Debate contribution: Childcare: High-quality and Affordable Provision

Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on 12 February 2024.

MLA

Mrs Diane Dodds

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

12 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Childcare: High-quality and Affordable Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4218055

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you to all who have made a maiden speech today. It is not an easy thing to do in this House. This is one of the most worthwhile areas on which those maiden speeches could have been made. I want to acknowledge, as vice chair of the all-party group on early education and childcare, the work that has gone into the debate and the many organisations that we have met. It is a testament to that that, on the first full day of Assembly business, we are debating this issue. I pay tribute to many from those organisations who are in the Public Gallery. I think that we all agree in the House that there is a need for a long-term strategy for childcare in Northern Ireland. There have been many fine words in the Chamber today, and that is all to the good, but the harsh reality is that we will need a fully costed strategy for childcare. That will require mature cooperation across the Executive. It will require the Minister of Health, with regard to minimum standards. It will require the cooperation of the Minister of Finance to provide the means for it, and it will, of course, require the work and dedication of the Minister of Education to bring forward the strategy for the Executive. There is a huge challenge in that today.

I absolutely agree with the Member. In citing Ministers, I do not mean to be exclusive but to demonstrate to the House that it is a matter for the whole Executive and not just for the Minister of Education. He will need the support of the whole Executive in bringing forward a strategy that is reasonable, feasible, fully costed and affordable.

If you allow me to progress just for a minute, I certainly will. I will look at this in a couple of ways, the first of which concerns the intervention and sustainability that are required for the childcare sector. We have heard about childcare businesses that have had to close. We need a sector that is not always on the edge and teetering on the brink, as it has been in the past number of years. That will require not just sustainability but training and proper pay for staff. That is massively important as we go forward. It also requires us as a society to recognise that childcare, as the Member for South Belfast said, is not about babysitting. Childcare is about the development of our children. It is about looking after them in a setting where their potential can be reached. It is about support for families and the economy. Those are all really important issues, and, again, I am delighted that, in the House today, we have acknowledged the need for childcare provision for parents who have children with special educational needs. My colleague from North Antrim referred to the fact that the previous Minister of Education looked at the DUP policy of trying to provide 30 hours of childcare for children aged three to four. We know that that is not enough and that we need to do more, but a strategy takes many years to put in place, and there are some quick wins that we can have within that strategy in the here and now. One of those is to try to get to a position in which 22·5 hours of education for three- to four-year-olds in Northern Ireland is guaranteed and we make up the 30 hours by some kind of voucher scheme for parents, who could perhaps use or save that as they wish. I am keen to hear the Minister's view on that. We can also do much more in our schools. Wrap-around care in schools tends to be extremely variable across Northern Ireland, with places where there are schools that have five days a week of wrap-around care where children can go from eight o'clock in the morning until later on in the afternoon and places where there is zero provision. By investing in our schools, we can provide part of the solution to the problem.

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. I realise that I have outrun my time, but this is a matter of huge importance, and I would like to hear some of the things that we can do that are quick wins in order to bring about solutions to the problem.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

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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