Member's statement: Childcare Support

Member's statement by Mrs Michelle Guy on 28 January 2025.

MLA

Mrs Michelle Guy

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

28 January 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Childcare Support

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4763531

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We debated a motion on childcare last week, during which I spoke about the need to be sensitive in the language that we use. Referring to full-time carers or parents as "not working" is disparaging. There are implications in those words. They suggest that those people are not making a contribution or do not have ambitions, and we know that that is not true: they make a huge contribution to our families and society. It is important to respect different circumstances and ensure that we do not create stigma or judgement when we talk about those people. I worked in a career, and I progressed to the point where I was managing a team and a budget. However, it came to the point where paying for childcare and taking unpaid leave to cover school holidays meant that I was just about breaking even. Many mothers, in particular, will have experienced asking for reduced hours or a flexible work pattern, requests that are accepted begrudgingly. They will be told that having a reduced work pattern is a privilege. They will get reduced hours, but they will also get a reduced salary and reduced holidays. Strangely, they will often not get a reduced workload. When we talk about encouraging women back into the workplace, we need to be mindful of that and make sure that we have, yes, the right technical policy interventions but also the right workplace culture. When my kids were really small, I would have benefited from the subsidy scheme that we now have. Working parents deserve that support. The issue of crippling childcare costs is not new. It has been around for a long time, but we have not addressed it quickly enough. There are flaws in the system that we have now, and it has become almost sacrilegious to point that out. I sat at a round-table event yesterday and heard from parents who are fearless, angry and passionate about the fact that we are not doing enough to help disadvantaged mothers. It is our job to speak up for the people who have been excluded from the scheme. The current scheme helps those who are in a job and eligible for tax-free childcare, and those parents deserve support. However, it excludes parents with children of school age who need childcare. It also excludes parents who are on Universal Credit and those who are in university or doing training. If you are a parent at university and you want to embark on a career or further your career, you are not entitled to the same support as those who are entitled to tax-free childcare. That creates an inequity in access to childcare, which is a policy gap that needs to be closed. No one is naive to the financial challenges that face our Executive. The budget allocated for childcare and early years must be viewed as an investment. It is one that we would be reaping the rewards of now if we had acted sooner.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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