Debate contribution: Mother-and-baby Unit

Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on 7 October 2025.

MLA

Mr Robbie Butler

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

7 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Mother-and-baby Unit

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5164675

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for sharing so openly his familial testimony. It is not easy for anyone to share such testimony. We have also heard Members share testimonies today, particularly from constituents. Before I address the detail of the motion, I will take a moment to pay tribute to some of the people whom I consider to be the early champions of raising the profile of perinatal mental health. Long before it became a topic with which we wrestled more readily, they forced us to understand it better, stood their ground and demanded change, and the Minister has outlined where some of that change has happened in the past 10 years. Back in 2016, a number of us were elected as MLAs, and we were collared — literally — by a determined group that refused to let perinatal mental health remain under the radar. They set sail firmly towards a future in which mothers in Northern Ireland could safely and humanely receive care without being separated from their babies and in which they would not have to fight for that clinical care. I acknowledge Lindsay Robinson and Nuala Murphy in particular, whose passionate lobbying from those early days helped shape the conversation on perinatal mental health, not just in the Chamber but across our health system and in communities. Their courage, persistence and honesty about their lived experience changed awareness for good. They allowed and gave confidence to pregnant mums all over Northern Ireland and more widely to speak up and demand better from us. I also pay tribute to Julie Anderson, the chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, for her partnership and leadership. Her steady guidance and professional expertise have helped keep the vision rooted in clinical best practice and compassion. Thanks to those early voices, we are no longer debating whether mothers should be supported to stay with their babies but, rather, how we make that a reality. The level of awareness has changed, as has the tone, and the direction of travel is firmly set. I hope that the Minister's response to some excellent speeches today has given confidence that our amendment is not one of dither and delay. It really is not, because I assure Members that I would hold the Minister's feet to the fire on the issue. I think that I have some vires to speak about mental health. We need to establish the mother-and-baby unit, and we need to get it right, because we cannot fail those mums and their babies again. We tabled a common-sense amendment to a motion on what is a hugely important and sensitive matter. We really need to get the mother-and-baby unit done, but the direction needs to be rooted in deliverability and make clinical sense.

Thank you, Minister. Hopefully, that will help some of the Members who have asked questions. I thank Órlaithí Flynn, in particular, from the Sinn Féin team for tabling the motion. Órlaithí has walked the path with me since 2016 and has been relentless. Some of us move about portfolios, but Órlaithí has been on this one from the start. I thank Sinn Féin, and I hope that it does not see our amendment as taking away in any way from its motion. I think that it adds to the clarity, the purpose and the deliverability of what we are speaking about, because it is far too important to take any chances. I will give a shout-out to the guys: Alan R, Alan C and Philip. We recognise the impact on mums and their babies, but dads and the wider family are also impacted on. That awareness around young men as they grow up to be the fathers that they should be is really important. We talked about that being picked up in the RSE education piece, because the awareness around perinatal mental health still needs to be driven. Thanks to Cara Hunter and Pam Cameron who spoke passionately and gave instances of testimony of those who have suffered and where their testimony is driving the change that, hopefully, we are going to bring about. Nuala McAllister's questions were good. It is one of the debates where we drop the politicking, and the questions are absolutely fair. They bring a focus to the reality of the fiscal situation, the clinical guidance and getting it right first time. I think that the Minister has given enough in his response today to convince Members that the amendment brought by the Ulster Unionist Party is not only fit for purpose but worth supporting.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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