Debate contribution: Support for Carers

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 10 February 2025.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

10 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Support for Carers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4791124

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for his comments today. The number of unpaid carers across Northern Ireland has grown massively over the past five years. Looking at the benefit claimants extract from the Minister's Department, in December 2024, it says that 77,400 people are in receipt of carer's allowance. Others quoted figures such as 220,000. That shows that 35% of carers in Northern Ireland receive a carer's allowance.

Those people receive an allowance that is not means-tested but is deducted from the other benefits that they receive. From April, if you earn £197 per week — £1 more than the £196 limit — you will lose the whole thing. There is no easing into it or anything like that. It is just gone.

I declare an interest as a carer. I thank Gerry Carroll from the People Before Profit Alliance. Gerry, you do not get many motions in the House, and for you to commit your time for a carers' motion is much appreciated. I also thank my colleague Sian Mulholland, who has really grasped the subject and taken it to her heart. As we have said here with one voice, we all care what happens to carers. I have been a carer for most of my adult life. It started with my disabled brother, who, sadly, has passed away. Now I have the joy of caring for my father, who will love me talking about him. I have to say that I am lucky as a carer because I can go out to work every day. The stress and pressure is difficult, but I count myself lucky because I am not one of the people who are sitting, like my dad used to be, at the beck and call of the person whom they are caring for 24 hours a day. They cannot work. My dad had to leave work at the age of 47 to look after his disabled brother when my mother passed away. That means doing everything from feeding them, washing them, dressing them, making sure that they have the right food all day and that they take their medication, taking them to doctor appointments — everything — to putting them to bed at night. For that, you do not get to work and are treated as somebody who, from April, is worth only £90-odd a week. It is difficult to think that some of the most important people we have, who are delivering care in the community in Northern Ireland — the real care in the community that was all planned for years ago in the reform of our health system — are being forced to live on the poverty line. The Minister has talked about the budget. I do not believe that it is solely a Communities budget issue; it is a cross-departmental issue. I am delighted that there has been agreement on Sian's amendment, because, if you were to take the £5·8 billion per year that carers save Northern Ireland's health service and added to that the cost of domiciliary care to replace the 77,400 people and the costs for those people if they could not work at all, my goodness, we would be looking at a humongous amount of money. Why can we not afford what could potentially be £43 million for a carer's allowance? I calculated it out based on the figure of 77,400 and £550 a year; a bit like the Scotland model. It comes to £42·5 million. It sounds like a huge amount of money, but, as a carer, if I were handed £550 — now, I do not get carer's allowance, so I would not be included — that would pay for electricity and oil for the house. It would pay for groceries for my dad, not for me. Some people may be able to use that to pay someone else to sit with their loved one so that they can go and get their head showered for a while. It may pay for — I know rightly what carers are like — a new bed, part of a mattress or whatever for the person whom they care for. It is rarely the carer's intention to take money to use for themselves. However, in giving them that money, the Government could acknowledge their worth and tell them, "You deserve a break". I have to say that one thing that makes me most cross when I go to a GP's surgery is that there is no prescription for respite for a carer, only for the person whom they care for. The carer could be at breaking point, at their wits' end and devastated, yet respite is not provided for them. Those people are left behind in the health service, and carer's allowance will be deducted from their universal credit. It is a kick every way they turn. The Assembly should want to create a society that recognises, values and supports carers. However, the experiences of carers were shared in the Carers Northern Ireland report on caring in Northern Ireland now and in the future.

They said that the challenges that they face hit them every day. We have the opportunity, as one House, to speak on their behalf and to support them.

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

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