Debate contribution: Job Creation: Ambitious Targets

Debate contribution by Ms Sorcha Eastwood on 19 March 2024.

MLA

Ms Sorcha Eastwood

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

19 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Job Creation: Ambitious Targets

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4279706

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Alliance will support the motion and the amendment. You would be hard-pressed to find anybody who would stand up and say that they do not support more job creation. I echo some of what Sinéad McLaughlin, the Member for Foyle, said about the earlier debate on education and poverty when she was moving her amendment. Do you know what? That is the most important thing we can take away from this. We can talk about job creation all we want, and we can talk about skills, but unless we get it right downstream and make sure that the workers are there, we will never get to the place where we can support ourselves and have a thriving economy in the North. I could pluck another figure from the air, as we all seem to be doing today, and say that we have a really high number of people who are economically inactive. For a lot of the people in that cohort, that is genuine, and they absolutely need to be supported. However, we will not be able to take the other people within that who want to work and say, "Right, you have now moved from that register, and you are in a tech job". We will not be able to do that because we have not spent the time getting them to a place where they can be conversant with the technology and be confident in themselves. I went to school on the Falls Road, and I am telling you that there were people I met from schools in that area a few years ago who said that they could not get their kids to get the bus into a different part of the town, because they were anxious and did not feel confident enough to do so. That is really what we are talking about at the bare bones of the issue. We need to speak to that social inequality. There is another thing about the postcode lottery. David and I are very privileged to be in Lagan Valley, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the North. It is probably one of the greatest super-output areas that has the fewest areas of deprivation, but there are pockets of deprivation there, just like everywhere in Northern Ireland. Someone said to me, "I could take a child, and, given their postcode, I could plot out their educational pathway." That pertains to this day. Unless we get a grip on the importance of Education and Economy working together, we will never crack this nut. We have had a wee bit of politics across the Floor, with "You held Economy for this" and "You held it for that". Grand; love it; here for it. But the main thing is that, if we constantly collapse the place, we will never accomplish anything. That is the bottom line, and that is why we need to move to reform as a matter of priority. When we talk about opportunities for all, it is important that we are inclusive, but we also need to look at where we are. The stark reality in Northern Ireland is that we have the biggest number of disabled people who want to work but are not able to. In fact, I think that we have the highest number of disabled people with a third-level qualification who cannot find work because they are not adequately supported by the system. That needs to change. There is talk about good jobs, and that makes my teeth itch a wee bit. You are getting it all today. The main reason for that is this: what is the indicator or metric behind a good job? One time at the Committee, there was a bit of a conversation about wages and the median wage. A lot of people will never be able to earn that, and that is not what I want for them either. If we start bandying about the claim that a job with such a wage is a good job, we should look at health and social care. Look at the number of debates that we have already had in this short time and will continue to have about health and social care and other critical social and economic infrastructure. Those workers will never make that wage in a month of Sundays, and that is not right. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that, when we talk about tech, we also need to talk about people and our society, because every one of our family members and our constituents will need to rely on health and social care workers in the days and months ahead. I welcome the remarks from Sinn Féin on green skills. We had an amendment on that, but it was not selected. Green skills are incredibly important, because we need to move ahead at speed. We had the Utility Regulator and people from Renewables NI at the Committee last week. We know that we are in a race against time when it comes to meeting climate targets. Unless we start educating and transforming our education system and economy, we will never get there. We need to look at careers advice in schools. I go on about that all the time and will continue to do so. It has been on the table since 2013, and now we are hearing about a portal. The portal was talked about at least 10 years ago. I urge —.

I agree entirely with the Member and thank him for his intervention. We have the 14-19 strategy, the 16-19 framework, the 2022 independent review of careers advice and now the independent review of education. We know what they are saying, but we need to get on and do it now. I, for one, and Alliance will stand with the Minister and, indeed, all other relevant Ministers to try to make that happen, but we must move to that place of action now and not just have words.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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