Debate contribution: Home Care Provision

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 12 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

12 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Home Care Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5528691

Read the official Assembly record

Text

There is no way to dress it up: we must be open and honest with the public that there is a crisis in home care provision. In North Antrim, the Northern Trust area is a particularly telling case study of the issues that affect the sector. In December 2025, the Northern Trust had 532 people waiting for full care packages and a further 303 waiting for partial packages. The Department acknowledges that there are geographical black spots where care packages are difficult to source. Why? It is because providers often cannot make those runs financially viable. In answer to Mrs Erskine, the Minister said that providers favoured urban areas, where shorter distances make care packages more profitable. What does that mean to the layman in the street? It means that an elderly person in a rural community may wait longer for care not because their need is less serious but because they live too far away from an urban area. The truth is that many home care workers do extraordinary work in increasingly difficult circumstances. They work unsocial hours; they travel huge distances; they often work alone and deal with increasingly complex needs; yet the sector continues to struggle with recruitment and retention because many of its workers can earn comparable wages in hospitality or retail with far less pressure and responsibility. Genuinely valuing the care sector will take more than warm words during debates; it means fair pay. It means doing what Scotland has done and not just talking about a living wage for the sector but making it a reality by prioritising it across government. The problem in Northern Ireland is that Departments are split up between parties with no agreed Programme for Government before they form a Government, and then we have the nonsense of Minister after Minister standing at the Dispatch Box and saying that they cannot do anything about the issue.

Indeed, the system that we have positively discourages the other parties from helping a Minister — the Health Minister, in this case — deliver their goal, because it would be seen as an achievement by a rival party, and so the hamster wheel continues —

— ensuring that the silo mentality lives long. I am happy to give way.

I welcome the contribution. I am looking at some of the figures for what London sends to Belfast. The spend per head of population in England is £13,134. In Wales, it is 15·4% greater, at £15,155; in Scotland, it is 18·6% higher than it is in England and sits at £15,563; and, in Northern Ireland, the spend per head of population is 22·7% higher than it is in England at £16,116. Those are the 2024-25 figures. I agree with what the Member said in his intervention. More needs to be done, more can be done and more should be done through the Health Department. There are things that the Health Minister could do on this issue, but he is not doing them. In preparing for today's debate, I read with interest Mr Nesbitt's response to a question for written answer from the Member for East Londonderry Ms Hunter in which he admitted that the Department has not even carried out a formal assessment of the mileage reimbursement rates for domiciliary care workers who are employed by independent providers. Why not? In large rural constituencies like North Antrim, travel is essential to deliver that service, and at a time of rising fuel costs, it is an aspect of the job that eats into the already meagre pay of those who deliver vital front-line services. The Minister comes here and says that he needs more money, and I understand the Member sticking up for his Finance Minister. More should be done with the budget that we have, and there are glaring inadequacies in how money in the Stormont pot is being prioritised. A number of months ago, the House had no problem finding money for the 27% salary increase for MLAs, yet, when it comes to this vital front-line service —

— it cannot even enact the living wage for domiciliary care workers in our community. That shows you that the priorities in this place —

— are not right.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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