Debate contribution: Ageing Population: Strategic Plan

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 25 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

25 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Ageing Population: Strategic Plan

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4815174

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for proposing the motion, which the SDLP will support. Given how important, critical, essential and relevant the motion is, please let it not be a decade before you get to make your next choice. It is an important motion and a reality that we all need to be aware of and prepare for. How often do we hear from various leaders that the measure of a society is found in how it treats its vulnerable, including its elderly? The reality is that we are an ageing population, as has been highlighted today. At present, the proportion of those aged 65-plus is one in six; that is simply going to rise in the future, and it is anticipated that, very soon, it will become one in five. As the Member rightly notes in the motion, that presents challenges and opportunities for public services. Although the Executive Office is responding today, the issue needs to be addressed by the whole Executive. The message that I send to the Executive today is quite simply this: if we do not invest in our older people, we are endangering our present and our future. If we do not invest in our older people and plan for the future, it will impact on our older people's quality of life and their access to healthcare and will heighten their experience of social isolation and perhaps loneliness, but it will also have an indirect impact on those who rely so heavily on them, particularly, as has been referenced many times today, for childcare. A recent survey highlighted how more than half of households require the help of grandparents to provide some childcare. To have more than half of households relying on grandparents for childcare is a startling statistic and yet another example of our Executive's placing undue responsibility on unpaid carers. Taking cognisance of the fact that we are an ageing society, I say that what is needed right now, more than ever, is for the Executive to invest in our older people and in the various initiatives that are already in place to reduce older people's isolation and enhance their dignity. Remember that one in five people in the North currently experiences loneliness regularly. That is another startling statistic. When I look at my constituency, I am in admiration of organisations such as the u3a and Men's Sheds. Those tireless bands of volunteers get together to try to provide some services for one another in their local communities, and they are almost peer-led. As a former youth worker, I can see what has happened since we said, many years ago, that we had to invest in young people and provide a service right across the board that they could access regardless of where they live. Given our changing demographics for age, we need to see an older people's service across the board that provides the structures and services that enable our communities to have activities to do.

Yes.

Absolutely.

When I was reflecting on the possibility of there being some form of older people's service that is almost like a youth service, I felt that the Older People's Commissioner, perhaps working alongside councils, would strategically be the ideal office through which to deliver such a service in order to make sure that there are services for people across the board. Before I conclude, I ask that the Member who proposed the motion include something in her closing remarks. The motion calls for a strategy. I hate strategies. They are all that we ever get from Ministers. They are bits of paper that are pulled together that then go on a shelf, after which very little else happens. If we call for a costed action plan with delivery timescales, we can hold people to account. That is how a Government are held to account. I ask the Executive to tell us what it is that they want to do for older people, how much they are prepared to invest and how long it will take them to do it. The Opposition and the public will then be able to hold them to account by checking that the targets are being delivered against. Anything else, frankly, is just waffle.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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