Member's statement: Minister for the Economy: Cantor Fitzgerald
Member's statement by Mr Jonathan Buckley on .
- MLA
- Mr Jonathan Buckley
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 24 March 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Minister for the Economy: Cantor Fitzgerald
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5462746
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Week on week, the House continues to see the glaring failures of the Sinn Féin Economy Minister, whether it be her continued support for the so-called 'good jobs' Bill, which does not have the support of a single major business or organisation in Northern Ireland, or the failure to understand that £81 million was there for the taking for an energy support scheme, a fact that was dragged out in the Committee by my colleague Phillip Brett as Chair.
She also continues to cover up information on significant job losses to the Northern Ireland economy. In January, I revealed to the Committee that 300 jobs were lost from the major US service firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Neither the Committee nor the community knew about that, and the Minister's officials attempted to ensure that none of us got to the bottom of it. The permanent secretary denied that the Committee had asked for the appropriate information, and the Department selectively briefed the BBC before the scrutiny Committee meeting. However, with each piece of information, we are starting to get to the bottom of what happened. It is sad that only through freedom of information requests have I been able to start to gain a picture. Invest NI and the Department hold over 11,000 records that pertain to Cantor Fitzgerald. On Friday, the first responses to my freedom of information requests started to come through to me, and they revealed a scenario of which we were not aware: on 25 February 2025, the Minister met Cantor Fitzgerald representatives in this very Building with her officials. The Minister is on record as saying at the meeting:
"I want to comment on the positivity of a company like Cantor Fitzgerald coming to Northern Ireland and offering so many good jobs".
Wow. Her Sinn Féin-appointed spad is in the meeting note as suggesting the potential comms to go out on the announcement. Fourteen days later, the Minister travelled to New York, and 300 highly paid jobs were lost to the Northern Ireland economy. What happened in those 14 days? Why did a significant investment that, freedom of information requests have shown, Invest NI evidently went to such lengths to secure go missing?
There are questions to be answered —
— and we will hold the Minister accountable.
381 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: 0.14 (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 (0.74).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.98).
- 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 | 0.07 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.06 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.11 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.06 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.74 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.14 | 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 | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.02 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.89 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.04 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.04 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.03 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:15 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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