Official Report: Tuesday 14 October 2025

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: As usual, if Members wish to be called to make a statement, they should rise continually in their place. Members who are called will have up to three minutes to make their statement. I remind Members that interventions are not permitted. I will not take any points of order on this or any other matter until the item of business has finished.

Ms Ferguson: The beginning of 2025 was marked by the launch of 'The Prevalence and Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences', groundbreaking research that found that almost one in five people in society here had experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences. Now, as we approach the end of the year, the Simon Community has followed that with another new study, which was launched here last week, considering the lived experience of people here who are homeless and living in temporary or hostel accommodation. Again, it showed, devastatingly, that a significant level of adversity and trauma had been experienced. We know from the May 2025 UNICEF report 'Child Well-Being in an Unpredictable World' that the overall trend is a reduction in children's life satisfaction. That reflects the findings in the 2024 young life and times and kids' life and times surveys, which found that the well-being of 11-year-olds has declined in recent years and that, furthermore, almost half of all 16-year-olds have probable mental ill health.

It is now more pressing than ever to have joined-up thinking, particularly across the Communities, Justice, Health and Education Departments, in delivering policy and legislation that will deliver an expansive vision of doing right by our children here. That should include a key focus on tackling adverse childhood experiences, which can impact on a person's physical, mental and behavioural health, quality of life and access to opportunities. We all have a duty to, once and for all, tackle child poverty, deliver housing security, improve educational attainment, provide family support services, enhance mental health and well-being services, strengthen rehabilitation and justice diversion services, and fund a mentally secure and stable future for all our young people. Every child is filled with tremendous promise and potential. We have a shared obligation to foster and protect that.

Mr Harvey: This week marks Baby Loss Awareness Week, a time to remember and honour the lives of babies who have died during pregnancy, at birth or shortly after. It is also a time to acknowledge the deep grief experienced by parents and families and to reaffirm our collective commitment to supporting those who have endured such unimaginable loss.

This year marks the twenty-third year that Baby Loss Awareness Week will run, between 9 October and 15 October. Every day in the UK, 13 babies die before, during or after birth, and that figure does not include miscarriage. Across the country, families will light candles, wear pink and blue ribbons and take part in remembrance events to break the silence that too often surrounds baby loss. Their courage in sharing their stories helps others to feel less alone and encouraged to open compassionate conversations about miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death. The week culminates in a global wave of light at 7.00 pm on 15 October, when everyone is invited to light a candle and leave it burning for at least an hour to remember all babies.

We must continue to advocate for high-quality bereavement care, better support for families and continued investment and research to reduce preventable deaths. To all parents who have lost a baby: your children are remembered, your grief is seen and your love endures.

I invite all Members to join me in recognising Baby Loss Awareness Week and in supporting the families and organisations that are working tirelessly to bring comfort, awareness and hope.

Mr Dickson: This week marks National Hate Crime Awareness Week. I would like the Assembly to join organisations across the United Kingdom that are marking this important week, encouraging those who are victims or witnesses to hate crimes to report them to the authorities. Hate crimes are a scourge on our society. Many in the Chamber have been subject to hate crimes at home and at places of work. Depressingly, data released by the PSNI shows that, in the 12 months to June 2025, there were almost 2,300 hate crimes across Northern Ireland, with 1,329 of those being motivated by racial issues. That is the highest figure since records began in 2004. It is horrifying that hate crimes have become so commonplace in Northern Ireland.

Every person in Northern Ireland has the right to live without fear or intimidation during Hate Crime Awareness Week and, indeed, during every week. If you are a victim of a hate crime or an incident, it is good to speak to someone who can hear about your experience. Support services, such as the Hate Crime Advocacy Service, are available and can help to deal with the impact of crime. Those services offer a safe and confidential space to provide support to victims of hate and signal crimes across different protected characteristics.

In the summer just past, we witnessed shameful scenes of families being burnt out of their homes, something that we thought that we had left in our past. That toxic racist rhetoric has been amplified by the spread of misinformation and the lack of government action, which has been fuelled by social media platforms failing to monitor rampant tirades of hate. The individual targets in those crimes were attacked or terrorised solely because of the colour of their skin, their background or their community. Those are real people with real families.

At this time, I am calling on our Executive to do more to protect those who are targeted simply for the colour of their skin or their race. If we are to truly tackle hate crime, there needs to be a purposeful move in prioritising action against race hate at all levels, from Westminster getting a grip with social media platforms, to the Executive Office promoting and delivering on its range of strategies, which, thus far, have not extended beyond sound bites or press releases.

I pledge to support my constituents across East Antrim. I trust that all in the Chamber will agree that, one day, we should not need a hate crime awareness week. Until that day, I pledge to deliver my actions by working on delivering hope, not hate.

Ms Finnegan: I want to take a moment to highlight the incredible work that is being done by Youth Club for All in south Armagh — a small, community-led group with a huge heart and an even greater impact. The group was born out of the determination of parents who simply refused to accept that their children with additional needs should be left without a place to belong. When formal inclusion for youth provision was stopped during COVID, those parents, supported by Sinn Féin, worked to reinstate it. Out of that was born Youth Club for All, which provides a safe, inclusive environment where young people with additional and complex needs can socialise, learn and thrive alongside their peers.

Over the past two years, Youth Club for All has transformed lives. For many families, it is their only outlet outside of school. For many young people, it is the only opportunity to develop friendships and confidence in a safe space outside of school. Parents have described it as a lifeline, which is exactly what it is. It should never have to rely solely on the goodwill of volunteers and the determination of parents. Those young people deserve consistent, statutory support, not a piecemeal provision that depends on who can fight the hardest. The reality is that the Education Authority has no statutory obligation to provide youth services for children and young people with additional needs. That gap leaves families fighting year after year to secure basic inclusion. It is not good enough.

We also have a serious deficit in post-19 services. Too often, when young people with additional needs reach adulthood, the support simply disappears, with no youth club; no meaningful day opportunities; and no funded pathways that recognise their abilities, interests and right to continue participating in community life. Sinn Féin has consistently called for the Government to stand up properly for post-19 youth provision, so that young people with additional needs are not simply left behind once they turn 19. I encourage the Minister of Education and the Department to complete the priorities for youth review as soon as possible.

Youth Club for All stands as proof that it works when inclusion is done right and when families, staff and the community work together to make sure that every child is valued and supported. It should not be the exception; it should be the standard. The families involved in Youth Club for All do not want charity. They want fairness, equality and a system that recognises their children as having the same rights as everybody else. It is time for the Education Authority and the Department of Education to step up and take responsibility to ensure that inclusion is not optional but guaranteed.

Mr Frew: I place on record my appreciation for and gratitude to every individual and organisation who has spoken to and engaged with me on my private Member's Bill on individual duty of candour. I have met so many victims, so many healthcare staff members and so many organisational bodies that represent either healthcare staff or other people who have been victims of a lack of candour.

The e-consultation that I carried out, using Google Forms software, ran for 14 weeks. It was launched on 4 July and closed on at 5.00 pm on Friday 10 October. The e-consultation consisted of 25 questions: there was a mixture of multiple choice questions and various other questions that enabled people to respond freely with text. A total of 111 responses was recorded on the online consultation. Those were accompanied by a number of written responses that were received via post and email. The consultation process involved significant engagement with stakeholders, be it through in-person meetings, email or phone calls or in writing. Stakeholders have made a significant contribution to the development of the Bill.

The consultation responses were overwhelmingly supportive of the Bill proposal. Of the 111 online respondents, 104 — 94% — were in favour of an individual duty of candour. We also received positive responses from the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman (NIPSO) and the New Script for Mental Health charity. The online consultation showed a vast amount of support for the Bill from victims and families of victims of malpractice or wrongdoing in the health service.

The consultation also focused on the current practices for whistle-blowing and current reporting mechanisms that exist across the health service. The online consultation sought to gain opinion on whether current whistle-blowing legislation protects the complainant adequately. Some 86 — 80% — of the 108 respondents believed that it did not and that further strengthening of the legislation was required. Furthermore, a follow-up question was asked to assess what people felt needed to change about the current legislation. Common themes to emerge in answers were accountability and protection for the complainant. That is what the Bill seeks to do.

Mr Mathison: Over a year ago, I was contacted by a group of concerned special school principals regarding removals that had taken place and planned removals of nursing provision in their schools. That progressive chipping away of an essential service is happening at a time when we are hearing, more and more, about the increasing complexity of need, particularly medical needs, in our special schools.

Nursing provision in special schools is essential. The suggestion that classroom assistants can simply take over those duties — duties that were previously undertaken by a medical professional — as proposed by the Public Health Agency (PHA), is simply unfair. Principals have been clear about the incredible amount of stress that that places on all staff in special schools and about the fact that while classroom assistants provide fantastic support in the classroom, they are not medical professionals with the clinical expertise that is required to deliver that kind of specialised support. It also places them in an incredibly vulnerable position with their personal liability when care plans do not go to plan.

Following engagement between the Health and Education Ministers, the Health Minister gave an assurance that the issue would be considered as part of a wider PHA review of the population health needs of children attending special schools in Northern Ireland. A response to a question for written answer from the start of September assured me:

While aspects of the report, which has been published, are encouraging, particularly on the need to listen to the lived experiences of children and young people and the need for better cross-departmental collaboration between Health and Education, the report gives no clarity on whether nursing provision will be restored in the settings in which it has been lost or protected in those that still have it. Parents and principals were left in limbo for almost a year waiting for the outcome of the review, and, following the report's being published, they are still no clearer on what the Minister will do.

It is also concerning that only six families from two of the five trust areas were interviewed on the issue to inform the evidence for the report. Given the seriousness of the issue, I would have hoped that more effort could have been made to ensure that there was broad and wide consultation with the families affected by the decisions, since it was about the care of their children.

Significant questions remain regarding the future of nursing provision in special schools. I urge the Health Minister to provide urgent clarity on how he will address those. It is a vital service, which, at times, can provide life-saving interventions. Its need must not be underestimated, and full nursing provision in special schools must be reinstated as soon as possible.

Mr Gildernew: I rise to raise the issue of mental health, particularly suicide. I am conscious of the fact that we are just coming out of September, a month in which there is a particular focus on suicide. However, throughout the month of September, there has been what I call a tragic wave of suicides across the south Tyrone area. It has impacted on a range of people — young and old; men and women; urban and rural — and has been devastating for each and every one of the families involved. I have been asked by some of the families to raise the issue, and we are being asked by families to do more on the issue in general.

It is disappointing to hear of a review being carried out to the mental health strategy, and an indication that that strategy is going to be pared back. We need to be spending more, not less, on mental health. We have to acknowledge the pain and suffering that the loss of each individual in these circumstances has on family, sets of friends, sporting clubs or whatever.

I also acknowledge the groups in the south Tyrone area that are working so hard to try to reach out to people and to provide a service, sometimes in the absence of statutory services and sometimes alongside them. Groups such as the Niamh Louise Foundation and MensReach are doing everything that they can in the community and voluntary sector. Many clubs, societies and organisations are also doing what they can to try to raise awareness of the issue and to try to help people at a time of need. I commend and acknowledge the work of each and every one of those groups. I have made a commitment that I will work with everyone in the south Tyrone area to try to improve the capacity, delivery of services and outreach to people who are struggling.

Finally, I say this directly to people: please reach out and speak to someone if you feel that you are at risk of harming yourself. Please speak to someone in your circle, someone in the groups that I have mentioned or someone in a sports club. The impact on people is just too great, and I urge all of us to do all that we can in the time ahead to address the issue of suicide.

Mr Brett: It is with a deep sense of pride and huge gratitude that I rise to mark the historic occasion of Michael O'Neill's 100th game in charge of Northern Ireland. Despite the best attempts of the officials last night, what a performance it was by the football team to mark that occasion.

In football, numbers, goals, results and appearances tell part of the story, but this milestone represents something far greater. It marks a journey of leadership and belief and the restoration of national pride here in Northern Ireland. When Michael first took charge of Northern Ireland in 2012, he inherited a side facing massive challenges, but he saw potential in our players where others did not. Through hard work, discipline and vision, he reignited that spark of belief that Northern Ireland could once again stand shoulder to shoulder with Europe's elite. Our two weeks in France in 2016 will be forever etched into the national consciousness of this country. That campaign involved more than just football matches; they were nights when the whole country smiled together, when Windsor Park roared as one and when the world once again took notice of Northern Ireland. Under Michael's leadership, our team reminded us that success is not defined by size but by spirit. Through his organisation, determination and togetherness, he showed that we can bridge any gap, and he gave a generation of young fans, which I once was, heroes to believe in for the future.

When he returned to the job in 2022, he did so with the same passion and pride. His focus on raising standards, nurturing talent and bringing on the next generation of footballers has never wavered. As Michael said:

For me, that statement encapsulates everything about his vision, which is built on pride, opportunity and a belief that, as a nation, we can stand together.

As Michael continues to lead Northern Ireland, we pay tribute to his commitment, his class and his contribution to our national story. He has earned his rightful place among the great figures of our sporting history. On behalf of the Assembly and every supporter who dared to dream, we say, "Thank you, Michael". You have given us moments that we will never forget, and, like you, we believe that the best is yet to come.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, 'We're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland'.

Miss McAllister: I rise to talk about the autism waiting list in Northern Ireland. Over 17,000 children in Northern Ireland are on a waiting list for an autism assessment. What does that look like? That looks like classrooms with multiple students who do not have the right support to get them through each day. That looks like teachers who are struggling to carry out their role because they want to do their jobs to the best of their ability. That looks like parents who are fighting behind closed doors to hold it all together. Most importantly, however, it looks like 17,000 children who are struggling with emotional distress, anxiety, school avoidance and challenges in their home environment.

There is help available out there from organisations. When the statutory bodies fall down, those organisations pick up the pieces. I thank and pay tribute to Autism NI, the National Autistic Society Northern Ireland and the many parents who have been in touch with me, and with many Members across the Chamber, to seek help. Parents are desperate. They are so desperate that they are turning to the private sector and, in many cases, paying over £1,000 for an autism assessment.

What does that mean afterwards? It means that parents can access support from many of those organisations in their home. In school, however, it does not mean a great deal, because children still need an assessment and a statement from the Department of Education and the Department of Health. We are putting children in danger and families at risk. Early intervention is key. We are talking about children who cry themselves to sleep because they do not want to go to school. We are talking about children locking themselves in their bedroom because they are afraid of struggling siblings' breakdowns or meltdowns. We are talking about parents who often remain silent because they do not believe that help is out there. We must do better for all 17,000 of those children.

I hope that the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health can work together on a plan to prioritise and implement the changes that need to be made so that it is not a postcode lottery, so that it not up to principals to select pupils and so that parents do not have to pay for private assessments. We need all those young pupils to be able to get the most help, and the best help, that they can.

Ms Forsythe: Women and girls who participate in sport in Northern Ireland are entitled to equality, fairness and safety. That sounds like common sense, but, unfortunately, such things are not guaranteed. They are not happening in practice, which is why I have been working on a private Member's Bill to address those issues and the many associated ones. The consultation on the proposed Bill will be open until Friday 24 October. I have engaged with a number of organisations, groups, clubs, schools and individuals, and I thank all those who have engaged with me so far.

Some key issues have arisen across the three main themes in the Bill. First, on equality of access, there are many barriers in place for women and girls who want to participate in sport, such as access to funding, a lack of facilities, extra kit and complexities, periods and pregnancy, the perception of women and girls doing sport, and the additional cost involved. The Female Sports Forum recently issued a report that outlines a lot of the issues. Equality issues, such as equality of access, are important and need to be addressed.

The second theme is safety and safeguarding. There are significant safeguarding issues across sports here, particularly for our young girls. From speaking to organisations, it became worryingly apparent to me that AccessNI vetting checks need to be improved across the board. I would love to see that matter addressed. Women also feel unsafe when they are out alone for exercise and in the evenings. There is a widespread safeguarding issue because of the lack of single-sex spaces and changing and showering facilities. That is also an issue of key concern that needs to be addressed.

The third theme of my private Member's Bill is fairness. Women and girls should be afforded the opportunity to participate in fair competition so that they can excel and be rewarded for their success by competing against other biological females. Every woman and girl should have the opportunity to participate fairly in their sport and be rewarded when they are the best in their category.

In spite of the many barriers, women's sports and girls' sports are thriving. At the weekend, the Northern Ireland Football League Women's Football Awards recognised Valley Rangers Ladies and Girls FC and Moneyslane Ladies FC from my constituency, which was brilliant to see. I want to be able to do more, however. Women and girls in Northern Ireland deserve to have equality, fairness and safety when they are trying to access and to participate in sport. I encourage everyone to continue to engage, to reach out to me and, please, to take part in my consultation to feed into it. Together, we can bring change forward.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Diane. Timothy, you have two minutes.

Mr Gaston: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, I secured a Matter of the Day on the Trump deal, which seems to have brought an end to the conflict in the Middle East. I regret that, 24 hours later, I already need to note that Hamas has fallen short of its commitments. The terrorists were to return the bodies of all the dead hostages, as well as releasing the hostages who had survived. Yet, as I stand here today, only four of the 28 bodies have been returned. My thoughts and prayers are with the families whose agony has been prolonged by the evil terrorists of Hamas in that most cruel fashion.

In contemplating that, my mind turns to the families of Seamus Maguire, Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh and Captain Robert Nairac, all of whom were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA. Recently, Sinn Féin distanced itself from the comments of Michelle Gildernew, but it was far from clear what the party actually objected to in what its former MP and Minister said. Was it because she agreed with the use of the word "murder" when it came to the IRA? We recall how Gerry Adams notoriously said that the abduction and secret burial of mother-of-10 Jean McConville was wrong but was not a crime. Is the word "murder" the issue that Mrs O'Neill has with Ms Gildernew's remarks?

Whether it is in the sands of Gaza or the bogs of south Armagh, the deliberate taking and concealment of human life is not politics; it is barbarism. It is time that Hamas and Sinn Féin/IRA delivered closure to the families whom they ripped apart.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: That brings us to the end of Members' statements. I ask Members to take their ease for a moment while we change the personnel at the Table.

Mr O'Toole: I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes to propose and 10 minutes to make a winding-up speech. All other contributors will have five minutes. Mr O'Toole, please open the debate on the motion.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. When we became the Opposition in February 2024, we were clear that we would be a constructive Opposition. We meant it then, and we mean it now. Being constructive does not just mean never criticising the Executive: it means criticising the Executive for the right reasons. Being constructive also means building and delivering things for the people of Northern Ireland. That is what today's motion is all about: delivery, delivery, delivery — and building real things that will improve the lives of people whatever their background, constitutional perspective or class. A health system that works, with modern hospitals that can treat them. A functioning water system that can give them clean drinking water and allow homes to be built. Infrastructure that can allow them to get safely and sustainably from their houses to their place of work or leisure. Those are the basic things that any society should want to deliver for its people. The Executive, it must be said, are failing at that. They are failing at delivery and failing to build. They are failing to build for the people of the North. Our motion is clear about that, and we make no apology for being robust in our criticism of the Executive. That is what "constructive" means.

Ms Bradshaw: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: I will in one second.

Yesterday, the deputy First Minister accused me of being — I think that this is the phrase that she used — "moaning Matthew". I am more than happy to take that moniker if it means standing up for the people of the North, who were promised better than this and who deserve better than this. We in the Opposition make absolutely no apology for being robust in demanding better for the people.

I give way.

Ms Bradshaw: Thank you, Matthew, for giving way. We will support the motion, but we take exception to the line in it that states:

What do you think that adds to the motion? It distracts and just looks like petty politicking.

Mr O'Toole: I appreciate the commentary from the Chair of the Executive Office Committee. In many ways, her intervention was politicking, and that is fine, because she, like me, is a politician. She, I think, agrees that dragging to the Chamber debates such as the one on dual language signage, when there are people out there who are on a waiting list or who are waiting to find out whether social homes will be built in their community, is petty politicking. That is what I am talking about. Back to my remarks, however.

Why do we need an investment strategy? First of all, what is an investment strategy? All the major economic and business representative groups are clear that Northern Ireland needs an investment strategy. It is, in effect, a road map for how the Executive intend to deliver critical infrastructure, not just transport infrastructure — although road and rail is an important part of it — but in schools, hospitals, waste water investment and stadia such as Casement Park, which Gaels and the people of west Belfast have been waiting for now for pretty much a generation.

The most-recent finalised investment strategy was in 2011. That document set out clearly what the Executive intended to do and build. They certainly did not deliver everything that was in that programme, but some of it was delivered, and it had a critical role in showing people in the public, private and third sectors what the Executive intended to deliver so that the public could hold them to account. They will not be able to do that now. We are more than a year on from the publication of the draft Programme for Government, and 10 months on from publication of the final Programme for Government, which promised an "upcoming investment strategy" that was going to set out how we were going to see prioritisation of road, rail, water, stadia, schools and hospitals. There is still no sign of when it is going to come. I asked the deputy First Minister the other day when it was going to come. She would not give me an answer — she who calls me "moaning Matthew" for doing my job and holding the Executive to account. I make absolutely no apology for moaning about failure. I make no apology for moaning about the state of our health service or the abysmal state of our public transport infrastructure compared with other regions. I will give credit when progress is made, when we finally see phase 2 of the Glider delivered and — as I am sure that Mr Brett would agree — night buses in Belfast. I will give credit for the opening of the wonderful new Grand Central station, but I am not going to be shy about complaining and demanding better for the public of the North.

I come to the focus of our motion. Our motion is clear that the Executive have failed, not just to publish an investment strategy but to make progress on flagship projects. We name them in the motion. The A5 is a life-saving project that people, particularly west of the Bann and in County Tyrone — it is also hugely relevant to people in Donegal, Monaghan and Derry — have been promised for decades. Not only is it not making progress, it is stalled, in limbo and chaos, because of what appears to be unacceptable ineptitude from the Infrastructure Department and a Sinn Féin Minister.

Casement Park is a landmark stadium project in the heart of west Belfast, which is totally in limbo. There is no sign of progress. It is not even clear that it is being discussed properly at the Executive. The Finance Minister and the Communities Minister bat it back and forth between one another. Extra money has come from the Irish and British Governments, but there is no plan for delivery from the Executive.

The all-island strategic rail review is an opportunity to decarbonise our economy and connect this island after the destruction of large parts of our rail network post partition. How many people in the Infrastructure Department are working on the all-island strategic rail review? I found out when I asked a question for written answer: it is 0·3 of an official. One third of a person is delivering what is in many ways the most important decarbonisation and public transport project on this island. That is shameful, so I will not apologise for being robust in calling out the Executive.

I come to waste water infrastructure. When I ask the Finance Minister and the Infrastructure Minister about that, they dismiss me. They ask, "Ah, but what is your plan? What is your plan?". We are the Opposition. They will not say what their plan is. There was talk for months about a developer levy. I do not know where we are on that plan or where we are on long-term investment in our waste water network, but every large business organisation and outside investor is clear that failure to invest in the waste water network will cost us progress. It will not just cost us theoretical economic growth; it will stop homes being built. A report said that it could stop 6,000 homes being built annually. It is preventing people from living their lives and having homes. It is preventing job creation. It is pathetic.

Does it have to be like this? No, it does not. As the Opposition, our job is to call for and demand better. An investment strategy that sets out clear prioritisation of investment is absolutely critical. We all know that resources are finite and that the Executive have decisions to take and priorities to set: that is the point of an investment strategy. That investment strategy is urgent now, because we are going to have a multi-year Budget, we are told, by the end of this year. It will set out three-year plans for resource but, critically, four-year plans for capital. How can that four-year capital Budget be set if we do not have an investment strategy alongside it? Genuinely, I would love a Minister or some other member of an Executive party to tell me how.

Here is another thing. Those of us who want to build a new Ireland — who are serious about that — need to use every lever that exists in the North to illustrate the kind of new Ireland that we want to build. Sinn Féin holds the key strategic economic Departments: not just the First Minister post but the Economy Department, which is in charge of our all-island electricity market; the Infrastructure Department, which is in charge of delivering — or not delivering — the all-island strategic rail review and, indeed, the A5; and the Finance Department, which is supposed to be pursuing greater fiscal powers and more devolution and independence from London but is not doing any of those things. None of those Sinn Féin-led Departments is doing anything to deliver on that agenda. All of that could be part of the investment strategy, but we do not know because it has not been published.

I am not here to be negative, but I am also not here to do the power of positive thinking or to clap and cheerlead an Executive who are demonstrably failing to deliver for the people of the North. Our motion is about demanding better for the public in Northern Ireland. We are going to keep doing just that, because it does not have to be like this. Our job is to build something for the people who sent us here. I say to the Executive and all parties today: support our motion if you want to finally get down to building something.

Miss Brogan: While we all wish that progress was faster, the fact is that most of the projects outlined in the motion are moving forward. It would be lovely if we could simply snap our fingers and produce major infrastructure developments out of thin air, but the reality is that projects of that scale and importance require careful planning, detailed scrutiny and significant funding. That is proper, responsible governance, and while it can, at times, be frustrating, the fact is that Sinn Féin Ministers are delivering on their promises.

Minister Kimmins and her predecessor, Minister O'Dowd, have fought tooth and nail for the progression of the A5 road upgrade. As a representative of West Tyrone and someone who uses the road daily, I appreciate the Minister's commitment to that vital project. The proposer of the motion knows that the reason for the delay to the A5 is continued legal challenges and objections by a minority. Quite frankly, political point-scoring on such an important issue is dangerous. We should all agree that no price can be placed on saving lives.

Minister Kimmins has engaged extensively with local communities and has addressed every reasonable concern that objectors have raised. The Minister has also lodged an appeal to the court judgement on the development of the A5. The appeal has been supported by the AERA Minister and is due to be heard this December.

I have said this before and will say it again: we need to continue to work together to ensure that the A5 is delivered. It is far too important for the families and communities that have lost loved ones on the road, and it is too important for all of us who use the road and understand the dangers of it, not to work together to see it upgraded.

The all-island rail review, by its very nature, requires agreement and planning, North and South, at every step, but it continues to meet milestones. The European Investment Bank has been working with Minister Kimmins and the Dublin Government on a prioritisation strategy, and the Minister has announced that a progress report will be published in the autumn.

Despite an extremely tight budget that continues to be stripped to the bone by consecutive British Governments, investment in waste water infrastructure is continuing. NI Water is getting 90% of the capital money that it could spend this year, which is an increase from last year. Meanwhile, as mentioned yesterday, the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill continues to progress. It is an important aspect of the Minister's three-pronged approach to addressing issues around waste water infrastructure and how we will live with water in the future. It will integrate innovative and sustainable drainage solutions in housing developments and provide grants for measures to protect domestic buildings from flooding.

That is not to say that improvements cannot be made. Of course they can. Just yesterday, as mentioned, the House heard of over 20 pieces of legislation that the Executive intend to introduce and progress in the 2025-26 session. For projects that continue to face inexcusable delays, such as Casement Park and the investment strategy, it is for those Ministers and those parties to explain why they are being delayed. Sinn Féin Ministers have their heads down, doing the work and delivering for families and communities right across the North.

Ms Bradshaw: I support the motion because a case for an investment strategy for Northern Ireland is actually one of the most urgent and important issues before us. It is a test of our ability to plan for the future and not just react to the present. Like many across the Chamber, I share real disappointment at the continued failure to publish and implement it. As I said, we will support the motion, despite the inclusion of the words "petty rows".

The commitment to a new investment strategy was first made in 'New Decade, New Approach', with the aim of providing a clear framework for planning our hospitals, schools, transport links, housing and digital infrastructure. It was meant to give Northern Ireland a long-term road map for sustainable growth, looking as far ahead as 2050. When the draft investment strategy was put out for consultation in early 2022, people, rightly, expected that the Assembly would follow through to produce a clear, costed plan showing how public money would be prioritised and spent. Instead, the Assembly collapsed, and although Executive Office officials reviewed the consultation responses, the process stalled. The Executive, as we know, were restored in February 2024, and the Programme for Government was launched in February 2025; and there was, rightly, an expectation that the investment strategy would be produced and published to sit alongside it. Yet, almost five years after the original commitment, we still have no published strategy. That is a missed opportunity to think long-term about not just physical infrastructure but technological investment, digital connectivity and climate resilience.

The previous investment strategy covered the period up to 2021 and guided capital investment worth around £21 billion. Since then, in Northern Ireland, senior officials across the various Departments have been operating without a strategic framework and road map to enable them to plan effectively and deliver value for money, and the consequences of that failure are plain to see. Infrastructure pressures are worsening, projects are delayed and the costs continue to rise every month as the priorities drift. However, the cost of inaction is measured not only in money but in missed opportunities and loss of confidence. Between 2019 and 2023, the estimated cost of major capital projects rose by almost 40%. Waste water capacity has stalled thousands of new homes across all our constituencies, and I can certainly think of some examples in South Belfast. Key transport and regeneration projects, such as the Belfast Rapid Transit route through South Belfast, require investment and planning. We have faced repeated hold-ups and uncertainty, and the leader of the Opposition highlighted some of those examples in his speech, such as Casement Park.

Other parts of these islands are not standing still. The Republic of Ireland's national development plan commits over €160 billion to infrastructure investment. Scotland and Wales already have clear, long-term frameworks that set out their priorities, and they are delivering on them, yet Northern Ireland continues to fall behind, not because we lack ability or ambition but because we lack coordination and leadership. We are very much just as capable as those other parts of these islands when it comes to setting and delivering on the standards that are required by our constituents, but we must prove that through delivery.

Every week, we hear in the Chamber what happens when there is no investment strategy. Departments are moving out of sync, working at different speeds and competing for resources instead of collaborating. That is entirely counterproductive, and it undermines the efficiency of government here. The absence of a strategy is not just a failure of planning; it does a disservice to our taxpayers and ratepayers who fund our public services. In turn, without a clear framework, MLAs on our scrutiny Committees are unable to hold Ministers to account and scrutinise how billions of pounds of capital investment are spent. The Strategic Investment Board (SIB) has the statutory responsibility and expertise to lead on that work, but it cannot do so effectively without clear political leadership from the Executive. Publishing the strategy would give the authority and continuity that is required to allow the board to move forward with planning and delivery, even in times of uncertainty. As we know, we have political stalemate and ineffectiveness at certain times during our mandates.

We need to send a clear message that we are serious about delivery through an investment strategy. The draft investment strategy 2025 needs to be brought to the Executive and signed off. We need to get it published. I will leave my remarks there.

Mr Brett: I will split my speech in two. One part will be on where I agree with the leader of the Opposition, and the other will be on where I disagree with him. The first part might be slightly shorter than the second. All Members in the House want to see an investment strategy, and no contributor will stand up and lament the leader of the Opposition's call for that. However, it is important to recognise the context in which the forthcoming publication of the investment strategy will happen.

First, in fairness to the leader of the Opposition, he articulated the fact that the comprehensive spending review has taken place, and the Finance Minister and Executive colleagues are now working on a multi-year Budget. It is right that we waited to have that before publishing our investment strategy, because, once again, in fairness to the leader of the Opposition, had we published an investment strategy in advance of knowing what our affordability envelope was, he would be the first to stand up in the Chamber and criticise the lack of ambition or our ability to deliver that strategy.

Secondly, we cannot get away from the judgement on the A5 development. The court ruled that the current climate change targets meant that that capital project and its investment strategy could not go ahead. I am happy to give way to the leader of the Opposition: if he really wants to start building things and get that investment moving, he can join me in tabling a motion today that calls for the Executive to revoke those targets so that we can ensure that projects are delivered.

Mr O'Toole: I appreciate the Member's giving way. We will not do that, because we think that meeting our climate targets is essential. However, in order to deliver on your climate targets in a way that is consistent with investment, you need an investment strategy, because that will, in part, help to convince a court that the Executive have a credible plan to meet those targets alongside infrastructure development. That probably would have helped in the A5 case.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Brett: The Member had the opportunity to join us to remove those targets in order for the A5 to proceed — he spent 90 seconds of his speech talking about how he wants to see the project delivered — but he did not take that opportunity.

I will move on to the motion and say why my party will oppose it. Ms Bradshaw articulated one of the reasons when she highlighted the inclusion of "petty rows" in the text of the motion. The one example that the leader of the Opposition gave for why those words were included was not an Executive motion but the Back-Bench motion that I moved yesterday, the debate on which took place after the motion before us was tabled. He therefore cannot even articulate a reason for why that wording was included.

On the cherry-picking of flagship projects, we, as a party, are very clear that all flagship projects that the Executive agreed must be delivered, not just ones that the leader of the Opposition wants to see delivered. There is no mention of the Northern Ireland Football Fund (NIFF), the Union connectivity review report or the York Street interchange in the leader of the Opposition's motion. I wonder why the York Street interchange, which is an Executive flagship project in my constituency, is not included in the motion? Is it perhaps because, when the party opposite held the Ministry in the Department for Infrastructure, it delayed that project? It failed to deliver that vital investment. It failed to build what the people of North Belfast and Northern Ireland want to see.

On waste water infrastructure, Members from the party opposite have held the position of Minister for Infrastructure for longer than anyone on these Benches. Where was the rationale for what was or was not delivered by previous Ministers? Members on these Benches will therefore take no lectures from the party opposite.

In the motion, there has been an attempt to single out the lack of an investment strategy as the reason that Casement Park has not been delivered. That myth continues to be pushed by Members on all sides of the House to try to blame this party for not moving the project forward. I did a bit of research before I came here this morning in order to find some Members' comments on Casement Park. Former SDLP MLA Alex Attwood, who, as Environment Minister, had the Casement Park project on his desk until he was replaced by his party colleague Mark Durkan, said of the court case that blocked Casement Park:

supported their objections. There is no mention of the fact that Casement Park has not been delivered because of the actions of those in the party opposite. Once again, the SDLP tries to blame the big, bad unionists. We see that for what it is, which is nonsense. We oppose the motion.

Mr Butler: Like the party of the Member to speak previously, the Ulster Unionist Party agrees with aspects of the motion, in particular the recognition of the fact that Northern Ireland needs a clear, updated investment strategy. There is no pushback from us on that whatsoever.

As I stated last night, we face stovepiped plenary time, stovepiped legislative time and stovepiped everything in Northern Ireland, because, for two consecutive mandates, we have had a collapsed Assembly, and we therefore find ourselves having compressed time frames in which to deliver. Let us look at what has happened in this mandate so far. A Programme for Government was agreed and achieved. Yesterday, we voted on the Executive's legislative programme for 2025-26. What will come next is the outworkings of the comprehensive spending review and then a conversation on multi-year Budgets, as Mr Brett mentioned. All those things, although we would have liked them to happen more quickly, and although they should have come forward earlier, will help inform a comprehensive and agreed investment strategy.

Strategic planning and capital investment are essential for everyone, as the leader of the Opposition picked up on. Be it hospitals, schools, infrastructure or social capital, all are there to strengthen our economy, improve connectivity and support job creation, thus driving proper prosperity for everyone in Northern Ireland. Although the sentiment is right, we will not fully support the motion. It reads less as a genuine call for progress and more as an exercise in assigning blame. Even Alliance picked up on that. When we are speaking about such high-level topics, that tone helps no one, least of all the public, who want to see delivery. Equally, one could be forgiven for thinking that the SDLP was not in previous iterations of the Executive. It recently held the Infrastructure portfolio. The truth is that the absence of an updated investment strategy is not the result of one failure — whether or not that is on the part of the Executive, as per the motion — but of a wider breakdown in long-term planning, fiscal realism and Executive coordination and, as I pointed out at the start of my contribution, as a result of there being no Executive at all.

Publishing a strategy document will not, in itself, deliver a single metre of road or rail; nor will it fix our underfunded waste water system. What matters is the political and financial will to deliver what is agreed. That is why I outlined the steps that I did at the start. The Ulster Unionist Party —.

Ms Bradshaw: Will the Member give way?

Mr Butler: Only briefly, if you do not mind.

Ms Bradshaw: Thank you. I am concerned that what the Member has picked up on are the immediate pressures on spend. An investment strategy would allow for longer-term thinking so that bigger projects could be delivered.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Butler: I have no problem with that. As I outlined, we are not against having an investment strategy — we absolutely believe that one should come forward in haste — but we need the comprehensive spending review, the analysis of that review and the multi-year Budgets. We need to take the politics, which have been mentioned, out of the motion.

The Ulster Unionist Party believes in strategic prioritisation: investing where there is clear social, economic and environmental benefit and where delivery is actually achievable. Take the A5 western transport corridor and Casement Park, both of which are referenced in the motion. We support the principle of key infrastructure projects that benefit communities and sport, but we recognise that the schemes have been delayed not by the Executive but by complex planning, legal and budgetary challenges. To simply criticise the delays without acknowledging those realities risks misleading the public.

The Irish Government have offered €50 million towards Casement Park, the UK Government have offered £50 million, and the Executive are holding £65 million, but the words of the current chief executive of the GAA, when he took over the post, were, "Not a penny more". Everybody has a fist in the fight and needs to speak up equally if they want to see real delivery.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Butler: Absolutely.

Mr O'Toole: We mention specific flagship projects in the motion — I will come back to Mr Brett's comments in my winding-up speech — but that is not to exclude the loads of other flagship projects. Is it not the point that, whether it is Casement Park, the York Street interchange or whatever else, if there is no plan, there is no road map, no clarity and no certainty? Having a target and putting down a marker creates focus. That is the point whatever the project is and whatever specific issues relate to that project.

Mr Butler: I do not disagree with the Member at all. If he had stated those intentions in the motion, I think that he could have got total support for it, but he did not.

Simply criticising the delays without acknowledging the realities risks misleading the public. I will never stand here and mislead the public, and no one will ever accuse me of that. It is equally important to remember that, as I set out, the latter delay did not come about by virtue of the Executive. Similarly, the all-island strategic rail review deserves serious consideration. Work is under way on that, but Northern Ireland's participation to it should be based on evidence, affordability, value for money and, once again, deliverability.

I entirely agree that investment in waste water infrastructure is urgently needed. Without it, we cannot build new homes or attract major investment. The UUP has repeatedly raised that and suggested steps, such as mutualisation, that could be taken. Sadly, however, that has been dismissed outright. Therein lie some of the intra-Executive wrestles.

Where our view differs from the motion is in the approach that is taken, not in the sense of what needs to happen. We want to see collaboration, not confrontation, and we want to see genuine costed proposals, rather than statements or grandstanding. What we need now is for the Executive, collectively, to produce a credible, costed and time-bound investment strategy. I welcome robust analysis and scrutiny from the Opposition, and I know that we will get that. It is absolutely valuable, and it is needed. I offer the view, however, that the motion could well have sailed through had they not used it for politicking.

Ms Nicholl: When I came back from maternity leave, I decided that I would not rehash points that have already been made. There are a couple of reasons for that. The main one is that, having been in my glorious baby bubble, I now realise how little attention people pay to what we say in the Chamber. When we focus too much on politics rather than ambition, it turns people off.

My colleague Paula Bradshaw outlined, as always, perfectly the need for an investment strategy and the context behind it, but there are a couple of things that I wish to point out. When I was in my baby bubble, at the mum and tot groups, the conversations that I had and that I overheard were not about the culture wars of the day. They were these: "How will I afford to pay for childcare when I go back to work?", "How will I move into a new house? I can't afford it; there aren't enough houses", and, "How are we going to pay the bills?". Those are the conversations that people are having and that they want us to have, so I am grateful for the motion. It is forward-looking. Having a motion that looks to the future and at how we improve our infrastructure, not just now but for the future, is welcome.

As the Alliance Party, we obviously take issue with a few things, such as the language around "petty rows". We do not identify that with the work that Naomi Long and Andrew Muir are doing. We would have liked to see specific mention of net zero. The development of critical infrastructure must be balanced with our net zero commitments, and we would have liked that to be included in the motion. A point was made about that, but not tackling the climate crisis puts our infrastructure at risk. Any MLA in South Down and Upper Bann will be able to testify to that. It is counterproductive to pit the two against each other.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for giving way on that point, which is really important. Should the Government and Departments not deliver on the legislation and the test that that has produced to lead the way on net zero and the climate contribution? In this instance, it certainly seems, particularly on the A5, that the Department for Infrastructure may be unable or unwilling to produce the evidence that would meet the climate targets that we legislated for.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Ms Nicholl: It is important to have a pathway and a strategy that go hand in hand. The investment strategy has to lay out how we are going to meet our climate obligations. It is so important to decarbonise our economy. That should have been mentioned in the motion.

The Member also mentioned the Assembly's being up and down. The constant collapse of this place is such a problem. We are like a broken record when we talk about it. We will not be able to solve all the problems right now — no one expects that we will be able to do that in a shortened mandate — but we have to lay the foundations for that, and we have the opportunity to do so. It needs to be about partnership. I loved working in Belfast City Council, because we worked so well with the universities and with business. We were able to be ambitious and work together. Given the size of Northern Ireland, we could do so much more of that. Casement Park, the A5, waste water and housing are not just good things to do in themselves; they are foundational for further economic development. Public infrastructure is a catalyst for further investment and gives innovators and business leaders confidence, but, too often, our lack of strategic investment in such projects has been a barrier. We have to turn that around. There was mention of the multi-year Budget, and that gives us a window of opportunity to plan and think ahead, but having an investment strategy really is urgent, and we need agreement and collaboration.

I welcome the motion, although we would change a few things in it. The one thing in particular that I would change is how we engage collectively on the issues. So often it is about, "You said this" and "You said that". Let us talk about the future. Let us talk about having an investment strategy that will work now and for future generations, because, I promise you, that is what people out there want to hear us talking about.

Mr Gaston: There certainly have been abject failures of investment by the Executive, not least the £17 million that has been wasted to date on Casement Park, a project that was flawed from the beginning. However, there is much more to examine and make right when it comes to investment in Northern Ireland. The recent Invest Northern Ireland performance report for the past five years showed a huge imbalance in funding across Northern Ireland council areas, with Mid and East Antrim Borough Council, which is in my constituency, being one of the most underfunded. Areas such as Belfast City Council, Mid Ulster District Council, Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, however, all secured high investment. That approach concentrates opportunities and stifles innovation in underfunded areas. Such areas face significant barriers, such as limited access to grants, weaker infrastructure support and fewer networking prospects. Part of the reason for an imbalance in Invest NI's funding is that there are fewer companies in areas such as Mid and East Antrim applying for funding. So much more needs to be done to highlight to companies and entrepreneurs the opportunities available to them. Much more needs to be done to encourage companies to look at expanding their exporting capabilities.

I recently asked the Economy Minister how the imbalance in Invest NI funding is to be addressed. She replied:

but how will that redress the current imbalance? I also asked the Minister for the Economy to detail what metrics Invest NI uses to actively seek out businesses and identify them for support. I received the following answer:

That does not answer the question, much less confirm that regional disparity will be addressed or what specifics Invest NI is looking for in businesses that will increase their chances of being funded.

We have much to celebrate in North Antrim. Our companies generate billions of pounds in sales and hundreds of millions in exports. Invest NI's Ambition to Grow programme, which supports micro-, small and medium-sized companies to create new jobs and look outside Northern Ireland for sales, has had some positive results. Ambition to Grow has originated 25 new investments, with the chance to create 71 new jobs and generate £7 million in the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council area, but the massive imbalance remains, and, without addressing that disparity, Northern Ireland's collective potential remains suppressed.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Before I call junior Minister Joanne Bunting, I will personally, if I may, wish her well in her new role. From previous roles that we did alongside one another, I know something of the diligent approach that she will bring to the job. I am sure that all Members will join me in wishing her well.

I call the junior Minister. You have up to 15 minutes.

Ms Bunting (Junior Minister, The Executive Office): Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful to you for your good wishes.

I thank Members for their contributions on what is a very important topic: how we plan, invest and deliver for the future of all our people here. The debate has been predictable at times, but it has been a useful exercise for Members to showcase projects that they wish to see progress on and to highlight some of the real challenges that we face in rolling out our capital programme over the next number of decades.

The Executive are focused on delivery, on improving lives, on supporting economic growth and on ensuring that our infrastructure meets the needs of our people. It is simply not accurate to say that progress is not being made; progress absolutely is being made, and a revised investment strategy will be brought to the Executive soon.

It is important to emphasise three points. First, considerable effort has gone into developing a draft investment strategy and making sure not only that it reflects our focus on delivery but that it is focused and realistic. Secondly, work continues on the delivery of agreed capital projects, and Members will see much of that work roll out in their constituencies. Thirdly, work is already under way on a range of enabling actions to address key challenges that we face in delivering major infrastructure projects.

Consider for a moment how much has changed across society here and globally since the turn of the millennium. We need a positive, forward-looking vision for the next 25 years, backed by detailed and specific plans for investment and enabling actions over the next decade.

The final document needs to be robust, evidence-based and capable of delivering real and lasting outcomes for people here. That is what we are developing, and it is important that we get it right. An investment strategy must be more than an aspirational list of stand-alone projects. It must focus on the outcomes that will have the greatest impact, and it must have ambition. Strategic plans on such a scale have far-reaching impacts on budgets, public services, economic growth and local communities.

At the same time, a strategy must reflect our financial reality and address challenges as a result of climate targets and our delivery capacity. It must be joined up across sectors, maximising every pound that we invest.

Ms Bradshaw: I thank the Minister for giving way. About a year ago, in the Chamber, I asked for an update on the strategy, and I was told then that we would have it soon. Are you confident that the strategy will be forthcoming in this mandate?

Ms Bunting: I thank the Member for her question. Yes, I am confident that it will come forward in this mandate. We are very clear that that needs to be done, and we are working towards it. However, we are not going to produce something that is not fully and properly thought out. We need to make improvements where we know that there have been issues, and we need to respond to the feedback.

Members should know that drawing all that together is not straightforward, as I have outlined, and that it takes time, but they should understand that we must get it right to build confidence and ensure that there is buy-in right across society. When we bring forward an investment strategy, we want to be satisfied that it strikes the right balance and is supported by effective arrangements to ensure its successful delivery. An immense amount of work has already gone into shaping the draft investment strategy. It has been informed by over 400 engagements and responses through public consultation, equality and rural needs impact assessments and extensive engagement with Departments and wider stakeholders. A finalised strategy will require Executive approval, but, as we move towards that point, we are factoring in global uncertainties and continuing to press for a fair and equitable funding settlement that reflects need and the legacy of underinvestment here.

The draft investment strategy provides a framework for planning and prioritising infrastructure investment, defining the outcomes that we need and setting out how we deliver them efficiently and effectively. It encompasses all areas of public infrastructure: health, housing, education, justice, communities, transport, water, waste water and the environment. The quality and safety of that infrastructure affects most aspects of all our daily lives. The draft also reflects our commitment to ensuring that investment reaches into every community and includes projects right across Northern Ireland.

The draft strategy takes a three-strand approach. A long-term vision and strategic objectives provide a 25-year view of investment that promotes sustainability, resilience, productivity and well-being by 2050. The strategic framework identifies where we need to be and how we get there, all of which is aligned with our Programme for Government. We are working with the SIB to ensure that there is a clear governance structure in place that ensures a continued focus, accountability and the ability to adapt to changing priorities if needed. That is very important. Clear accountability mechanisms and provision for early intervention where issues arise are also essential. I am sure that Members concur. A 10-year investment plan will demonstrate how best to use available financial resources to deliver on previous commitments, address historical underinvestment and transform our infrastructure investment to meet our long-term goals.

Although the details remain subject to change, the draft reflects many, if not all, of the priorities that have been raised by Members today. For example, it affords priority to the need to maintain our existing infrastructure, such as water. Investment in our essential networks is vital for unlocking and enabling wider investment. The need to expand provision for special educational needs is also recognised. Housing features as a distinct sector, with a range of projects on social and private housing. Wider investment in our public infrastructure, such as water, will also help to unlock challenges for housing. We are all aware of that in each of our constituencies. Alongside that sits an enabling action plan that is already guiding improvements in how we plan, prioritise and deliver major projects. The plan draws on analysis of the root causes of delays and cost overruns carried out by the Strategic Investment Board and reflects the findings of the Northern Ireland Audit Office and the PAC. We recognise and share the frustrations about delays and cost overruns. Although those are not unique to this part of the world, we have been clear that we need to address them.

Although the enabling action plan forms part of the investment strategy package, many of the actions are matters of good practice, and work is under way. Those will be critical to successfully delivering the investment plan, and we are pleased to champion that work. Members will want to note that current work streams include improving the business case process, the planning system and procurement. The importance of social licence is also recognised, ensuring buy-in from communities and stakeholders for the delivery of the right projects in the right way.

The Executive are delivering on infrastructure projects. Preparatory work for the expansion of the Magee campus has started. We are also seeing encouraging progress across the city and growth deals, including construction starting on the DNA Museum at Ebrington, which I was very privileged to visit, which is supported by investment from the Executive Office and others. With an additional £150 million allocated, the completion of the Strule shared education campus is now firmly on track. Progress has been made on building social houses, and, as a result of investment in Grand Central station, bus and rail passenger journeys are up by more than 4 million. Indeed, Ministers in all Departments are delivering capital investment programmes to improve people's lives, communities and places.

Of course, there are projects that have not progressed as anticipated. A number of Members have mentioned the A5 and Casement as examples. However, the issues, which include the legal challenges, are well documented. The incredibly ambitious targets that were set by the House in the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 will have, and are having, an impact. The Infrastructure Minister is exploring that issue and how we can ensure that the A5 project and other major capital projects are not frustrated by climate obligations. It is easy to single out projects and criticise, but what we are doing is seeking to address the underlying causes and ensure that we militate against those arising in the future.

Our business sector, too, is forging ahead with confidence and ambition. Recently, the First Minister and deputy First Minister welcomed plans by Belfast City Airport to grow passenger numbers and create thousands of new jobs. Earlier this year, we joined the leaders of Belfast International Airport as they launched the first phase of a £100 million investment to improve facilities, enhance global connectivity and therefore boost our economy. Northern Ireland is open for business, and the Executive are committed to working with partners across society to meet the needs of today while planning for the infrastructure that we will need in the future.

There are still some key considerations to be worked through in finalising the strategy, including, as I have mentioned, the implications of the recent A5 judgement and the appeal that has been launched. The substantial work that has already been completed on the draft strategy, together with progress on the enabling action plan, sets a clear direction. We know what needs to be done, and we are committed to doing it. We are determined to get this right. The Executive are delivering major capital projects and infrastructure investment. We are supporting people, communities and places right now while planning for a stronger, more sustainable future.

We will soon bring forward a finalised investment strategy to enable all partners across society to work better together in planning and delivering the infrastructure, prosperity and well-being that we all agree that our people deserve. The investment strategy will be much more comprehensive than previous iterations, with the necessary governance and support structures alongside actions to improve delivery. By taking the time to get those in place, we will have the best possible chance of successfully delivering the strategy's aims. We will also lay a firm foundation for future planning cycles. The Executive will continue to invest in the infrastructure that we need, improving lives, creating jobs and opportunities and building a more sustainable, more connected future for everyone who calls this place home.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): I call Matthew O'Toole to make the winding-up speech on the debate on the motion. You have up to 10 minutes.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I detected a slight note of ennui when you called me. Perhaps you have heard some of my arguments previously. I say that in the nicest possible way: I am not challenging the Chair.

The point that I have been making in my remarks is about delivery. I make no apology at all for being robust when talking about delivery. I was slightly intrigued to hear colleagues from the DUP and Sinn Féin accuse me of playing politics. Of course, no Sinn Féin or DUP politician ever does that. Look: mea culpa. I am happy to stand accused of petty politicking by Sinn Féin and the DUP.

I will respond to some remarks that were made. It was actually a really constructive debate, and there is a lot to which I want to respond. Nicola Brogan accused me of political point-scoring. I will just make one big point: we are the Opposition in the Chamber. There is an Opposition in Dublin. They are led by Uachtarán Shinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald. Some people up here, including in Sinn Féin, seem to think that this place is not really entitled to have an Opposition or an accountability mechanism. That is nonsense: if opposition is good enough for Irish people in one part of the island, it is good enough for people in the North. I make no apology for that; none whatsoever. I am happy to give way, yes.

Miss Brogan: I thank the Member for giving way. In the South, our Opposition actually bring solutions to the table, whereas I have not seen any from the SDLP in the North.

Mr O'Toole: With the greatest of respect, that is absolute nonsense. We have produced loads of papers. I have heard that repeatedly from you and your colleagues, but, just because you say that we have not suggested alternatives, it does not mean that that is the case. I see lots of videos on social media of extraordinarily effective and robust Opposition politicians, including Pearse Doherty and Mary Lou McDonald. If it is legitimate for them to be robust in critiquing the Irish Government —.

Ms Sheerin: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: I will give way in one second.

If it is legitimate for them to be robust in critiquing the Irish Government, it is also my job to critique this Executive, and I make no apology for doing that on behalf of Irish people and, indeed, British people who live here.

Ms Sheerin: I thank the Member for giving way. Does he recognise that he has just stated that the Irish Government are a Government? Theirs is a sovereign Parliament, while this is a devolved institution in which we are working along with others. Your party was in that position at one time, so that reality has to be considered.

Mr O'Toole: I absolutely agree with you that that reality does have to be considered. The two are not exactly the same, but the Executive do have some power. Otherwise, Sinn Féin Ministers would not have taken the Pledge of Office and would not have their ministerial cars and take their salaries. There is power here, although not as much. You and I want a new Ireland. We want a republic for the whole thirty-two counties on this island. Let me be clear, however, that there are powers that exist in the here and now. Otherwise, why would Sinn Féin take up ministerial office? I am going to talk about some of that now.

Nicola Brogan made a really important point earlier, and I want to hear more about it. I was pleased to hear her mention the role of the European Investment Bank in the all-island strategic rail review. I will be pressing the Minister for Infrastructure to tell us more about that, because we have called for the EIB to play a wider role in infrastructure in the North. I would like to hear more from the Infrastructure Minister. I would also like to hear more from the Finance Minister about how he sees the EIB playing a role in helping us deliver on our priorities. I want to see ambition, so I make no apology for pressing Sinn Féin Ministers, who, like me, want to see a new Ireland and who, apparently, want to see more all-Ireland cooperation and delivery. Let us see it. Let us be as ambitious as possible, because it is true that, as Paula Bradshaw said, compared with what we have seen from the national development plan in Dublin, delivery up here has been paltry. It has been derisory. Before Members say that that plan has come from a sovereign Government who are running a massive surplus, I will say it: it has come from a sovereign Government who are running a massive surplus. That is one reason that lots of rational people are thinking about a new Ireland. It is also the case, however, that we have power up here. Yes, it is more limited, and, yes, we have more limited funding, but we do have power. To maximise the limited resource that we have, we need a strategy, and Paula acknowledged that. I am glad to hear that the Alliance Party is going to support our motion, notwithstanding the fact that it would not have worded it in precisely the way in which we have done.

Phillip Brett said multiple things about the motion. He at least acknowledged that it includes some things with which he agrees. He did not like the flagship projects that we selected for inclusion. As I said to him in an intervention, insert your own flagship projects. We have inserted ones, but we could have inserted others, such as the York Street interchange. I would like to know whether that is still is an Executive flagship project. He criticised Nichola Mallon's actions. There is a context to those actions. Let us hear whether the York Street interchange will be in the investment strategy. Let us hear whether it is going to be delivered. It is the same with lots of other priorities, but we do not know about them, and that is because we have not seen the investment strategy. I therefore have no idea about them. Do not criticise the Opposition for asking about them. I would love to hear more about the NI Football Fund. I am sure that the football club in the Member's constituency that is taking his ministerial colleague to court — Crusaders — would also like to hear more about it. I am happy to give way if he wants to intervene.

Mr Brett: I have two points to make. First, you do know that the York Street interchange is an Executive flagship project, unless you have not read the Programme for Government that you came to the House to criticise. Perhaps you did not read it before criticising it. Secondly, when the Northern Ireland Football Fund was launched, your party colleague was the first one to jump up and down about it.

Mr O'Toole: I have certainly read the Programme for Government. I know that I am not supposed to use props, but I will discreetly display the Programme for Government document. In fact, I have both the draft Programme for Government and the final version with me. I did read them, and it did not take me that long to do so, because there is not much in them. I am happy to acknowledge that I did read the documents, however.

Robbie Butler talked about assigning blame. He is not in the Chamber at the minute, but that is fine. That we are assigning blame is a nonsense criticism, with the greatest respect to Robbie, who said some very interesting things in his contribution. Assigning blame is literally the job of the official Opposition. It is not about blame but about accountability. That should be clear in any democratic society. Fundamentally, we tabled our motion in order to get the Executive to publish their plans so that we can hold them to account. The investment strategy will not be comprehensive, and it will not be able to solve all the problems. As Kate Nicholl said, you first need a plan to guide you. A road map is needed, and that is all that we are asking for in our motion.

Kate also said that she would have liked net zero to be mentioned more in the motion. That is fair enough, but it is implied in, for example, our illustration of the need for more progress to be made on the all-Ireland strategic rail review. We could have included in the motion something about the need for more development of our energy infrastructure on an all-island basis and, indeed, on an east-west basis. If we are going to decarbonise, we need greater connections to Britain and to the Republic. Again, we want to hear more from the Economy Minister and the Infrastructure Minister about such delivery. Something else that we need to see in the investment strategy is information on how we are going to deliver on our climate targets. How are we going to meet electricity demand for the economy that we want to grow in order to create sustainable jobs? Those are all things that should be in the investment strategy, which we have not seen yet.

It was brilliant to hear Timothy Gaston talk with passion about economic development in his constituency. More of that please, Timothy. I agree. I would love to see measures to support North Antrim and all other constituencies in an investment strategy.

I welcome the junior Minister Joanne Bunting to ministerial office. She is certainly a person of substance, and I hope that she brings some of that to getting an investment strategy over the line. Given that I have given, as it were, to use a colloquial expression, a bit of a touch to the Sinn Féin Ministers, I should give a bit of a touch to the DUP Ministers, too, because she talked about getting it right and not, effectively, spinning to the public about what could be delivered.

Here is the thing: two successive DUP Education Ministers have promised big things on delivering schools. A few years ago, when she was Education Minister, Michelle McIlveen promised lots of schools a new school, including schools in my constituency, such as St Joseph's on the Ravenhill Road, and said that they would be added to the list, with no clarity on how that would be funded or when it would be built. They are still waiting, along with loads of other schools across the North. The current Education Minister came to the Assembly a few weeks ago and talked about a billion-pound investment in special educational needs. We would, of course, love to see that. He put that number and his plan for what he wanted to invest and create in SEN provision out there without any clarity on how that would be budgeted for or when it would be delivered. That is exactly the kind of thing that we need to see: a multi-year Budget and an investment strategy. I do not know how we will get there without a plan.

Mr Clarke: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: Very briefly, because I am coming to the end of my remarks.

Mr Clarke: Very briefly, I remind you that your Ministers held the Department for Infrastructure for a number of years. Your Member on the Back Bench and, indeed, the former Member for North Belfast both blocked an infrastructure project in North Belfast that would have prevented our shipping waste across the world. What is your view on that?

Mr O'Toole: You are talking about a specific project. We do not hold those Ministries now. You have made your point. [Interruption.]

You are in government. [Interruption.]

I say to the Members and to the Executive parties here: we have established that we are in opposition and you are in government. We accept that reality. You should accept the reality that you have the power now to build something and to deliver something: deliver a proper waste water system that grows social homes; deliver new schools, including for special educational needs; deliver all-island strategic rail that can reconnect our island; deliver Casement Park; and deliver the life-saving A5. Build those things. [Interruption.]

Build those things. Do not shout at the Opposition for holding you to account for them. You have the power. Yes, it is limited, but it is there.

You will have a multi-year Budget later this year. It will give you the opportunity. If the Sinn Féin Finance Minister does not think that we have enough resources — I agree with him — let us hear how he wants either to raise revenue or to look for new fiscal powers from London so that we are not just reliant on the block grant in order to build the future on this island that we want. Do not just blame others. Do not just blame others. Do not just project your anger on to the public or the Opposition. Get out there and build something. Build something. Build something. I commend the motion to the Assembly.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members, please take your ease for just a moment, before we move to the next item of business.

Mr Durkan: I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes to propose and 10 minutes to make a winding-up speech. All other speakers will have five minutes. Please open the debate, Mr Durkan.

Mr Durkan: Poverty: the word itself is stigmatised. We other it. It is an issue that affects other eras, other places and other families, but poverty means not being able to afford the basics: food, heating and housing. Child poverty is no longer distant or abstract; it is on our doorstep. It is a lived reality, which steals the innocence of childhood across the North. There was a time, not so long ago, when Christmas appeals were for children in far-off and war-torn countries. Now, those same appeals are for children who live in our communities.

They are the children of the nurse who tended our loved ones or the shopworker who stocks the shelves that we all depend on. They are the families now struggling to tell their children that Santa will not be coming this year, but, sure, the tooth fairy stopped coming long ago. The new shoes have not materialised, and some do not know when the next hot, nutritious meal will appear either.

One in three children grows up here in food insecurity; one in five children lives in relative poverty, and one in four lives in absolute poverty. Those statistics have been cited repeatedly in the Chamber, but have failed to provoke the level of shame, never mind the level of action, that they deserve.

I have persistently raised the plight of children who live in temporary or emergency accommodation. In 2025, children across the North are living without the basic dignity and security that every child deserves. The Assembly made a promise in the New Decade, New Approach agreement back in 2020, to produce an anti-poverty strategy and a child poverty strategy. We were told that one strategy could cover both areas, provided that child poverty was placed front and centre. Yet here we are, five years later, and what do we have? A draft anti-poverty strategy, backed by the Executive, that is toothless and targetless. It has no budget, no timeline and no new policies. It is not a road map; it is a press release.

Let us not forget that the strategy did not come out of leadership and certainly did not come out of compassion. It appeared because the courts forced the Executive's hand. The Executive were found to be in breach of their legal duty to produce an anti-poverty strategy.

Our constituents tell us the same thing: they feel the impact of poverty every single day. Families are stretched to breaking point. Parents are going without food so that their children can eat. Young people are unable to find a home because of sky-high rents and a lack of social housing. It is shameful that, in 2025, in this corner of the world, in the sixth-largest economy in the world, we have normalised the struggle to survive.

The Children's Commissioner has warned that the current draft strategy is not fit for purpose. It has abandoned a life-cycle approach and has lost focus on children altogether. The Audit Office was crystal clear in its report:

with measurable targets, defined accountability and fully costed actions. None of those recommendations was taken on board. The PAC said that old strategies failed because they had no ring-fenced funding, no ownership and no deadlines. In other words, they failed because the leadership parties failed to prioritise them.

If data alone does not motivate us, let the human stories do so. One parent said simply:

That is a sentence that should haunt every one of us in the Chamber. This strategy will not deliver. It is a rehash of what has already been implemented: it is nothing new and nothing ambitious.

The largest driver of child poverty on these islands is the two-child limit. Let us call it what it is: a state-sanctioned punishment for larger families. It is a punishment that is felt hardest by single-parent households and especially by women. The impact of the two-child limit in the North is severe and disproportionate due to the prevalence of larger families here. One in every 10 children is affected, and nearly 50,000 children are growing up in families who have been denied support for at least one child because of that cruel cap. Research from the Trussell Trust tells us that abolishing the two-child limit could lift 18,500 people in Northern Ireland out of severe hardship by 2026. Not only that, but it could have a wider economic and fiscal benefit of £155 million every year. The Scottish Government have effectively abolished that callous policy by mitigating it. We were promised the same protections.

Last year, the SDLP Opposition tabled a motion to scrap the two-child limit. We did not just make noise: we provided a plan and costings, but Executive parties watered it down. They supported an amendment to introduce a larger-families payment instead, which had previously been recommended by the independent welfare advisory panel. We could live with that, but, 18 months later, that is yet another promise that has been quietly buried, out of sight and out of mind. In July 2025, when I asked the Minister for Communities about it, his response was, "I have no update". The only reference that we have seen to the two-child rule since is a single line in the draft anti-poverty strategy saying that research will be carried out. Again, I asked the Minister, "What research has your Department done?", and I received a one-line answer, which was basically that no research has been conducted. That is not just complacency; it is contempt. It is contempt for the evidence and the expert advice, and it is contempt for the families who are living that reality every day.

The Opposition are serious about abolishing child poverty, so we stand here today not just to criticise but to propose another solution. The Scottish child payment, which was introduced in 2021, now pays £27·15 a week per child to families on low incomes. An evaluation of the payment found that it lifted children out of poverty, reduced debt and lessened material deprivation. The child poverty rate would have been four percentage points higher had the child payment not been introduced. That is real progress and is the model that we should be looking at and following.

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): I appreciate the Member's giving way, and I recognise the sincerity of his attitude to poverty, which I share. It is something that I am interested in hearing more about. If the Member were in my position, however, how would he pay for introducing a child payment here, and how much does he believe doing so would cost?

Mr Durkan: I wonder whether the Minister's Department has done the research yet that could inform me to help inform him. Extensive research has been done by experts in the sector that has looked at the cost and at the benefit. We know the cost of not introducing a child payment, however, and people feel it very single day.

Mr Lyons: Will the Member give way?

Mr Durkan: I am sorry, but I have to get through my remarks, Minister. I will give way again if I have time at the end.

We accept that success will also depend on wider structural reform, and that means having a comprehensive childcare strategy. Childcare in Northern Ireland is among the most expensive on these islands, yet, for families on low incomes, support is riddled with complexity and examples of exclusion. Last year, 130,000 children were living in food-insecure households, which is 20,000 more than the year before. That is not just a statistic but the sound of alarm bells. Expanding access to free school meals is one of the simplest and most effective actions that we can take. Free school meals not just fill tummies but improve health, reduce stigma and boost educational outcomes, yet while the UK Government are expanding provision to all families on universal credit, children in Northern Ireland are being left behind.

This year, when the cost of food is higher that ever, there were 6,000 fewer successful applications for free school meals than there were in 2022-23, owing to a reduced income threshold that unfairly locks families out of receiving vital support. The Minister and his party may boast about a £300 increase in the income threshold for eligibility, but that increase came about only after it had been reduced by £1,000. It is therefore a token gesture that is woefully out of touch with reality.

On the ground, it is groups such as the Cliff Edge Coalition, the Anti-Poverty Network, St Vincent de Paul and, in my constituency, the Focus Project —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member's time is up.

Mr Durkan: — that are picking up the pieces.

Mrs Mason: Poverty is something that no one should have to endure. When families are hit hardest and find themselves living in poverty, it is the children who have least control over their circumstances and who suffer most from them. Growing up in poverty means that children miss out on opportunities in the short term and in the long term. According to the 2024 Audit Office report on child poverty in the North, children living in poverty are more likely to have poorer health, educational, well-being and economic outcomes than their peers who are more well off.

We live in a society in which two childhoods exist side by side. One is of comfort and opportunity, while the other is of quiet suffering. The difference between them often comes down to nothing more than the postcode in which they live or the family circumstances into which they were born. Poverty is a result of the failure of the system to protect every single child. Unfortunately, what we have seen from the Minister for Communities lacks ambition and substance. It does not address the real challenges that struggling families face. To put it bluntly, it is not fit for purpose.

There is a clear missed opportunity to use childcare as a key tool for helping address child poverty. Minister Lyons has a part to play in delivering high-quality and affordable childcare. He seems, however, to have deflected his responsibility to the Minister of Education and his yet-to-be-seen early learning and childcare strategy. The decision not to increase the limit of the adviser discretion fund represents a missed opportunity to support parents who are facing significant barriers to employment. That fund acts as a lifeline for those struggling to cover costs associated with returning to work, including meeting upfront childcare costs.

Childcare often represents one of the greatest financial obstacles to re-entering employment. Maintaining the fund at its current level, despite rising living costs, undermines its effectiveness and limits the support available to families who need it most. Furthermore, the Minister's decision not to reduce the 15% childcare attainment gap for families on universal credit is another failure to address a key barrier to employment and early education. Universal credit covers up to 85% of childcare costs, but the remaining 15% very often amounts to a substantial portion of some household budgets. For many, that gap makes childcare financially out of reach, disadvantages children's access to early learning and prevents parents from re-entering the workforce.

The ongoing high cost of childcare continues to make returning to work financially unviable and completely out of reach for many families, further entrenching inequality and constraining opportunities for those striving to improve their circumstances. We have seen that the Minister has instead placed all the anti-poverty strategy's childcare interventions into the hands of the Department of Education, and we have to blindly place full faith in a strategy that we have not yet seen.

Delivery of the childcare strategy is long overdue. The strategy must reduce bills for parents, support struggling providers and give our children the very best start in life. The introduction of the childcare subsidy scheme was a very positive first step towards making childcare more affordable for families; however, the persistent high cost of childcare continues to put pressure on many families. High-quality, affordable childcare supports families who are balancing the demands of work and home life and plays a vital role in a child's early learning and development. We must see the long-awaited childcare strategy, and there can be no further delays.

Yesterday, the affordable school uniforms legislation was yet another missed opportunity to tackle child poverty, to once and for all cut the cost of school uniforms and put money back into the pockets of workers and families.

I call on the Communities and Education Ministers to listen to families and take the necessary action to give every child the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Mr Brooks: No one in the Chamber will be content with the statistics that we will hear from many Members in the debate. Some of the statistics that I was going to use have been mentioned already. Nevertheless, we must be mindful that behind each number that we hear is a person and a family. They are statistics that must challenge us all.

It is also clear that tackling child poverty cannot be achieved by one Department acting alone. The task is multifaceted, and, as such, it requires a cross-Executive, cross-society approach. Poverty is not simply about income; it is about housing, health, education, employment and opportunity. That is why the Executive's draft anti-poverty strategy is the right direction of travel. For too long, progress in that area has been hampered, fragmented and delayed. As noted already, the Public Accounts Committee report made it clear that previous child poverty strategies have been characterised by failure, with poor monitoring and accountability and a lack of effective delivery.

This party and this Minister are determined to do things differently. Since taking office, Minister Lyons and his Department have worked intensively to bring forward a realistic framework that seeks to address the symptoms and the root causes of poverty. It is about helping families now but also about creating the conditions where future generations do not fall into poverty in the first place. That means supporting parents into work, raising skill levels, improving childcare and reducing the barriers for disabled people. The Minister's disability and work strategy commitment to help 50,000 more disabled people into work by 2036 and reduce the disability pay gap is an example of targeted practical action that will make a difference to family incomes.

As has been mentioned, childcare is one of the biggest pressures on working families. The DUP Education Minister's childcare subsidy scheme has already begun to deliver on this party's commitments by reducing bills by 15%, and that support, we know, will extend further.

By the way, the Education Minister is on record as having said that he can do more, more quickly, but it will require investment. Those on the Benches opposite who challenge the Minister to do more are, I hope, battering down the door of the Finance Minister to ensure that the finances are put in place, because it is the same Members across the way who would have this Minister spending hundreds of millions of pounds on Casement Park. We have to make decisions — hard decisions — about where we want money to be spent.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Brooks: Yes.

Mr O'Toole: On Casement Park, does the Member agree that we are talking about two different types of spending? One is capital spending, and the other is resource spending. There is a difference there; they are two different Budgets, set both by London and Stormont.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Brooks: The point remains that, where you have hundreds of millions of pounds and people are talking about how they want more — that is fine; we would all like more — we all know that it is not always about the slicing of the pie: it is that the pie is not big enough and the resources are not there. Difficult decisions need to be made around resourcing, and those who, for the cameras, ask for more and say that more should be done should also be honest enough to say that the resourcing has to come from Finance to make those things possible.

A Member: Will the Member give way?

Mr Brooks: I will not; I need to make progress.

The Education Minister has also raised thresholds for free school meals and uniform grants, linking future increases to inflation and ensuring that support keeps pace with rising costs. The expansion of full-time preschool provision will give more children the best start in life. Those measures, taken together, represent the most significant enhancement of early years investment in Northern Ireland for decades, and they show what is possible when Departments work together around shared priorities.

We should also acknowledge the continuation of the welfare mitigations until 2028 — a decision made by Minister Lyons to give families much-needed stability and protection from the harshest impacts of UK-wide welfare reforms.

Some have criticised the draft strategy for not including targets at this stage, but the Minister has said that those targets will come in the action plan once the delivery mechanisms and budgets are properly aligned. That is a responsible and evidence-based approach. We have seen elsewhere that simply throwing money at the problem has not helped. The Scottish system has been mentioned: £471 million annual spend on a Scottish child payment that has done little to move the dial in poverty and has been inconsistent across different regions of Scotland.

I welcome the Minister's ambition and support his compassionate approach, but I also welcome the fact that his approach is practical and realistic, not promising that which is far beyond our means. Those pledging more must also consider how that can be paid for as a significant recurring cost. Again, tackling poverty and child poverty must be the responsibility of the entire Executive. It cannot be left to one Department or Minister. Our children deserve the same opportunities as those anywhere else in the UK: the chance to grow up healthy, educated and with a route to fulfil their potential future. That is what the anti-poverty strategy seeks to achieve and what the Minister seeks to achieve, and I will be behind him every step of the way.

Ms Mulholland: I thank the signatories to the motion genuinely. I welcome any and every opportunity to continue the conversation about child poverty and to keep it at the forefront of our minds.

I will not rehearse the catalogue of perceived shortcomings and the basic problems that we see in the draft anti-poverty strategy. The Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network, Children in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, the Cliff Edge Coalition, the expert panel and the strategy group have all set them out with clarity, and I do not think that I would do them justice by just repeating them. The Northern Ireland Office and the Public Accounts Committee have also spelled out what they think was wrong with previous child poverty strategies and how to fix them. Their responses offer the evidence-based alternatives that we need. We need a rights-based, life cycle, intersectional strategy with time-bound, measurable actions, clear accountability and proper resourcing, grounded in lived experience.

My focus today is on what I see as a weakness — the legality. As the Ulster University submission by Dr Mark Simpson, Prof Gráinne McKeever and Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick made clear, the draft, as we see it, fails to meet the Executive's duty to adopt a strategy based on objective need. By the Honourable Lord Justice Treacy's test, a lawful strategy must have a start, a middle and an end, with measurable outcomes. The draft has a start — we can see that — but there are no measurable endpoints or timelines, and the outcomes are vague means, not ends. It also ducks the objective need element, offering no single consistent test of who actually needs the help most. Taken together, it is not yet a lawful plan of action, and I think that it leaves the Executive exposed to challenge again. I ask this: what are we doing, if we are knowingly putting forward a strategy that, so far, is not measurable or target driven and is not clearly anchored in objective need? Without those clear targets and budgets, I do not believe that it can be effective, meaning that the children whom it claims to help will continue to suffer.

We support the call for a Northern Ireland child payment, as we have previously. Whilst there are issues with the Scottish scheme, it shows the way. It sets statutory targets that are bolstered by that payment. Analysis has shown that that payment reduced relative child poverty by around four to five percentage points. That has lifted thousands of children out of poverty. Whilst analysis has also shown that, yes, Scotland has not met every interim target, the point is much greater than that. It is about the fact that Scotland has targets in situ. It measures progress and can adjust policy as and when it needs to and when it sees what is and is not working. We can learn something from that model.

I attended a Rising Together Against Poverty event at the start of September with lots of community and voluntary sector organisations. I heard very clearly that a cash-first approach was the most effective and impactful way to immediately help families. That approach worked in Scotland. The MLA for East Belfast David Brooks said that "throwing money at the problem" does not work. Respectfully, thousands of children in Scotland would disagree with that.

Mr Brooks: Will the Member give way?

Ms Mulholland: No. I have a lot to get through, David. If I have time at the end, I will let you in.

Research from the Republic of Ireland also shows the impact of combining that cash and in-kind support. According to Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in 2025, when you count the child payments and the in-work supports, alongside free preschool meals and free school meals, more than 150,000 children were lifted out of poverty. Closer to home, I turn to the 'Welfare Mitigations Review', which was led by Les Allamby. It found that offsetting the two-child limit and bolstering family incomes with those new payments is exactly the kind of targeted intervention that we should see in an anti-poverty strategy.

As I have said many times, poverty does not just happen in silos, and we have a society that cannot tackle it in silos. We already have a law to make Departments work together: the Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015. Recommendation 9 in the Public Accounts Committee's report on child poverty said that it is clear that the Act is not being used to its full potential. It recommended that the Department of Finance work with all Departments to remove the barriers and bring forward an action plan. I hope that that Act can be used, whether it is around the scrutiny of the strategy or cross-departmental working. It is clear that we could be doing so much, but, right now, the draft anti-poverty strategy is not going to fulfil the objectives that the Minister has set out so far.

Mr Butler: The Assembly needs no reminder that child poverty in Northern Ireland needs to be tackled. We have had many debates on the issue. The 'Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report, 2023/24' showed that one in five of our children are living in absolute poverty and one in four are living in relative poverty. Behind those numbers are children growing up in homes that are sometimes cold, parents skipping meals so that their children can eat and young people who see no realistic way to get ahead. That is the daily reality in too many households. When we look at some of the things that the Executive have tackled, poverty sits at their root cause. Take educational underachievement: we know that it is correlated with poverty. Take health inequalities: there is an inevitable correlation with poverty. Therefore, it is a cross-Executive matter.

However, under the New Decade, New Approach agreement, the Executive promised an anti-poverty strategy and a child poverty strategy. It was accepted at that stage that one document could serve both purposes but only if it had a clear, measurable focus on children and measurable outcomes for children. The current draft, sadly, does not. The Children's Commissioner, for instance, has said plainly that it is "not fit for purpose", and many others share that view.

It has been said by some in the sector that there are no new policies, no timelines and no ring-fenced budget. That part is unarguable. The Northern Ireland Audit Office called for a cross-departmental plan with clear, measurable targets, and the Public Accounts Committee warned that, without those targets, no strategy can deliver real change, yet no such targets appear in the draft. To the Minister's credit, the new disability and work strategy committed to supporting 50,000 disabled people into work by 2036, which is a welcome and specific target.

Mr Lyons: Will the Member give way?

Mr Butler: Absolutely, yes.

Mr Lyons: Does that not prove the authors of the motion wrong when they say that there are no new actions in the strategy and that there is no new budget for it? A number of strategies that flow from it have targets and have funding allocated to them, and more will come forward in the action plan as well. Therefore, it is demonstrably false to say that there are no timelines, no targets and no new actions.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Butler: Thank you.

Given the history of the Executive, setting aside the Ministers who have those portfolios at the moment, the difficulty is that we set strategies and then fail to deliver on them. If we fail to put it on paper, we will never hit the targets. The Minister is right to say —

Mr Allen: Will the Member give way?

Mr Butler: Yes.

Mr Allen: Does the Member agree that the Minister should have followed the approach that he took with the disability and work strategy by including targets in the anti-poverty strategy at the outset?

Mr Butler: Yes. Thank you. I will not give way any more, because I want to get through this. I agree with the Member for East Belfast. That is the point that I am getting to. The Minister has already shown that the Department has the capacity to be specific. It goes back to the point that I made that, in bringing forward one document that was agreed in 'New Decade, New Approach', the fear was that certain specifics would be missed. Childhood poverty is one such specific that, we feel, is missing.

The NI Anti-Poverty Network, which is supported by more than 80 organisations, has called for the document to be rewritten. That is not a political move; it is the powerful testimony of 80 separate organisations that serve those people daily, whether it is at food banks or through the provision of advice and help. They said that it focuses on personal behaviour rather than on the structural causes of poverty and, in doing so, stigmatises the very people whom it should help.

We also have the voices of those living in poverty. During the consultation, the Women's Support Network, Save the Children NI, the NI Anti-Poverty Network and Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick engaged directly with 145 people living in poverty. The results speak for themselves: 78% said that the draft strategy would make no difference to their life; 15% said that they were unsure whether it would make a difference; and only 7% believed that it would help. Eighty-two per cent stated that it was poor. People were clear about what would make a real difference: providing free school meals for all pupils; reinstating the holiday hunger scheme; capping school uniform costs; and increasing grants. Those are all very hard to deliver, but they are certainly worthy of debate. I welcome the fact that the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill passed its Final Stage yesterday. I look forward to it doing what the Education Minister outlined: genuinely reducing the cost of uniforms for families. Those people also called for raising the level of social security benefits to reflect the true cost of living; removing the two-child limit and the five-week universal credit wait; introducing a Northern Ireland child payment; and ensuring affordable childcare and housing. Those are not radical asks; they are practical measures and have worked elsewhere.

I also have to point out and recognise that poverty is not confined to our cities. In rural communities, families face higher living costs, poorer public transport, limited childcare and older, less efficient housing. Many spend more to heat their homes and to travel to work or school. Any credible anti-poverty strategy must reflect those realities and ensure that rural households are not left behind.

We must also be honest about welfare reform. The draft strategy mentions the existing mitigations for the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, but it commits to nothing beyond continuing them. I hope that that is the subject of high-level discussion in the Executive. The Cliff Edge Coalition has been clear: strengthen the mitigations; end the five-week wait; remove the two-child limit; and support private renters who have been hit by the frozen local housing allowance.

Poverty does not happen by accident. It is shaped by political policy decisions. If those are made on the basis of the right choices, we can move the dial on poverty in Northern Ireland. A real anti-poverty strategy must be measurable, time bound, targeted and properly funded. In that regard, Minister, you will have the willing ear of the Ulster Unionist Party in the Executive, because as my party leader, Mike Nesbitt, has pointed out many times, if we want to shift left in Health, we need to tackle the inequalities that are rooted in poverty, and we will improve people's outcomes as best we can.

Mr Gildernew (The Chairperson of the Committee for Communities): On behalf of the Committee for Communities, I will contribute to the debate on tackling child poverty. The motion is correct to express alarm at the scale of the challenge that we face in the North, where one in five of our children lives in absolute poverty. Behind every one of those numbers is a child whose potential is constrained by hunger, poor housing or the stress of insecurity. In 2025, no child in our society should endure those circumstances.

The issue has been a sustained priority for the Committee since the restoration of the Assembly. We have gathered evidence from those on the front line: Action for Children; the Trussell Trust; the NI Anti-Poverty Network; the Commissioner for Children and Young People; and many others. We have consistently pressed the Department and the Executive for a robust, cross-departmental, outcomes-driven anti-poverty strategy that meets not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. Our message has been consistent: good intentions are not enough, and delivery mechanisms, measurable outcomes and accountability must be built in from the start.

The Committee has sought detailed information on what actions are being taken at local government level. The urgency of the debate is underscored by research that has just been published by the Simon Community. Its report, 'Childhood Adversity and Homelessness in NI: Breaking the Cycle', provides a stark, evidence-based picture of the long-term consequences of failing to support vulnerable children. It finds that childhood adversity is an almost universal experience for single adults living in homeless hostels, with 96% of hostel residents having experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, and two thirds having experienced four or more. That is a stark warning, telling us that childhood trauma and poverty are not isolated problems but are intergenerational. Unless we intervene early and effectively, disadvantage simply reproduces itself. The Simon Community research must serve as a wake-up call. It reinforces why a truly effective anti-poverty strategy is not just desirable, but essential.

The Committee welcomed the long-overdue publication of the draft anti-poverty strategy as a necessary step towards fulfilling a long-delayed legal obligation. After hearing extensive evidence, however, the Committee concluded that the draft strategy lacks the necessary precision and enforcement mechanisms to deliver real change. A framework alone will not transform lives. What matters is what sits beneath it: the statutory muscle, the financial commitment and the accountability that ensure that promises are kept. Those are essential if the strategy is to have a meaningful impact on the lives of the thousands of children who currently live in poverty. The Committee's formal response to the consultation on the draft strategy set out the architecture that is needed to address its critical gaps. Our conclusions are grounded in robust evidence and aligned with good practice recommendations from many bodies, including our own Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member.

The message from the Committee for Communities is clear. If it is to be fit for purpose, the final anti-poverty strategy must include four key elements. The first is legally binding, time-bound and numeric targets. The draft strategy proposes monitoring high-level indicators, such as the percentage of children who are in relative poverty, but sets no firm targets for reduction. Without targets, there is no clear measure of success or driver for ambitious action. The second key element is a costed, multi-year delivery plan. A strategy without a budget is merely a statement of aspiration. The Committee has called for a plan that maps actions to Departments and clearly distinguishes between existing funding and new money. The third key element is robust governance and transparent monitoring. The Committee supports having a board that is chaired by the head of the Civil Service, but that must be coupled with quarterly public dashboards that show progress against targets, as well as an annual report to the Assembly. Accountability must be built into the very fabric of the strategy. The fourth key element is a commitment to independent evaluation. To ensure that the strategy remains on track and delivers value for money, it must be subject to independent scrutiny at key points in its life cycle, including a mid-term review.

The Committee believes that child poverty is not inevitable but is the result of policy choices. We have an opportunity to improve the draft anti-poverty strategy with the tools that it needs to succeed. The recommendations made by the Committee for Communities are proportionate, audit-ready and reflective of what the Committee has consistently heard from stakeholders and experts. We urge the Minister to listen and to incorporate our recommendations in full. By doing so, a well-intentioned framework can be turned into a powerful and practical —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Time is up.

Mr Gildernew: — plan of action.

Mr Kingston: The core purpose of the Assembly is to provide for the citizens of Northern Ireland, to provide a prosperous economy, to grow our economy and to provide circumstances in which people, families and households can thrive. That is reflected in our Programme for Government priorities: the growth of our economy; the provision of childcare; cutting health waiting lists; the provision of more housing, particularly social housing; and support for vulnerable people. The DUP Minister for Communities, on behalf of the Executive, has brought forward an anti-poverty strategy that seeks to reduce the risk of people falling into poverty, to minimise the impacts of poverty and to help people exit poverty. It seeks to address the root causes of poverty and to support and enable people to provide for themselves and their family.

We welcome today's debate on the Opposition motion, which, again, proposes mitigations for the welfare system, funding for which would come out of the public purse for public services in Northern Ireland. The Minister has already committed to mitigations for the bedroom tax and the benefit cap and has extended them until March 2028. Introducing further mitigations would impact on the funding available for other, much-needed public services. Do the Opposition have proposals for from where they would make savings? Are they aware of the demands in the Department of Health —?

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Kingston: Wait until I have got through my points, and I will then give way.

Are the Opposition aware of the long waiting lists in the Department of Health, of the high demand for special educational needs provision in the Department of Education, of the investment that the Department for Infrastructure needs to make in roads and to address the situation with potholes that people encounter every day, of the shortfall in police officer numbers in the Department of Justice and of the need for DAERA to clean up Lough Neagh? All those issues have been raised, and the Opposition will table other motions about them. To where would they make cuts?

Mr O'Toole: I appreciate the Member's giving way. I will make two points, and I will be quick. We made three specific suggestions last year to address the two-child limit. One was to ring-fence the bulk of the regional rate rise for use. From memory, that would have raised about £30 million. The second was to reform rating of empty properties. The final one was to get rid of our ridiculous subsidising of air passenger duty (APD) on flights. You and the Minister may disagree with those suggestions, but they were our ideas. We costed them and put forward proposals. It is therefore not right to say that we did not do so.

To clarify, we also want to see more fiscal devolution and more revenue raising by the Executive.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Kingston: Perhaps the Opposition should have included those proposals in their motion. It is always convenient to produce proposals for more public funds to be spent on a need, but that money needs to come from somewhere. That is the reality of government and of being stewards of the public purse.

The DUP is committed to ensuring that each and every child has the best start in life.

Mr Baker: Will the Member give way?

Mr Kingston: I will, briefly.

Mr Baker: If that is the case, will the DUP support my private Member's Bill, the aim of which is to end holiday hunger?

Mr Kingston: If you put forward costed proposals, we will look at them, but, as I said, every expenditure has an impact on the public purse elsewhere.

Child poverty does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it affects whole families. We cannot lift children out of poverty without first addressing the needs of their parents, grandparents, carers and the other people who support them throughout their lives. It is therefore essential that we acknowledge that tackling child poverty means addressing wider issues of disadvantage in our society. Children are vulnerable. They cannot get a job to provide for themselves, which means that it is their parents' or grandparents' duty to provide that support. In recent years, many have found doing that to be increasingly challenging. There is a heavy burden on many hard-working people who are struggling to make ends meet in a cost-of-living crisis, and, as we have heard, almost one in four children now lives in relative poverty. A severe challenge therefore lies ahead.

In the Assembly, we have discussed how unfair the two-child limit is and the real impact that it has on families. Although mitigations have been introduced, we look to Westminster to make funding available for further mitigations in order to provide for those families. Creating opportunity for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, be it through greater educational attainment, training, apprenticeships or employment, will be crucial to breaking the cycle of poverty for many. Tackling poverty is therefore an Executive-wide responsibility. Every Department has to take responsibility. It is important that we take the necessary action to provide people with the means to exit poverty and to introduce measures that will prevent people from falling into poverty.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Business Committee has arranged to meet at 1.00 pm today. I therefore propose, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting until 2.00 pm. The debate will continue after Question Time, when the next Member to be called will be Michelle Guy.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Questions 5, 9 and 12 have been withdrawn.

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): In September, I launched £1 million of capital investment through the Olympic legacy fund. I have also made a budget allocation of £3 million to continue supporting the Your School Your Club programme. In addition, I recently approved high-level policy proposals for the grassroots facilities strand of the Northern Ireland Football Fund. That is delivery for grassroots sport across Northern Ireland.

Mrs Mason: Thanks for that answer, Minister. When I engage with clubs across South Down, they tell me that they see a huge growth in women and girls' participation in sport — GAA, soccer, rugby, coastal rowing and cricket — but that facilities for them lag far behind. How will you ensure that future investment prioritises equality so that female players have the same opportunities as their male equivalents?

Mr Lyons: That is exactly what I have heard, which is why I introduced those programmes. A lot of our need for facilities and changing facilities is as a result of the increased participation of women in sport. I have been consistent on this: we need to see those facilities upgraded. We need to make sure that we do not do anything that harms or limits the ambition of women and girls. All sports will have my full support in making sure that we make that a reality.

Mr Stewart: Minister, out of those grassroots sports facilities and clubs come our future elite athletes. I am sure that you will join me in congratulating Josh McClune from our constituency on being the first cyclist from Northern Ireland to become a member of the British Cycling National Schools of Racing. Unfortunately, with high-level performance and participation in such courses comes great cost to the individual and their family. What more can be done to support our elite athletes in the pursuit of their dreams?

Mr Lyons: Absolutely. I congratulate Josh. I have been involved in working with him. I am delighted at his success and hope that that continues. The Member is absolutely right. We need to make sure that that support is in place. Through Sport NI, we have the elite programmes — they need to continue — but we need to make sure that, before people get to that stage, they are supported through their grassroots club. That is why, in addition to what Sport NI offers, I have put in place the Olympic legacy fund, which helps with that grassroots element.

Ms Mulholland: Minister, has there been any discussion of an allocation from the investment strategy to the Northern Ireland Football Fund? That might help with some of the things that we are talking about.

Mr Lyons: The Member will probably be aware from the debate earlier that the investment strategy is still being discussed. Commitments have been made that, I hope, will be followed through not just on the money that has already been pledged but on the additional money that will be required to ensure that need is met.

Mr O'Toole: Minister, we all know where Casement Park is — it is very well connected; it is next to a motorway and a train line — but it appears that that stadium is stuck in the limbo of Executive dysfunction. Months ago, in June, the Treasury committed an extra £50 million to build it using financial transactions capital (FTC). We understand that you met the Finance Minister only a couple of weeks ago. What is the status of Casement Park? When will construction begin? Do you support the project's being delivered?

Mr Lyons: The Member will be aware that there is still a shortfall in funding: that is the gap that needs to be bridged. That is why I met the Finance Minister, and those conversations are ongoing. We also need clarity on exactly what financial transactions capital means in the context of the project. That is not the only element that has not been funded, of course. We have seen how the Northern Ireland Football Fund has not been funded to its need either. I stand ready to meet anyone about the project. As I have said, I want to make sure that strategic need for sport in Northern Ireland is met.

Ms Forsythe: The Minister knows that I am progressing a Member's Bill on women and girls in sports in Northern Ireland. One of the themes of the feedback on it is that, when young girls turn away from sport, they rarely come back. Does the Minister agree that investment in grassroots sports facilities to ensure that young girls have safe spaces for changing and showering is critical and needs to be supported?

Mr Lyons: I agree 100% with the Member. I was delighted to visit some local football clubs with her earlier this year, where I saw for myself the growth in the women and girls' game. They need those facilities. They need single-sex spaces as well, which is why the investment is so important. I am very supportive of her proposal.

Mr Lyons: The Arts Council has mechanisms in place in relation to the governance and delivery of the musical instruments programme, including a process to withhold or withdraw funding.

Ms Hunter: Minister, you said that the Arts Council can withhold funding. Are you are aware of any instances in which it has done so? Is it the case that those duties exist on paper only, with no real enforcement? What will your Department do to ensure that the Arts Council enforces its own standards?

Mr Lyons: It is a requirement of the funding conditions that applicant organisations commit to equality of opportunity and a good relations duty. The Arts Council reports on those matters to the Equality Commission.

Miss Brogan: The Minister will know that the all-Ireland fleadh is coming to Belfast next year. Will he outline what discussions he has had with the Arts Council about potential funding programmes for the bands that take part?

Mr Lyons: I was delighted to meet the fleadh organisers and pleased with their commitment to making sure that it is a full demonstration of what we can do, not just in Belfast but across Northern Ireland, when it comes to music. There will certainly be further conversations with the organisers and the Arts Council. It is in our interest to make sure that that is a success and that it demonstrates the full range of musical talent that we have in Northern Ireland. I was pleased that they wanted to display the work of bands, because that is a significant part of our musical and cultural tradition here in Northern Ireland, and one that we should be proud of.

Ms Nicholl: Has the Minister had any conversations with the Arts Council about any band or act's being involved in an activity that is perceived as being disrespectful to any tradition?

Mr Lyons: I have had various conversations with the chief executive. We can certainly get you the minutes of those meetings. I cannot remember any specific incidents in that regard, but, if it is important to the Member, I am happy to get that information to her.

Mr Middleton: Minister, can you confirm that the musical instrument programme is a cross-community programme and that it has had real positive benefit right across Northern Ireland?

Mr Lyons: Absolutely. One of the reasons why I am proud of my record is that we have been able to deliver more money for musical instruments across Northern Ireland. It has gone to all communities right across Northern Ireland. In the past year alone, 4,500 people have benefited, which is why we put the budget up to where it is at the minute. It helps not only bands but individual musicians and other groups, including many school groups. It has been a good investment that has touched so many people. We often talk about the need for regional balance. This programme ensures that we can help people right across Northern Ireland. I will continue to make sure that we fund it, because I want to make sure that our money goes as far as possible. This is a brilliant way of ensuring that there is support. I am proud to be able to support our bands and others who benefit from the musical instruments programme.

Mr Lyons: Mr Deputy Speaker, with your permission, I will answer question 3 and touch on question 5, which was withdrawn.

I have repeatedly made clear my views on the policy. I am strongly opposed to the two-child limit. I do not believe that the policy has met its stated aims, and there is no doubt that it contributes to child poverty. Although the UK Government have previously indicated that they are considering the future of the two-child limit, there has been no confirmation of their intended approach. I am supportive of any measures to alleviate the impact of the policy or to remove it completely. I hope that we will soon see firm proposals to that end emerging from the UK Government. My Department has not conducted any research on the impact of the two-child limit on poverty indicators, but there is other research that indicates the impact that it is having.

Mr Durkan: Minister, you referred, as I did in the debate earlier, to the wealth of evidence from local and national academic studies that demonstrates the negative impact of the two-child limit. Since that was published, I have commissioned a research paper into its impact in the North. Despite the Executive's stated commitment to tackling poverty, your Department has carried out no research of its own. Why not?

Mr Lyons: It is for the very simple reason that we have an evidence base that demonstrates the issues that exist. Now, I am happy to update that as time goes on, in particular to research what the consequences would be for us, as an Executive, if we were to take steps on that. The Member was unable to say, in the previous debate, how much the child payment would cost. I am happy to tell him how much it would cost to mitigate the two-child limit in Northern Ireland: £91·5 million by 2027-28. We can have the debate and talk about whether we should do that. However, my energies and efforts have been used to speak to the UK Government and tell them that that policy is wrong for the whole of the United Kingdom and that it should go for the whole United Kingdom. I hope that others will recognise that and help us to ensure that we get it changed, because it is having an impact on children across Northern Ireland.

Mr Brett: Does the Minister agree that one of the strongest messages that we could send to ensure that we remove the two-child cap would be for the questioner to contact his sister party in the UK Parliament, with which his party leader sits?

Mr Lyons: Yes, absolutely. It would be helpful if the SDLP would put its focus, efforts and energy there. It was very keen that the Labour Government would get elected. It was very open about wanting to see a Labour Government in power at Westminster. I encourage the SDLP to lobby the Government on that issue. That is what I have been doing. I look forward to the Member's doing the same.

Mr Lyons: It is compassionate and practical to allow early access to pensions for people who have a terminal illness diagnosis. That solution would offer dignity, financial stability and peace of mind to people in their final months. During the Assembly debate on 31 March 2025, I gave a commitment to advocate on behalf of the members of our society who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Subsequently, I wrote to the Minister for Pensions to call on the UK Government to act swiftly to deliver that change.

Mrs Dillon: I thank the Minister for his answer. I am aware from his response to the debate that he is very understanding of the issue. He said that he would like to do something to ensure that people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness get early access to their pensions. What response was there from the British Treasury? Has there been any movement? Is the Minister able to progress that in his Department?

Mr Lyons: Unfortunately, as of this week, I have not had any response from the Minister. I also raised it with Dr Suzy Morrissey, who has been appointed by the UK Government to complete an independent report to examine the issues that should be considered by the Government during the third review of the state pension age. The pension rules are exceptionally complex. There could be consequences for us financially in our block grant if we were to take that on. That is why the UK Government should do the right thing: give it proper consideration and ensure that it is explored.

Mr Allen: The Minister may be aware that the Pension Schemes Bill is currently going through Parliament. We will receive a legislative consent motion (LCM) on it shortly. Can he look at whether that could be a vehicle by which to take forward the change?

Mr Lyons: I do not think that the Bill would be the appropriate way in which to take it forward, because of the fundamental changes that it would make to pension systems and the economic impact that that would have. I will, however, do everything that I can to continue to push the Government on the issue.

Mr Lyons: I have no further info on that since the last time that I updated the House.

Mr Kelly: Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a fhreagra —

— I think.

The Minister has been in post for 18 months, and, as yet, we have no date for the language strategy for the North. I can tell you that Gaeilgeoirí across the North are getting very frustrated and concerned that it will not come at all. Can he give a firm commitment, or tell me when he will be able to do so, on when that strategy will be brought to the Executive?

Mr Lyons: Of course, a cross-departmental working group is looking at that issue right now, so it is outside of my control while the Departments look at it and come back with advice on what is possible and what is credible. However, I have to say that, on the issue of the Irish language, I will not be taking any advice or instruction form Sinn Féin because its reputation on it has been absolutely appalling. It has recklessly imposed it on street signage, disregarding the clear opposition of the vast majority of local residents in some instances. It wishes to force it on to front-line council staff against their will at Belfast City Council —. [Inaudible.]

Mr Lyons: It struggles to move away from the language of the past, which continues to haunt it to this very day. The Member is speaking from a sedentary position, but I cannot hear what he is saying. I do not really care either because I do not believe that he has anything to say that can add to this conversation. There is a process that is ongoing. That will continue, but I can assure him that — [Inaudible.]

Mr Lyons: — when it comes to language —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Mr Kelly.

Mr Lyons: — and when it comes to culture, I will support people, and I will uphold people's rights to engage in their own language and cultural traditions. What I will not do is impose language and culture on other people.

Mr K Buchanan: Minister, do you share my concern that the use of lawfare is further weaponising the Irish language?

Mr Lyons: I think that the key word there is "weaponising", and it is absolutely the case that Sinn Féin and others have been weaponising the Irish language. They want to use it against others, and I think that the way in which that has gone is really unfortunate. We should approach these issues on the basis of us collectively working together and of what works for everybody, rather than a majority imposing its will on a minority.

Mr McMurray: The Minister referenced the departmental working group. Will he outline any meetings that have taken place of the departmental working group on the Irish language strategy?

Mr Lyons: Yes, the group has been meeting. The Executive met on 15 May and agreed that that work would take place. That work is ongoing. At this stage, it is mostly the Departments coming forward with their own proposals and looking at how much those would cost, what is credible, how they will be meaningful and how those strategies could make a difference. That work is going on in the Departments, and I do not have an update on where that sits right now.

Mr McGlone: Minister, we have heard quite a bit about the working group. In fact, we have heard more about the working group than its actual workings. Can you provide us with some information, at least, on when the information from respective Departments will be collated and will manifest itself into something tangible by way of work, by way of protocols and by way of a meaningful strategy on the way forward?

Mr Lyons: That is out of my hands right now because we have the co-design group that brought forward recommendations, and each of the Departments is looking at those recommendations in detail to consider what they might cost, what the impact might be, what is credible and what is doable. It will be up to those Departments to bring that back so that we can get an understanding of how we progress those recommendations from here on in.

Mr Lyons: The fuel poverty strategy public consultation closed on 6 March. Analysis of the responses to the consultation has been completed, and a summary of responses document will be published in the coming weeks. Informed by the consultation and the significant stakeholder engagement, my officials are working to finalise the strategy.

Mr Allen: I thank the Minister for his answer and the work that has been undertaken on that important strategy to date. Will the Minister commit today to ensuring that the fuel poverty strategy includes clear, measurable and time-bound outcomes to lift households out of fuel poverty?

Mr Lyons: He will be pleased to hear that we will have those targets and timelines in place. This is where a lot of the misunderstanding of the anti-poverty strategy comes from because many of those targets and timelines will be found in those other strategies, such as the fuel poverty strategy and in additional action plans that we will introduce.

Mr Clarke: Given the fuel poverty strategy and the importance of some elements of it, one of the things that has been really important to many of our constituents is the warm homes scheme. Can you give an update on whether that will continue to feature as part of the fuel poverty strategy or on what will happen with it in the future?

Mr Lyons: Yes, absolutely. It is important that we not only make sure that we have new-build homes in the condition that they need to be but that there is extensive retrofitting and other support that will need to be available for homes that are already built. We will receive Barnett consequentials from the UK Government. A sum of £13·2 billion was announced for their warm homes plan, but that funding is unhypothecated, which means that the Executive have discretion to determine how funding is allocated. I want, as I hope other Members around the House do, to make sure that that money comes through for our own warm healthy homes scheme so that we can make sure that that money goes to those who need it most and makes a real difference to energy costs.

Mr McNulty: Minister, the North remains the only part of the UK without a statutory target to reduce fuel poverty. Can you confirm whether you intend to bring forward such a provision within this mandate?

Mr Lyons: I absolutely will bring forward a fuel poverty strategy. I said that I will bring that to the Executive by the end of the year, and I am still committed to doing that.

Mr Mathison: Can the Minister outline how much resource his Department will need to implement the fuel poverty strategy?

Mr Lyons: That will be subject to Executive agreement and what actions are put in there. Of course, we are already spending hundreds of millions of pounds every year to tackle fuel poverty. New actions will be put in place, and I have a number of actions that I want to ensure will be in that plan. I want to make sure that anything that we put in is costed. I have no interest whatsoever in putting a plan together that is not realistic and that we cannot achieve or deliver. Some other people want me to do that, but I am not prepared to do it. However, I will certainly bid for the resources that I need, because it is one of the most important interventions that we can make that actually makes a difference to people's lives and will lead to recurrent savings for people.

I have seen in my constituency those who are dealing with the effects of poorly insulated homes. That is not just about people's comfort. It limits people's life chances and the educational attainment of children and is a huge contributing factor to poverty, so it is essential that we get this right and that we get the Barnett consequential delivered to the Department for Communities so that we can make a change in people's lives, which is what we are actually here to do.

Mr Lyons: Currently, there is not a requirement on landlords or letting agencies to conduct a background check into renters' settlement status to ensure that a prospective tenant has the legal right to rent and live in the property. However, I have written to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Home Secretary to enquire about the extension of the right-to-rent scheme to Northern Ireland.

Mr Frew: I thank the Minister for that clarification. Is the Minister aware of any legislation that would allow the right-to-rent scheme to extend to Northern Ireland?

Mr Lyons: Yes, the Immigration Act 2016 allows that to be extended to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but it is up to the UK Government to extend those provisions. That is why I have written to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Home Secretary to request that extension.

Mr Lyons: Since coming into office in February 2024, I have delivered the following for the people of Foyle: £10 million of financial transactions capital funding for the north-west regeneration fund; £1·2 million to the Inner City Trust to enable the purchase of the former Austins department store building; £5 million for construction work on the Inner Walled City public realm scheme; and £1 million for the Harbour Square public realm project. I have worked closely with the Executive to enable the Londonderry and Strabane city deal to reach financial deal status. I have delivered £4·4 million for community and voluntary organisations; £12 million for the People and Place neighbourhood renewal programme; over £500,000 for improvements at libraries in his constituency; over £568,000 on labour market partnerships; 12 jobs fairs; and £9 million through the Supporting People programme. We have helped 1,178 people in Foyle to access additional benefits worth £2·6 million through the Make the Call service. We have delivered 47 co-ownership property completions and 345 social housing units, and we have improved 6,679 Housing Executive houses. I have delivered £5·1 million through the de-rating grant; almost £1 million in the rates support grant; £600,000 in the transferred functions grant; £2·6 million through the annual funding programme to 24 organisations; £33,000 for a musical instruments scheme to three organisations; £44,000 for musical instruments schemes for individuals; and £32,000 for small capital grants. Finally, the Housing Executive has funded over £7 million for the affordable warmth scheme in the Londonderry and Strabane council area.

Some Members: Hear, hear.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Order, Members. I call Gary Middleton to ask a supplementary question.

Mr Middleton: I thank the Minister for his delivery in the north-west. It flies in the face of what is said by those who continually criticise the DUP, and this Minister, who is delivering for that constituency. The Minister and his Department have made another welcome announcement, which is on the community wealth building pilot. Will he provide more detail on what that will mean for my constituency?

Mr Lyons: On the Member's first point, it is not just that they criticise the DUP or DUP Ministers but that they talk down their constituency all the time, whereas I know that the Member is always keen to talk it up. I welcome that.

Yes, there is something else that we are doing for his constituency. We are taking forward the community wealth building pilot scheme. There will be one in the north-west and one in Larne, which I am sure that the Member will be pleased to hear. Those pilots will explore innovative, place-based approaches to economic development. They are about building local capacity, strengthening community assets and ensuring that the wealth that is generated can be retained in the community. The partnerships will announce further plans in due course.

Mr Lyons: At stage 2, applicants who have been successful at stage 1 will receive invitations to attend online information sessions. Those sessions will cover issues specific to the stage 2 application, such as how to source quotations for proposed works.

Mr McAleer: Go raibh maith agat.

The Minister will be aware that my constituency of West Tyrone is very rural. Will he commit to hosting or having events in the constituency, bearing in mind his responsibilities under the Rural Needs Act 2016?

Mr Lyons: That is exactly why we have had those consultation events throughout Northern Ireland. Indeed, I launched the scheme in his constituency, or in what I believe will shortly become part of his constituency. I am sorry that he was not able to make it.

Mr McAleer: It is in my constituency.

Mr Lyons: It is. Pomeroy is in his constituency, but he was not able to make it, unfortunately. Neither was Mr McCrossan, who is nodding his head. It would have been great if they could have come along, because they could have heard about the Northern Ireland community infrastructure fund, the investment that we are putting in and the change that we will make not just to West Tyrone but to Northern Ireland. Those online sessions will be available. If there is a need and a demand for further information, we will certainly look at providing it.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): There are no supplementary questions to that question.

Mr Lyons: They will be issued from mid-November through to early December.

Mr Kearney: Last year, the Minister launched a public consultation on the draft fuel poverty strategy. Will he provide an update on the progress that has been made and on how the strategy will alleviate the pressures on families who are getting it so tight at this time?

Mr Lyons: That is why I am taking forward the fuel poverty strategy, which will be with the Executive by the end of this year, as promised. As I have said before, I am doing that because it is one of the best uses that we can make of government funding, owing to the changes that it will make and the impact that those changes will have on people's lives. Some people are living in horrendous conditions. They are spending huge sums of money on barely heating their home. That is why it is so important that we put in place the measures that can improve homes and retain heat. The strategy is something that will concern constituents across Northern Ireland. That is why it is essential that we get it right.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): I call Trevor Clarke. You have one minute.

Mr Lyons: The armed forces covenant duty, which was introduced under the Armed Forces Act 2021, came into force on 22 November 2022. It is a legal obligation on certain bodies, including the Housing Executive, to "have due regard to" the principles of the covenant. It requires decisions on the development and delivery of certain services to be made with conscious consideration being given to the needs of the armed forces community. I am committed to ensuring that we keep to the covenant duty. Some of the things that we have seen in recent weeks, including the attitude of local authorities, have been shameful. I will make sure that our armed forces are treated properly and in accordance with the covenant.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): That ends the period for listed questions. We now move to 15 minutes of topical questions. Topical questions 2 and 8 have been withdrawn.

Mr Brett: Welcome to the [Inaudible.] [Interruption.]

Mr Lyons: My goodness, it sounds as though Mr Durkan has been listening to the legitimate concerns of some of his local residents. I am glad that, as Mr Brett said, he has now come on board. He recognises the issues that that is causing for local communities.

Mr Durkan: What are you going to do about it?

Mr Lyons: I will tell you what I am going to do about it. I will make a statement to the House very soon. The Member's question betrays a misunderstanding of how the system operates. There is a responsibility on councils and how they handle issues around HMOs. Therefore, I will bring a statement to the House, and I will outline the requirements and responsibilities on councils. I look forward to him engaging with that.

Mr Durkan: I will tell him, as the Minister responsible for HMO policy, that some houses across the North have essentially had their kitchens closed off to avoid them being defined as an HMO and so that they remain immune from enforcement. Some properties are being used as temporary accommodation by the Housing Executive, which is awful for tenants, and they are often overcrowded due to the definition of "family" in HMO legislation. The Minister told us that he is aware of those issues. How aware is he? Does he find those issues acceptable? How does he intend to address those issues?

Mr Lyons: I am aware of who is responsible. Councils have extensive powers in those areas, and there is a mismatch between what different councils are doing. I will clarify that when I bring that HMO statement to the House, and there will be an opportunity for us to discuss that further. However, first and foremost, we should make sure that we put the concerns of local residents first.

There are theatrics on the other side of the House. The Member is playing with his hands. However, it is very clear that there is a role and responsibility for councils, and we have to have due regard for the law.

Mr Lyons: We will publish that very soon.

Miss Dolan: Thanks, Minister. Obviously, it is clear that there is an urgent need to reform the liquor licensing system. How will you ensure that any reforms balance the needs of the hospitality sector with the protection of public health and community well-being?

Mr Lyons: It is a difficult issue, because there are competing priorities and rights for the various interested stakeholders. We want to try to get a balance. I will bring the issue to the House, as I am required to do, and we will publish our response to that soon. I will look at what additional reforms may be required in due course. I hope to have that here for further discussion, debate and, no doubt, questions very soon.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Dr Steve Aiken is not in his place.

Mr Lyons: Some concerns have been expressed about that. We are trying to get a balance between making sure that those with the proper connection to the homes are able to stay in them and making sure that the right stock goes to those who need it most, which is a requirement for us. I will be happy to look into any specific issues that the Member has raised that can help to inform any wider work that may need to be done on that.

Ms Flynn: I thank the Minister for that response. I am sure that he will appreciate the difficulty, which we all hear about in our constituency offices, particularly when a young person has lived their whole life in a family home, and then, sadly, a parent or relative passes away, and they have to leave their home. If there is a review of the issue, we need to try to take on board the experience of that cohort of young people who live their whole life in a home but then have to move out due to the current policy.

Mr Lyons: I understand where the Member is coming from, and I have much sympathy for those who find themselves in that situation. I get that there can be family ties and connections, and we need to make sure we have a policy in place that is compassionate, not only to those in that situation but to those who need a suitable home. We need to make the most efficient use of our stock. Sometimes, no matter what policy is in place, people can fall out, or it might not work for them. However, I am more than happy to work with anyone to make sure we get it right, because we are talking about somebody's home, and I want to be as sympathetic as I can.

Mr Lyons: I am pleased to say that the £1 million Olympic legacy fund is now open. We have grants available from £1,000 to £50,000, and it is 65% grant to 35% crowdfunding. It is an opportunity to make a real difference for those across Northern Ireland. I was asked about what we are doing to help the sports clubs and grassroots organisations that so often miss out. That is why I devised and developed this scheme. I encourage everybody to apply if they believe it can assist them in their local areas.

Mr Harvey: I thank the Minister for this very positive fund, which builds on the legacy of our most successful Olympic games. Does the Minister feel that this investment could see more young people getting involved in sport? For example, might we see more Rhys McClenaghans?

Mr Lyons: Yes. I hope that it inspires the next generation. Maybe even the Member will be inspired to take up a new sport; maybe he will be seeking Olympic glory as well. I certainly encourage him in that. However, I was in Paris in August 2024, and I met Hannah Scott outside a cafe. We sat down and had a conversation. She told me about some of the challenges that she had faced during her early days competing in the sport. I met her; I listened; I said that we needed to do something to help, and that is why we have introduced the Olympic legacy fund.

I am also proud of the Olympic medallist fund. On Saturday, I was on the River Bann in a new boat that was bought with Hannah Scott's contribution from the Department for Communities Olympic medallist fund. It made a couple of things very clear to me — first, that there is no prospect of my competing in Los Angeles in 2028, but also how important it is to invest in grassroots sport and make sure we have the facilities. The big problem in all sports across Northern Ireland is that we do not have enough funding to support people at the grassroots level. How will people get to the elite level and the Olympics if we do not have funding in place? That is why I am doing something about it through the Olympic medallist fund and the Olympic legacy fund, and I hope that it inspires Mr Harvey, and many others as well.

Mr Lyons: Yes. The Member is right to say that it is a matter for the Department of Finance to take forward, but it impacts on all of us, and it is something that I am concerned about. I have raised the matter with Executive colleagues, and we have put those views across. We need certainty more than anything else; we do not have that. I am worried that we are going towards a cliff edge. However, I can assure the Member that we are aware of the issues and we are doing everything that we can at our end. The Government need to get to grips with this, because this sort of thing has been happening for too many years with those types of funding models, and everybody needs certainty.

Ms Mulholland: Given that so many of the voluntary organisations that have been funded by the local growth fund are looking at disability and employment schemes, can your Department do anything in conjunction with the Department for the Economy, such as bringing in something that we have spoken about before around JobStart instead of the statutory programmes? Maybe that could be used to bolster some of the community and voluntary sector. Is there any way around that?

Mr Lyons: I am happy to look at all the programmes that we have. I am driven by whatever delivers the results. I hope that the Government will follow through and give the funding to the projects that need it. We will, of course, look at the totality of what is offered to see what is best for people and how we can make sure that we help those who are in need. I will not be found wanting in that.

Mr Lyons: Is the Member referring to private rented tenancies?

Ms Nicholl: Yes.

Mr Lyons: I am disappointed to hear that that is your experience, as we also hear about it from time to time. I will be happy to raise that with officials to see what needs to be done and whether there are additional regulatory measures that we can take or other support that we can offer. If she has any specific examples of how she thinks that we can intervene, I will be happy to look at them.

Ms Nicholl: I am not an expert on the matter, but some organisations are. A colleague who works with St Vincent de Paul tells me that it comes up regularly. If the Minister's officials are going to engage on the matter, I ask that they engage with the voluntary and community sector, which supports people and may well have solutions for addressing it. It just seems senseless to me.

Mr Lyons: I am happy to ensure that officials engage with the sector directly to make sure that we scope out the problem and find the solutions, if there are any.

Mr Lyons: That is an important part of the work that we do. You will know how the housing supply strategy addresses our rural needs. Ultimately, however, we have a shortage of supply everywhere, including in rural areas. We need to make sure that we fulfil the demands that are there.

Mr Gildernew: Go raibh maith agat,

Minister. The Minister is well aware of the pressures on the waste water system, particularly in urban settings. There is, however, capacity in some rural settings. Will he ensure that, where social housing can be built in rural areas, that is the focus to ensure that that need is met?

Mr Lyons: We are having those conversations. I want to see as many homes built as possible. Just because we are not able to build those homes where there is the highest demand due to waste water constraints, that should not stop us building as many houses as we can. The most important thing is that we have houses for people who need them. That is the challenge that we face, and I am committed to doing it. In the coming weeks, I will be bringing to the Executive new and innovative policy proposals about how we can build more homes. My priority is making sure that we have more homes.

We had a very spirited debate here last week about the quality of those homes as regards energy-efficiency standards, and I will do everything that I can to maximise that. We are looking at the availability of waste water infrastructure and, of course, that is a big part of the housing supply strategy. That strategy has been successful, because Departments are now starting to talk to each other and work together to maximise output. The Member will see the benefit that comes from that very soon.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): That concludes —

Dr Aiken: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for not being in my place for a topical question. I was, as I previously briefed, at the funeral of a very important member of the Ulster Unionist Party. We send our party's regards to his brother on this sad occasion.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Thank you, Dr Aiken. That point has been noted.

That concludes topical questions to the Minister for Communities. Thank you, all, for getting the questions done in such a timely way, rather than having me say, "Time is up". That is thanks to the Members and the Minister, of course; it is nothing to do with me.

Mrs Guy: The tone of the debate so far has been as it should be: muted and respectful. I think that, fundamentally, we are all quite ashamed that we have to have a debate on child poverty. Of course, child poverty does not exist in isolation from wider poverty levels. It is a deep-rooted and complex issue that requires a whole-government approach, hence the need to deliver a focused and impactful anti-poverty strategy.

Let us take, for example, the crucial aspect of affordable and quality childcare.

We have a system where the cost of full-time childcare makes it impossible for many parents to work full-time hours or access training and education. That impacts disproportionately on women, many of whom will give up on opportunities to change jobs, increase hours, take on training opportunities or start businesses simply because they cannot afford to do so. I fully acknowledge that the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme is in place, but we need to think bigger than that and deliver a completely new system through the early learning and childcare strategy.

I want to focus on child poverty and education because, as the independent review of education highlighted, education can be the route through which people break out of the cycle of poverty and because of the impact that poverty has on a child's education. The Northern Ireland Audit Office report 'Child Poverty in Northern Ireland' states:

The report adds:

That entrenched link between educational disadvantage and economic circumstance has long been considered. We have the brilliant 'A Fair Start' report, which produced that rarest of things in Northern Ireland by way of a costed action plan, and the independent review of education, so we are not seeking policy answers. The experts have told us time and again what we need to focus on. So, too, have those with lived experience of poverty. For example, we know that educational attainment interventions start before a child is even born, ensuring that health support is there for women and families. Great work is going on in communities to ensure that, such as in my constituency, where Atlas Women's Centre and Resurgam Trust's healthy living centre wrap support around mums and families. However, that support needs to be expanded, and that can only happen in a reformed health system.

Educational underachievement cannot be tackled through curriculum and assessment changes alone. School leaders will tell you that we need to focus on pastoral support and whole-community approaches. We need children who feel safe and secure inside and outside school. We need children who are not going hungry while trying to focus, which is one reason why the Alliance Party supports the expansion of free school meals. We need children who feel that they are getting the right support, whether from counsellors or speech and language therapists, and we need to reduce and remove the financial barriers that face families who are trying to access an education for their children. That means real action on the cost of school uniforms and other costs.

I want to pick up on yesterday's debate on the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill and the missed opportunity that the Bill represents. Most interventions to tackle poverty require investment, but that Bill could have delivered real certainty on affordability without costing the Department anything. We still wait to see the guidance, but, from what was said yesterday, it looks as though the Minister of Education is going to outsource responsibility for ensuring affordable uniforms to schools.

I do not doubt anyone in the Chamber when they say that they want to reduce and end child poverty. The question is whether Ministers have the commitment to focus on the interventions that will make a real difference. We need money if we are to address those systemic issues.

Ms Mulholland: Will the Member take an intervention?

Mrs Guy: Yes.

Ms Mulholland: Does the Member agree that that cash-first approach is really what families have told us that they need most?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mrs Guy: Thank you. I agree entirely with the Member. We cannot pretend that if you are going to tackle poverty, you do not need money and investment. Families and organisations are telling us that, and we have to acknowledge that that is a fact.

In that context, where we need money if we are going to address those systemic issues, the urgency to integrate our society and public services and move away from the division and dysfunction that holds this place back becomes even more acute and necessary. We are up for that. I am not convinced that everybody else shares that conviction.

Mr Baker: I thank the Members who tabled this important motion. In my time in the Assembly, we have had a number of motions highlighting the need to tackle child poverty. Sadly, the current anti-poverty strategy is another false dawn for hard-pressed families in the North. I will be clear from the outset: it is the Minister for Communities' anti-poverty strategy. This Minister simply took all the well-researched and co-designed work of his predecessor, Deirdre Hargey, and threw it in the bin.

The key stakeholders are all of the same opinion: the current anti-poverty strategy will make no tangible difference to people's lives. Not only is there no consensus on the Minister's plan; there is absolute opposition to it. Organisations and individuals wrote to him outlining their concerns, but it seems that this Minister believes that the experts are wrong and his lacklustre plan is right.

Whilst we in this place are under harsh financial constraints imposed by London, we could make important interventions that could have a significant impact on people's lives. My private Member's Bill to end holiday hunger is one step in the right direction in tackling child poverty. I hope to see my private Member's Bill in the Chamber very soon, and I hope that it will receive support from every corner of the House. We know that, when children are more food-secure, their educational attainment goes up and reliance on food programmes, such as food banks, reduces. Whilst ending holiday hunger is not a panacea for ending child poverty, it is at least an opportunity to support 90,000 children during the school holidays. This is a real, tangible change that we in the Chamber can make that would positively impact on people's lives.

However, when it comes to legislation, we have already seen missed opportunities this week. The Education Minister's uniform Bill could have been a game changer for children and families. Sadly —.

Mr Allen: Will the Member give way?

Mr Baker: Yes.

Mr Allen: Earlier in his remarks, the Member mentioned the "well-researched and co-designed work" taken forward by the Minister's predecessor. Will the Member enlighten the House as to what was contained in the previous Minister's work that is not in this strategy?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Baker: Deirdre Hargey's work was blocked at a certain point in the Executive. That is something that the Minister could probably outline in his closing remarks.

The Education Minister's uniform Bill could, through amendments, have gone a lot further in ensuring equality and reducing costs. We could have been using the best practice that has worked elsewhere in the North across the board, delivering a comfortable, inclusive uniform for less than the price of a uniform grant.

Let us be clear: the DUP has no interest in tackling the real issues that are putting families under pressure. All Ministers have budgets. They must prioritise: they cannot always blame and hide behind the Executive. My private Member's Bill will at least be a piece of the puzzle to end child poverty, and, with the support of the House, it can be delivered in time for next summer.

Mr McGlone: Over a year ago, the Assembly debated a motion from our party on this very topic. The Northern Ireland Audit Office had just published a report on child poverty, and it found that one in five children in Northern Ireland was living in relative poverty and that nearly 10% of households were unable to afford basic goods. We called on the Minister for Communities to bring forward, by September last year, a comprehensive strategy that included specific and measurable targets to reduce child poverty. We also called on him to work with the Minister of Finance to agree an ambitious ring-fenced budget to deliver on those targets.

As my colleague Matthew O'Toole said at the time, the Audit Office report was:

He also said that one in five children in the North were living in relative poverty and nearly one in 10 were living in absolute poverty and that it showed that not only have we, collectively, failed to properly address child poverty but we have allowed the problem to get worse. We also highlighted the challenge that those levels of child poverty present for Northern Ireland in the long term. It is not only a moral challenge; it creates long-term costs for other public services. Child poverty levels impact directly on the education system, the health service and sometimes, sadly, on the criminal justice system and social services, as any Member will know from their constituency office. We believed then, as we do now, that there should be a binding target for child poverty reduction to judge the effectiveness of efforts to tackle it.

Over a year later, child poverty levels in the North are still shockingly high, and what have the Executive done? Their anti-poverty strategy still sits in draft form. There are no new policies and no ring-fenced budget. There are no agreed targets to measure any eventual policy against. Their draft strategy cannot even name which Departments are to be responsible for its three key pillars. That is not good enough.

Charities, campaigners and families are right to be angry, as we all should be. They have gone through the Executive's box-ticking exercise for a hollow draft strategy: an exercise that has clearly failed to meet the scale of the crisis. The Minister and the Executive have no new ideas, have no money and evidently see no need for urgency in dealing with the problem.

Mr McCrossan: Will the Member give way?

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): Will the Member give way?

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Member for giving way. I got in just ahead of the Minister. Does the Member agree that it comes down to a sheer lack of political will to tackle the problem in a meaningful way, that the Executive have been disastrous in dealing with the issue, and that, on the watch of the Minister and his colleagues around the Executive table, child poverty has got worse in Northern Ireland since the Executive's return?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr McGlone: Thank you for that, Mr Deputy Speaker. My colleague makes the point that I was trying to make, and perhaps in a much more articulate way, as ever.

In the meantime, community-sector organisations are telling us that they want to help develop a meaningful plan. We are therefore back in the Assembly and bringing their message to the Executive. Our motion calls for an anti-poverty strategy that is fit for purpose and that introduces proven interventions: interventions that have been adopted in Scotland and in the rest of Ireland that have reduced child poverty rates significantly. For example, a child payment for families on universal credit, tax credits or other qualifying benefits; accessible and affordable childcare; and expanded free school meals. Those are all policies that the Executive could and should be introducing.

Our message is clear. If the Executive have no new ideas for tackling child poverty, we and the community sector do. The public, however, will be asking what the Executive parties can agree on if they cannot or will not agree to funding an effective strategy to tackle child poverty. Tacaím leis an rún seo inniu.

Ms Forsythe: Every child deserves the best start in life, and I believe that everyone in the Chamber agrees with that. Child poverty is devastating, but it does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, poverty affects families as a whole. Our aim should therefore be to address poverty in its entirety, and that is what the Communities Minister, Gordon Lyons, has done through the Executive's anti-poverty strategy.

I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, which undertook the child poverty inquiry. It is a bit disingenuous of the SDLP to use the findings of that inquiry to attack the Minister. The inquiry reflected on the 2016-2022 child poverty strategy, and, yes, it classed that strategy as a catalogue of failures and made a number of recommendations, but the Minister and his Department accepted nine out of the 10 recommendations and partially accepted the other one. After that strategy ended in 2022, there was a two-year gap until something else came forward. The Committee recommended that a new anti-poverty strategy be presented to the Executive as soon as possible, and Minister Lyons has done that.

Mark Durkan said that the Opposition are serious about eradicating child poverty, but what evidence does he have of their doing that? The evidence for the DUP is that Minister Lyons has brought forward a strategy and is on the front foot in addressing child poverty.

Children, by their nature, are vulnerable. They cannot support themselves by getting a job, so they rely on their parents and guardians to take care of them. The DUP has committed to standing on the side of families who are struggling, and Gordon's anti-poverty strategy is focused on tackling the issues.

Mrs Dillon: Will the Member give way?

Ms Forsythe: Yes.

Mrs Dillon: Does the Member agree that, although she has said that children cannot take care of themselves and thus rely on other people to take care of them, many children are, in fact, carers for their parents? We therefore need to ensure that those children are looked after in any strategy.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Member for her intervention, and I completely agree that, as we consider all the strands of the anti-poverty strategy, we should pull out the specific child-related issues that she mentioned.

In the Chamber today, the Scottish child payment scheme has been mentioned as a potential option to be considered here. During the PAC inquiry, however, we heard evidence that the scheme had little effect on child poverty levels in Scotland and thus made very little difference to the situation. That huge spend of £471 million every year has barely moved the needle on child poverty, so the question is whether it is the right way forward for us.

It is simple for the SDLP and the Alliance Party to call for that scheme, but let us be honest with people: Gordon Lyons does not have an extra £471 million a year, and, if he did, would the best option be for him to put it into a scheme that has no proven track record of making a significant difference? It will be up to the Minister to assess different value-for-money options and how they align with different strands of his strategy.

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Member for giving way. She is the Deputy Chair of the PAC, and I, as its Chair, agree that we have had a very worthwhile inquiry. However, one of the main criticisms and themes that came through was the silo working of the Departments. I understand that the Minister for Communities must lead on the strategy, but is it not regrettable, surely, from the outset that the First Minister walked backwards 10 minutes after the announcement?

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Member for his intervention. I agree with that point. As we sat through the inquiry, it was devastating to hear about the plans and things that were outlined in the 2016-2022 child poverty strategy. The Member, the Chair of the PAC, was quoted as saying that it was a "catalogue of failures", which is a fair reflection of that. The key point to take forward from the inquiry is that we must learn the lessons from it and build them into the process. I am confident that Minister Lyons will do that.

The Minister's priority has been to make a difference and do so now with the tools that he has had to hand. On that, he has brought forward the first Northern Ireland anti-poverty strategy, challenging though that may have been. It cuts right across. We need it to be cross-cutting in order to move away from the siloed nature of government in Northern Ireland, as Daniel McCrossan said. To fully address poverty, the strategy needs to hit every Department, and every Department needs to play its part.

The Minister set out his commitment on the issue, and he is committed to helping every child in Northern Ireland. Unlike others, he does not stand on the sidelines criticising; he takes action. The Minister has a track record of delivery, and he cares about the people in Northern Ireland. He is serious in his approach to tackling child poverty. I support the Communities Minister in his work on that.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members, thank you. That concludes the list of contributors. I call the Minister for Communities to respond to the debate. Minister, you have up to 15 minutes.

Mr Lyons: Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank all those who contributed to the debate. It is an important issue. It is probably one of the most important issues that we face, because poverty is a curse, and child poverty is particularly egregious. Poverty limits potential and harms people and their life chances. I am serious and sincere in my attempts to try to deal with that issue. For what it is worth, I believe that others in the Chamber are sincere as well. We all want to tackle the issue and to work together to make sure that we can make a meaningful difference in people's lives.

The fact that we all need to work together on child poverty is the first thing to highlight. It is an Executive strategy. I emphasise that point not because I am trying to share any of the brickbats that are coming towards me but because it has to be done together. We have to do it in a joined-up fashion. Therefore, I take exception to some of the comments that have been made about the draft anti-poverty strategy, because I brought it to the Executive. I did not present it as my plan or proposals, because, first, we had the cross-departmental working group. We went out to all Departments and asked, "What can you do, and what do you think that we should have in the strategy that can make a meaningful difference?". The Ministers came back with their ideas. Those ideas were put into the draft strategy, and the Executive, as a whole, agreed that it should go forward to the next stage. That is why I take exception to some of the comments, particularly those made by Cathy Mason and Danny Baker, though I am pleased to engage with Mr Baker; I do not see him often at any debates that I am here for. One of the first things that he said was that there is nothing new in the strategy. He said that I had scrapped everything that the co-design group wanted. I think that he said that I had put it in the bin. That is just wrong.

Let me go through some of the things that the co-design group asked for that are in the strategy. It wanted period poverty to be included. That is in there. It identified the need to tackle fuel poverty. That is in there. It identified the need to make school attendance cost-neutral. Work is ongoing on that. We have the continuation of the extended schools programme and the RAISE programme. We know about the legislation that has been brought in on school uniforms, which it asked for as well. The co-design group asked for mitigation payments to be extended. I have done that. The co-design group asked that we continue to pressure the UK Government on the pensions triple lock. I have done that. The co-design group highlighted the need for a childcare strategy. We agreed, and, within weeks, the Education Minister will introduce that. The co-design group raised issues of low pay and workers' rights. The Member's party colleague is addressing that, unless he is saying that that is no longer the case. The co-design group highlighted housing as an issue, and the Executive housing supply strategy is in there as well.

Mr Baker: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Lyons: Just one second. The co-design group asked that we maximise and improve access to benefits advice and support for older people. Those things are there. It is wrong of the Member to say that everything has been scrapped.

Let me move on to something else that the Member is wrong on, and then I will take an intervention from him. This has been repeated ad nauseam by others: they say that there are no new actions in the anti-poverty strategy. We heard that again and again, and it is demonstrably wrong. There are new actions. Mr McCrossan, who is used to being wrong, is shaking his head. [Laughter.]

There are new actions in there. There are new things that we have started since the Executive returned and new things that we are continuing to do, including the adoption of the housing supply strategy; the extension of welfare mitigation payments; the fuel poverty strategy; the £23 million subsidy for working parents; the childcare strategy that is coming forward; and all the other issues that I have just mentioned —

Mr McCrossan: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Lyons: — as well as the Healthy Child Healthy Future programme and the new People and Place strategy.

I will give way to Mr McCrossan, but I need to give way to Mr Baker first.

One action that came forward last week was a new employability programme worth £12 million that will target some of the hardest to reach in order to get them into work. I have seen the impacts of that first-hand, and it changes lives. There are new actions.

I will come on in a second to some of the new things that we may be able to take on afterwards, but I will give way to Mr Baker first.

Mr Baker: I thank the Minister for giving way. When things are good, you, like the Education Minister. always love a wee pat on the back. All the organisations are saying that this will make no tangible difference. How are you going to make that right with those organisations? They are not just making it up, Minister.

Mr Lyons: You say that it will not make any difference. You do not think that welfare mitigations will make any difference? You do not think that the fuel poverty strategy, through which we will invest more than we have ever done before in retrofitting people's homes, will have an impact? What about the extended schools programme and the Make the Call service, in which I am continuing to invest?

Mr McCrossan: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Lyons: One second.

The Make the Call service that I am continuing to invest in is important. It may seem small, but, in 2023-24, we generated £62·1 million of annualised benefits. You do not think that that will have an impact on poverty? I make no apology whatsoever for those things that we are continuing and the new actions that have been included, some of which, by the way, have already been delivered, as well as the housing supply strategy.

I miss Mr McCrossan. He is not on the Committee any more. I am more than happy to give way to him.

Mr McCrossan: Thanks, Minister, for giving way. I have to say that you really need to wake up on this. There is nothing new in what you are saying. It is as though you have taken everything from the cupboard, fired it in the basket and painted it as something new, which is not the case. Barnardo's said that the overall strategy, in draft form, is weak and lacking in action, with the need for more robust plans that include specific targets and commitments. Are you saying that Barnardo's, which is at the coalface supporting people who are struggling on a daily basis, is wrong, or are you in a dreamland?

Mr Lyons: I will say two things. First, it is wrong to say that there are no new actions, because I have just read those out. It seems in this place that, no matter how often I give not opinion but fact, Members argue against that. OK, we will take that on board.

Secondly, this is a plan that is out for consultation. Well, the consultation has now closed, but the plan was out for consultation. We have an opportunity to hear, and I have said from the start that we will listen to all the ideas, but what I was not prepared to do was introduce a strategy that was unaffordable and uncosted. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to bring forward a plan that included a child payment — Mr Durkan called for a child payment in his motion without even knowing how much it would cost — or more money for childcare, or which removed the two-child limit or included more free school meals or other free provision. I could have brought that forward, stuffed it all into the strategy, and then handed it over to the Executive and said, "There you go", but I am not prepared to do that. In the previous debate, the leader of the Opposition said how fed up he is with people bringing forward unrealistic proposals, and I am not doing that. What we have here is affordable and costed. We have gone out to consultation and asked, "Where do you think we fall short? What else can we do? What can we do to make a difference?". The Executive can consider that and decide what we can take forward.

That takes me to the next issue that I want to address, which is the need for us to be grown-up. I have said how easy it would be for me to fill the strategy with all the wonderful things that we might be able to do, but it comes down to funding. We can have our priorities, but we have to recognise that they come with a price tag. Take the child payment of £300 million, for example. I do not think that the evidence from Scotland is convincing: it has not moved the needle beyond the margin of error for how to analyse those who may be in poverty in Scotland. Let us talk about the child payment. The Member included that in the motion, although he did not know how much it would cost and has no plan for how it could be funded. Perhaps we can find the money from somewhere. Perhaps there are other things that we can stop in order to enable the child payment to be introduced, but that would need to be tested.

I want to make sure that we spend every pound that we have in the best possible way. I want every pound to have maximum impact. That is why I am so passionate about the fuel poverty strategy. So much of households' income goes towards keeping their homes warm. If we can put more investment into retrofitting and making them energy efficient, it will benefit our constituents not just for one year but every year after that. It is why I am so passionate about getting people into work. The disability and work strategy will take our employment rate up from 40% to 50% and get 50,000 more people into work. That is good for them and will help their life chances. Do you know what else it will do? It will allow us to have more money. With an average of £15,000 of savings per person to Treasury each year through National Insurance contributions and tax revenue, those 50,000 people getting into work will represent £750 million a year. Think of what we could do with that money, getting it to people who are in work and still need support.

To the House and to all the groups that are interested in listening, I say that I am more than happy to explore those options. I will listen to what has been said during the consultation period and will take that on board, but I will be realistic. I will not support anything going through the Executive that I do not believe will work or make a difference or that is simply a wish list. I am not prepared to do that. I want delivery, not delusion.

Mr Durkan: I thank the Minister for giving way. We have already seen and heard how the Minister disregards evidence from experts in the sector, but now he is also dismissing evidence from the Scottish Government, who identify their child payment of £27·15 per week as having reduced the rate of children living in poverty by four percentage points.

Mr Lyons: There he goes again: he is making it political. I have not disregarded the sector. I am not saying that at all, and I think that he is being disingenuous in saying that. I genuinely want to work with people to get this right. I have done nothing but set out facts. The Member quoted statistics from the Scottish Government. They might have a special interest in this —

Mr Durkan: In tackling poverty? [Inaudible.]

Mr Lyons: — but the information that we have is that it has not moved beyond the margin or error. However, let us have the debate. Maybe that was a good investment. Maybe the £490 million that went into the child payment would be the best way for us to spend money —

Mr Durkan: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Lyons: — or maybe it would be best to invest it in retrofitting or childcare or some of the other issues that we want to tackle. I will have that debate —

Mr Durkan: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Lyons: — but this draft anti-poverty strategy is affordable.

The Member is getting very exercised. I am more than happy to give way to him.

Mr Durkan: The Minister has accused me of not knowing the cost. In the past couple of speeches, the Minister and his party colleague have given four different costs between them.

Mr Lyons: I am not sure what the Member specifically refers to. It is clear, however, that his party tabled the motion without saying how it would pay for it. While we are talking about those who are wrong, I will add that Mr McCrossan said that child poverty has got worse in Northern Ireland, whereas, in fact, it has not changed over the past couple of years. The party got something else wrong: I think that Mr McGlone said that the Public Accounts Committee's recommendations were trashed, but they have been taken on, one of them partially and the rest in full.

What I am saying, I hope, clearly, to the House is that we have a draft anti-poverty strategy that is costed and that, we believe, tackles some of the root causes of poverty in Northern Ireland.

Mr McCrossan: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Lyons: One second.

Some of us want to go further. I would like to go further as well. I will work with all those who are interested and will look at what comes to us as we finish analysing the consultation responses and hear from the Committee and others. I am more than happy to look into that and see what can be taken on board, but, if Mr Durkan and others say that they would bring in a child payment, childcare and all the other things, we will need to be honest about that.

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Minister for giving way. Minister, we all know that this will take collective responsibility from the Executive. We are not foolish in that regard. Did the First Minister agree with you at the Executive prior to the draft strategy being published and then walk backwards after the public backlash happened?

Mr Lyons: I was in the Executive meeting, Mr McCrossan, when it was agreed that the draft strategy would go out to consultation. For weeks beforehand, Ministers had had the papers and had contributed to the action points. It was agreed. Questions were asked of me, I answered them, and we went out to consultation. It is fair to say, therefore, that, yes, I was surprised, standing beside the First Minister, to hear what she had to say, given that not only had the Executive signed off on the strategy but Sinn Féin Ministers had contributed to it.

Mr Gildernew: Will the Minister take an intervention?

Mr Lyons: I will, yes.

Mr Gildernew: Minister, do you accept that the draft strategy that you presented to the Executive was greatly reduced from the draft that Deirdre Hargey had left on the desk in your Department when you took office?

Mr Lyons: I have outlined how much is still in it. I do not really see the relevance of that point. That was and is the case.

My time is almost up.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Minister, your time is up, I am sorry to remind you.

Mr Lyons: We have had the consultation and we will see where we go from here. I am determined that we sort out this issue.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Thank you, Minister. I call Cara Hunter to conclude the debate and make a winding-up speech on the motion. You have up to 10 minutes.

Ms Hunter: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome the opportunity to wind up the debate on this important motion. With one in five of our children living in absolute poverty, we are failing not just a statistic but an entire generation of young people in Northern Ireland. The latest Northern Ireland poverty and income inequality report, which is for 2023-24, confirmed that 21% of children living in the North are growing up in absolute poverty after housing costs. That is roughly 95,000 children — 95,000 young lives starting off from behind, through no fault of their own. In the SDLP, we know that poverty in childhood is not temporary. It sets the trajectory for health outcomes, and, as we have heard at the Education Committee, it impacts on educational attainment and access to life opportunities and job opportunities for years to come.

A child born into poverty is more likely to fall behind at school. That is one of the driving factors that led the SDLP to introduce the Period Products (Free Provision) Act 2022 to provide free products to keep girls in the classroom and partaking in sport out on the pitch and to make sure that there are no barriers to education or extracurricular activities. Children in poverty are more likely to suffer poor mental and physical health and to struggle to find stable work as an adult.

Every piece of research tells us that investing early saves money later in life, but we are still firefighting the consequences of poverty rather than tackling the root cause. The figures that I mentioned are shocking, but they are not evenly spread. As a representative for the north-west, I note that the highest rates of child poverty are in areas in the north-west, with parts of my constituency falling into the Derry City and Strabane District Council area, while other areas, such as Belfast, have persistent deprivation. Families in the north-west are among those hardest hit by rising food and energy costs and, of course, by the impact of welfare reforms.

Mr McCrossan: I thank my colleague for giving way. Recent statistics from the Trussell Trust highlighted that, in 2024, 520,000 people across Northern Ireland, 130,000 of whom were children, lived in food-insecure households. That is 20,000 more children than in 2022. Does the Member agree that child poverty in Northern Ireland has got worse on the Executive's watch and that the Executive are full of daydream believers?

Ms Hunter: I thank the Member for his intervention. Yes, I agree. I am sure that all of us, in our roles as MLAs or as individuals, have at some point been in homes where children struggle with poverty and lack of access to food, which is absolutely heartbreaking. We know that children who go to school on an empty stomach cannot focus in class as much as their peers who come from homes with a lot of wealth. It is important to note that. Child poverty is a choice: it is political-will choice and a policy choice. Our emphasis here is on the Executive's need to act.

Regional balance must mean equal opportunity for every child, not postcode inequality. The proposed anti-poverty strategy gives little cause for confidence that anything will change. We feel that strongly because there is no clear delivery timetable and no dedicated budget.

Mr Lyons: Will the Member give way?

Ms Hunter: No, thank you: you have had your time.

Without those things, it is not a strategy but merely a statement of good intent on paper. The Executive promised that eradicating child poverty would be a defining mission, yet the draft anti-poverty strategy falls short of what families urgently need. Those of us who were out in our communities and in our constituencies just before the school season know that it is about families who cannot afford new school shoes or to get a raincoat for their child or children. Santa is getting ready to come to town, and a lot of families are anxious about what Christmas Day will look like. Those families will be listening today, and they will demand answers.

We know what works. As was mentioned, we know that Scotland's child payment is lifting thousands of children out of poverty. That is backed by statistics. We feel strongly that a Northern Ireland child payment could do the same here. Parents also speak passionately about the cost of childcare, which pushes them out of work and study and reduces families' household income. That is why we need to reinforce the importance of truly accessible affordable childcare in the North that reflects real costs and supports parents and families to stay in employment. We on the Education Committee have often spoken about free school meals. The SDLP firmly believes that that scheme must be expanded so that no child sits in class hungry or is embarrassed about their family income. Hidden poverty is massive in our society, with working parents who fall between the cracks making just enough money to not be able to access certain benefits while struggling profusely to make ends meet.

Today, we must ask this: does the draft strategy truly meet need? Does it constitute a genuine, measurable plan of action, or is it simply a collection of worthy statements without the structure, targets or accountability that the law requires? The draft strategy lacks clear outcomes or milestones. Without those, how can it meet the statutory definition of a strategy —

A Member: Will the Member give way?

Ms Hunter: — No, thank you — let alone be based on objective need?

What does "objective need" even mean here? The draft leaves it undefined, to be interpreted differently across different Departments. That is something that we talk about often: all political parties believe that cross-departmental engagement is a priority in the eradication of child poverty. It should not be just a Department for Communities issue. We need to see the Housing Executive and the Education, Health and Economy Departments play a role and all be on the same page.

I will address Members' comments. Cathy Mason rightly mentioned that children are not in control of their circumstances, and we often see two types of childhood, one defined by poverty and the other entirely free from it. Linda Dillon and Diane Forsythe touched on the importance of highlighting the challenges and needs of child carers in the North. Sian Mulholland talked about the importance of having an intersectional strategy that is adequately resourced; I agree. That is a difficult issue, because, in this Building, we sometimes see fantastic strategies on paper but do not see the resource put behind them to get measurable outcomes. Colm Gildernew reiterated the paramount need for there to be accountability in the strategy and the Committee's stance that child poverty is a choice.

If Budgets are moral documents, how we spend our money tells our children what we believe that they are worth. The cost of inaction is counted not just in pounds but in the lost potential — so much of it — of our young people. Today, it is important to be honest about where we are at and, more importantly, to be ambitious about where we can get to. Let us build a fit for purpose anti-poverty strategy that is shaped by lived experience, backed by appropriate funding and focused on outcomes. Every child deserves the same start in life and the power to shape their own future, rather than to be trapped by their circumstances. We had a number of young people here today. I am delighted that they could be present to be part of the discussion, because, ultimately, we are talking about them. The Executive hold the key to bringing about genuine change, but, Minister and Members, the draft strategy is nowhere near close to delivering for families and children right across the North.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members, please take your ease while a change is made at the top Table.

Mr Durkan: I beg to move

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have five minutes in which to propose and five minutes in which to make a winding-up speech. All other Members who are called to speak will have three minutes. Mark, please open the debate on the motion.

Mr Durkan: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Those of us who have experienced the heartbreak of suicide know that it never leaves you, with sleepless nights spent wondering what more you could have done, the guilt that gnaws away, the lives shattered and the families who are changed forever. We tell people who are struggling to reach out and seek help, but what happens when that help is not there, when people in crisis are told that they cannot access services for another six weeks at least or when the system that should catch them when they fall simply is not there? In the Chamber — more so than outside in the real world — we often see and hear division over the daftest of issues, and sometimes over fundamental political ideology. Suicide prevention and saving lives should unite us all, however, and it does. It united us five years ago, when we all stood here making the same argument to fund the critical community crisis intervention service (CCIS) in Derry, an area with a shamefully high suicide rate. It is shameful that we have a fight on our hands once more to reinstate a service that literally saved lives but that was forced to close a couple of months ago when funding from the mental health support fund ended. How can its closure be justified at a time when a mental health crisis is engulfing our communities? Where was the forward planning from the Department?

From its establishment in 2018, the CCIS provided more than 3,400 one-to-one crisis interventions, many of which took place out of hours, which are the very hours when people are at their most vulnerable, at their darkest and alone with their thoughts. It was community-based and person-centred, and it worked. Do not take my word for it, because we have heard from service users who say that they would not be here today were it not for the service. The council led the way in securing the service. I recall, however, that we had to drag the Department and the Western Health and Social Care Trust to the table. We even had to get a significant financial contribution from Foyle Search and Rescue, a wonderful local charity, to make ends meet.

It is ironic that, on World Mental Health Day last week, the news broke that 80% of the mental health strategy has been shelved, basically — 80%. That did not, however, come as news to my party and others who have been raising the alarm for years. The problem is not a lack of knowledge: it is a lack of political will. Only a handful of the 35 flagship commitments that were made when the strategy was launched in 2021 have seen any tangible progress. Initiatives on early intervention, crisis response and workforce expansion have all stalled. If the strategy had been delivered properly, fewer people would be hitting crisis point and, in turn, the need for crisis services such as the one in Foyle would be reduced.

As I said, the community crisis intervention service has been a success. It has been a success despite uncertainty over its future and staff's uncertainty over their futures. That is not the way in which to run any service, and especially not a service of that nature. The closure of the community crisis intervention service alongside the defunding of other vital supports in Derry — removal of the Northlands Addiction Treatment Centre's core funding and defunding of Men's Action Network — have left a dangerous void in the community, which is already struggling under immense pressure. The Western Trust, as we established during Question Time last week, has amongst the highest waiting lists for mental health support in the North and the fewest psychiatrists per head of population. The community crisis intervention service actually helped to cushion that system. It took pressure off emergency services. It gave people hope when all else had failed them. Now, they have been failed again. Now, where do people go? Who catches them before they fall?

If we are serious about tackling mental health, every Department must be part of the solution, as is called for by the motion. Those community-based services are not optional extras; they are literal lifelines. I urge you, Minister, and your Executive colleagues, to give that lifeline a lifeline.

Ms Ferguson: "Person-centred", "cost-effectiveness" and "life-saving" are just some of the terms that local people and Extern staff have used to describe the community crisis intervention centre in Derry. I thank the signatories to the motion and emphasise my support, and that of my party, for urgent, equitable investment in mental health and well-being.

As Mark mentioned, the Foyle crisis intervention centre was born out of need in 2018. In 2021, research evidenced that crisis intervention was an important part of suicide prevention and that those services, when provided, were availed of and positively evaluated. In the same year, as you are, obviously, well aware, the service was able to secure funding through the mental health support fund, which was the COVID allocation. That gave some stability for the key service that was needed. Having worked in the community and voluntary sector for over 20 years, working closely with a range of mental health charities, service providers and staff who are on the front line in providing life-saving support for individuals and their families, I cannot commend enough their commitment, especially in the context of the complex trauma-related mental health issues that exist. I also commend Foyle Search and Rescue, whose volunteers gave up 12,500 hours in 2024, helping 234 people in the city and bringing three deceased loved ones back to their families.

We all know the devastating statistics. We know that mental health exists on a complex continuum, so any adequate response should mean that those vital services are sustained and bolstered further by additional work across all our Departments. At any one time, individual and family relationships, community and structural inequalities can all interact to either protect or undermine a person's mental health and well-being. The more exposed that you are to adverse experiences and circumstances, the more challenging that it is to maintain resilience and bounce back from hardship.

I do not want to take away from the primary focus of the motion other than to acknowledge that improving mental health requires a whole-of-government approach to address the root causes, rather than relying only on the health service and crisis interventions.

I finish by stating that we all have seen how underfunded mental health systems fail our communities and how local community-based crisis intervention programmes save lives when they have the right support. The evidence is clear: investment in mental health is not a cost; it is a commitment to the well-being and safety of every citizen.

Mr Middleton: Thanks to the Members for tabling this motion. We are all aware, some painfully so, that Northern Ireland continues to face a mental health crisis of unprecedented scale. Our region continues to suffer from disproportionately high rates of suicide, self-harm and depression, worsened by poverty, social isolation and intergenerational trauma. Extern's crisis intervention service in Foyle did not close because it was ineffective; in fact, the opposite was true. Since its launch, it supported over 3,500 individuals in distress in out-of-hours care. It was a critical support service that offered safety, listening ears, crisis de-escalation and links to longer-term support.

Let us be straight in the Chamber: the intervention service closed because the temporary funding model was piecemeal. Someone needed to say, "We will make this work. We will make this a priority". In a system that talks endlessly about tackling the mental health crisis, the shutters came down. When all of us say that we care about mental health, what does that mean in practice? If it means warm words every few months in the Chamber but cold shoulders when allocating Health budgets, we are not being honest with the public. If it means leaving the community and voluntary sector to beg for survival, year in, year out, we are just adding to the deflation already felt in that sector.

I have made the point before about how often we talk about the importance of mental health, about prevention, about the neighbourhood model and about the importance of having accessible services. Here we had a service embedded in the community and, rather than throwing the kitchen sink at it to retain it, it closed. Of course, what will happen is that further pressure will be placed on the health system, which is already bursting at the seams, adding even more pressure into the system.

Minister, what alternative support will now be provided, or will our emergency departments, GPs and other services be squeezed even further? It feels that, when it comes to health, everything is now a priority and that therefore nothing is a priority. Extern's crisis intervention service was embedded in our community. It had the trust of the people who needed it most, and those are the very people who have now been let down. We often hear about prevention, but, in this case, short-term savings that come at the expense of long-term well-being are simply not savings at all. Minister, in response to a question for written answer, you said, on 8 October 2025:

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Gary, your time is up.

Mr Middleton: I urge you, Minister, to support the service going forward.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Much appreciated, Gary.

Mr Donnelly: The closure of Extern's community crisis intervention service in Foyle is another symptom of a system that is entrenched in reactive policymaking, lurching from crisis to crisis without ever addressing the deeper issues. The services that Mark mentioned, many of them out of hours, represent many people who have been helped, and, undoubtedly, lives have been saved.

We need a cross-cutting, person-centred approach to the Health budget. We also need the Minister to move beyond words and into actioned interventions to address the mental health crisis that we are facing. We have had a mental health strategy, launched in 2021, that promised genuine transformation, yet, just last week, on World Mental Health Day, it was announced that 80% of the strategy is now effectively shelved and only 16% of its planned funding has been delivered. Is it any wonder that our mental health services remain in a state of eternal crisis?

The Department has placed regional crisis services among some of its better-funded actions, yet here we are watching a key regional crisis service collapse due to lack of funds. It is ironic in a sad way that most resources are put into crisis and firefighting while neglecting the very services that could prevent the crisis in the first place, allowing pressures to build up to the point where resources can no longer cope with the demand of patients in crisis. When we fail to fund intervention and we ignore prevention, the pressure does not disappear; it grows. That is not the fault of crisis services, which provide invaluable care and are a lifeline to many, but of a succession of Ministers and years of political instability in this place in which there has been a failure to address the deep-rooted problems. That is reflective of the health system as a whole in Northern Ireland: although the Department gets the lion's share of the Budget, it is a system that so blatantly ignores prevention that it buckles under the weight of its own inaction. Those are not unavoidable tragedies; they are a predictable consequence of years of short-sighted policy.

I understand that the Minister has a limited budget, and I understand the pressure that he faces. I do not doubt the intention or sincerity in his words or his desire to improve the system. However, understanding the challenge is not the same as confronting it. If every Health Minister for the next 100 years stands in this Chamber, admits their faults and empathises with the people but continues to tackle each crisis as it comes, nothing will ever change. Without funding mental health strategies, setting aside pay provision for healthcare workers or changing policy to allow better career progression for nurses, nothing will ever change. We will face nothing but failure and disappointment from one generation to the next, Minister after Minister.

The mental health crisis is about more than a cost with no context on a budget document. The cost of not preventing it is arguably much greater, and that needs to be addressed. It is so easy to view underfunding and cutting mental health services as budget lines on a spreadsheet, but, for the people who need them, those services are a lifeline, and they prevent so many issues further down the line. If we truly want to tackle Northern Ireland's growing mental health crisis, we must stop treating each service failure as an isolated event and start seeing the bigger picture.

Mr Chambers: I am pleased to contribute to this important debate. I begin by recognising the deeply held commitment across the Chamber to improving mental health outcomes for our citizens. As the Minister said in the media only yesterday, there is now, thankfully, a much greater awareness and understanding of mental health in the Chamber and across broader society than there was only a decade ago. Few, if any, of us doubt the enormous role that the community crisis intervention service in Londonderry delivered in recent years. That service provided a vital lifeline to many people in distress, particularly in the north-west area. It undoubtedly helped prevent moments of crisis in people's lives from escalating, and it is not an exaggeration at all to say that it likely saved multiple lives.

We must view the debate within the broader picture of mental health across Northern Ireland. Our region continues to face the highest rates of mental ill health in the UK — they are 25% higher than those in England — yet our spending on mental health services remains proportionately lower. That imbalance is unsustainable, and the Minister has said so. That is why he continues to press for budget allocations to be based on actual need. When it comes to mental health, our level of need is clear for all to see.

However, we cannot ignore or underestimate the financial pressures facing the Department of Health. The difficult truth is that limited budgets mean that some things, no matter how worthy or valuable, do not receive the support that, otherwise, we would dearly love them to receive. While it is deeply disappointing that the CCIS has not been able to continue, I know that the Minister and his Department have had to make extraordinarily tough decisions, given the overall budget shortfall of around £600 million. The over £500,000 of funding that the CCIS received through the mental health support fund was a welcome reprieve, but it was always intended to be a one-off scheme. I acknowledge the Minister's efforts in extending that support through reallocating other small pots of available cash.

Services such as CCIS demonstrate the immense value of community-based interventions. We must learn from what has worked and ensure that future models of crisis care continue to reflect that person-centred approach. The mental health strategy 2021-2031 provides the framework for that, with its vision of regional crisis support and home treatment services that are consistent, responsible and equitable. Progressing that vision, even in its now more targeted and focused form, must remain a shared priority across government.

I end by recognising the CCIS staff and volunteers who have given so much. Their dedication changed and, indeed, saved lives. The people of Northern Ireland deserve a system that responds to them when they are in crisis, wherever they live and whenever they need help. That must remain our collective goal.

Mr Delargy: There is so much that I want to say on this, but the most important statistic is this: 3,500 people were helped in three and a half years. When Councillor Sandra Duffy and I met Extern representatives in July, they said something that I hear every week, every day and every month as chair of the all-party group on mental health. They said that the staff in those services do not want to hear platitudes. They want to see action, they want sustainability and they want a budget commitment. Those staff are being lost, and there is no sustainability, because they are constantly being put on notice because their jobs are always at risk. Therefore, we need to look at a sustainable and long-term funding model for all these services.

The motion is particularly pertinent to Derry because, as has been mentioned, in the past year, funding has been cut for Northlands, and the Men's Action Network has closed. The recent closure of Extern's service in Foyle is just another example of the many services being cut. It is particularly pertinent in our area because people are being discriminated against because of not just their mental health needs but their postcode. That is not good enough. What solution to that is the Department of Health coming up with? Are people going to sit in A&E?

This morning, I submitted a question for written answer to the Minister. On Sunday past, the waiting time at Altnagelvin A&E was three times the average of any other emergency department in the North. If the community crisis intervention service is not available for the people who want to use it, they are going to sit in A&E — as happens multiple times — with armed police officers beside them. That totally undermines and takes away from all the work that we have done to destigmatise mental health. It only increases the stigma, undoes the other work that has been done around the issue and undermines the mental health strategy.

Mr Donnelly: Will the Member give way?

Mr Delargy: I do not have time.

I will quote from a response that was given to a question for written answer from Mr Middleton on this issue. The Health Minister said:

Why is that response coming from the Health Minister? The Health Minister is the person with responsibility for the service. It is not good enough to abdicate responsibility; it is not good enough to allocate 5% to 6% of the overall Health budget, which is over half of our entire Budget in the North, to mental health and then talk about needing more budget.

This is about the fact that the Department of Health refused to prioritise mental health services, refused to prioritise intervention services and refused to prioritise services that are being cut in the north-west. When Members asked for meetings after the closure of Men's Action Network, and on the closure of this service, we were told, "No". I want to see what solutions the Minister has, and I want to see what is being done to support people in crisis in the north-west.

Mrs Dodds: As others in the Chamber have done, I rise to express my disappointment at the closure of another community service. While this is specific to Londonderry and the north-west, and, no doubt, will be gravely missed in those areas, it is a symptom of a greater problem across Northern Ireland, where community mental health services are not being treated in a fair and equitable way, or in a way that acknowledges their extreme importance. Before they will enter into a formal medical process, many people with a mental health problem will go to the community resource because they know the person and the organisation. These are important issues and important facilities. Today, we are talking about one in the north-west, but if I talk to other people across Northern Ireland, I will find exactly the same issues.

I also want to look at the problems with the mental health strategy. Last week, we were told about the scaling back of the mental health strategy. The Minister and his predecessor, Minister Swann, said that it would take £1·2 billion to implement the strategy. As far as I can gather from the figures that I have received, the combined total forwarded to the strategy, so far, is around £12 million. That is 1% of what the Minister and his predecessor have said is required. In Northern Ireland, we spend about 7% of our local Health budget on mental health. That is well behind England at 11·4%, Scotland at 9·4% and Wales at 13·3%. Like the previous speaker said, it is not good enough to blame other Ministers or Executive colleagues. It is about the priority that the Minister puts on mental health and the allocations that he gives to the mental health strategy. It is important to reflect on that today.

This reflects the issues that we see. In answer to a question from me earlier this year, the Minister gave me statistics on the occupancy of mental health beds in hospitals. The latest statistics that were available then were from March this year —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Diane, your time is up.

Mrs Dodds: — and they varied from 102% to 123%. With the closure of community resources —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Diane, your time is up.

Mrs Dodds: — that will get worse. Sorry.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Sorry about that.

Mr Gaston: There is no doubt that the closure of Extern's community crisis intervention service will leave a glaring hole in provision in the north-west. I share the frustration of other Members at its closure, but, without immediate action, it will sadly not be the last. It opened in 2019 as a pilot project under the umbrella of Derry City and Strabane District Council. Media reports suggest that, in the following six years, the service was in receipt of approximately £650,000 from the Department of Health. No doubt, it was a worthy cause, yet here we are talking about the closure of that vital front-line community service, in parallel with the scaling back of Stormont's own mental health strategy. The House needs an urgent focusing of minds on the issue.

Turning Point NI, which is a Ballymena-based charity in my constituency, also does vital work in crisis intervention. It faces the very same issues that led to the demise of the Extern service, yet it remains similarly unfunded and, regrettably, has never received monetary support from a Stormont Department despite lobbying from MLAs and even a visit from the Health Minister. Over a four-year period, Turning Point NI carried out 1,476 referrals from the trust at a cost of £400,000. While I welcome the Health Minister's commitment to sharpening our focus to maximise impact within the resources available, I again repeat my calls for Turning Point NI to be granted some of the resource that others have got, lest it suffers a similar fate to the group at the heart of the motion today.

It is notable that other funders, such as the National Lottery, no longer provide moneys to support tier 3 and tier 4 work, which is the most urgent and critical work in the sector, and it is now more important than ever that our Departments recognise and react to that stark reality. Why should those organisations rely on grants to provide core NHS services? Northern Ireland has many organisations that work tirelessly every day, literally saving lives through crisis intervention. It is high time that the Health Minister found a lasting, strategic way to fund those organisations' efforts at the very heart of our communities.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I call the Minister of Health to respond to the debate. Minister, you have up to 10 minutes.

Mr Nesbitt (The Minister of Health): Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, and thanks to everybody who spoke in the debate. Let me be very clear that I very much regret what has happened to the community crisis intervention service. As has been pointed out, it has helped over 3,400 people through one-to-one interventions since 2021.

Before turning to the detail of the situation, it might be helpful to speak to the wider context of mental health, given that so many Members have turned to it. Northern Ireland has the highest prevalence of mental health problems in the United Kingdom, with a 25% higher overall prevalence of mental health problems compared with England. The proportion of the Budget in Northern Ireland devoted to mental health is around 6%, which is half that in England. Underlying that are high levels of the social determinants of mental ill health, such as poverty, poor housing, domestic violence and economic inactivity. In 2008, 39% of the population in Northern Ireland reported experiencing a traumatic event related to our 30 years of conflict. Members will know that I am determined to do something about mental health, as I have campaigned on the issue since I was elected to the House in 2011, so everything points to the fact that we are facing a financial crisis in the Department of Health.

Funding for the CCIS, as one Member pointed out, was initially provided by Derry City and Strabane District Council as a pilot from 2018 to 2021. The Health and Social Care Board provided £27,000 of support in 2020. Subsequently, my Department provided some funding to allow the project to continue. From autumn 2021 until March of this year, Extern received £504,989 from the mental health support fund via the Community Foundation. That money came out of a one-off, three-year scheme to support mental health organisations that was funded using unspent COVID-19 funds. Given the well-documented position of my Department's budget, with all the resources having been allocated, the scheme has now ended. My Department identified a further £42,300 of non-recurrent funding to allow for an extension until June of this year, but, unfortunately, given our ongoing extreme budget challenges, no further funds could be found.

Via Extern, the CCIS applied to the core grant scheme for the 2025-26 funding round but was not successful. I will address that, because two Members said that the Department withdrew funding, as if it were a deliberate act. It is inaccurate and unfair to suggest that it was a deliberate act. I looked at the core grant scheme when I was appointed Minister, and it was frozen. I wanted to bring the scheme back into operation, but I also wanted to review it, because its application process had not changed in over 20 years, meaning that no charity set up in the past 20 years could apply to the old scheme. We worked with the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA), which facilitated workshops at which the community and voluntary sector told us how the core grant scheme should be redesigned. It is an unfortunate fact that, when it applied, Northlands was unsuccessful. We did not withdraw funds from Northlands or the CCIS. Rather, their applications were simply unsuccessful.

Mr Donnelly: I thank the Minister for giving way. Minister, you said that the Department did not remove funds from the core grant scheme. The core grant scheme had funding of £3·6 million a year when it was set up, but that was then halved to £1·8 million a year. Many groups and services that deliver vital services across Northern Ireland therefore lost the ability to continue to do their work.

We have heard that Northern Ireland has a 25% higher prevalence —.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Danny, this is not a second opportunity to make a speech. Your intervention is too long.

Mr Nesbitt: The Member either misinterprets me or misheard me. I said that we did not withdraw funding from Northlands or the CCIS, and that is the case.

I will move on to what is available. The Western Trust's home treatment team offers crisis support alongside GP out-of-hours provision and people can access emergency departments. There is still a range of partners in the community and voluntary sector, and, of course, Lifeline provides round-the-clock community assistance. Over the summer, we saw the publication of the new Protect Life 2 action and implementation plans, which will substantially enhance our efforts to reduce suicide and self-harm. Budgets remain a significant challenge. I have reallocated around £300,000 of funding to year 1 of the action plan. That funding is to promote awareness raising and prevention and to support local work on delivering the Protect Life 2 strategy actions right across Northern Ireland.

In addition, EY has reviewed the scale and scope of the community and voluntary sector across Northern Ireland in order to enable a greater analysis to be done of its provision and of how it can work in partnership to achieve positive outcomes.

A regional mental health liaison and crisis response home treatment care network has also been set up. It has a focus on pathways, operating procedures, thresholds, documentation, information, training and equity.

Service improvements will be progressed in order to ensure timely mental health assessment of those who are presenting in need to emergency departments and to ensure that we have a regionally equitable crisis response and home treatment service that provides acute mental health care in the community as an alternative to psychiatric hospital admission.

Mr Delargy: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Nesbitt: Yes.

Mr Delargy: I appreciate your comments, Minister, but how will that work in practice? People who present at Altnagelvin Area Hospital's A&E already wait three times as long. I appreciate that you are talking about emergency departments and emergency response, but that simply is not practical in Altnagelvin Area Hospital. I would be grateful if you could explain how that will work.

Mr Nesbitt: I take the Member's point, but you have to separate what is happening in the community from what is happening in the hospitals. My overall aim, together with the permanent secretary, is to move health and social care as close as possible to people's front doors, if not delivering it at home. This is about trying to get services as close as possible to people's front doors and to keep them out of hospital. That is not something that we are going to be able to do in a day, a week or a year.

A cross-departmental coordination action group was established by the mental health champion some time ago, in October 2023, in order to consider crisis services and suicide prevention in Derry/Londonderry and to develop actions to address suicide prevention, along with other relevant issues at the river and the bridges in the city.

I campaigned for a mental health champion many years ago. Previously, I tabled a debate in the Chamber and was unsuccessful, but, when Robin Swann took over the Ministry, we were able to appoint Professor Siobhan O'Neill. The appointment of an independent mental health champion was no small thing. She is now able to stand up, as she did last week, and criticise the lack of the delivery of the mental health strategy. That happened only because I and then Robin Swann pressed for the appointment of a mental health champion, who turned out to be Professor Siobhan O'Neill.

Lastly, I have to return to the Department's overall financial position. We are facing the most significant shortfall that the Department has ever faced: around £600 million. That is unprecedented and, frankly, unmanageable. I warn again that we need £200 million of that £600 million in order to action pay parity, which was, first, a commitment in New Decade, New Approach but was subsequently endorsed by the Northern Ireland Executive. If we cannot do that, we are going into the potentially uncharted waters of industrial and strike action.

I apologise to Members that I am not doing as much as I would like to do in mental health, but it is not for lack of trying. It is because of a lack of resource and funding. There is no quick or easy fix. I had a meeting today to look at next year's financial position, which is bleak. There is no other way to put it. We are in for rough waters over the rest of the mandate.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. I call Cara Hunter to make a winding-up speech on the motion. Cara, you have five minutes.

Ms Hunter: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I will endeavour to cover as many Members' comments as I can in five minutes.

I had the privilege of visiting the community crisis intervention service in different locations over the past few years, and I had the chance to meet staff at different times. They were absolutely exceptional, and I got to see what an unbelievable resource it was and how well used it was.

One thing that I liked about it was that it was, at one point, open between 8.00 pm and 8.00 am. If somebody was facing a mental health crisis or having feelings of suicidality, the service offered a totally different and unique approach to best support them that was non-judgemental and was there at the point of need. On a night out, when a vulnerable young person had, perhaps, had too many drinks or had taken a substance, this was a place where they were not shamed or judged. The facility was extremely well used. Other Members quoted statistics that speak to the fact that the community loved having that resource and was devastated, as was I, on a human level, that it had closed.

Our motion reaffirms a fundamental core value of the SDLP, which is a commitment to tackling the lack of mental health support in the North. Pádraig made a fantastic point about police time. If you speak to the police, so much of their time and effort goes into sitting in A&E. They know that that is not the most appropriate place for someone who is facing suicidality. The families of vulnerable individuals know that it is not the right place. The CCIS was the perfect location to take those vulnerable people at the lowest points in their lives and provide them with somewhere confidential and safe, where staff were well educated, were well connected in the area, were trained in de-escalation and could help acutely suicidal individuals. If you have lost someone to suicide, you can see painfully and clearly why resources such as that are crucial. When funding ends, support ends, and so many are left without support, feeling that nobody cares about them. The doors of that incredible facility closed, and I fear that that sent the wrong message for some. It validated their feelings that they do not matter, and that is the last thing that we want.

CCIS was a de-escalation lifeline for the people of the north-west. If you have been in the north-west, you know that there is often a real sense of hopelessness. Recently, I attended Northlands. The Department used to fund it, and there were challenges with that. For the CCIS to close and for Northlands's funding to have dropped — for those who face the dual diagnosis of addiction and mental illness, that is just a nightmare. It is also a nightmare for the families who love them, and there are just so many struggles. The struggles of the people in the north-west are severe. Many vulnerable people in my constituency have experienced many issues and have gone to the community crisis intervention service, from family breakdown to enduring domestic violence, grief, young people in care, victims of sexual violence or, as Gary Middleton mentioned, those who have been impacted on by intergenerational trauma. The Minister referred to that as well.

Danny Donnelly rightly spoke about feeling as if we are constantly firefighting. Ciara Ferguson mentioned how valued the service was by the people of Derry and how badly it is needed. Being a north-west representative, I feel that I cannot talk about mental health without talking about regional balance. It is important to highlight the long-standing inequalities that Derry and Strabane have faced. My father is from Strabane, and he would kill me if I did not mention Strabane. Those exposed to deprivation face the greatest mental health burden and are up to three times more likely to take their own life. I find that devastating. It ties in with our earlier debate on child poverty as well. Sadly, at a time when there is that sense of hopelessness in the north-west, we have seen the closure of that vital resource.

Alan Chambers mentioned the importance of money. Minister, I know that your heart is in the right place, that you do not have a magic money tree, and that the pressure is on your shoulders, but I and my party are asking you to look urgently at restarting that lifesaving project to help the people of the north-west, who are facing poverty, mental illness and addiction and who are struggling to get detox services and feed their families. CCIS was a vital resource for people who were feeling suicidal. We will do all that we can to get it back up and running, and we need you to help us, Minister.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Members, take your ease for a moment.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): In conjunction with the Business Committee, the Speaker has given leave to Colm Gildernew to raise the matter of post-19 adult respite provision at Woodlawn House, Dungannon. Colm, you have up to 15 minutes. Over to you.

Mr Gildernew: Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank the Minister for attending the Adjournment debate. It is a really important debate, Minister, and I will give a bit of the background to put it in some context.

Woodlawn House is the respite centre for adult learning disability in the Southern Trust. When I first became an MLA, significant issues were ongoing in that sector, with underspends and money going back. I worked with your colleague Robin Swann in our respective roles in Health and got at least a partial resolution to that issue. However, ever since, there has been a long-running saga of incidents with the centre. I underpin my remarks by saying that many of the families who badly need the respite are dealing with very complex loved ones, and that they themselves are now much older and really struggling in that context.

A number of years ago, one of the issues that arose was a complete closure of Woodlawn, as a result of a person from children's disability needing to use the facility. All the families fully understand the need to meet other people's needs. However, that created a significant level of disruption, off the back of the underspend that I spoke about. It also led to the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority putting in a change-of-purpose request for the facility, which has never been fully addressed. Families feel that that is now detrimental to their care needs.

On my way home from this Building on a Wednesday or Thursday, I have had families ring me to say that respite, which they had scheduled and agreed would happen on the Friday night, was being cancelled. That is just devastating for them. I do not even know what to say to them in those circumstances. I emphasise that neither I nor any of the families believe that that is to do with the staff. The staff do their absolute best. However, a series of complications and complexities have created a difficult situation. There has been a turnover of staff and management, and the pressures keep falling back on to the families.

I am told that many families currently have reduced hours. One family, to whom I spoke today, was supposed to get four weeks this year but has only had two. Another family to whom I spoke recently was due to get in the region of 60 days in an allocated period but got only one third of that. It is really difficult. Families might get a phone call today or tomorrow and be told, "You can take some respite in two or three days' time. If you don't take it, it's gone". Therefore, they cannot plan, arrange holidays, have proper breaks and all the rest.

I have raised it many times with the senior team in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. I have met senior team members individually. Every time that I have met them, they have said, "Listen, we think that we have this problem reasonably well cracked. We're recruiting extra staff. We think that we have the management stabilised". We always accept that and say, "Hopefully, that is the case", because, like the families, we are really desperate for a solution. However, the problem continues to rear its head, and families continue to be let down. I am really concerned. One of the regrettable things is that, if any one of those situations were to break down irreparably, the cost would be so much greater than the cost of supporting the carers in the way that we do now.

I get a clear sense, Minister, that you are aware of the issues and that you are concerned about them, especially given your focus on shift left, which I very much welcome. I have learnt, in the past few hours, that the Department is holding a consultation in Newry next week and that some of the families will be at it. I appeal to your staff to listen and talk to those families. I am also asking, which is my key purpose today, for you, Minister, to take a personal interest in this to see whether we can find a resolution.

I think that we actually need to over-recruit staff to some degree, to ensure that the cover is there. I know that, with all the budgetary problems, that is easier said than done, and I am not gainsaying that. However, a number of families here are being desperately badly let down, and I am concerned about them becoming burnt out. I think that, in certain situations, some of them have suffered burnout, and I am very concerned about that.

I am asking the Minister to take a personal interest, to work with the Southern Trust, work with families and meet with families if he can. I know that the Minister's senior staff will be meeting some of them in the near future. Families in some situations are afraid even to engage, in case they get reassessed out of what they already have. They are in a very precarious position in that sense.

I very heartily invite the Minister to come to Woodlawn House. I will go along with him to speak to staff, residents, service users and their families, if that is possible. Thank you, Minister.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Thank you, Colm. I advise the remaining contributors that they will have approximately seven minutes in which to speak.

Mr Tennyson: I begin by thanking Colm Gildernew for bringing this important Adjournment topic to the Assembly, and I also thank the Minister for being here to respond. It is an important issue that touches so many lives but often does not get the prominence that it deserves in public debate. Whilst I am not a Fermanagh/South Tyrone MLA, I am an Upper Bann representative, and many of my constituents also rely on the services at Woodlawn House. Like the previous contributor, I regularly hear stories from constituents about the challenges that they have faced in accessing respite care, the reduction in services at Woodlawn and the impact that it is having. Behind each of those stories is a carer who has not had a full night's sleep in months; a family juggling work, love and responsibility; and an individual with complex needs, who is not being treated with the dignity, joy and compassion that they deserve. For those families, respite care is not just a service; it is a lifeline. It is the difference between surviving and truly thriving. They are being failed, and we all have a responsibility to do better.
I want to stress, as did Colm Gildernew, that it is no slight or criticism of the staff. Every constituent whom I have dealt with has been keen to emphasise that the staff go over and above to care for their loved ones in very difficult circumstances. I am also conscious of the challenges around staff recruitment and retention at Woodlawn, which piles additional pressure not just on the families but on the remaining staff, who are left to pick up the pieces and juggle that service.

Earlier this year, I engaged with the Southern Trust about services at Woodlawn. It advised that, in the year up to June 2025, nine members of staff had left their posts at Woodlawn. That is a turnover of almost 30%. There has also been a significant reduction in service due to maternity leave and sickness absences. Whilst safe staffing levels must, of course, be our priority, I would be grateful if the Minister could outline what steps have been taken to gain insight into what is driving that significant turnover and what consideration has been given to other things, such as pay and conditions. I know that the Department has attempted to undertake recruitment at band 5 nurse level and band 3 healthcare assistant level. It has cited the challenges of people withdrawing before interview and even some post-interview challenges around overseas applicants having issues with visas and other matters. I am curious about whether the febrile atmosphere, febrile debate and toxic debate around immigration are having any bearing on our ability to attract overseas staff into that sector, because I know that the Southern Trust relies very heavily on overseas recruitment.

Due to those critical staffing levels, the number of operational days at Woodlawn has reduced significantly. Since June, services have been reduced to five nights a week as opposed to the usual seven, with no clear timeline for a return to full service levels. Again, there seems to be a lack of clarity from the Department about what interim provision will be put in place to support families, or whether any alternatives could be made available, while those operational issues persist.

Worse than the reduced operational days at Woodlawn, however, is the functioning of the cancellation policy. Again, like the previous contributor, I have spoken to families who have been given a glimmer of hope when they have secured a slot for respite, only for that hope to be dashed and that slot to be taken away at very short notice. That late cancellation makes it impossible for those families to plan, rest or, often, access the healthcare and support that they need, because we know that many of those families plan to put a loved one into respite care so that they can access their own healthcare appointments. I understand that there has been an endeavour to engage with and consult carers and families about the issues at Woodlawn House. Again, I welcome any update from the Minister on that process so far.

Care as a whole is so often undervalued in our society, and respite is not a peripheral concern. It is central to the delivery of a compassionate health service, and it protects well-being and ensures that those with complex needs are not overlooked or left behind in our society. I urge the Minister to take a personal interest, commit to a clear time-bound plan for restoring full services at Woodlawn House and ensure that the cancellation policy is acting effectively and compassionately, with carers at its heart, and that the right support is made available in the interim and is communicated transparently.

We owe it to those families to do better and to listen, act and deliver the care and dignity that they deserve. Whilst I accept that budgets are stretched, that can be no excuse for failing to deliver the very basics that those families deserve. I hope that this debate can be the start of setting us on a better trajectory on the issue. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Mrs Dodds: Thank you to the Member for securing an Adjournment debate on a very important issue. My colleague Deborah Erskine would have liked to have been here to discuss it. Like the previous contributor, I am a Member for Upper Bann, and the facility caters for many of our constituents, including some from as far away as my home town of Banbridge. The facility is widely used by those from across the Southern Trust.

The facility also provides a lifeline. I know that the Minister knows that and gets that it is a really important issue, but we need to look after the families who look after people in such challenging circumstances. Families will do their utmost for their loved one, but, sometimes, it is really important that they get that break from caring so that they can do other things for themselves. Ultimately, if that break from caring is not available, care in the family home can break down, and the ultimate consequence of that is that health services will have to assume responsibility. Having the situation that we face at Woodlawn House is almost unwise.

Deborah provided me with some statistics that she had been looking at, and I reviewed them. In March of this year, 24 short breaks were cancelled at Woodlawn House, and another seven were shortened. In the following month, 23 short breaks were cancelled, and the length of stay was reduced for another five. Last month, 10 short breaks were cancelled, with six having the length of stay reduced. The reasons that were given for that were staff shortages, vacancies, sickness, maternity leave and supporting individuals who were doing other training. More worryingly, in a recent update, the Minister said that it was unlikely that eight posts at Woodlawn House would be filled in the near future. That comprises four band 5 nurses and four senior nursing assistants. That is extremely worrying, given the number of cancellations and the shortening of breaks and the impact that that has on families. I really want the Minister to address some of those issues in his response, because I know that some of those families will be listening to the debate and will want to hear something more than, "We are doing our best".

I ask that the Minister explain the issues in the Southern Trust. The trust has been more successful than other trusts in introducing a wide range of breaks for families who are in need of respite. Minister, in response to a question that I asked earlier this year, you said that around a third of all the money that is allocated for respite went to the Southern Trust. It may be that the Southern Trust supports a wider range of people who require respite, but it would be interesting to get a further breakdown of the figures in order to understand why some of that money cannot be allocated to Woodlawn House, which is a really important facility.

On a wider point, which is important, as it is linked to the issue, the Minister allocated £13 million earlier in the year to support families with really high support needs. It would be useful for the House to get a breakdown of how that £13 million is being spent, of how much of the, I think, £2 million was spent in the previous financial year and of the allocations for this financial year. It is fair to say that the people at whom the allocations are aimed were slightly annoyed, because they felt that they did not really address the issues. There have been some changes made to the number of short breaks that are available, but those changes have not addressed the issue of providing breaks for individuals and families who look after young people and children with very high and complex needs. It would therefore be useful to get some information about that £13 million. I fully acknowledge the intent behind getting out that money and the struggle that there is to find new money, but we really need to make sure that it is allocated in a way that best serves the needs of people with very high and complex needs.

Minister, post-19 respite provision is one of the most important issues that we will debate in the House. There are many families across Northern Ireland who, during COVID, managed on their own 24/7 and never had any help. Again, I ask that you give the House information on how many respite facilities are now open, including those operating at pre-COVID levels.

Ms Finnegan: I thank the Member for securing the Adjournment debate on an important topic that has caused real worry and distress for families in the Southern Trust area and that speaks to a wider failure in how we support people with additional needs and their carers. Just last week, an 80-year-old mother contacted me in desperation. Her daughter, who is 40 years of age, has complex and additional needs and attends Woodlawn House in Dungannon. For that mother, Woodlawn House is not simply providing a service. Rather, it is her lifeline. It is her only respite, as it provides her with a few hours of relief that allow her to keep going. She told me, however, that respite provision at Woodlawn is regularly being cancelled. Think about that: an elderly woman, who has devoted her entire life to caring for her daughter, now faces uncertainty and exhaustion every single week, never knowing whether the one short break on which she depends will happen.

Her story is not unique. One of my constituents in south Armagh, a young man with additional needs, is regularly offered a dementia care unit for respite, which is not an appropriate setting for his needs. That highlights the lack of suitable, specialised provision for adults with complex needs. Families right across our communities — mothers, fathers, sisters and so on — are holding the line every single day. They do so out of love, but they cannot be expected to do so alone. When respite provision is withdrawn, placements are cancelled, and it is then the carers who carry the burden and the most vulnerable who suffer.

Woodlawn is a vital facility. It was established to provide short breaks so as to prevent crises, but it is now under immense strain, not because of any failings on the part of staff, who do incredible work, but because the system is broken. That is not morally, financially or socially acceptable: it is not morally acceptable, because every person who has additional and complex needs deserves to live with stability, dignity and continuity of care; it is not financially acceptable, because out-of-area placements cost millions that could be invested in strengthening local services; and it is not socially acceptable, because families are being pushed to breaking point when they do not know whether they will get suitable respite provision for their loved ones. That is not what compassionate care looks like.

The situation is not suitable. It is not good enough. We need urgent action: not more reviews, but real investment and reform. Woodlawn needs guaranteed continuity of service and an assurance that respite will be protected and not treated as optional. Behind every statistic is a person. We cannot turn away from the issue. We owe it to those families to do better, to protect respite and to strengthen Woodlawn and other centres like it, making sure that every person with additional and complex needs is supported, valued and given the opportunity to live their best possible life. That is what those families deserve and what we must deliver.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): I call the Minister. Minister, you have up to 10 minutes.

Mr Nesbitt (The Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will cut straight to the chase. Mr Gildernew asked whether I will visit Woodlawn. Yes, of course I will. I will visit it and speak to the residents, the workforce, the carers and the parents. I get out and about every week. That is important to me. I can sit behind that desk in Castle Buildings doing paperwork and having internal meetings, but it is not real until I get out into health and social care delivery settings. I will be more than happy to do that. My diary is pretty chock-a-block, so it might take a bit of time, but it is important for me to do that.

Mr Gildernew mentioned a meeting. Is that next week?

Mr Gildernew: Yes.

Mr Nesbitt: I take it that that is for the consultation that we are doing on the learning disability service model. That is important. I encourage everybody who has an interest in that to attend one of those public meetings, because that may set the template for how we do business for a good number of years to come.

I speak to service users a lot. I speak to mums and the workforce that works in that area and to officials in the Department. When I speak to people about the state of the service, there is a common theme. It can be summed up in one word: fragility. It is really fragile. When people go off on sick leave or maternity leave, meaning that the workforce is unavailable, it is fragile, and it breaks down. If somebody with severe learning difficulties comes from out of the blue and needs residential care rather than short break care, the entire home, potentially, will then be closed to those needing short breaks.

I agree with Mr Gildernew in that I am concerned about families and burnout. He knows, as I do, that, for those parents in particular, the biggest concern is, "What happens when I'm gone? Will my son or my daughter be OK?". That is what keeps them up at night. Of course it does, because those are their loved ones.

Mrs Dodds will have to write to me about the £13 million that she mentioned, because I will not be able to give her chapter and verse on that. She is not, however, shy about writing to the Minister of Health. [Laughter.]

Some of the circumstances of Woodlawn House are unique, but a lot of this is universal, based on the fact that it is a very fragile service in that it takes only very little of an unexpected nature to happen to throw it into chaos. Mr Gildernew said that it would be great if we had spare capacity, not least in the workforce. In an ideal world, of course, it would be great if we had beds, facilities and workforce to be tapped into when one of those things occurs. If, however, I were to go back to the Department —.

Mr Gildernew: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Nesbitt: I will give way in a moment.

If, given the shortfall in the Health budget, I were to go back to the Department and suggest that we start having capacity sitting around and waiting, I think that I would be taken in for a random drugs test.

I will give way.

Mr Gildernew: That is not what I am asking for, Minister. I am asking for an appropriate number of staff to cover what we now know to be a pattern of failure. I am saying that, if the current cohort is not meeting needs and is collapsing on such a regular basis, that cohort is not enough. That is where I am looking for additional capacity to be assessed and recruited so that the facility continues to function, cancellations do not come in at the last minute and we do not see the whole place closing because of one or two members of staff being off. That is what I am asking for.

Mr Nesbitt: I very much appreciate the clarification, and I apologise for misinterpreting. I thought that you meant that we would have additional capacity.

Let me give an overview of the challenges that are faced by Woodlawn House in particular, of the action taken by the Southern Trust and my officials, and of the wider strategic work that is under way to address the clear gap between capacity and demand for short breaks for people with a learning disability. I will be clear to families, because they may well be listening, and to the people whom we support that we need to increase provision in Woodlawn House and, indeed, in overall residential short break capacity across Northern Ireland. A model and a plan have been developed to achieve that regional change. That is the learning disability service model that I have just mentioned, which is out to consultation.

Woodlawn House is a nursing-led statutory facility that gives short breaks for adults with a learning disability. The purpose-built home has eight beds and includes a separate unit that can offer support to those with the most complex needs. It opened in 2008, and, since then, it has played a really important role in supporting adults with learning disabilities who have complex medical needs. That is why it is nursing-led. Of course, there can be a lack of alternatives when provision is impacted on. I am aware of Woodlawn's temporary closure in December 2023, which was to accommodate an emergency placement, as I said earlier. I will come back to that.

Since March of this year, Woodlawn House has operated at a reduced capacity due to a staffing shortage. That is at the core of the issues there. At the time when the matter was escalated to the Department, the Southern Trust was reporting a staffing deficit — this is quite shocking — of 60% to 70%. There were multifaceted reasons, including staff being lost to sickness absence, maternity and career progression, but it was a really significant staffing gap, and, of course, it resulted in a reduction of service that was necessary to maintain the safety of the staff and of the people whom we were supporting. It was a regrettable decision, but we had to be mindful that Woodlawn supports people with very complex needs, and they require a fully staffed, multidisciplinary team.

Since that point, the trust has undertaken several exercises to address the staff deficit, restore provision and, where possible, find alternative placements across other residential and nursing units. Officials have received an update from the trust on the current position and the work ahead to fully remobilise the service. Three additional band 5 nurses have been recruited, and they took up their posts this month. That is good news. The trust also used bank and agency staff. However, regulations and standards are clear that the service needs to be delivered by substantive staff to ensure continuity of care and reflect the complex medical needs that Woodlawn supports. The trust has plans for further band 3 recruitment, and an open day will be held in Woodlawn on 16 October, which is this Thursday. Band 2 trainee posts are also being introduced to recruit individuals who are keen to work in the care sector. It is envisaged that they will progress to become band 3 nursing assistants or healthcare assistants in due course.

Additional processes have been put in place to promote the safety of the people who are supported and of the staff. Enhanced governance structures, senior management visibility and staff engagement have been put in place to better understand the staffing issues and to inform changes to the services and to future recruitment. Weekly allocation meetings are in place to ensure that provision is prioritised on a clinical and social basis. That is not a desirable position, but it is needed to ensure that people can access a short break where that need cannot be met elsewhere. Families were engaged in the process and will continue to be engaged. The trust has commissioned additional beds in other units. Those will not be suitable for all families, but they have been offered to and accepted by some. Lastly, where possible, self-directed support has been used to provide alternative support to families in lieu of short breaks. I assure Members that my Department will continue to monitor and request regular updates from the trust on progress towards restoring full service delivery at pace, but that has to happen with a safe and appropriate level of staffing.

In my remaining time, I will turn to the impact of societal unrest on our international colleagues. I say to Mr Tennyson that we have yet to bottom out the potential impact of that, but, clearly, it gives me huge concern about the retention of international colleagues but also about their recruitment. We have recruited a lot of doctors from India to the Southern Trust in particular; I met a lot of them at Daisy Hill Hospital, and there are some who work at Craigavon Area Hospital, and they are really good people. If you are sitting in India or somewhere else, and you are asked by a recruitment campaign whether you would like to come to Northern Ireland, you will go on your social media or use your search engine and see that it is not a very attractive proposition. To have to put a sign in your doorway or front window that says, "I am a Filipino", or, "I am working for Health and Social Care", is truly biblical. It is the Passover, literally, to say, "Pass me by, please: I am OK". That is no way to run a health service.

I will finish where I began. I look forward to working with Mr Gildernew and to visiting Woodlawn and speaking to the appropriate people.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Colm. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.