Debate contribution: Childcare: High-quality and Affordable Provision

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 12 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

12 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Childcare: High-quality and Affordable Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4218087

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thanks for that, Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank the parents, guardians, childcare workers and campaigners — some of them are here today — who have forced the issue of unaffordable childcare onto Stormont's agenda after years of government inaction. It cannot be emphasised enough that childcare costs are too high. They were too high before Stormont's collapse and too high before the cost-of-living crisis. It is high time that politicians and the Executive did something about it. In socially deprived communities like mine that have suffered years of attacks from Stormont and Westminster, we have stagnant wages, welfare reform and service cuts, to name but a few. Childcare costs are pushing people to breaking point and to the brink. There is no worse indictment of the current economic system than the fact that many working people are forced to pay for childcare. A commodity has been made of the nurture, care and development of future generations. The way that families pay out a huge bulk of their wages in childcare costs is shameful. Some providers can make a fortune doing something that should be a basic, publicly funded social necessity. I agree with a lot that is in the motion and will support it. We need to tackle unaffordable childcare costs. Some of its content should cause further debate and teasing out. It is worth noting that some of the motion is written with economic growth and the market in mind, rather than having families front and centre. We need to move away from being fixated on seeing the issue of childcare as being solely or primarily about driving the local economy, rather than improving families' lives and improving overall living standards for everybody. Sometimes, the focus is overtly on getting people back to work, whether they want to go back to work or not. While it is true that many people want to return to work and should be afforded the opportunity to do so, many more are, in fact, forced to return to work just to pay bills. The motion obviously does not acknowledge that the childcare provided by parents and guardians at home is, in fact, labour. It is, in fact, work, as some have referred to in their speeches. Raising children is an unpaid job, and it overwhelmingly falls on women to do it. Those who choose to do that job at home should be paid to do it. It is a difficult job, as people have mentioned. That said, whilst we may differ in our reasoning in teasing out the issues, we believe that affordable childcare is a worthwhile and important aspiration and will support the motion, but we think that we can go further. We think that childcare, like healthcare or any other form of care, should be free at the point of service. There is enough wealth in society to provide universal free childcare that is paid for through progressive taxation. The conversation about childcare has to put our children's development, workers' welfare and families at its core and must remove the profit motive from its provision. The state must step in to support community-run, not-for-profit facilities in the crucial work that they do. The state must also plan for the provision of publicly owned childcare facilities where workers are given decent pay and terms to match the invaluable nature of their role. It is shocking that there is still no childcare or crèche facility in this Building, not just for MLAs but for all the staff who work in and around the Building who have children. It is absolutely shocking and beggars belief. In a nutshell, we must take childcare provision out of the hands of wealthy private entities and ensure that we all, as a society, provide childcare for people, not profit.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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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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