Debate contribution: Domiciliary Care Packages: Northern Health and Social Care Trust
Debate contribution by Ms Sorcha Eastwood on .
- MLA
- Ms Sorcha Eastwood
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 13 February 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Domiciliary Care Packages: Northern Health and Social Care Trust
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4206576
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I commend the Member for Mid Ulster for securing this Adjournment debate. It is an incredibly important issue, about which I am really passionate. I am eyeballing you immediately, Minister, because, for me, this is a crucial issue. In the Chamber yesterday, we discussed childcare. I am sure that, after that debate, we all agree that we should regard health and social care as critical economic and social infrastructure. A number of Members referred to the fact that the people who engage in domiciliary care work are incredibly special and talented, but we as a society need to get real and absolutely serious about valuing those jobs. I sit on the Economy Committee — I admit that I am not on the Health Committee — and I have a passion to make sure that Northern Ireland can adequately resource the workforce that it needs. At this point, I am not convinced that we are grasping the nettle of what we need to do to make sure that we are preparing for the future. Absolutely, we need to look at terms and conditions. We need to make sure that people currently in post are paid, but I want to see us get to the core of the problem. If we do not create the workforce that we need for the future, we will continue to go in this circle. I corresponded with the Minister about apprenticeships in the previous mandate, and I know that public-sector apprenticeships are key to looking at the trust side of things, but the private and independent sector, mentioned by Patsy McGlone, is huge and burgeoning. That gets to the heart of what it means to have genuine cross-departmental working. We have the skills strategy, and we receive regular briefings about the importance of the IT and agri-food sectors. Those are key to Northern Ireland's economy, and we absolutely need to do work in those sectors, but what I do not hear — this is a challenge to us all — is that health and social care is playing a huge role in where we need to be in future. We need to encourage our young people and people who are mid-career and want to transition by saying, "If you get into and work in this sector, you will be valued, not just for you as an individual but for your contribution to the economy, society, families and the lives of people at large". When the House was down, I created an all-party group on skills, and that will now go through a process in order to be formally constituted. One of the first events that we will be doing in April, an invite to which will be sent to all Members, will look at the matter of skills and health and social care. We cannot keep fooling ourselves about simply addressing the issue of pay and conditions. That is in itself innately difficult to do, because we do not have a bottomless pot of money. We will be fooling ourselves if we do not put plans in place now for how we need to resource that. Today, I call on the Minister to have a properly joined-up plan that goes much further than the skills strategy and ensures that the Department of Health and the Department for the Economy take the issue seriously by having a clear timeline for what we need to do. That point could apply to any issue in medicine and health and social care, but we have to have the conversations today and do it in a way whereby we look to the Economy Minister as well as the Health Minister. We will not be able to do it in isolation, and we will not be able to do it alone. Today, I call on the Health Minister to hold our feet to the fire in the Economy Committee, as well as those of the Economy Minister and, indeed, of everybody who cares about the future of this, because he will have our full support in pushing that open door. I want to make sure that we continue to have those discussions. I reiterate my support for the Member from Mid Ulster who secured this debate. I hope that we have more discussions in the future.
714 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not qualifying”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-qualifying 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.93 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-qualifying threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.95 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.02 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.01 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.01 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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