Debate contribution: Cost-of-living Crisis

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 21 April 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

21 April 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Cost-of-living Crisis

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5497637

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Everywhere we look, it is clear that most people are struggling to make ends meet. While there is no doubt that Trump's war on Iran has played a major part in driving up prices — let us not forget that the war has also led to destruction and to the killing of thousands of Iranians — most of the deep cost-of-living problems predate the war. The war has just exacerbated them. Take the fact that people have been forced to be on a waiting list for years to get a hip replacement or some other medical procedure. That is a cost-of-living problem that has direct financial and health impacts on people. We heard yesterday that 6,000 people had died in the past 10 years while waiting in emergency departments. That is because they are in the wrong place, are not getting treatment or are not being seen to by our healthcare system. Again, there has been no action from the Executive on that. The cost of food has increased exponentially. People can do without many things in life, such as computers or phones, but they cannot do without the essentials. They cannot do without food. People are paying through the nose when they go to supermarkets. DAERA's food strategy framework action plan from last year found that nine out of 10 consumers were worried about the price of food. The result of that is pretty clear. People will buy less healthy foods and will instead buy more processed foods. In any supermarket, the more processed foods are cheaper. I am not judging people, but the reality is that that is what people will be forced to do in order to feed their family. What will be the result of people buying more processed foods? More people will be forced to go to the dentist, if they can even get access to a dentist, given the crisis in dental care as well. To get treatment, they will be forced to fork out hundreds, if not thousands, of extra pounds to a dentist. More and more people will be eating sugary foods and processed foods, and they will be unable to access to a dentist. They will have rotten teeth or get oral cancer. That is just one small example of how the cost-of-living crisis will have a direct impact on the health of people in my constituency and across the North. Parents already skip meals. At least 41% of them have reported cutting back on or skipping meals in order to feed their children. Of course, any parent would do that. That will go in only one direction. Given the increase in the cost of food, the number of parents skipping meals will rocket. The Executive are not talking about that. They are still ruling out capping the price of food. Although the deputy leader of the Alliance Party referred to it in passing, the motion makes no mention of the profit bonanza that private companies are experiencing whilst people are being ripped off. Take Tesco, for example. It has taken a hit because of the war on Iran and has adjusted its forecast, but it is still projected to make £3 billion in profit in the coming year. If you ask me and most people, that is completely insulting and disgusting. The top 20 energy companies up until August 2024 made £557 billion in profit. That was almost two years ago, so the figure will obviously have increased now. Energy companies are increasing their prices, forcing people to look at their meter and turn down their thermostat a bit, because they cannot afford to pay their energy bills. What is the result of that? People are cold and are having health problems, yet energy companies are making a huge fortune on the back of everybody but especially on the back of poor and vulnerable people. There needs to be a windfall tax on energy companies, but I have heard nothing about that from the Executive parties. If they agree to do that, brilliant, but I have not heard the Executive articulate at all that they will do that, so I do not know whether they are for it or not. I agree with some of what the Sinn Féin Members said. There was, however, also a lot of defensiveness from them. I suppose that it is their job to defend their Executive, but, deep down, they know that people consider the Executive to be completely failing them on multiple fronts, especially on the cost-of-living crisis. They have failed to protect people. They have failed to act for people. We know that the British Government have failed people, but Sinn Féin and the other Executive parties have done their bidding by implementing their ridiculous Budgets, which have resulted in people's services being cut in real terms in real time. People may ask what can the Executive do. They could implement rent controls, but all Executive parties have voted against those consistently. They could stop giving hundreds of millions of pounds to private landlords. They could scrap industrial derating for big companies. If people in the South —.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:25 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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