By Rebecca Black

Copyright newsletter

Angry exchanges with the leader of the Stormont Opposition, the SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole, came as Mr Givan today delivered a proposal for an Executive-led investment programme into special education. Mr Givan asked for the support of all the political parties around the chamber for his proposal for a £1.7bn Executive-led programme to tackle spiralling demand for special education. Mr O’Toole put to Mr Givan that special education provision is a “critical issue”, but alleged the minister was “outsourcing responsibility for the budget to other parties, having insourced all of the most controversial things that you have done gleefully over the last year and a half”. “But on the subject of outsourcing, I want to specifically ask you something very directly, and I’d like a direct answer. “Parents and pupils are grappling with the use of AI, I think it’s fairly clear and we have checked an online tool that a large proportion of this speech was written by AI, can you confirm that is the case?” Mr Givan hit back, repeating twice: “What an example of a useless opposition” and condemned a “cheap shot” and “utterly shameful”. He added: “We come to this chamber to speak on behalf of the most vulnerable in our society, to talk about children who have complex medical needs, that need to have our support, and a clear plan as to how we can come up with that support, and the leader of the opposition, the alternative to this Executive, fires a cheap shot around the use of artificial intelligence. “Those listening to the contribution of the leader of the opposition will come to their own conclusion about the utter lack of capacity that they have just outlined. “He’ll not apologise to me, I don’t expect him to. He should apologise, though, to the special schools and their families for his shameful contribution.” A Department of Education spokesperson said they could confirm the minister’s speech was not written by AI.