Every imported question, contribution and motion, with its classification. Unflagged, uncertain and not-yet-analysed records are all included so the analysis can be checked independently.
I rise as an East Belfast MLA but also as someone with family from Strabane who use the A5 regularly, as an Infrastructure Committee member and as chair of the all-party group on road safety. I thank the Member for securing the Adjournment debate. I pay tribute, as Mr Gildernew has just done, to the grassroots efforts…
Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis mo ghuth a chur leis an rún an-tábhachtach seo. I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom comhbhrón a dhéanamh leis na daoine ar maraíodh cairde gaoil dá gcuid ar bhóthar A5. Is tragóid uafásach é nuair a mharaítear duine ar bhóthar A5. Moladh bóthar A5 a uasghrádú den chéad uair tá beagnach fiche…
I declare an interest, as my husband's family are landowners along the A5. I thank my party colleague Tom Buchanan for securing this timely and important Adjournment debate. It is disappointing, though, that the A5 project has been beset by misinformation and misconceptions. There is loss on all sides of the argument,…
I thank Tom Buchanan for securing this important Adjournment debate. As has been stated repeatedly this evening, the project was agreed in 2006, nearly 20 years ago. Sadly, since then, more than 50 lives have been lost on the road. I cannot imagine what it is like for someone to have a child, a relative or a friend…
I thank my West Tyrone constituency colleague Tom Buchanan for bringing the issue to the House. I also appreciate the Minister's attendance at the Adjournment debate. The A5 transport corridor has been discussed, delayed, reviewed and re-reviewed for nearly two decades. It has been discussed for over 50 years, since…
I thank our West Tyrone colleague for tabling the matter for debate and the Minister for attending today. I hope that the Member does not mind my commenting on the matter, but, as we all know, the A5 western transport corridor stretches across many communities, including those in south Tyrone in my consistency. From…
The A5 project is a vital piece of national infrastructure that will have significant investment, economic and, most important, safety benefits for communities in the north-west of Ireland. By significantly reducing the travel time to and from Dublin, Belfast and Derry, the A5 will open up the north-west for more…
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Business Committee for allowing this important issue to be raised as the subject of the Adjournment debate this evening. Over the past number of years, the topic has been the subject of numerous debates in the House and a multitude of questions to the Ministers of the various…
Does the Member agree that so much of the debate today is about the importance of allowing our children to be children, the sanctity of childhood and having those experiences?
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I thank my SDLP colleague and education spokesperson, Cara Hunter, for proposing this important motion. It is clear, from the contributions of Members from across the House, that there is serious concern about the online harm of young people and that we all share the view that it needs to be…
Such is the nature of a pilot scheme. The phone pouch pilot is about building the evidential base and seeing where we go from there. The Minister has explained the logic behind it. Colleagues have rightly noted that, if we are to make a difference, banning phones in schools cannot be a cure-all. Protecting our…
In the context of the Education budget or the Executive Budget, a £250,000 spend is a relatively small sum. As the Minister explained, the pilot is about building an evidential base and building understanding. I think that a Sinn Féin TD in the South referred to it as a drop in the ocean, so we have heard different…
I thank the Member for giving way. I had hoped that the Minister would let me come in. I want to be clear that we accept that access to mobile phones in the classroom and throughout the school day will not have a positive influence on pupils and that we need to find ways around that. While you are on the topic of the…
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although I am making the winding-up speech on my party's amendment, colleagues who have already spoken clearly articulated the rationale behind our amendment and detailed the main points of our party's position, with which I align myself. I thank the Members who tabled the motion,…
I thank the Member for proposing the motion. It is a timely and important topic. Before I start, I will say that I was not getting into a back-and-forth argument; I was just making the point that smartphones can be used for good in education. We know that educators and pupils use them. That was the point that I was…
That is not what I said at all. You would agree with me that early intervention is key, but your budgets are tight and you were not able to extend counselling to primary schools. My point about mobile phone pouches and the £220,000 for just nine schools, when you have a capital shortfall of £83 million, was that it is…
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I will start by thanking Cara Hunter for proposing the motion, not just because of its content and wording but because of the substantive evidence base that she articulated in her speech. Clearly, a lot of work went into that and she cares passionately about the matter. I commend her remarks…
As a former youth worker, I witnessed young people's journey through the joy and the pressure that come with growing up, and, in the past decade, I saw significant change in how that pressure was increasingly being shaped by the online world. For many of our young people, being online is not part of life; it is life.…
I applaud the motion and the Member who moved it. I thank her and her party for that. I also thank my colleagues who tabled amendment No 1, which strengthens the motion on tackling the impact of online harms on young people. I have listened intently to Members talk about the dangers of online harm and the online…
I thank the Member for giving way. She makes a very important and valid point. Does she agree that there needs to be a greater duty on social media platforms to protect our children? There is a child protection issue here to which children are being exposed because of the failings of the social media companies. Surely…
I thank the signatories to the motion. The first iPhone was launched in 2007, while Facebook was founded in 2004 and TikTok in 2016. In less than 20 years, we are experiencing a new reality. Children's lives look completely different from what they were prior to that rapid change. New technologies and platforms are…