Debate contribution: Support for Carers

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 10 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

10 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Support for Carers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4791085

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to debate the important motion. I commend Mr Carroll for bringing it to the House. Once again, a motion from this corner of the Chamber is shining a spotlight on issues that are too often ignored by the Executive parties and the official Opposition. This issue should not be ignored. I have no doubt that Members across the House can, like I can, think of specific cases — perhaps even in their own family — in which someone goes above and beyond every day to care for the needs of another. The motion, rightly, turns our attention to the fact that that is particularly the case when it comes to children with additional needs. It is also an issue in which there is a gender inequality: those caring responsibilities often fall to mothers. Many women, because of their dedication to placing the needs of their child before their own, simply cannot go out into the workplace, or, if they do, it can be on only a part-time or temporary basis, and only then if they can find an understanding employer prepared to work around their needs. Consequently, they all too often find themselves struggling to make ends meet. A briefing paper from Carers NI that was issued ahead of the debate makes for sobering reading, and we should all sit up and take notice: 28% of unpaid carers in Northern Ireland are living in poverty, with 48,000 people in receipt of carer's allowance. As we have already heard in the debate, that benefit is worth a token gesture payment of £81·90 a week. That is available only to those providing unpaid care for a minimum of 35 hours per week, meaning that payments are worth a maximum of £2·34 per hour. Not only that; if one penny over £151 per week is earned by the recipient, they lose the entirety of their carer's allowance payment. As I read those facts, I could not but reflect on the comments of a Member who told us last week that MLAs with young families struggle to get by on £52,500, which is £1,000 per week before tax, plus office-holder allowances. Members who sit on the Assembly Commission receive £6,000 a year on top of that. A member of the Assembly Commission earns almost as much on top of their MLA salary —

— as someone on carer's allowance —.

I am making a comparison, Deputy Speaker.

I am making a comparison.

As I was saying, Deputy Speaker, I am making a comparison —.

Thank you very much. Is that strike 1? I was making a comparison: a member of the Assembly Commission earns as much as extra salary as a carer gets in a year. My goodness. It is obscene that that is the reality.

Moving on, let us consider the situation in other parts of the UK. I note that, in Scotland, there is a carer's allowance supplement scheme. When a petition calling for a similar scheme was presented to the Communities Minister last June, he said that such a scheme would require support and funding from the Executive. Members, if the Assembly can find the money to propose that MLAs get pay parity with Members of the Scottish Parliament, there is money in the coffers to meet that modest request.

I support the motion and the amendment.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:56 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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