business'. That insinuates hostility to the state itself rather than incompetence. The statement adds identity-laden points: a party leader having 'hailed a man who blew up five people', and calls for police recruitment from 'Sinn Féin's community' dismissed as 'positive discrimination', which casts efforts to recruit from one community as unfair favouritism.

Public interest or divisiveness

The service and economic criticisms are substantive and would make sense to someone on any side. They are used, however, to build a case that the party is deliberately sabotaging Northern Ireland. That case then extends to legacy, foreign alignments and policing recruitment framed in communal terms, deepening a constitutional and communal argument while accusing the other side of 'promoting division'. Both elements are substantial.

Jev’s structured answers

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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