Debate contribution: Childcare: High-quality and Affordable Provision

Debate contribution by Miss Nuala McAllister on 12 February 2024.

MLA

Miss Nuala McAllister

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

12 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Childcare: High-quality and Affordable Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4218073

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will focus on a number of issues that some Members across the Chamber have raised, but I am very conscious that, as I do, I am reminded of when I started working at the Assembly in 2011. One of the first things that I heard in the Chamber was Chris Lyttle, who was an MLA at that time, ask the Minister of Education a question for oral answer on the childcare strategy.

It is really frustrating to think that, here we are, 13 years later, and we are no further on.

I want to focus on issues around childcare, which starts at birth. The reason I say that it starts at birth is that we need to think about maternity, paternity and adoption leave provision. Many parents, after three months, move onto quite low incomes because they are on maternity, paternity or adoption leave, and then, when they go back into work, they are immediately thrust into high-priced childcare. It just does not stack up. Before you have even given birth or adopted, you are already thinking, "What am I going to do? Do I return to work or not?". Let us face it: we are where we are because of the patriarchy. For hundreds of years, society has been designed for men going to work and women staying at home, but it is not like that any more. We know that families have changed, that more women are in the workplace and that families may consist of one mum and one dad, two dads or two mums. Families are all different, and that is why we need to implement a childcare strategy that suits the needs of every family and every child. I want to speak a little about school-age children. When we speak about childcare, we often focus on the nought-to-four age group, but, actually, it is the school-age children who can sometimes be forgotten. I am conscious that, just before the debate, I was trying to sort out childcare for my two children. Day care closes at 6.00 pm, but the Assembly will potentially not rise until after 6.00 pm. Many parents across Northern Ireland, whether they are working in hospitals or schools, just do not have that flexibility of childcare. Then the grandparents come in. We all rely on our parents — our children's grandparents — to pick that up, but not everybody has that flexibility and that support, and that is why it falls on us in the Assembly and the Minister to help those families. Wrap-around care is key. There is a lot of talk, particularly from the DUP Benches, about focusing on that standardisation for three- to four-year-olds, but I want to be clear, as the sector has been clear: preschool provision is not childcare. We absolutely should standardise preschool hours, but we cannot expect parents to top up with vouchers for the extra to make it to 30 hours. What childcare setting will take a child for an extra hour one day and two hours another day? It simply does not work. We need that bespoke reality for Northern Ireland. I implore the Minister: while that might be a quick win, it will not work for the majority of parents. We need to standardise the preschool day, and we need to have childcare on top of that. We need to ensure that, no matter what we do going forward, it is fixed permanently. We may have delay in implementing this, but we want to get it right and make sure that whatever we do for parents means that more parents, especially women, can go back into the workforce and that, when their child turns four and is in school, they still have that childcare to rely on and do not have to think, "What do I do now?", and pay for after-school clubs, send them to swimming or football and rack up the costs there because it cannot be done anywhere else. We need to think about it from birth up until the point where your child is allowed to and is able to stay at home alone, and we all know that it is different for every child. I implore the Minister to ensure that, when we implement the childcare strategy — I hope that we see it soon — we think about it in a holistic way.

Absolutely, I agree, and I thank my colleague for raising the issue. It would go a long way if the Assembly, behind the Minister of Education, called for a raise in the tax-free allowance. It goes some way in helping, but it is simply not enough. I have said everything that, I think, needs to be said, particularly about ensuring that we have that proper bespoke childcare strategy here. Let us not dupe parents. Let us fix the system and ensure that we get it right from day 1.

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

Assessment

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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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