Official Report: Monday 09 February 2026

Mr Speaker: We will move to Members' statements in just a moment, but I ask Members to give me moment. We have a special visitor today, but they are not in the Gallery yet.

We will move to Members' statements, but I might interrupt.

Mr Sheehan: Seachtain Mheabhairshláinte na bPáistí an tseachtain seo. Is é téama fheachtas na bliana seo ná "Seo M’Áitse", agus is é is aidhm dó a chinntiú go mothaíonn páistí agus daoine óga go bhfuil áit acu sa tsochaí. Ba chóir do gach páiste a mhothú go bhfuil meas orthu agus go bhfuil tacaíocht acu sa chóras oideachais againn. Déanann an roghnú ar bhonn acadúil a mhalairt; diúltú acadúil atá ann.

Níl aon áit ag an teist aistrithe i gcóras oideachais nua-aimseartha cuimsitheach. In áit a bheith ag cuidiú le páistí a n-áit a aimsiú, is amhlaidh a scarann sí iad. Deirtear le cuid páistí "Tá libh", agus le páistí eile "Tá sibh ó rath", fiú sula bhfágann siad an bhunscoil. Cuirtear barraíocht brú ar pháistí agus iad 10 nó 11 bhliain d’aois. Bíonn imní ar pháistí san am roimh an teist aistrithe, agus cuireann na torthaí imní orthu fosta, go háirithe ar pháistí ó chúlraí faoi mhíbhuntáiste. Ní bhíonn deireadh leis an imní sin ar lá na dtorthaí; leanann sí cuid mhór páistí ar feadh na mblianta, ag baint faoina bhféinmhuinín agus ag dul faoina meabhairshláinte agus faoin dearcadh atá acu ar an fhoghlaim.

Is léir ón taighde an dochar a dhéanann an roghnú ar bhonn acadúil. Creideann tromlach mór na múinteoirí go bhfuil tionchar diúltach ag an teist aistrithe ar mheabhairshláinte na bpáistí, agus má deirtear linn gur sháraigh orainn agus muid óg, téann sin faoinár bhféinmheas agus faoin éifeacht a dhéanfaidh muid. Má tá muid dáiríre faoi mheabhairshláinte na bpáistí a chosaint, caithfear an roghnú ar bhonn acadúil a chur ar ceal anois — faoi dheireadh thiar thall.

Mrs Dodds: Over the last number of weeks, we have had considerable mention in the press about waiting times in our emergency departments, with the median waiting time being 13 hours and 36 minutes. In Causeway Hospital in the month of January, the longest waiting time for a handover from the ambulance to the ED was over 19 hours .

The list for first-time consultant appointments in Northern Ireland has now reached 540,000, with those people waiting many years. We need to recognise the progress on the waiting lists for scopes and the reduction in long-term waits, but our cancer waiting lists are the longest and have the worst outcomes in the whole of the United Kingdom. Only 6% of women who are referred for breast cancer investigations will see a consultant within the 14-day target.

It therefore came as a considerable surprise to me that the Minister should then prioritise the pay of the chief executives of the trusts. The public will be perplexed that the Minister has chosen to do that, particularly in light of the fact that he has still not fulfilled his promise to implement the real living wage for domiciliary care workers. That is the huge contrast that exists on the issue of pay. The salaries that were signed off by the Minister will see the pay of those on the lowest rung of the executive pay scale exceed £100,000 per year, with those on the highest rung receiving almost a quarter of a million pounds per year. Those salaries will dwarf the salaries of our Prime Minister, First Ministers, judges and senior clinicians. That raises serious questions, particularly when the morale of front-line staff in hospitals is so low and people are working so hard to make sure that our health service functions.

Most galling of all is the fact that some of those who will get the automatic pay increase right up to 2029, will have been responsible for the debacle with the new maternity hospital and the new children's hospital, and the fact that we will possibly wait four and a half years before the former can be entered or used in any substantial way.

Mr Speaker: Before I call the next Member to speak, I welcome the honourable Donna Skelly, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. We have had the privilege of having Donna over yesterday and today. Donna, I trust that you will have a good time here in Northern Ireland. More importantly, I trust that it will be a useful time, through your meeting the First Minister and deputy First Minister, the Economy Minister and others, and that we will develop a good relationship with Ontario that will result in benefits for the Northern Ireland community. Thank you very much for your visit, Donna.

Ms Egan: Today I press for urgent action to protect our coastal communities from the impacts of climate change, including the erosion of our sea walls and the increased frequency of flooding.

Last week, the need for robust measures was again brought into sharp focus when extreme weather conditions deteriorated and partially collapsed Donaghadee's sea wall along the Parade, where the shore front meets critical infrastructure, including the A2. That posed an immediate risk to both public safety and essential infrastructure in the surrounding area, with the potential of strong floods threatening homes and causing local businesses to close.

As we know, sea levels are rising worldwide, leaving coastal towns and villages at risk during high tides and storm surges. Clear warnings have been issued by the community with a sustained evidence base, as collated in the 2024 report, 'An Iconic Harbour Under Threat'. The report was produced by the Donaghadee Sailing Club and Donaghadee Community Development Association. It highlighted that, when considering the harbour's design and the impacts of climate change, action must be taken to prevent further hazardous disruption. It was published as a foreboding tale two years ago, and its predictions are now manifesting at an even greater scale and quicker speed than had been imagined.

To quote the report published by Donaghadee Community Development Association and Donaghadee Sailing Club:

Acting now is exactly what my colleagues and I have been doing. My colleagues in Ards and North Down Borough Council have been pressing the council to take action. There is a pressing need for strategic coastal protection measures, but the scale of the required works extends beyond the council's available resources, despite its ownership of the harbour. It is a predicament that other coastal communities across Northern Ireland find themselves in too. The Department for Infrastructure, which is responsible for flood risk management and assisting councils on how to bring forward local development plan proposals that take account of climate change adaption, must step up to the plate.

I have submitted a series of questions to the Infrastructure Minister, asking what steps are being taken in the short and the long term to plan for the impacts of climate change and future major weather events and when the sea wall in Donaghadee will be repaired. We need immediate intervention to protect the coastline in Donaghadee, and we need to look to the future. I am heartened by the progress that the Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister, Andrew Muir, has made on that, but we are still the only part of these islands without a climate adaption programme. We cannot afford for our coastal defences to fail. There is too much at risk.

Mr Burrows: I pay tribute to a fallen former colleague who died on duty in Londonderry at this time 13 years ago. Philippa Reynolds was on patrol in the dead of night, when most of us, including me, were asleep. Her car was T-boned by a stolen car driven by career criminal, Shane Frane, and, we believe, Philippa was killed instantly. I had the painful duty of bringing Philippa's family to see her remains in Altnagelvin Area Hospital.

Philippa was a beautiful human being and a brilliant police officer. After her death, it became clear that the vivacious photograph that was released of Philippa changed a lot of perceptions of the police in 2013 in a city that still had an ambivalent relationship with the police. So many people contacted us to say that they no longer saw the police as behind armoured glass, in armoured cars and wearing body armour but as human beings. In that sense, Philippa's legacy is a powerful one.

I have stayed in touch with her family of late, who still feel profound grief. It is worth noting that, when headlines move on after a crime, it is easy to forget the profound grief that the victims and families feel. They mourn Philippa every day. Tragically, they lost another daughter last year to cancer. However, what struck me about Philippa's family in the days after her death was that, when they spoke to the media, her father, who had served before her, in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, told the world's media that he had brought Philippa up to treat everyone the same and that he was proud that, when she went out in uniform as he had done, she left politics and people's religion behind.

I pay tribute to Philippa so that she is never forgotten; that she is always remembered. She was a wonderful human being. It is important that those who serve never forget those who served and never came home after their shift.

Mr O'Toole: I often stand up to hold the Executive to account and be quite strong and angry about their poor performance, but today I celebrate amazing performance by two schools, one of which is in my constituency. The other is outside my constituency, in east Belfast, close to here, but it has many of my constituents' children attending it.

There were two amazing victories: one by Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School in the MacLarnon Cup last Thursday night at the Dub and the other by Our Lady and St Patrick's College girls, who beat St Mary's Magherafelt in the Ulster Ladies post-primary schools (PPS) final. Those were an extraordinary couple of performances by two great schools and are a testament to huge effort by the coaching staff, the players and the whole school communities, who got behind them to support them.

It is also a testament to the growth of Gaelic games in south and east Belfast. South-east Belfast has two of the fastest-growing clubs, Bredagh GAC and Carryduff GAC, and we have St Brigids GAC, which is another fast-growing and successful club. Players from all those clubs were represented in both victorious teams, as was East Belfast GAA, which has set itself up in the last five or six years and been an extraordinary cross-community success. It has brought people from all backgrounds and all parts of the world into the GAA in east Belfast, and it has built something new in that part of the city with resilience and optimism.

I am hugely proud of Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School and the girls from Our Lady and St Patrick's College. It is a testament to the growth of Gaelic games in the south and east of the city but also to those two great schools and their ability to deliver hugely positive outcomes for those sports teams and create memories for the entire school communities. I remember when my school — going back a long way to my school days, more than 20 years ago — won the MacLarnon Cup. The final was at Casement Park, more than a decade before it became disused. It would be great if Belfast schools and those from further afield in the province could have schools' cup final matches, such as the MacRory Cup and MacLarnon Cup finals, at Casement Park and enjoy the atmosphere of a newly rebuilt stadium. In celebrating the amazing success of Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School and Our Lady and St Patrick's College, I want to see future schools from across Belfast lift their GAA trophies in a newly rebuilt Casement Park. I hope that that happens sooner rather than later.

Mrs Dillon: I rise today to mark two important awareness days that will occur over the next month. International Epilepsy Day is tomorrow, 10 February, and World Encephalitis Day is on 22 February. Both shine a light on neurological conditions that remain widely misunderstood but have devastating lifelong impacts on individuals and their families.

Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain which is uncommon but extremely serious and can be life-threatening. It requires urgent hospital treatment, yet early symptoms can often be mistaken for flu-like illness, confusion, seizures and changes in behaviour or difficulty moving. Most commonly, encephalitis is caused by viruses such as herpes simplex and measles, mumps and rubella, and that highlights the need for the vaccination of our young people.

Epilepsy affects thousands of people across our society and is one of the most common serious neurological conditions. It is not just about seizures; it impacts on education, employment, independence, mental health and family life. Many people who live with epilepsy face stigma, poor understanding and real barriers to accessing specialist neurology services, timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment. For children and young people in particular, inconsistent support can have lifelong consequences that affect their development, learning and social inclusion. Early recognition and rapid treatment are crucial in saving lives and reducing long-term brain injury. Too many families have spoken about delayed diagnosis and lack of awareness, even among our healthcare professionals, and that is why World Encephalitis Day and International Epilepsy Day are so important to improve the understanding of the signs and symptoms.

Encephalitis can lead to long-term cognitive, emotional and physical challenges. Some people recover well, but others are left with permanent brain injury, personality changes, complex behavioural needs and conditions such as epilepsy. In some cases, viral encephalitis is a known cause of Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a severe and life-limiting condition that is a form of epilepsy characterised by multiple seizure types, cognitive impairment and developmental delay.

They are not conditions that end when the hospital stay ends; they are lifelong journeys that require consistent neurological care, mental health support, rehabilitation services and support for families and carers. Raising awareness saves lives, but awareness must be matched by properly resourced services, early intervention and long-term support for those living with the consequences of brain injury and epilepsy. Today, I call on the Health Minister to listen to those individuals and their families and invest in neurological services so that no one affected by encephalitis or epilepsy is left to navigate a complex and under-resourced system.

Ms Forsythe: Last Tuesday morning, 3 February 2026, 11-year-old John Doole tragically died in a road traffic accident near his home, just outside Kilkeel. Our entire community is devastated and remains numb and in shock, none more so than his loving family. My deep condolences and prayers are with Theresa, Wesley, Lisa, Stephen, Penny, Katie, Holly, Ellie, Brooklyn, James, Joanne and Roxy; the wider family circle; his friends; and all who knew and loved him.

John was an amazing little boy who lived his best life in Kilkeel. With his bright blonde hair and his big blue eyes, twinkling every day, he brought fun and joy to every person whom he met. He loved his family, being on the farm with his daddy and playing with his friends. He was a bundle of energy.

I had the pleasure of John entering my life as he went through Kilkeel Nursery School and Kilkeel Primary School alongside my son. He was his dearly loved friend. John was kind; loving; so, so smart; thoughtful; funny; charming; and a much-beloved friend in the P7 class. They looked forward to starting high school together this September and to the many trips that were planned for their final term. They are devastated, as is the whole school family. They all did him proud at the funeral, on Friday.

A huge void has been left, and it is hard to understand why any of this has happened. It has touched the hearts of parents and families across Northern Ireland. The loss of a child is beyond measure. Tragedy can strike at any time. John was an angel in his too-short time on earth, and he is now an angel in heaven, looking down on those whom he loved. It is his family members who miss him the most. I pray for them, and I ask that everyone prays that they find some comfort in each other as they navigate their journey of grief and in knowing the amazing life that they had with John. John's family is a credit to him, especially his sister Katie who is now campaigning for changes to help stop others going through some of the pain that they are now experiencing. I support them in that, and I hope that others in the House will too.

As we pray for the family and the Mourne community, I put on record the fact that, in his short time, John made an impact and left many marks on the hearts of many people. I put on record my thanks for the precious life of little John Doole: always immensely loved; always remembered; and now safe in the arms of Jesus.

Mrs Guy: I start by acknowledging what Diane has just said. That was really tough. I offer my sincere condolences on the passing of little John.

I rise to express deep concern about HMRC's plans to remove the 10% wear-and-tear allowance for childminders as part of the move to 'Making Tax Digital'. Childminders do not simply provide childcare: they play a vital and formative role in the lives of children. A childminder is one of the most important adults in the early years of many children. Children are cared for in a home-from-home environment and are often embraced as part of the family. I knew, when I dropped my kids off to our childminder, that they were being not just minded but cared for, loved and developed. Families should have the option of childminding where that best suits their circumstances. That is particularly true for parents of children with additional needs, where continuity, flexibility and a calm home setting can make all of the difference.

I spoke recently to a childminder in Lisburn who described her anger and distress at the proposed changes, not only because of the financial impact that they would bring about but because they reflect how poorly the childminding profession is understood and valued. Childminding is being treated as if it is equivalent to other forms of self-employment, when, clearly, it is not. A childminder's home is their workplace, and their work is vital for families. It is a sector that is already under intense pressure. The number of registered childminders in Northern Ireland has been falling, year-on-year. Rising costs, increased regulation and workforce burnout are already pushing people out. Removing that allowance risks being the final straw for many dedicated professionals.

The wear-and-tear allowance recognises a simple reality: childminders use their homes as working environments every day. Furniture, flooring, toys, equipment and household items experience constant and unavoidable wear. Removing the deduction will reduce incomes overnight and make childminding financially unsustainable for many. What is particularly alarming is the absence of any meaningful impact assessment for Northern Ireland. There has been no proper assessment of the impact on the sustainability of the sector or on the affordability and availability of childcare for families.

At a time when we all acknowledge that there is a childcare crisis, it makes no sense to introduce tax changes that actively drive trusted, experienced childminders out of the system. I urge HMRC to pause these plans and engage properly with childminders and the devolved Administrations. Locally, I call on the Education Minister and Finance Minister to make strong and urgent representations on behalf of Northern Ireland's childminders before we lose even more people from a profession that our children and families simply cannot afford to lose.

Mr Delargy: I rise to mark the first official visit of Uachtarán na hÉireann

, Catherine Connolly, to the North: a momentous occasion of pride and significance across our society. An t-uachtarán

campaigned for her presidency on the basis that the office of president is one for all the people of Ireland and that she would use her role to be a leader for communities across our country. A landslide victory in her election, with her message of a positive and progressive vision, vindicated that.

The president committed to lead from the front, in word and deed, to represent the voices of all Irish citizens. I had the pleasure of welcoming her to a number of functions in Derry. She met business and civic leaders in our Guildhall before meeting the families of those murdered and injured on Bloody Sunday. The president spoke with compassion, understanding and an appreciation of what the Bloody Sunday families have endured and their role in inspiring others to stand up and demand truth and justice. President Connolly also visited the Siege Museum, recognising that, for many from a traditionally unionist background, that represents a significant space. Her visit symbolised the inclusion and mutual respect that must be afforded to all communities. Every person with whom I spoke talked of an t-uachtarán's

humility, of how she took time to listen and of a real sense of pride and confidence in her leadership.

Catherine Connolly pledged to be a president for all, and her visit to the North reflects that. She carried out her leadership in a dignified manner with her characteristic decorum. Our society would be a much better place if more people showed the same dignity and respect as Catherine Connolly. In stark contrast to the president's positive and strong leadership, we had the belligerent attitude of the DUP, particularly the East Derry MP, Gregory Campbell, which reflects disrespect not only towards our president but to the wider nationalist community and, indeed, all those who hold an Irish identity. It shows deep disrespect to all those who stray outside the DUP's very narrow world view. Those attitudes do not reflect the majority of citizens in the North, and Catherine Connolly, our president, will be very welcome to return to Derry, Belfast and any other part of our country.

Mr Robinson: I will say a few words about what we learned last week regarding a global shortage of the supply of some prescription drugs, including everyday items such as aspirin, which is used to prevent stroke and heart attacks, and common painkillers. Worryingly, we were told that the shortage could affect more than 100 common drugs and last until at least the summer, which directly impacts patients' ability to access the treatments that they depend on every single day.

Pharmacies are having to consider rationing supplies to keep patients going. The outworking of that will put pressure on patients with chronic conditions and people who are dependent on regular prescriptions, and it will add real risks. Given that it will place added pressure on pharmacies and GP surgeries, it is vital that the Department of Health works closely and urgently with its counterparts on the mainland to ensure that this part of the UK can continue to access vital prescription drugs. More importantly, we owe every effort to the most vulnerable — the elderly and those with long-term conditions — who depend on regular drug treatments. It is those people who, today, are incredibly worried about the prospect of their next visit to their local pharmacy.

Ms Bradshaw: I rise to raise concerns about the continued delay in the delivery of the new school build for Forge Integrated Primary School.

For over a decade, the school has sought a suitable new permanent site. The parents, pupils and staff have done everything that they can to push that forward and have shown remarkable patience, but continually shifting timelines and delays have caused understandable frustration for them and the wider school community in South Belfast.

Despite some progress having been made, since 2018, the project does not seem to have moved forward as it should have done. The former Knockbreda High School site was proposed and was meant to be the answer to the delays. Since then, extensive pre-application engagement with statutory bodies, the school community and others has followed. They have engaged in good faith. After three years of pre-application discussions and the full planning application's being submitted in 2025, the delays seem to be on the part of the Department for Infrastructure. The key issue seems to be road safety, and I understand that, given the new location for the school. However, I am yet to see any real efforts to move the project forward, and many in the school community believe that the goalposts keep shifting.

I pay tribute to the school and the Integrated Education Fund for keeping the matter on the agenda. I recognise that the Infrastructure Minister says that she supports the development of the site. However, we, as South Belfast representatives, and the people who support the new scheme still wait for firm answers about the next steps. I urge the Infrastructure Minister to engage with her officials to get the answers that the school and the planning department so greatly need at this time.

Mr Speaker: Normally, at this time, I would tell the next Member to be called that they have only one minute in which to speak. The next item of business is a ministerial statement: unfortunately, the statement was not received by the Business Office until 12.18 pm. Therefore, to allow Members the opportunity to read it, we should not hear it for 30 minutes. It is a short statement, but, nonetheless, that protocol exists, and that is what we will observe. I will continue hearing Members' statements until the list is exhausted or until 12.50 pm.

Ms D Armstrong: I rise to place firmly on the record the deep frustration, disappointment and growing sense of unfairness felt by many of my constituents following the announcement on Friday of the withdrawal of £6·6 million from the A4 southern bypass project. The bypass was not an optional or speculative proposal; it was cornerstone project in the Mid South West growth deal, developed precisely to address long-standing deficits in infrastructure, connectivity and investment in the west of Northern Ireland. The growth deal was sold to local communities, councils and businesses as a genuine opportunity to rebalance our economy, stimulate sustainable growth and ensure that regions outside our main urban centres were not left behind once again. The removal of that funding now seriously undermines that premise.

The practical consequences of the decision are profound. The A4 already experiences chronic congestion, with frequent delays affecting commuters, hauliers, emergency services and local supply chains. Tourism, which is a vital part of Fermanagh's economy, is also impacted, as unreliable access deters visitors and investors alike. The bypass was designed to relieve those pressures and unlock further development. By withdrawing the funding, the Executive are not simply delaying a road project; they are stalling economic momentum and eroding confidence among those who were encouraged to believe that regional balance was more than just a slogan. It raises a legitimate and uncomfortable question: would such a decision have been taken so readily had that scheme been located in a predominantly urban area, or are rural communities once again expected to accept second-best infrastructure and diminished opportunity? That perception, whether intended or not, risks deepening mistrust and disengagement with central decision-making.

Infrastructure investment is not just about roads and bridges; it signals where growth is expected to occur and where people are encouraged to live, work and invest. Removing support for a project of that scale sends precisely the wrong message to communities in Enniskillen and across Fermanagh who already face challenges relating to distance, connectivity and access to services. Therefore, I ask the Minister of Finance whether he, along with his colleague the Minister for the Economy, who is here today, have fully considered the long-term economic, social and regional consequences of the decision and what steps they now intend to take to reassure my constituents that the sustainability of their local economy, their connectivity and their future development prospects remain a genuine priority for the Executive.

Mr McCrossan: It is now more than two years since the restoration of the Assembly and the return of the Executive. It has been two years of promises, two years of announcements and two years of carefully staged press conferences about delivery, reform and transformation. Yet, in all that time, the Sinn Féin/DUP-led Executive have failed to bring forward a single meaningful piece of primary legislation to improve the lives of the people whom we represent. Let us reflect on that extraordinary situation: the parties that claim to be legislators have, in reality, chosen not to legislate.

The institutions were restored amid great public expectation with commitments to action and urgency. Instead, what we have witnessed is drift, delay and dysfunction at the very heart of government here. Rather than doing the serious work of lawmaking, Ministers have filled the void with a constant stream of non-binding motions that change nothing, fix nothing and are designed for headlines not for hospitals, homes or hard-pressed families.

When we examine the record of the mandate, the picture becomes even starker. After two full years of restored government, the total time spent on legislation in the Assembly amounts to mere minutes of legislative business in two years of supposed delivery. How embarrassing. That is not just inadequate; it is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Executive. Legislation is not optional government; it is the central mechanism by which Ministers deliver reform, protect citizens and shape the future. Without it, there is no meaningful progress or action, only rhetoric.

We know how the story usually ends. As the mandate approaches its conclusion, urgency will suddenly be discovered. Bills will be rushed in at the eleventh hour; scrutiny will be compressed; Committees will be pressured; and stakeholders will be sidelined, all so that Ministers can claim, in the dying days of the mandate, that something — anything — has been delivered. That is not good governance. It is not transparency, and it is not respectful to the House or to the people whom we serve collectively.

The reality is simple and stark. Two years on from restoration, public services remain under immense strain, waiting lists remain unacceptable and families continue to struggle with the cost of living, and there is still no serious legislative programme coming forward from the Executive. Therefore, the public are rightly entitled to ask a basic question: what are the Executive doing with the time that they have been given? Government is not measured in press releases; it is measured in progress. Not in rhetoric but in results. It is absolutely shameful for government parties to bring forward non-binding motions, given that they have no meaningful end. After two years, the real story of the Executive is absolute failure.

Mr Frew: Mr Speaker, thank you for your grace this morning.

The PSNI data breach in 2023 was deeply concerning and still causes massive distress to those affected and, of course, their families. The breach has added an additional level of threat to all police officers who still need to utilise the utmost vigilance because of an evil and sophisticated terrorist threat. There must be robust safeguards in place across all parts of the justice system to ensure that lessons have been learned and that officers' safety is never inadvertently compromised. We in the Chamber, the public and serving and retired police officers need to be assured that appropriate procedures are being followed and that any necessary changes are made to prevent a recurrence.

The breach has cost taxpayers and ratepayers £119 million, but think of the cost for officers and their families having to move home, move area and move station. They have had upset and upheaval, and they have to constantly look over their shoulder and always be careful. That applies to the police officer and their 10-year-old son or daughter.

It is up to the Justice Minister to make sure that we in the House, in particular, police officers and the public alike all have confidence in the justice system. I call on the Justice Minister to reinstate confidence in the justice system, which is probably at its lowest ebb. That is on the Justice Minister. The buck stops with the Justice Minister and no one else.

Mr Carroll: For the past few months, I have been contacted by people across the North, as well as a large number of people in my constituency of West Belfast, about Housing Executive maintenance fees. Leaseholders who bought their flats or maisonettes from the Housing Executive feel utterly let down by that organisation, to put it mildly. They thought that their new homes would give them security and stability, but they have had anything but that; instead, they are being hit with bills of £4,000 or £5,000 and, in some cases, higher. Residents in Rathcoole have been handed an eye-watering bill of almost £50,000 for remedial works to their building. They have been locked out of their homes for three years while that work takes place. The lack of transparency and engagement has been absolutely shocking and disgraceful. I call on the Minister for Communities to intervene in the issue.

Many people had no idea what they were signing up for, nor was it explained to them, when they purchased their homes from the Housing Executive. They pay a monthly service charge for their homes, with little in return. Still, they are being landed with bills for thousands of pounds that working-class families cannot afford. They do not have that money lying about for work that they did not agree to or sign off on.

When leaseholders try to engage with the Housing Executive to raise objections, what happens? They are offered a payment plan. They are told, effectively, to pay up and shut up. The Housing Executive has admitted in writing that there is no opportunity for residents to influence works to their own homes. That is not engagement or consultation; that is a dictatorship by any definition. There are huge questions here about why there is such a cloak of secrecy.

For the avoidance of doubt, many of the buildings are old and genuinely need essential maintenance and servicing. Some of the work, however, is completely unnecessary, including replacing perfectly functional railings with rusted railings; replacing stone steps with steel steps that are slippery every time it rains; and painting homes in really bright colours when people have not requested that. People suspect that the contractors are raking it in for work that is not needed and is, in some cases, of highly questionable quality. That, essentially, is what privatisation looks like.

The outsourcing of maintenance work by the Housing Executive has been an unmitigated disaster for residents and workers alike. There is a simple solution: the Housing Executive should meaningfully engage with leaseholders before any works take place, and all maintenance work should be brought back in-house in order to give workers well-paid and secure jobs that they can take pride in and to stop the gravy train for private contractors that profit from our communities while ordinary people are left with bills that they cannot afford to pay.

Mr McGuigan: February marks Heart Month, and, this year, the theme is 'Walk for Hearts'. It is a simple message but an important one, reminding us that small, everyday actions can play a big role in protecting our heart health. The statistics, however, show the reality that, for a large number of our population in the North, general heart health is not good. For decades, diagnosis and treatment, alongside major medical advances and research led by organisations such as the British Heart Foundation, have helped to dramatically reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease. However, we are stalling, and, in some cases, we are beginning to reverse.

More than 230,000 people here live with a cardiovascular condition. Heart and circulatory disease accounts for nearly a quarter of deaths in the North every year; that is 4,400 lives lost annually or 12 deaths every day. Around 20,000 people have been diagnosed with heart failure by their GP. What makes that even more concerning is that many of those deaths are preventable, and, with the right care, many people can live long, active and fulfilling lives after diagnosis. The risk factors across our population are stark: 30% of adults live with obesity, and around one in eight adults here still smoke. Some 300,000 people have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, which is a condition linked to more than half of heart attacks and strokes in the North. Almost half of adults do not meet recommended physical activity levels.

Heart disease does not discriminate; it affects people of all ages and from all families and communities, often without warning. I have to be honest and say that, when I was reading those statistics, I was quite shocked. What shocked me even more than the statistics was that, despite those statistics, which are shocking, and the challenges that are associated with them, there is currently no heart disease action plan or strategy in place here in the North. The most recent framework dates back to 2014. It is now more than a decade old and is no longer fit for today's pressures, today's science or today's opportunities for prevention and treatment. There is a clear gap in policy that must be addressed.

As we mark Heart Month, it is vital that we look after our own heart health, and it is equally vital that, as an Assembly, we show leadership by prioritising prevention, supporting research and ensuring that the health service is properly equipped to meet the growing challenge of heart disease. Lives depend on it.

Mr Dunne: I rise to welcome the £7·85 million winter recovery road fund that was announced last week, given the ongoing crisis on our roads. Hopefully, the Infrastructure Minister listened to what was said during the question for urgent oral answer session last week, albeit it was only for 30 minutes.

For over a decade, the warnings have been very clear about the state of our roads. We have had a very limited service from the Department. The warnings have been very clear from across the public in every corner of Northern Ireland and from the roads construction sector. Groups like the Mineral Products Association have been very clear in stressing the need for action after years of neglect, which we have seen particularly in the most recent years. Almost 50,000 potholes were recorded in the past three months alone, and the public and us as MLAs simply do not want wet sticking plasters to sort out this crisis. The Department needs to look seriously at reprofiling its budget to prioritise what matters. It has to get more proactive, rather than simply being reactive. The proof will be in the pudding with this, but it certainly is welcome that money has been found and will be invested in our roads network. We will be monitoring that very closely, and certainly the public deserve it, given the impact of the condition our roads. Many of our roads are filled with wheel-wrecking potholes, and many families are seeking compensation for costly repair bills as a result of the neglect that we have seen in recent times from the Infrastructure Minister. Long-term, sustainable funding needs to be looked at to properly fix our roads by putting in place a proper roads maintenance programme and by ensuring that, with our roads, public safety is the number-one priority.

Mr McNulty: I rise to give praise to the two teams that played in yesterday's Danske Bank MacRory Cup final in front of 10,000 fans at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds in Armagh. The Abbey took on St Patricks Academy, and the players from 33 different clubs put on an exhibition of skill, teamwork, athleticism, determination and mental toughness. A brilliant advertisement for Gaelic football, it was a game of two halves that, fittingly, ended in a draw. Those young players, who will all be back in class today, alongside their coaches and management teams, will face off again at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds under Friday night lights this Friday, and our appetites have been whetted in anticipation of another brilliant contest. I say to each of those players, maith sibh

. Be very proud, because you have done your teachers proud, you have done your coaches proud, you have done your schools proud, you have done your clubs proud, you have done your families proud but, most importantly, you have done yourselves proud. Well done, lads. I am looking forward to another great contest on Friday night.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Speaker has received notice from the Minister for the Economy that she wishes to make a statement. Before calling the Minister to make her statement, I remind her that Standing Order 18A(2) requires her to make a written copy of it available to Members at least half an hour before delivering it in the Chamber. Today, the Minister has failed to meet that requirement, which is why we had extra time for Members' statements. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 18A(2), I ask her to state the reason for that prior to making the statement. Members, I remind you that you should be concise in asking your question. It is not an opportunity for debate. There should be no long introductions.

Dr Archibald (The Minister for the Economy): I apologise for the fact that Members did not receive the statement on time. It was an administrative error; apologies for that.

With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement in compliance with section 52 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 regarding a meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) in trade and business development sectoral format. The meeting was held in Armagh on 28 January 2026. Minister Gordon Lyons MLA and I represented the Executive. The Irish Government were represented by Peter Burke TD, Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, who chaired the meeting. The statement has been agreed with Minister Lyons, and I am making it on behalf of us both.

Ministers welcomed the overall achievements of InterTradeIreland since the previous sectoral meeting in April 2025, including its exceeding its target of over 55,000 businesses benefiting from trade supports by the end of October 2025. The NSMC acknowledged the contribution that InterTradeIreland has made for small and medium-sized companies through its trade and development programmes such as the launch of the Trade Missions @ Home programme, which supported 40 businesses. The NSMC noted the ongoing achievement of InterTradeIreland's innovation and entrepreneurship schemes, such as a 20% increase in applications for Innovation Boost in 2025, and support for University College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast, through its Synergy programme to create a formal cluster framework that is focused on the oncology and allied digital health sectors. The North/South Ministerial Council commended the work of InterTradeIreland, alongside that of Enterprise Ireland and Invest NI, in hosting the twenty-eighth TCI global conference in Dublin in October 2025, bringing together over 230 delegates from more than 25 countries, including world-leading cluster experts, policymakers and business leaders.

Ministers noted at the plenary meetings in June and October 2025 that the Council had agreed that relevant NSMC sectors should continue to consider how agreed collaborative approaches can contribute to economic growth. The NSMC noted the work of InterTradeIreland to support economic growth in both jurisdictions, including through driving cross-border collaboration, supporting SMEs and innovation, and facilitating trade and market access. The Council agreed that officials in InterTradeIreland will continue to collaborate on those matters, and an update will be provided to the next meeting in that sector.

The NSMC approved the InterTradeIreland 2026 business plan and recommended the budget/grant provision. The Council also approved the InterTradeIreland 2026-28 corporate plan. Ministers noted that InterTradeIreland's annual report and accounts for 2024 are being finalised and will be brought to the next meeting for noting.

The Ministers welcomed presentations from two businesses on the benefits of InterTradeIreland's programme of supports. They also welcomed a presentation on how InterTradeIreland's Synergy programme is supporting University College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast to create a formal cluster framework for the oncology and allied digital heath sectors. The NSMC noted the work being done by InterTradeIreland in running successful programmes of support for small businesses.

The Council approved a number of appointments to the boards of InterTradeIreland and the Loughs Agency.

The Council agreed to hold its next NSMC trade and business development meeting in spring 2026.

I commend the statement to the Assembly and welcome questions.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Thank you.

Ms McLaughlin: Minister, thank you for your statement. It is light on content and on politics. As you state, InterTradeIreland is exceeding its target with over 55,000 businesses benefiting, but there is no analysis of why. We get data on outcomes, but we do not know the impact. It is a meaningless statement insofar as we do not know the value added to the economy. We do not know how many jobs have been created. We do not know the regional or jurisdictional distribution of such investments and benefits. The valued added and data are so important. These statements keep on coming to the House —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Can we have a question?

Ms McLaughlin: — and they are absolutely meaningless.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Minister, if you can find a question there, do you want to attempt to answer it?

Dr Archibald: Thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I will endeavour to ensure that the Member is furnished with some of the information to which she referred. We received a presentation from InterTradeIreland at the NSMC, and I will see whether that is available for sharing.

I should also say that we had the opportunity to hear from businesses that had received support from InterTradeIreland about the direct impact that that has had on them. It is clear that the support is effective in helping businesses to grow and take on new workers. Both businesses that presented to the NSMC spoke very highly of how the programmes had helped them to focus on growth. In the past year, I have also had the opportunity to attend one of the Trade Missions @ Home programmes to see the type of support that is provided to businesses. It is clear that it is beneficial in opening up opportunities and new markets for them. I am clear about the benefits of the support that businesses get from InterTradeIreland, and I am happy to furnish the Member with additional information.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Minister, will you provide an update on women's entrepreneurship programmes that may be part of the NSMC arrangements?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for her question. Women's entrepreneurship is one of the important new programmes that InterTradeIreland supports through the Shared Island enterprise scheme. It equips women with new opportunities through business support. There was a recent boost to women's entrepreneurship work in the North with last month's launch of a trio of programmes from InterTradeIreland, in partnership with Invest NI and Enterprise Ireland, which will enable participants to gain access to expert mentorship, tailored support workshops and networking opportunities that will accelerate their business growth.

The three new women's entrepreneurship programmes supported by the Shared Island enterprise scheme are WeBuild, which is a tech programme that is designed to empower women entrepreneurs to accelerate tech-driven business ideas and develop tech-enabled ventures focused on innovation, AI learning and building strong future-ready businesses, and is delivered by TechFoundHer; WeGrow, which is a growth programme for established women-led SMEs that aim for growth and expansion across the island and seek to reflect on their business potential and is delivered by Women in Business NI and Network Ireland; and WeScale, which is a scaling programme dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs to scale strategically and sustainably, blending world-class learning, bespoke mentoring and investor access. WeScale is delivered by AwakenHub, which, as Members may be aware, recently undertook a trade mission in the US.

Mr Dunne: I thank the Minister for her statement. Has she or her Department had any discussions on how Intertrade UK can help with businesses experiencing friction east-west?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question on the structures on which Intertrade UK and Invest NI are represented. I have not yet had the opportunity to engage with Intertrade UK, but I am open to trying to support businesses to navigate frictions that have resulted from Brexit. I am willing to engage in any format to enable that.

Mr Honeyford: The Minister regularly highlights dual market access as an opportunity for growth, which I and Alliance welcome; it creates opportunities and is common sense. All the time in the House, we hear data being questioned and Northern Ireland being talked down. Will the Minister outline whether the Council has examined how we can bring forward data and evidence to show the benefits of dual market access to local jobs and investment?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. As he will be aware, cross-border trade figures have significantly increased over the past number of years. The latest figure that we have, which was for 2023, sat at €15 billion or £12 billion. There has been a considerable increase. We need to look at how we can support businesses further to take up those opportunities.

A key thing that InterTradeIreland highlights is that, for SMEs, exporting and trading across the border, as well as engaging in east-west trading, are often the first steps to wider exporting. We clearly want to support that.

I am happy to ask InterTradeIreland whether additional data or information on dual market access can be shared with the Economy Committee in particular.

Ms D Armstrong: Thank you for your statement, Minister. Other Members have mentioned that your statement referred to strong activity levels by InterTradeIreland and the approval of its business plan and corporate plan for 2026. The statement provided little detail, however, on the outcomes for the Northern Ireland economy. What direct economic returns has Northern Ireland received from those programmes to date? How, as other Members have referred to, is success being measured practically? What action will the Executive take if those cross-border initiatives fail to deliver tangible benefits for businesses in Northern Ireland?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for that question. Targets are set in the corporate plan and business plan for the number of businesses to be supported. InterTradeIreland has exceeded those targets across the board in respect of its most recent business plan, and, as the Member said, we have agreed the new business plan.

A range of support is provided for different businesses that seek different types of support and have different needs. Benefits are accordingly accrued across those. Examples include the Acumen project, which reported a combined business development value of £23·9 million and the creation of 114 jobs. Similar statistics can be attributed to various other programmes.

As I said, if Members are seeking additional information, particularly those who are on the Economy Committee and have been asking the questions, I am happy to have InterTradeIreland furnish the Committee with some of that information to help it to understand the impact of the work that is being done.

Mr Delargy: Minister, the Committee recently heard from InterTradeIreland about the valuable work that it does, including some of the programmes that it runs to increase all-Ireland trade. Will you give us some more detail on those programmes and any future programmes that will enhance all-Ireland trade?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. Cross-border trade will continue to be a key pathway for SMEs to build export capability and resilience, as I said to Mr Honeyford. InterTradeIreland supports first-time traders and experienced traders through a range of pathways, including the structured trade pathway. It provides practical guidance via the Trade Hub and helps SMEs with accessing cross-border sales, public procurement and supply chains.

At the NSMC meeting a couple of weeks ago, I heard from some businesses that have experienced that support and have significantly expanded their trade because of it. One such business is Long Meadow Cider, which is located in Portadown. It has availed itself of various trade supports to help it to plan and scale its cross-border exports. It now plans to take on additional employees for the first time. Couverture Desserts, which is located in Naas in County Kildare, has benefited from InterTradeIreland's Acumen programme, which has helped it to fund a sales resource to develop and grow sales across the island. Both those businesses talk, as do other businesses that I hear from regularly, about that support being crucial to enabling them to take the next steps. The additional confidence that they have as a result of the support and mentoring that they get is striking. We hear that all the time from SMEs that access support, whether via InterTradeIreland or Invest NI. It means that they are in a position where they feel that they can take further steps.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Minister for her statement. As a representative of the border constituency of South Down, I am glad that you attend those events and try to maximise opportunities. We have significant expertise in employment across aerospace and defence, especially at Collins Aerospace, and in all the supply chains around those sectors. When you were looking at the development of businesses, did you discuss the supply chains in which logistics firms face cross-border barriers? There is expertise on both sides of the border, and there are opportunities to maximise that through our local businesses. What are your plans around that?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for her question. As I mentioned in the statement, we agreed the new business plan and corporate plan for 2026-28, which reflect the economic priorities North and South. Our priority sectors are reflected in those plans. It is about providing the types of support that businesses, regardless of sector, will need for innovation and skills and to take the next steps when it comes to exports. InterTradeIreland provides support for supply chains, so, if businesses in your constituency want support in that regard, I very much encourage them to get in touch and access the available support.

Ms Nicholl: I thank the Minister for the statement. It is good to hear that InterTradeIreland has benefited participants and increased confidence. Start-ups and SMEs often say that they do not know how to access finance or support. What was discussed, and how could any business listening access some of that support?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for her question. It is an important point. Often, SMEs are so focused on doing their day-to-day business that lifting their head to look for support is at the end of a long list. It is important that that support be accessible. Of course, there is an online presence from InterTradeIreland. I very much encourage any business seeking support to reach out to InterTradeIreland to access that whole range of support.

Obviously, there are also supports available from other sources. We recently had a conversation in the Chamber about the need for Go Succeed to continue to be funded. Often, the first point of contact that many business people have is with their local council. Go Succeed is delivered through the councils. It signposts people to the variety of support that best meets the needs of their business. That highlights why we want to make sure that that remains.

InterTradeIreland is very accessible, and I encourage businesses to look at the whole range of support. We are putting a particular focus, including through Invest NI, on access to finance, because we know that that is a particular challenge for many small businesses.

Miss Dolan: Minister, will you provide an update on the Shared Island enterprise scheme?

Dr Archibald: I warmly welcomed the announcement in November that the Irish Government had made allocations of over €50 million to the Shared Island Fund to be delivered as part of that initiative from 2026 to 2030. My Department has been working more closely than ever with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to ensure that there is strategic alignment and synergy across key policy areas. We have bids currently under consideration by the Shared Island unit at the Department of the Taoiseach. I welcome the most recent milestone that we have reached in the delivery of successful Shared Island sustainability capital grants. The funding received through that by three successful companies in the North is of huge significance to support innovation and sustainability in the region, and it is a strong example of how that collaboration can really drive economic impact.

Mr Stewart: I thank the Minister for the statement. I pay tribute to Enterprise NI, our local enterprise agencies and Young Enterprise. You will be aware, Minister, that we have an economy that is fundamentally based on micro- and small businesses, key to which is encouraging people, particularly our young people, into entrepreneurship. What more can we do to sow the seeds of entrepreneurship in our young people and develop the skills to grow our economy?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. It is not entirely related to the statement, but I am happy to respond to it because it is an area about which I am particularly passionate.

We have recently set up an entrepreneurship co-design group in the Department, bringing together the various partners across the sector to look at how we better support people who want to be business people, those who have a business idea and those who are already in business and are taking the next steps. We will see the bringing together of that group and the development of an action plan over the next short period. That will give us the opportunity to look at how we can expand the support that is there and ensure that we encourage people to take those opportunities.

Mr McNulty: I thank the Minister for her statement. At 2,000 feet, the highest surviving court cairn in Ireland, on the summit of Slieve Gullion, remains closed. It is more than half a century since, with the help of Sean O'Grady's tractor, that ancient monument was excavated. It has links to wonderful mythology like the spellbinding story of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Cailleach Bhéara's ring lost in a nearby lake. Why was that court cairn, with the potential to be an amazing national and global attraction and experience, not mentioned at the tourism meeting in Armagh in the same county? Will you commit to funding that monument?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Mr McNulty, you may have jumped to the next statement, which is on tourism. This is one is on trade. If you have a question on trade, we will take it. If not, we will move to the next question.

Mr Carroll: I will wait for the next statement as well. [Laughter.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): That concludes questions on that statement. I resist comment on Members being ahead of their time.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Speaker has received notice from the Minister for the Economy that she wishes to make a second statement. I remind Members again that questions should be concise and related to the statement. This is not an opportunity for debate and there should be no long introductions.

Dr Archibald (The Minister for the Economy): With your permission, I wish to make a statement in compliance with section 52 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, regarding a meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) in tourism sectoral format.

The meeting was held in Armagh on 28 January 2026. I chaired the meeting, representing the Northern Ireland Executive, and was accompanied by Minister Gordon Lyons. The Irish Government were represented by Minister Peter Burke, Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. The statement has been agreed with Minister Lyons, and I make it on behalf of us both.

The Council welcomed the report of the chair of Tourism Ireland on the work of the board since the last NSMC tourism meeting in April 2025. Ministers noted Tourism Ireland activity during that period, including the large number of marketing campaigns and events undertaken, continuing to strive for greater seasonal and regional spread of visits, including for example the marketing of the island as the Home of Halloween and the promotion of major sporting events. The Council noted Tourism Ireland's forward focus on increasing the value of overseas tourism; sustainably supporting economies, communities and the environment; and market diversification by expanding strategic source markets, stimulating demand for new and existing routes and strengthening strategic partnerships. Ministers noted the work of Tourism Ireland to promote economic growth through its support of sustainable benefit for SMEs and communities, business events, strategy and competitiveness, productivity and market diversification. The NSMC agreed that officials in Tourism Ireland will continue to collaborate on those matters, and an update will be provided to the next meeting in the sector.

Ministers noted updates on the work of the all-island strategic tourism group, including efforts to promote sustainability for the tourism sector. The NSMC noted ongoing work to address climate change and loss of biodiversity within the tourism sector. The Council noted the ongoing collaboration between the relevant tourism agencies on the Shared Island-funded brand collaboration project and the projects under the Shared Destinations programme 2025-2030.

The NSMC approved the 'Tourism Ireland Corporate Plan, 2026-28'. The Council also approved the 'Tourism Ireland Business Plan, 2026' and recommended the budget and grant provision. The Council noted Tourism Ireland's annual report and accounts for 2024, which have been certified by the Comptrollers and Auditors General (C&AGs) and laid before the Assembly and both Houses of the Oireachtas.

Ministers noted a presentation on the collaboration to maximise benefits from golf tourism by Fáilte Ireland, Tourism NI and Tourism Ireland and how the agencies are working collaboratively to promote economic growth across the island.

The NSMC approved an appointment to the board of Tourism Ireland CLG from 28 January 2026 to 18 December 2026.

The Council agreed to hold its next NSMC tourism meeting in spring 2026.

I commend the statement to the House.

Ms McLaughlin: Minister, thank you for your statement. You previously described the extension of the Wild Atlantic Way into the North as a priority, yet there was no mention of it in your statement. What is causing the delay? What leadership and action have you taken to resolve it? Was it raised at the meeting?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for her questions. The Member will be aware of the recent announcement on Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, which joins County Fermanagh into the Ireland's Hidden Heartlands brand. It was agreed between Fáilte Ireland and Tourism NI just before Christmas. That is an important first step in brand collaboration.

The Member will also be aware of the Shared Island project on the Causeway coastal route and the Wild Atlantic Way as regards the joining together of those routes and the shared marketing and shared signage. Certainly, I see the opportunity in further collaboration of both the Wild Atlantic Way and Causeway coastal route brands across the island, as well as Ireland's Ancient East, which is currently being reviewed as a brand by Fáilte Ireland. The brands are owned by Fáilte Ireland, and we continue to engage with them on progressing that collaboration. Ireland's Hidden Heartlands provides us with a real opportunity to look at what the benefits of collaboration are for the businesses in Fermanagh that are able to take part in that brand. That will give us something to point to in relation to building on that for the other routes and brands across the island. We look forward to the engagement on Ireland's Ancient East when they have concluded the review of that as a brand and we can seek to further incorporate that into the North.

Ms Murphy: Minister, thank you for your statement this afternoon. Will you provide an update on the recent appointments made to Tourism Ireland?

Dr Archibald: Yes, and I thank the Member for her question. At the NSMC tourism sector meeting, my nominee, Barry Flanagan, was appointed to the Tourism Ireland board. My nomination of Barry to that important position reflects his commitment to the tourism sector in the Fermanagh lakelands region and to running his own business. The Member will know Erne Water Taxi well. He has chaired the Cuilcagh Lakelands Regenerative Tourism Network, working in collaboration with industry and government partners to develop that beautiful area for visitors. He will bring important experience and expertise to the board of Tourism Ireland. The announcement of the Ireland's Hidden Heartlands brand being extended into Fermanagh demonstrates my commitment to developing the value of tourism across the island and across all regions to support prosperity for local communities.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Minister for her statement on the important topic of tourism. Northern Ireland is a fantastic tourist destination, especially with attractions like the Mourne Mountains, the Giant's Causeway and the story of the Titanic. With this, there is a lot of talk about all of the shared initiatives. I am concerned that the Northern Ireland brand as a tourism destination is being lost. What is the Minister doing to specifically promote Northern Ireland as a tourist destination and the tourism sector here?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for her question. Of course, the statement refers to the NSMC and the work of Tourism Ireland, which markets the island as a whole and does so successfully. We seek to build on that to attract more visitors across the island and to the North specifically. There are some important targets in the business plan and corporate plan whereby Tourism Ireland seeks to increase visitors by 6% across the island over the coming years. However, in the North, the target is 6·5%, reflecting the huge opportunity to build on the offering that we have.

It is important to point out that the announcement of the extension of the Ireland's Hidden Heartlands brand into the North clearly states in the guidance that eligible companies will continue to be able to use the Embrace a Giant Spirit branding that markets the North to the South, importantly, and to Britain, our two closest markets, where a lot of our visitors come from. It is important that we continue to promote the region as a whole. However, there are huge and significant opportunities to be had from marketing the island as a whole and including the North in those globally renowned and successful brands. Visitors from other countries do not see borders; they see the island as a whole, and we should capitalise on that.

Mr Honeyford: I absolutely agree with the Minister on that, and I thank her for the statement.

Minister, we are talking about delivery targets for tourism, and you talked about strategic growth in international tourism, which is about bringing more people here, and how welcome that is. You talked a bit about the brand and aligning with Fáilte Ireland. Can you give us a bit more on that? Was it discussed by the North/South Ministerial Council? Do you have next steps for that or a timeline for progress?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. As he will know, we have set up the all-island tourism steering group to align the work North and South. It includes officials from both Departments and all the tourism agencies, and it will look at how we can build on the tourism vision and action plan in the recently announced strategy in the South; there are many synergies between them. There are, of course, conversations about how we can build on the initiatives that have already been taken. As I mentioned to Ms McLaughlin, Fáilte Ireland owns the brands, and we are engaging commercially to extend them. We continue to pursue those conversations, and we have done that through all the fora that you would expect us to use. As I said, I believe that Ireland's Hidden Heartlands brand is an example of something that we can build on and that it will be a success for the businesses in Fermanagh. We have put additional funding into the campaign to support it in its first year. We will seek to take further steps on that. I am happy to write to the Member with some more detail on the time frames.

Ms D Armstrong: I thank the Minister for her statement today. Minister, you have acknowledged that Tourism Ireland's aim is to promote economic growth, greater regional spread and sustainability. Do you accept that tourism businesses in Fermanagh and the wider Hidden Heartlands already operate at a competitive disadvantage in every season due to the lower hospitality rate in the other jurisdiction and the added burden of the travel authorisation that is in place?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for raising those important issues. As she will know, I recently engaged on the issue of VAT in particular with the hospitality sector through Hospitality Ulster and the NI Food To Go Association. The Finance Minister and I committed to engaging with Treasury, with the organisations themselves, to make the case. The Member will know from her involvement in the all-party group (APG) that there is broad support for the initiative from hospitality organisations in Britain, which see an opportunity to have a pilot here. We continue to make the case to Treasury, and I am happy to stand alongside the sector to do so. It will become more of a challenge in the summer when the VAT rate in the South is further reduced. We need to put a particular focus on the issue now.

We have continued to monitor the electronic travel authorisation (ETA). We have asked tourism providers to share with us their experiences and data, and we are collating that. We have asked Ulster University's Economic Policy Centre to do work on the ETA to provide us with an evidence base, and that work continues. Obviously, it has to be in place for a bit of time in order for the impact to be seen. That is where we are with it. Businesses report a strong summer, which is positive, but we will look at the actual data to understand what the impact might be and how it compares with previous years.

Mr Sheehan: Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis.

Can the Minister tell us what support is being provided to ensure the success of Fleadh Cheoil nah Éireann i mBéal Feirste?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. Fleadh Cheoil coming to Belfast provides us with a huge opportunity. We have seen the success that it has been in other towns and cities across the island, and we are excited about it coming to Belfast in August. Tourism NI is working closely with Belfast City Council and Ards Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann to bring it to Belfast. Fleadh Cheoil will be an unprecedented and inclusive event that will celebrate Irish music and culture. It is expected to attract in the region of 700,000 people, with an estimated economic boost of over £50 million. It will have a significant economic impact. As I said, my Department, through Tourism NI, is working with the other partners to deliver the event. I anticipate it being a huge success.

Mr Dunne: I thank the Minister for her statement. She mentioned golf tourism. Has the Minister had any discussions about bringing the Open back to Northern Ireland, given the success of the event at Royal Portrush in 2019 and 2025 and in recognition of the value of golf tourism to our local economy?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. As I mentioned in the statement, we had a presentation on the opportunities of golf tourism. They are significant; we know that. As announced just before Christmas, the economic impact of the Open exceeded the expected benefits, and, clearly, we want to build on that.

The R&A has committed to three Opens coming here. We are in conversations and engagement with the R&A to tie down exactly when the Open will come back, as it has committed to bringing it here for that third time. Of course, we will look to bring the Open back again beyond that third time.

Ms Nicholl: Thank you, Minister. We are competing on a global stage with regard to tourism. You have already covered the like of VAT, corporation tax, ETA and air passenger duty. However, something that I am conscious of is how we compete for skills and talent. That is a challenge for all industries but particularly tourism, given UK immigration policies. What conversations were had with the NSMC about that challenge, and how do you intend to overcome it?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for her question. She will know that that is recognised in the tourism vision and action plan. There is a significant similarity between our strategy in the North and the strategy in the South and in the conversations that we have had about skills. I have had those conversations with Ministers across the Administration in the South such as Minister Burke and his counterpart Minister Lawless, because the issue sits across Departments there. We are looking at areas in which there are opportunities to collaborate North/South; at things that we do well, such as apprenticeships, from which they can learn; at things that they do well from which we want to learn; and at areas where we can share expertise and in which there are opportunities across sectors. That work is ongoing.

Mr Stewart: We have heard about how Northern Ireland was wonderfully showcased last year at the Open, and the Minister has touched on the discussions at the meeting. What more is being done to promote Northern Ireland's sporting tourism around the world, be that in golf, motor racing, football or country pursuits, when there is so much to offer?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. The Open provided an opportunity to market our amazing coastline and everything that we have to offer. It was seen by a global audience. That is one of the things that those global events do: they put us on the global stage. We can continue to build on the success that we have seen in the delivery of the two Opens, as well as the further opportunities that we will see in coming years.

We have shown expertise in the delivery of big events, and I am certainly keen to work with Tourism NI on how we can bring more major events here to build on what we have had already and to attract visitors. When visitors come for an event, see everything that we have to offer and experience the amazing hospitality and welcome that they get, they are inclined to come back. That is exactly what we want.

Mr Brooks: Minister, given the fact that America is a key tourism market, what is being done in relation to the America250 event to tell a key part of that story, that of Ulster-Scots and Scotch-Irish immigration, and, in doing so, to bring some of that Ulster-Scots diaspora back to Northern Ireland?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. That was one of the issues that was discussed at the NSMC. Obviously, Minister Lyons was in attendance. Tourism Ireland is looking at the opportunity to market the island as part of the America250 celebrations. I will be out in the States in early March, so I will have an opportunity to engage, as I always do, with Tourism Ireland when I am out there. I will look at the opportunities to market the island as a whole and at how to bring American visitors back for the America250 events here, so that we can showcase that heritage and history, which people often want to experience when they come here. If they have family or roots here, they are even more inclined to do so. We are keen to build on that.

Mr McMurray: Thank you, Minister. You gave us a wee update on Ireland's Ancient East. Is there any likelihood that that brand might be developed or reviewed before the completion of the Narrow Water bridge, and is there scope for some sort of joint promotion? You might be in the Cooley peninsula, looking across at Warrenpoint or even heading up to Slieve Gullion.

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member. Fair play on getting your attractions in there. In all seriousness, there is an opportunity to look at how we build upon the scheduled completion of Narrow Water bridge and the tourism offering down the whole of the east coast. There are significant attractions and things that we want to showcase there. Fáilte Ireland is doing the evaluation of the brand, but I certainly see the opportunity to incorporate Narrow Water bridge, the whole of south Down and the wider area in Ireland's Ancient East to build upon the offering that is there.

Mr McNulty: I thank the Minister for her statement. At 2,000 feet, the highest surviving court cairn in Ireland, on the summit of Slieve Gullion, has been closed. It is more than half a century since, with the help of Sean O'Grady's tractor, that ancient monument was excavated. It has links with spellbinding mythology, such as the story of Finn McCool being tricked by the Cailleach Beara, who lost her ring in its depths. Minister, why was that court cairn, which has the potential to be a national and global tourism feature —?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Is there a question?

Mr McNulty: Yes. Why was that cairn, which has potential to be a national and global tourism feature, not mentioned at the North/South Ministerial Council meeting in the same county? Will you commit to restoring the corbelling on the roof of that court cairn and to funding it as a —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: OK.

Mr McNulty: — tourism feature of shared importance?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Minister, that is the second time that we have heard that question, so maybe you will have an answer to it this time.

Dr Archibald: Thank you, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank the Member for his question. I am sure that he appreciates the fact that we have many attractions across the North and that we do not mention every single one of them at every meeting, because, if we did, we would be there for a very long time. If the Member believes that there are opportunities to amplify that attraction, I am happy for him to write to me, and we can look at the issues.

Mr McGuigan: Following on from other Members who got their plugs in, I urge the Minister not to forget about the potential of the Tour de France when she looks at sports tourism here in the North. We have had a lot of talk today about the positives of tourism. Minister, can you outline the economic benefits of Tourism Ireland's international marketing campaign?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. He will know this because his constituency has a hugely strong tourism offering, but tourism is really important to the island as a whole and is a major part of our economy. It spreads prosperity across the region. It is vital that we continue to support that. One of the really important ways in which we do that is through Tourism Ireland's marketing activity. The tourism industry makes a huge contribution to our economy and provides around 70,000 jobs across the North. Importantly, over 70% of those jobs are outside the Belfast area, so it impacts across the region. That shows how integral tourism is to the fabric of our cultural and social life, as well as to our economy. People really care about the tourism product and offering in their own areas. That often translates into what makes it so successful.

Tourism Ireland has completed analysis of the return on marketing and has calculated a return on investment of around 25:1 for the top four markets, which are the US, Britain, Germany and France. While those are really positive figures, we need to build on them and support tourism providers in showcasing our tourism offering across the island. As Minister, I have also had the opportunity to see first-hand the work of Tourism Ireland at a number of its events and promotions overseas, and I have had the opportunity to meet travel trade and media personnel in New York, Berlin, Boston, London and Shanghai. It is so positive to hear how highly people speak of, and their enthusiasm for, our beautiful island.

Mr Durkan: Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as a ráiteas.

We have heard a wee bit about sports tourism. Was there any conversation, or has there been any consideration, on how we can maximise the tourism benefits to Northern Ireland of Euro 2028 despite the embarrassing inability of this place to host games?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. That was not discussed at the meeting, but I am happy to engage with the Member, Executive colleagues and others to look at how we do that. It is, obviously, hugely disappointing that we are not in a position to be part of Euro 2028, and that we will not have Casement Park built in time for it. That project is moving ahead, and we are keen to look at future opportunities for such events.

Mr McGrath: Many tourists who visit our area go to visitors' centres, such as the Saint Patrick Centre in Downpatrick. Unfortunately, however, funding is often short to maintain those buildings, which can impact the product that we have to offer. Was any consideration given at the meeting to developing a capital grants scheme for such buildings to help with their upkeep?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. That issue does not really fit into the NSMC's remit, so it was not discussed at the meeting. However, we obviously want to support our local tourism industry, so I am happy for the Member, if he wants to, to write to Tourism NI or me on that issue.

Mr Carroll: The meetings are a chance to discuss issues that affect the North and the South, although I am not convinced about how often that happens. Airbnbs and similar short-term holiday lets are affecting people north and south and wrecking communities. The owners of those properties charge a fortune, which is driving up rents. In the Gaeltacht area, there has been an 88% increase in their number in past six years. Did you or other Ministers raise that issue? If not, will you raise it in future so that Ministers can work together to address it?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his question. That issue was raised by other Ministers who were present and I, because, as you have highlighted, it is common across the island. Its impacts include the housing challenges that we face north and south; people's ability, particularly in the private rented sector, to maintain their tenancies; and challenges with tourism accommodation. There are balances to be struck there. The Minister for Communities, who has just walked into the Chamber, is doing important work on the housing strategy and research that is being undertaken on the impact of short-term lets, which will be hugely beneficial in providing us with an evidence base on which to make interventions. It is also important that we learn from experiences elsewhere where actions have been taken. There have been some examples in England and Wales that we should look to assess. That is likely to be considered as part of that research. Unfortunately, the issue will, I think, continue. We will have opportunities to continue to discuss it through forums such as the NSMC.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: That ends questions to the Minister for the Economy on her statement.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Speaker has received notice from the Minister for Communities that he wishes to make a statement. I remind Members that they must be concise when asking their questions. It is not an opportunity for a debate, and long-winded introductions will not be permitted.

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): My mission is clear: to deliver a welfare system that is fair, transparent and focused on those who need it most. In February last year, I stood in the Chamber, and I was categorical then in saying that welfare fraud is not just a financial issue; it is a moral one. That remains true today. Fraud is not a victimless crime. When individuals cheat the system, they are taking support from those who need it most.

In 2024, 3·7% of benefit expenditure — a staggering £350·3 million — was lost due to fraud and error. At this time of significant budget constraint, we must call out benefit fraud, ensuring that public money is directed to our key services and not to criminals. In April 2025, in an early and visible signal of my intent, I reintroduced the departmental practice of naming those who had been found guilty in the courts. Since doing so, my Department has seen anonymous fraud referrals from members of the public rise to 9,857 at the end of January 2026 compared with a total year-end figure of 6,353 for 2024-25. It is clear that, as a result of my leadership on those issues, benefit fraud and error is now clearly on the public agenda.

To the annoyance of some in the Chamber, I will keep highlighting the issue and keep it as a priority for the Department. I make no apology for doing that because those cases show shocking levels of dishonesty. Such cases include a 38-year-old woman who lied about her living arrangements to fraudulently claim over £76,000, or the 29-year-old man who gave false information about his living arrangements, disability and savings to falsely claim over £43,000. Some fraudsters do not even live here, like the person whose £35,000 fraud funded a life in the Philippines. I have taken away the shield of anonymity from those who steal from all of us and lifted the silence on the corrosive impact of those fraudulent activities. The response from the public to shining a light on those stories has been overwhelmingly positive. That has fuelled my determination not just to root out those committing fraud but to step up our efforts to deter anyone who may be considering going down that path.

By the end of December 2025, 497 criminal investigations into benefit fraud had been concluded. From 1 April 2025 to 6 February 2026, 57 prosecutions had been made as a direct result of the relentless investigatory work of my Department. In 2025-26, £16·7 million will be spent on bearing down on fraud and error through existing counter-fraud activity across my Department. The Department also undertakes debt recovery work to identify and recover overpayments, whether caused by fraud, error or changes in circumstances, and manages repayment in a fair and proportionate way. Up until 31 December 2025, that had resulted in a total recovery of £638,636.

The Department continually assesses the value and impact of fraud and error work. That includes routine monitoring of operational performance, recovery levels and wider preventative activity. The Department's benefit security teams, which lead on all counter-fraud activity, also undertake quarterly reviews to ensure that resources are focused on areas of highest risk.

It is important to be clear that fraud is a complex area in which fraud investigation is only one approach. We have dedicated risk teams and proactive interventions that help us to prevent and resolve issues at the earliest possible stage. To give examples, my Department reviewed over 16,000 universal credit (UC) cases up to the end of December 2025, correcting 2,072 UC claims and saving the Department over £10·6 million.

More than 5,000 employment and support allowance (ESA) cases were reviewed in the same period, correcting 677 ESA claims and saving the Department £2·5 million. As a result of compliance work in the Department, 2,654 cases were concluded up to the end of 2025, resulting in savings of £7·1 million.

We are seeing earlier identification of suspicious claims, better targeting of high-risk areas and more effective investigation outcomes. It remains my absolute priority to protect public money and to ensure that benefits go to the people who are genuinely entitled. However, we cannot be complacent, and we must stay ahead of the fraudsters. That is why, last year, I commissioned an in-depth internal analysis to critically assess current interventions and to make recommendations on robust measures to reduce levels of fraud and error.

Today, I pay tribute to the task and finish group for its work. In developing its findings, the group drew on internal expertise, external insights and robust data analysis, supported by intensive stakeholder engagement and collaboration. That has given us a level of assurance that existing measures to reduce fraud and error are effective and commensurate. There is no doubt, however, that the historic underfunding of the Department in this area has significantly constrained our ability to scale fraud and error activity. The £16·7 million allocated to tackle benefit fraud and error in 2025-26 is insufficient, as the scale and complexity of the challenge before us is rising. Current allocations mean that we cannot maintain parity with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and bear down on fraud and error to the extent that, we know, we need to.

We cannot stand still. Today, I am committed to accepting the recommendations in the task and finish report in driving forward work across four key areas. The first of those will be to enhance and expand current fraud and error activities. We will strengthen the validation of claimants’ declared circumstances. Linked to that, I want to see a ramp-up of investment in our benefit security and universal credit teams, with around 200 additional staff to help us to keep pace with DWP's counter-fraud activity. We will also strengthen specialist training and support for staff to double down on fraud and error, including mistakes made by officials. That will include the roll-out of a programme of education and guidance on fraud and error indicators and reporting responsibilities, along with improvements to the visibility of outcomes across the Department.

Our third action will be to maximise technology solutions in conjunction with DWP and other Departments at Westminster and locally to aid investigative efforts. We will continue to actively collaborate with government colleagues on shared fraud defence systems. For obvious security reasons and because of the highly sensitive nature of that work, Members will understand that I cannot say more on that at present.

Finally, we will increase public understanding of benefit fraud and raise awareness of our zero-tolerance approach. Today, I have launched a new advertising campaign on radio, in newspapers and on social media, to highlight our work to identify and root out fraudsters. It is really important that there is no confusion here. The Department delivers a range of supports to those who are eligible, and I am clear in my support for meeting the needs of those who are genuinely entitled. However, those who are lying about their circumstances and claiming tens of thousands of pounds in benefits to which they are not entitled are fraudsters. I want the public to help us to identify that criminal activity and to support us in deterring anyone from going down that path.

The benefits landscape is changing, with more people moving on to UC. Our world is also changing, bringing different societal behaviours, increased misinformation and emerging sophisticated technologies. I have set out a coherent, robust and comprehensive suite of measures to do that. However, I must be completely clear that a number of those measures, particularly those that involve increased capacity, are subject to funding bids. They simply cannot proceed without the necessary financial support, and, despite repeated and robust bids for additional resources in order to expand our counter-fraud and error operations, the necessary funding has not been forthcoming. Every delay in resourcing the work leaves our system exposed to fraud, undermines public confidence and risks diverting vital support away from those who need it most. We are stretching our teams to do more with less as the scale and sophistication of fraud continues to evolve. If we are serious about safeguarding public money, investment in counter-fraud activity must match our ambition and be treated not as optional but as essential. Generating a return of 8:1 on investment in 2024-25, the results achieved by my Department’s benefit security intervention teams demonstrate the positive value of investing in counter-fraud work. The return on investment cannot be denied, and I will continue to make the case to Executive colleagues for that funding on that basis.

Regardless, I have not sat back. Where recommendations have not required additional funding, my officials have already prioritised actions that will deliver an early impact. Recognising my Department’s efforts to generate savings through tackling fraud and error, in agreement with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my Department submitted a welfare fraud and error invest-to-save business case. I welcome the confirmation from the UK Government that they will work with the Executive over the coming months on ways to tackle welfare fraud and error in Northern Ireland and on funding options, including the potential to share a portion of resulting savings with the Executive. In line with the Fresh Start Agreement, I will seek a 50% share of the savings. However, the Executive must support the initial investment and the reinvestment of the share of savings generated in programmes that will support people with barriers to employment, particularly those with disabilities or health conditions. That is a key priority for me as it aligns with the Programme for Government goals to reduce economic inactivity; tackle poverty and social exclusion; and support inclusive economic growth across Northern Ireland.

This work is about protection: protection of our welfare system, of public confidence and of the vulnerable individuals who rely on timely and accurate support. We know that fraud and error remains a significant challenge across all modern benefit systems. We are not complacent; we are adapting our approach as new risks emerge. We are investing as far as possible in improved technology, better analytics and training for staff so that we can continue to raise standards. We are modernising our processes to make them faster, more accurate and more responsive, because the public rightly expect a system that is both fair and robust. However, more investment is needed and quickly so that we do not lag behind. With additional funding, we will act robustly and with urgency to fully implement the task and finish group’s recommendations. My Department is delivering real improvements, but we recognise that there is more to do. We will continue strengthening the system, protecting taxpayers’ money and ensuring that support goes to those who truly need it. Let us reaffirm our shared commitment to ensure that the right money reaches the right people at the right time and that those who seek to exploit the benefit system are met with firm and fair consequences. I commend the statement to the House.

Mr Durkan: Minister, let me be clear: fraud is unacceptable. Despite what you said in your statement, I do not think that anyone in the Chamber would be annoyed at its eradication. However, while some people abuse the system, the system itself abuses people. Tens of thousands of genuine claimants struggle with a complex, slow and punitive welfare system where genuine mistakes can lead to sanctions and now sackcloth and ashes too.

Minister, how much of that £16·7 million has been spent chasing fraudsters and how much has been spent to reduce the stress and suffering caused by a system that creates errors and hardship?

Mr Lyons: First, I welcome the fact that the Member said that he is committed to tackling fraud and error, because that has not always seemed to be what has come from his Benches and in some of the comments that he has made in Committee. It is right that we tackle the issue and that we put the investment in.

Let us be clear: this is not about going after those who make genuine mistakes; this is about those who continually, deliberately misrepresent their circumstances. We will be fair, and we will be robust. Where simple mistakes have been made, there are ways in which they can be rectified. I am talking about making sure that we deal with those who consistently engage in something that is wrong and is defrauding the system.

That money goes to tackle fraud and error, whether customer error, customer fraud or error in the Department. I do not have a complete breakdown of that money, because there are overlaps in how some of it is spent. Investigation of cases will show that some fall into more than one category. I am determined to make sure that we reduce that number, because, frankly, £350 million is far too much and would be spent better elsewhere.

Mr Gildernew (The Chairperson of the Committee for Communities): Minister, nobody here would disagree that fraud and error must be tackled. Will the Minister, please, set out how many of the Department's staff are dedicated to investigating and tackling fraud and error and how many are allocated to other strategic priorities such as the Department's anti-poverty strategy?

Mr Lyons: I do not have a breakdown of those figures, but the Member will be aware that we have a significant number of people working on the issue, because there are consequences for us if we do not work on it. There are consequences in not keeping up with the Department for Work and Pensions, so it is important that we have in place the people who make sure that the system is run effectively and fairly.

The Member makes a false comparison between the number working on this issue and the number working on the anti-poverty strategy: one is an operational area; the other is policy. If the Member is talking more broadly, I will say that hardly anything goes on in my Department that is not, in one way or another, done to help people to deal with poverty and its effects.

I can provide those additional figures to the Member.

Mr Kingston: I have been astonished to hear some anti-poverty campaigners in media interviews fail to criticise benefit fraud: it is as if they find it acceptable. Does the Minister agree that the welfare benefits system is an essential safety net to prevent people from falling into absolute poverty and that those who wilfully and fraudulently abuse that system undermine public support for it as they steal from the public purse?

Mr Lyons: I agree with the Member. I was disappointed to hear a commentator say on the radio this morning that all we need to do is make sure that the system is less complex. We absolutely need to make sure that we have as simple and straightforward a benefits system as we can, but it is not the complexity of the benefits system that is the problem; it is the intent of those who want to commit benefit fraud. Yes, I want to see a welfare system that is fit for purpose, protects those who need it most and is a safety net for those who fall out of employment.

I was struck by other comments on the radio this morning that our focus should be elsewhere. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can tackle welfare fraud and, at the same time, deal with poverty in other ways. I noted the lack of the same commentators coming on to the radio last week when we announced £150 million to deal with fuel poverty in Northern Ireland. We know the impacts that that has on our homes, but there were no radio interviews or social media posts about that announcement.

The Executive should promote work not benefits as the route out of poverty. We want to get more people into work and need to support those who cannot work, but, surely, we should all agree that fraud is wrong and we should go after fraudsters, so that the money that they take that they should not have is spent on those who need it.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Question Time starts at 2.00 pm.

Paula, you will be next to speak.

Ms Bradshaw: OK.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I did not want you to ask your question and then only get a response after Question Time, so, if you do not mind, we will take our ease until 2.00 pm. Thank you.

Mr Speaker: Questions 3 and 4 have been withdrawn.

Mr Nesbitt (The Minister of Health): Inpatient treatment for cancer patients, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and treatment for haematological malignancy is delivered through two cancer centres. The first is the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre at Belfast City Hospital, which provides 49 oncology inpatient beds and a further 50 inpatient beds for haematology. The second is the North West Cancer Centre, where ward 50 provides 24 designated beds for oncology and haematology patients. However, no beds are formally ring-fenced specifically for elective cancer surgery. Significant unscheduled care pressures continue to impact on overall bed availability, which affects trusts' ability to consistently protect elective care for cancer and non-cancer patients. Trusts therefore use a system of clinical prioritisation to ensure that time-critical cancer cases are admitted as soon as capacity allows.

I fully recognise the distress that cancellation causes for patients and families. To reduce the risk, my Department is working with trusts to expand the number of procedures that are undertaken as day surgery and the use of regional day procedure centres and elective overnight stay centres. Those measures help to protect cancer care from bed pressures and staffing shortages.

Mr Kingston: I thank the Minister for that detailed answer. Last month, I was contacted by my constituent Freda, who had had part of her liver removed due to cancer tumours. Unfortunately, one tumour returned, and she was due to have a liver ablation in early January at the Royal Victoria Hospital, but her appointment was cancelled twice because of bed shortages. Thankfully, she has since had the operation. She consented to my referring to her case.

My concern, Minister, is that in cases such as Freda's, not only does the patient miss out on a time-critical procedure but all the resources to do with equipment and staffing to deliver that procedure potentially go to waste. My question remains this: in the interest of tackling our spiralling cancer waiting lists, should beds not be specifically reserved and ring-fenced to enable such inpatient procedures to go ahead and prevent that waste of resources?

Mr Nesbitt: First, I am extremely sorry to hear that your constituent's procedure was cancelled not once but twice. It is certainly a sharp focus of the Department and of Professor Mark Taylor, who looks after elective care regionally for me, that we understand and deal with why there are so many cancellations. I can tell the Member that, in the past three months, 97 elective operations, including but not exclusively cancer procedures, were cancelled due to bed shortages across the trusts. I do not understand the exact reasons for the two cancellations in the case that the Member has brought up.

I have spoken at the highest level to trust chairs and made the point that it is sometimes inevitable that an operation or a procedure may be cancelled; for example, if something happens to a surgeon or an anaesthetist en route to the hospital, that is unavoidable. If, however, a key member of an elective surgery team gives two weeks' notice that they will not be available on a certain day and the trust does nothing to make good the shortfall of that key member of personnel, that is not acceptable. To put it crudely, as I have with the trust chairs, if they order 10 items from Amazon and only seven arrive, how many will they pay for? On some occasions, I feel that we pay for 10 but get seven and the shortfall cannot be reasonably explained.

Mr Dickson: Minister, you will have heard sustained criticism in the House of the waiting times for the commencement of treatment for cancer patients, particularly as they approach surgery, which you will understand. I appreciate that that is a difficult issue to resolve, but it is imperative for the patients who are waiting for surgery that it happen in a timely fashion and in accordance with the time limits that have been set out. What plans does the Minister have to expand theatre capacity on the Belfast City Hospital site?

Mr Nesbitt: I agree with the Member about the impact of waiting times on patients and their families and friends. I do not have an answer to the Member's specific question about Belfast City Hospital. Generally speaking, however, we are trying to deal with regional variation, particularly where it is not reasonable variation. I gave an example to Mr Kingston of what I consider not to be reasonable variation or a reasonable reason for delay.

As well as making savings in this tight budgetary environment, we have to increase productivity. The regional director of elective care, Professor Mark Taylor, is pushing everybody, believe me. I have visited hospitals with Mark Taylor. We are pushing hard and, to be fair, getting a positive response in respect of what we can do not just with the long waiters on the lists but with the clinical teams. For example, when we visited Daisy Hill and Causeway Hospital recently, clinical teams said, "Never mind praising us for what we do; let us do more. We want to do more". That attitude is spreading throughout the system, including Belfast City Hospital.

Ms D Armstrong: Minister, I welcome the major progress that you have made, over recent months, on reducing waiting lists for endoscopies. What additional investment has been made to secure the additional capacity?

Mr Nesbitt: I have committed an additional £13 million; that is the answer that the Member seeks. That £13 million for endoscopy will see investment and yield 21 and a quarter sessions per week to resource all uncommissioned sessions. That will happen by the end of next month and will be followed by subsequent expansion into evening and weekend working.

Mr Speaker: Ms Nicholl is not in her place.

Mr Nesbitt: Lifelong care and support planning for people with disabilities requires all professionals involved in the process to adopt a proactive, person-centred and adaptable approach as required. That constitutes a shift from reactive, service-led interventions. Our integrated Health and Social Care (HSC) system places the formal assessment of an individual's specific needs at the centre of the care planning process. The plans are co-produced with people who use our services to ensure that they are person-centred. Each care plan becomes the foundation for future reviews, potentially across the full lifespan. They consider changes to an individual's circumstances, the impact of lifelong conditions or disabilities and future planning. Individuals' plans are reassessed following a significant change of circumstances such as transitioning from children's service to adult services. The introduction of the neighbourhood model will enhance integrated models of care at community level, focusing on preventative approaches and forms of support that are tailored to individual need from the point of earliest contact with our services.

Mr Mathison: I thank the Minister for that answer.

Minister, you will be aware that a lot of contact comes through from parents who have children in special schools and are concerned about the transition out of the education system and their child losing the protection of their statement of special educational needs (SEN). Are you actively considering putting in place legislative protections to ensure that young people who will move into the health sphere following education have lifelong care and support plans that have statutory protection?

Mr Nesbitt: I will answer the Member's direct question directly: I am not considering introducing legislation in this mandate, because we have run out of time. There are several pieces of legislation that I would love to see going through the Assembly between now and purdah, in March 2027, of which that is one. We are certainly not ignoring the issues or trying to scope out what legislation might look like in the next mandate, but I cannot be untruthful with the Member: there is no plan, because we are being told that there is no legislative space between now and purdah.

Mrs Dillon: Minister, as you will be well aware, it is well documented that many disabled young people experience a sharp drop-off in support at the age of 18. Given that you have just said that we will have not have legislation in that space in this mandate, what specific conversations are ongoing with other Ministers to address the post-18 cliff edge and ensure that there is continuity of care into adulthood in every aspect of the lives of disabled young people?

Mr Nesbitt: The Department's children's learning disability services have implemented the learning disability service model and the children's disability framework, putting in place a regional transitions protocol, including an easy-read version, that has been informed and influenced through engagement with young people, families and stakeholders. The template aims to improve transition planning and secure greater regional consistency. An addendum will be agreed for education and health needs, and consideration will be given to developing a protocol for young people with physical disabilities and complex needs.

My focus in recent times has been more on working with the Department of Education for children's services, particularly in terms of special schools and the provision of community children's nurses, but I am aware that the transition from children's services to adult services is one of many that represent a cliff edge and that more work needs to be done to make that transition more person- and family-centred.

Mrs Dodds: My colleagues have rightly focused on the issue of children transferring to adult services, but, for many adults with disabilities, there is a real issue with care packages. In a recent answer that you, Minister, gave to my colleague Diane Forsythe, the position as of 1 December 2025 in relation to care packages that you detailed was startling: over 2,000 people were waiting for a full care package, and over 1,000 people were waiting for a partial care package. The largest number of waits was in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, in which 764 people were waiting for a full care package. Minister, what will be done about that situation? It impacts on adults with disabilities in particular, but it also impacts —

Mr Speaker: Minister.

Mrs Dodds: — on the flow of patients through our hospitals.

Mr Nesbitt: We will implement the learning disability service model. That has been greeted positively, by and large, across the interested parties. The Member will also be aware that we are moving at pace to try to introduce the neighbourhood model of care. The fabled shift left will happen in the coming financial year: 2026-27. I envisage that that model will directly benefit people with disabilities in the community, providing a more joined-up, accessible, proactive and personalised source of support that will lead to the better coordination of Health and Social Care services. It will reduce duplication and give faster access to the right support. It will also bring investment that will strengthen the support that the community, voluntary and social enterprise sector can provide to people living in our communities, including people with disabilities.

Mr Nesbitt: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare inherited condition that can cause muscle weakness. It affects movement, speech, swallowing and breathing. There are different types of SMA, and the severity varies from person to person, but, by and large, it gets worse over time. However, there are medicines and other treatments to help to manage symptoms. Across the UK, screening policy is informed by the recommendations of the UK National Screening Committee, which is an independent committee that advises the four UK Health Departments on all matters screening.

The National Screening Committee does not currently recommend screening for SMA in newborns. However, in the summer of last year, the committee published four documents reviewing the evidence on newborn screening for SMA. That evidence concluded that an in-service evaluation was required to answer remaining questions about whether screening would work well, how much it would cost and whether it would be effective in everyday practice. An evaluation is being carried out by NHS England, and there is a research study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). A separate evaluation is being carried out in Scotland. Planning for one is currently under way, and a representative from Northern Ireland sits on the implementation group.

Additionally, my Department has informed the NIHR that Northern Ireland wishes to be a participant in any ongoing research, if there is an opportunity so to do.

Mr McGuigan: I accept the Minister's response. I am led to believe that it is a particularly inexpensive addition to the screening process. He outlined the fact that there is a pilot taking place in Scotland. There is also a screening programme in the South. I ask the Minister to consider evidence from the South when he looks at this issue in fullness.

Mr Nesbitt: I give that commitment to the Member to examine evidence from the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere.

Mr McGlone: Minister, picking up on what Mr McGuigan said, we understand that the cost of such screening is a mere £5 per child. Do you agree that £5 per child is not much to spend to ensure that the number impacted each year —? We could give people the best start in life, and prevention and early detection could save the health service quite a lot of money in the longer term.

Mr Nesbitt: I certainly agree with the Member that £5 sounds like very good value for money, but I return to the fact that we follow, without exception as far as I know, the UK National Screening Committee recommendations on these things. It looked at this in 2018 and reviewed its recommendations in 2025. It found that there was no evidence to show how effective a screening programme would be; the best way to support people who receive positive results was not known; there was no evidence of effective treatments for people who did not show symptoms of SMA; the evidence for how well the test for SMA performs was limited; and there was not enough information about the total number of people who are affected by SMA. It is against that background that I want to see what is coming out of Scotland and, following the exhortation from Mr McGuigan, how they are getting on in the Republic of Ireland.

Mr Nesbitt: While the use of alcohol is normalised here in Northern Ireland, it causes significant harm. Notwithstanding the pressure that excessive alcohol consumption puts on the health service, research has shown that the full societal cost to the Northern Ireland economy could be as high as £900 million a year, with up to £250 million of that borne by Health. Alcohol harm touches every part of society, from rising hospital admissions and deaths to pressures on families, communities and the health service. More important than the money, since 2013 Northern Ireland has seen deaths due to alcohol-specific causes rise by 65·5%, from 206 to the latest reported figure of 341. Almost 12,000 people are admitted to acute hospitals each year with an alcohol-related diagnosis. It is also estimated that one in six attending our accident and emergency departments for treatment have alcohol-related injuries or problems, rising to eight out of 10 at peak times. During the financial year 2024-25, 2,590 clients presented to services for alcohol misuse. Over half — 56·4% — were aged 40 years or over, with a small proportion — 2·4% — aged under 18.

Alcohol is also a driver of inequalities. Between 2019 and 2023, the percentage of alcohol-specific deaths in Northern Ireland's most deprived areas was almost four times higher than that in the least deprived areas. That is why I believe that minimum unit pricing of alcohol could be a key mechanism for reducing alcohol-related harm and addressing inequalities. I encourage all Members to help secure the necessary Executive approval to allow this policy to proceed.

Mr Wilson: As if that news was not bad enough, your Executive colleague in Justice revealed to me that, over the past five years, 100,000 crimes have been committed in which the excessive use of alcohol was listed as an aggravating factor. Given what you have said about the wider health and well-being implications of excessive alcohol use, have you any plans, as Minister, to increase messaging on moderation regarding alcohol in view of its significant negative impacts on the health service, across the Executive body and, most importantly, on people's health and well-being?

Mr Nesbitt: I very much welcome that statement from the Member, and I encourage him to have a word with his Executive ministerial colleagues and encourage them to support the introduction of minimum unit pricing (MUP) of alcohol.

Some Members: Hear. Hear.

Ms Flynn: I sincerely hope that we can get that legislation agreed at the Executive table and over the line. The NISRA statistics on alcohol deaths for last year are due out either at the end of this month or next. Does the Minister have any update on the piece of work that was taking place in a border constituency, funded with PEACE PLUS money, on a big community detoxification centre ?

Mr Nesbitt: I thank the Member for the question. I am aware of the PEACE PLUS money for that project, and it is very welcome, but I do not have specific details on it.

I will welcome the latest stats; I was not aware that they were coming so soon. However, think about stats for avoidable deaths. There are hundreds of deaths due to alcohol-related issues; thousands of deaths — something like 2,100 a year — due to smoking-related issues; and then there are deaths due to the misuse of other substances. All those things play out most deeply in and have the biggest impact on the areas of the deepest deprivation. Those health inequalities that I talked about have been around, certainly, for as long as devolution and for longer than that. I would encourage the next Executive in the next mandate to think about health inequalities, educational underachievement and economic inactivity, because the social determinants of all three are basically the same, and they affect the areas of deprivation — those families; those people — the most. It is generation to generation to generation, and it is time that we took a chunk out of that.

Mr Donnelly: Minister, the Chief Medical Officer recently told the Health Committee that the evidence for the minimum unit pricing of alcohol is "irrefutable". We have also heard that from many health organisations and charities that work in the area. What is the Minister's understanding of the barriers to it being legislated for in this mandate and not becoming a missed opportunity to save lives and reduce the pressure on the health service?

Mr Nesbitt: I applaud the Chief Medical Officer, because Professor Sir Michael McBride is passionate about introducing minimum unit pricing of alcohol. I am passionate about MUP on alcohol. There is really solid evidence: most recently, the Chief Medical Officer and I attended a presentation by Sheffield University, which has looked in detail at the impact of alcohol misuse on the population in Northern Ireland.

There is a blockage. I need the Executive to support me. As yet, I have not had full Executive support.

Mr Chambers: I welcome the Minister's very clear position and his demonstrable actions to date to try to make progress on the hugely important issue. Does he agree, however, that we are now in a rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to make progress with the Bill and that, if the Executive blockage is not soon removed, the opportunity to progress that vital MUP legislation in this mandate will be lost?

Mr Nesbitt: I thank the Member. As I said, the policy requires the support of the Executive. I await formal confirmation of the position of Executive colleagues. Time is running out. I add that, prior to 6 April 2026, I am required to either introduce legislation to set that minimum unit price or:

That is a requirement in the Licensing and Registration of Clubs (Amendment) Act (Northern Ireland) 2021. I fear that I will be doing the latter, and I very much regret that.

Ms Hunter: As we are speaking of alcoholism and the wider point of educational disadvantage, I say that this is national Children of Alcoholics Week. Minister, will you agree to have a meeting with the Education Minister on supporting the health and well-being of those children in our classrooms to ensure that we do all that we can between both Departments to help support those children on their educational journey?

Mr Nesbitt: I thank the Member, and I am more than happy to request such a meeting with the Minister.

Mr Speaker: Before I call John Blair, I say that a lot of people have just entered the Public Gallery, most of whom are from the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. I welcome you all to our sitting this afternoon.

Mr Blair: If I may, I add my welcome to our visitors.

Mr Nesbitt: I, too, welcome our visitors.

My Department employs a broad range of recognised health economic modelling tools to inform and support financial decision-making across the system. The tools enable us to assess different scenarios in a structured and evidence-based way that ensures that decisions are grounded in an understanding of both immediate pressures and longer-term implications. That said, in the financial year 2025-26, the Department has faced a particularly significant funding gap, which has necessitated a concerted drive to identify and deliver substantial cash-releasing savings. To support responsible choices, all major proposals are developed through business cases that are underpinned by robust economic appraisal. The appraisals consider cost, benefits, risks and potential system impacts, and help us prioritise options that maximise value for money. In a highly challenging financial context, that disciplined approach is essential to avoid simply deferring costs to future years; to maintain our commitment to improving outcomes; and to ensuring that we have a sustainable health and social care system.

Mr Blair: I thank the Minister for that answer. I will stay with priorities. The permanent secretary seemed to confirm to the Health Committee that the Department of Health's priorities have been outlined for the first time in 11 years. Can the Minister explain why he, or his predecessor and party colleague, did not do that sooner?

Mr Nesbitt: I do not speak for any previous Health Minister. I have been in my post for about 20 months. It is such a broad portfolio that it took me a number of months to get my head around where we were. One of the conclusions was that we have to be a lot clearer, not just internally but externally, about saying, "Here is what we are going to do. Here is what we cannot afford to do within the budget. Here is what it is not reasonable to expect us to continue to do, because it neither represents value for money nor delivers the better outcomes that we want to see for patients, service users and the health and social care workforce".

Mr Nesbitt: The funding is being spent on initiatives to improve family and community support services for children with disabilities, to increase short break provision and to expand the specialist care programme. It was never exclusively about short breaks. The trusts have increased contracts with voluntary and community providers, securing additional support for families through a broad range of service initiatives. I am conscious of the urgent focus on overnight short-break provision for children with disabilities. Over time, a pattern has emerged of children with disabilities being placed, long-term, in beds that were previously ring-fenced for short breaks. That trend is emblematic, I am afraid, of a failure to intervene in a way that supports children and their families closer to home. The range of services that the trusts have invested in are intended, in part, to redress the balance, developing services that support families and prevent further reliance on medium- and long-term residential placements. Short-break services for children with disabilities remain fragile. I will leave it there so that the Member can ask a supplementary question.

Miss McAllister: I thank the Minister for his answer. He said that the spend was:

Many parents, not only those who participated in the 'Spotlight' programme but others, are in desperate need of and are crying out for respite provision. You have failed a lot of those parents. When will we see an increase in respite provision, so that families are not surrendering their children to long-term care by the state?

Mr Nesbitt: I have met the mothers from the 'Spotlight' programme on a number of occasions, and I can assure the Member that they are absolutely aware that the £13·1 million was not exclusively for short breaks. Indeed, I very recently spoke to a relative of one of those mums who was very complimentary about the progress that we have made. For example, in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust area, Willow Lodge opened as a residential children's home in July last year and now provides long-term placements for two children with learning disabilities. I believe that the Member understands that it is a complex game of chess, as it were, in that achieving success on this is not about one move; it is about moving boy A to residence B until girl C is moved to residence D. I have often compared it to a game of Jenga where the fear is that, if you pull out the wrong stick, the whole edifice will collapse.

It is complex, and I understand that it is frustrating, but we remain fully focused on the matter.

Mr Speaker: We move to topical questions.

Mr McGrath: I wish the Minister well as he stands down from his role as party leader and can focus on his work as Health Minister.

Mr Nesbitt: I thank the Member for his good wishes. I emphasise to him that I was fully focused on the health brief when I was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, because all decisions, bar a very few, were delegated. It will make no particular change to my focus between now and 6 May 2027.

On his specific question, no, I do not, but I think that I am about to learn.

Mr McGrath: Indeed, Minister. It is 50% in urban areas and 29% in rural areas, and, frighteningly, it is just 14% in my South Down constituency. That is an inequality, and it is an injustice that needs to be made right. Minister, are you up to that task, or are you asleep at the wheel? If you are, what will it take to wake you up?

Mr Nesbitt: I am not sure that "asleep at the wheel" is an appropriate analogy, given that we are talking about ambulance response times. However, I am certainly up for looking at the issue in more detail. You have put it on my radar. So far, I have been focused on looking at response times against the targets, but you have given me a significant urban/rural split. I will go away from the Chamber in a matter of minutes and begin an enquiry.

Mr Nesbitt: I have met the hospice movement on a number of occasions; in fact, just last week, I was with the Foyle Hospice in Derry/Londonderry. I am keen to do more for all of the hospices. I am also keen that they become part of the neighbourhood network, because palliative and end-of-life care does not happen solely within the confines of the physical buildings that are our hospices across Northern Ireland. I continue to engage with the Children's Hospice. The Member must be aware, however, that we started the year with a shortfall in our budget of £600 million. That is unprecedented, and, in fact, it turned out to be unmanageable. I pay huge tribute to all those, particularly those in the trusts, who have worked so hard to reduce that figure, which sits currently at around £200 million. Savings of £400 million is fantastic, but that shortfall absolutely restricts our ability to give more, do more or introduce new services.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Minister for his answer. Recommendation 3 of the 'Access to Palliative Care Services' report was:

I appreciate that the Minister has outlined the pressures that he faces, but will he outline his views and plans in light of that recommendation?

Mr Nesbitt: I have to review that recommendation against all of the other recommendations in that report and those in every other report. I understand that Members will pick out a specific condition, a specific service or even a specific hospice and advocate for it. It is right and proper that they do that, and it is something that I have done as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. However, I hope that the Member recognises that I have to see it in a broader context and take what is often called the "helicopter view", because there are competing priorities and demands. At times, it becomes difficult and challenging, because we are talking about a health and social care system, and it can mean life or death in some instances.

Instinctively, I am keen to do more for the Children's Hospice specifically. When I visited it a while ago, I was taken aback by the joy felt by the children, the parents and the workforce. I did not expect the Children's Hospice to be a joyous place, but it is.

Mrs Guy: Part of the Minister's reform plan is to ensure that people are treated close to home. In my constituency of Lagan Valley, however, people still struggle to get a GP appointment. They make phone call after phone call and are often redirected to local hospitals.

Mr Nesbitt: I thank the Member. I am well aware that access to primary care is an issue and is not confined to her constituency. There are many groups that will be central to delivering the neighbourhood model that we want to start rolling out on 1 April, but none will be more important than GPs and GP surgeries. I am delighted to announce that we are now starting to open negotiations with the BMA GP Committee about next year's GP contract, and, obviously, access will be a key factor during those negotiations.

Mrs Guy: I thank the Minister for his response. He mentioned negotiations on the contract dispute. Does he have a timeline for those negotiations?

Mr Nesbitt: It would not be sensible for me to stand up in public and try to negotiate the negotiations, if I may use that phrase. The first meeting is imminent, and it will take what it takes to get where we all need to be.

Mr Nesbitt: The Member makes a reasonable point. Some of the brightest minds on these islands and a number of high-performing individuals apply to our local medical schools, and that is a testament to the quality of our young people, who are all potentially future leaders. In total, we approve 236 places annually at Queen's and a further 70 at the Magee campus. The number of admissions to our local medical schools is a balance between anticipated future workforce requirements and capacity for the educational and clinical placement requirements of the courses. Of course, admissions are a matter for the universities in line with their selection and admission criteria. It is highly competitive. Places are available equally to all Northern Ireland, GB and ROI students under the common travel area arrangements.

I take the Member's point about international student numbers. Those numbers are constrained to numbers agreed with my Department, but those students pay well, and that is a factor on the minds of the administrators of the universities.

Mr Burrows: Thank you, Minister. Do you agree that, if students from Northern Ireland were more able to stay here and study here, they would be more likely to take up employment here and help treat the people of Northern Ireland in the future?

Mr Nesbitt: I agree with him. There is solid research that says that a lot of our students who go away to, for example, England, Scotland and Wales tend to stay there and not return. That is a terrible loss. The Member may be interested to hear that we are also looking at a return on service arrangement whereby, if we contribute to or pay fees for people who are going through university courses or third-level courses, they will be obliged to stay in the Health and Social Care system for a period, otherwise we will claw back what we have invested in them.

Mr Nesbitt: I speak from memory, but I believe that we totted up capital investment requirements of £3 billion. What we anticipate from the Budget is enough to cover only essential maintenance and such services. I agree with him that Craigavon Area hospital is long overdue a significant capital investment. So is Altnagelvin Area Hospital. A few days ago, I was in its emergency department. It is the oldest of the type-1 EDs in Northern Ireland. Once again, I understand that the Member is talking about something that is within his own geographic concerns. That is right and proper. However, again, we will have to look at a long, expensive list of capital projects and prioritise. That will not be easy. For some, the outcome will be painful.

Mr Wilson: I am in no way criticising Craigavon hospital, because, this time last year, I had just come out of it. I was cared for exceptionally well there. The staff were absolute legends in delivering the care that I received. I am much better for it, thankfully.

Can you confirm that enough resource is available to the trust to progress the business case for that redevelopment to a conclusion?

Mr Nesbitt: First of all, I am glad that the Member had a good experience. That underlines my belief that it is wrong to say that the Health and Social Care system in Northern Ireland is broken. Many of the pathways to access healthcare are problematic. However, once you get there, by and large, you get extremely good care.

When it comes to offering the Member any guarantees or promises that there is sufficient budget in either the Department of Health or the Southern Trust, I will make it clear, as I did in my previous answer, that we are not in a position to do that, unfortunately.

Mr Nesbitt: As I said to Mrs Guy, we are about to start negotiating the new contract with the BMA General Practitioners Committee. Of course, the neighbourhood model and the shift left will be absolutely central to that. My officials have, however, been talking to GP federations about the shift-left model for some time. Negotiations have been ongoing. I understand that there have also been discussions with Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland. Those two bodies — GP surgeries and community pharmacies — are already there to provide a neighbourhood model. They are the basis and foundation from which that neighbourhood model should grow.

Mrs Cameron: I thank the Minister for that answer. Given that, this year, you imposed a contract settlement and caused anger among GPs, on reflection, should you have acted differently? Can you provide any further update as on quickly you see those negotiations progressing?

Mr Nesbitt: At the risk of correcting the Member, I believe that I implemented the contract for this financial year. The reason that I did that was simple: we had several million pounds — £9·5 million, I think, from memory — of additional money that those GP surgeries needed, not least because of the imposition of the additional National Insurance burden. To have withheld the contract would have meant withholding the money potentially, and that would have been absolutely ruinous for GP practices. I am pleased to say that we have all moved on or are moving on from there. It would not, however, be wise for me to say that we are putting a hard stop on when negotiations on the next contract should conclude.

Mr Nesbitt: I thank the Member for that question. I believe that seven patients are still at Muckamore. Four of them have pathways to a new placement that should be effected by the end of this month potentially or, if not, by the end of next month. Work continues to find placements for the other three patients. Numbers have reduced to such an extent that there is real concern about being able to continue to deliver safe and appropriate care from the workforce, because it becomes, I am told, a little more challenging as the numbers shrink. We hope to do that within months, certainly.

Mr Kelly: Can the Minister give any assurances that the results of the inquiry will be released in March and not delayed any further?

Mr Nesbitt: I hope that the Member realises that it is an independent inquiry, so it would be entirely inappropriate for me to try to impose some sort of timeline on the Chair. My understanding is that it is relatively imminent, as in March/April. I have to warn Members that it will be utterly shocking. It will potentially be one of the worst reports on health and social care delivery since the inception of the National Health Service. I will put that down as a warning and in preparation.

Ms Kimmins (The Minister for Infrastructure): As the Member will be aware, Newry, Lisburn and Belfast are the only areas where any form of charging for on-street parking exists. Other areas do not charge for parking but have limited waiting restrictions in place, limiting parking to one hour within a two-hour period. Controlled parking zones were put in place to manage demand for parking in an appropriate way, deterring all-day parking and improving customer access to businesses by ensuring the ongoing turnover of parking spaces. However, as the Member will know, I have been listening to traders, and I understand the need to encourage people to spend more time in our town centres without worrying about parking deadlines. Therefore, as he will be aware, over the festive period, I introduced a pilot initiative in Lisburn and Newry, providing an hour’s grace period for people parking in on-street parking spaces in controlled parking zones. That provides the public with up to one hour to return to their vehicles following the expiry of their paid parking event without the risk of receiving a penalty charge notice. Providing that hour’s grace period for parking sessions gives shoppers and traders that boost and offers greater flexibility for visitors while balancing the need to maintain an effective flow of traffic into the city centres.

My officials have been engaging with relevant stakeholders around that initiative, and, while initial feedback has generally been positive, I decided to extend the pilot to gain further insights and valuable feedback from local traders and businesses in Lisburn and Newry. The data will help to guide my future intentions and long-term plans for on-street parking in controlled parking zones to ensure that it meets the needs of local businesses and communities. I encourage all visitors to Newry and Lisburn to park responsibly to ensure that we have safer streets, better access for disabled people, support for local businesses and a transport system that works for everyone.

Mr Butler: I thank the Minister for her answer and for affirming that there will be an extension to the scheme. Can the Minister outline what the comms strategy looks like for that to ensure that shoppers are aware of that in Lisburn and Newry? Can she offer some clarity around how we will better protect people from getting fines because they did not understand the scheme in the first place?

Ms Kimmins: As the Member will know, I have been talking about that for some time, and we have been trying to work out the best way possible to introduce, particularly over the festive period, something that would enhance opportunities for people when they are in town centres. As my constituency is included, I was very aware of the impact of that. I appreciate that there have probably been some teething problems as people start to get to grips with it. The current pilot has been extended for a further six months to give us more time to look at what is working well and what is not working so well to inform better what I do in the longer term. There are conflicting views as to the best approach, so it is important that we give that opportunity.

From a comms perspective, we have been using our social media channels to feed that out, and we have been engaging with the local business improvement districts and others to encourage them to get that message out. Where people have got a fine, they can appeal it if they are within the parameters that have been implemented, and they are entitled to get that overturned. If there are any particular issues that the Member wishes to raise with me in relation to that, please feel free to feed that in, because it is important that we are aware of all the nuances to it. I appreciate that it is probably not the simplest approach, but in order to do it in the timescale that I needed to do it in, that was the best way forward.

Mr Dunne: Minister, you will be aware of the plethora of private car parking operators across Northern Ireland, which is often confusing for people. Have you had any engagement with that sector in order to look at better regulation and, perhaps, more uniformity on charges and enforcement processes, which can be confusing for many people, regardless of their age?

Ms Kimmins: The issue comes up time and time again. We have probably all had tickets or letters from some of those companies. I appreciate the anxiety and stress that that causes. A lot of older people come to my office with concerns about that. Those are private companies that do not fall under my Department's remit, but I am happy to engage further if there is any discussion to be had or on how we can continually raise that issue. My constituency office has referred people to the Consumer Council and other advice agencies that can better support people. It is a difficult issue to address, because it does not fall under my Department's remit.

Mr Honeyford: This is a really good initiative to help our high streets and to support our local traders, and I welcome that. However, there was and is an issue with communication with the public to do with public parking in council car parks and getting a ticket because it was not on-street parking. Moving forward, is there any way that that communication can be extended to make sure that the councils are also part of it and to see whether any temporary signage can be erected for on-street parking so that everybody is aware of what the conditions are?

Ms Kimmins: The councils made some changes over the Christmas period, and there was a bit of confusion. That can be hard to manage, because we are trying to get our message across about the areas that are specific to my Department, while the councils are trying to get their message out. We want it to benefit as many people as possible. We have been putting the message out consistently through our channels, but, if there are other ways of doing that, I am happy to take them on board in order to see how we can better publicise the message and maximise the information to people. When it was first introduced, a lot of people contacted the Department and my constituency office for information. My office is on one of those streets, so we sometimes get traffic wardens directing them to us. I appreciate that it can be a wee bit complicated. It is probably more obvious to the likes of you and me because we are aware of the differences. I am happy to take on board any feedback on how we can maximise that information.

Ms Kimmins: Road safety is a high priority for my Department, and I am committed to working proactively to make our roads safer and to address the needs of all road users. I recognise that speed indicator devices (SIDs) offer some road safety benefits and are normally provided by groups such as local policing and community safety partnerships (PCSPs), which can be contacted for information on their future provision and support. My Department will continue to work with policing and community safety partnerships to facilitate the safe installation of the devices.

Mr K Buchanan: I thank the Minister for her answer. Minister, in the past, your Department has introduced 20 mph speed zones outside schools, and I am a big advocate of that. However, will there be any opportunity to look at that and, rather than having 20 mph signs, use SIDs to indicate the speed that people are doing? It is OK to have two flashing orange lights to denote a 20 mph zone, but the SID tells you what speed you are doing. Is it a possibility, if you are rolling out 20 mph zones, that you will look at SIDs as an option instead of having a 20 mph sign?

Ms Kimmins: The difficulty for us has been that the SIDs are not traffic signs, because they just tell the driver what is already on their speedometer. For me, it is a reminder to be more mindful of your speed. I have seen them in my area, and I recognise that they bring road safety benefits. It is about trying to change driver behaviour, which goes back to what we have talked about on numerous occasions in the Chamber and in the Infrastructure Committee.

I am happy to continue to work with PCSPs and others on the issue. However, as the Member will know, a review of speed limits is under way. There is scope to look at more permanent 20 mph zones, because we have seen the benefits of those across the water. They definitely improve road safety, particularly outside schools.

Mr Boylan: Road safety adverts are a crucial way of highlighting the main causes of deaths on our roads, as well as educating drivers. Minister, what road safety campaigns, messaging and advertising is your Department currently promoting?

Ms Kimmins: The Member will know that I have been able to reinstate the road safety advertising budget. This year, I approved an allocation of almost £2 million for road safety promotion for this financial year, which represents an increase of over £1·5 million. In addition to that, my Department's Road Safety Partnership has allocated £500,000 in sponsorship, bringing the total budget to £2·446 million — almost £2·5 million. The priorities that our campaigns focus on are based on PSNI evidence from killed and seriously injured (KSI) statistics, with key causation factors being careless driving, drink-driving, drug-driving and speeding. Vulnerable road users, pedestrians, children, older adults and motorcyclists remain disproportionately affected.

In response, I reinstated pedestrian and motorcycle safety campaigns and an anti-drink-driving campaign. I launched the new anti-drug-driving campaign on 20 November, and I have reinstated the anti-speeding and careless driving campaigns, which are currently on air. Two further new campaigns, on anti-speeding and driver behaviour, will air early this year; a rural roads campaign called 'The Signs' ran on social media in the autumn; and a new radio edit on bus safety aired on 17 November. Our media plan is still being finalised as we continue to monitor emerging road safety issues. I have been striving to identify where there are gaps and how we can continually find ways to enhance road safety and make people more mindful of it.

Mr O'Toole: Minister, road safety is critically important in my constituency, particularly in Rosetta and Knockbreda, where there are multiple primary schools: Rosetta Primary School, St Michael's Primary School, St Bernard's Primary School and a load of others. Along the Knockbreda Road, there is a lot of fast-moving traffic. Your Department has conducted multiple consultations on getting a crossing there, which would also help us to open a back entrance to Cherryvale. Can you provide an update on where progress on that crossing is and on when it will finally get built for the people of Rosetta?

Ms Kimmins: As you know, I have said that it has been approved. I can write to the Member on where progress is. You know that we are moving into a new financial year and are continually looking at the list to see where the priorities are. I do not have the information to hand, but I am happy to come back to you in writing.

Ms Kimmins: With your permission a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle

, I will answer questions 3 and 14 together.

My Department’s Rivers directorate continues to progress a feasibility study to assess the river flood risk to properties in the Antrim area of potential significant flood risk. That work will identify whether there are any viable schemes to reduce the impacts of river flooding in the area, including at Riverside/Massereene Street, Meadowside, Muckamore and Dunadry. Ongoing work includes information gathering, progressing with updating the supporting hydrological analyses for the Sixmilewater river and early optioneering. It is anticipated that the feasibility study should be complete in summer 2026, as Members will be aware. Any opportunities to accelerate work on that study will be taken.

In the immediate aftermath of the recent flooding, I visited Riverside, Antrim, where I met affected residents to listen to their concerns. Flooding of homes and businesses is absolutely devastating and distressing for those impacted, and, that day, I gave a commitment that we would do all that we can to manage it as best we can. Staff from Rivers and Roads teams also attended an urgent meeting with Riverside and Massereene Street residents last Wednesday. My understanding is that the session was constructive and robust. Officials provided an update on the Department’s immediate actions and longer-term plans for Antrim.

I wish to advise that, as I said they would be when I visited two weeks ago, the operational protocols at Riverside were reviewed and updated with immediate effect to ensure strengthened operational readiness. Across the wider Antrim area, as co-chair of the regional community groups, we plan to convene a regional community resilience group (RCRG) meeting with multi-agency partners in the coming weeks. At that session, we will share the lessons learned from the recent flooding event. It is anticipated that that will also provide an opportunity to expand the group’s membership to include representatives from the areas most affected. The work of the RCRG helps to build resilience in communities. That is not my Department stepping away from its responsibilities; rather, it is an extra layer of support proposed for those impacted by flood events.

Mr Blair: I thank the Minister for her answer. I would like to point out that parties have worked and are working together on this at the meeting last week and outside that meeting. What specific and immediate directive has the Minister issued to Rivers and the Planning Service to review all planning applications in the Antrim catchment area? Can she assure the House that the cumulative impact of new developments on surface water drainage has been adequately assessed? Can she commit to a moratorium on major approvals in that area until a full drainage capacity study is complete?

Ms Kimmins: As the Member will know, that issue was brought to my attention while I was on-site two weeks ago. While planning is the responsibility of the council, my Department is a statutory consultee as part of the process and looks at every application on its merit. That information is extremely important.

As we look at climate change, climate change policy and how those things impact on planning, we will continually feed into that. I am happy to have a discussion with the Member if he has further questions on that. However, I recognise the concerns of the community there as well.

Mrs Cameron: I thank the Minister for taking the time to go to the Riverside area to see the aftermath of yet another devastating flood. Unfortunately, despite that visit, in residents' own words, they feel ignored. They were badly flooded in 2008, and they live under the continual threat of flooding.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Is there a question, Pam?

Mrs Cameron: There is indeed, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. They continue to live under that threat at all times. Minister, will you commit not just to progressing that study but to holding a public meeting in Antrim in the next couple of weeks for you and your officials to present an immediate action plan and realistic timeline for permanent solutions? On the back of that, a delegation of residents who experienced flooding and I would also welcome a private meeting with you, Minister.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Minister, there were several questions in there, so it is up to you how to respond.

Ms Kimmins: I will do my best to answer them. I have experience of flooding in my area, and I know how devastating it is. That is not to underestimate in any way the flooding in the Riverside area. I know that it is horrendous. The anxiety that comes in the aftermath is worse, because people anticipate the potential for flooding to happen every time that there is heavy rain. That is really important, and I factor that into everything that we do. That is why I asked officials to attend that most recent meeting, because it is important that we get ahead of it in the future. I appreciate the frustrations around capital schemes, because they take time. As I said in my previous answer, where there is a possibility of speeding them up, we will absolutely do that.

However, there are things that we can be doing in the interim. I laid out clearly to the residents whom I spoke to that day that there is a long-term plan. We will work through that at pace, but there are also things that we need to do in the interim. I spoke about how we reviewed the most recent operational response and upgraded it. We hope that we will be even more ready next time, because I recognise the concerns that came from the most recent occasion. Hopefully, we can build in an extra layer of support through the regional community resilience group. I am happy to meet with you to discuss that in the near future.

Mr McHugh: Minister, I welcome your early announcement on increasing the funding that is available to homeowners to protect their homes from flooding. How can people avail themselves of the homeowner flood protection grant scheme?

Ms Kimmins: The homeowner flood protection grant scheme was initiated because we recognise that flooding is a growing issue. The scheme remains open to new applications. It covers 90% of the cost of installing flood protection measures to a home up to a maximum of £13,700 of the total survey and estimated installation costs. The homeowner is required to contribute 10% of the survey and installation costs and to any additional costs that may be incurred above the £13,700 limit. I uplifted that limit last year in recognition of the growing issues and the fact that costs had increased but the grant had not been uplifted for a number of years.

Homeowners are required to make an initial payment of £50 towards the cost of the specialist survey. That will subsequently be deducted from the 10% contribution that is paid prior to installation. Any grant will be paid directly to the scheme's appointed building surveyor and contractor. More information is available on the website, should people wish to avail themselves of it. The scheme gives an added layer of support and confidence to homeowners. As we see more flooding events, it is becoming evident that it is harder to build our way out of it. What we can do is build in supports, and that is the role of the scheme. I encourage anybody who has been impacted by flooding to their domestic property to look into the scheme and see whether they are eligible.

Ms Kimmins: Road safety is one of my key priorities. On 27 January this year, I launched my Department’s latest road safety action plan to 2027, which supports the ongoing work of the road safety strategy. That action plan was developed in collaboration with a wide range of road safety partners, including other Departments and blue-light organisations. The resulting action plan outlines specific steps and initiatives to be progressed until the end of March 2027, which will contribute to the aim of reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads. The plan includes a number of strategic interventions that are acknowledged to be long-term policy developments and actions that will contribute to the strategic aims of safe roads, safe vehicles and safe people.

Alongside our road safety partners, we focus on priority areas including, among others, policy and legislation; enforcement; communication and awareness; and active travel. You will be aware that, two weeks ago, I announced one of the key actions of the plan, which is the introduction of graduated driver licensing for later this year. Other key actions are the introduction of a lower legal alcohol limit; examining options for increasing speeding fines; and the development of new scheme proposals on the regional strategic transport network, targeting routes with the highest collision rates where engineering-based solutions would mitigate risks.

My Department will continue the valuable work that is already under way, including the active travel delivery plan, road safety messaging via traditional and social media platforms and the speed limit review. We have built strong working relationships with our partners through the road safety strategic forum, and that work will continue as we face our road safety issues together.

Ms Finnegan: I thank the Minister for her strong commitment to road safety. Minister, will you give us an update on the speed limit review?

Ms Kimmins: As Members will be aware, in January, I launched the consultation on the speed limit review. Evidence shows that excessive speed remains one of the most significant factors in the severity of collisions and in fatalities on our roads. Options being considered include the further introduction of 20 mph speed limits; a reduction of speed limits on rural single and dual carriageway roads; and an increase in HGV speed limits to align with other regions. Lower speed limits are proven to reduce fatalities and injuries, protect vulnerable road users and create healthier communities. I encourage everyone to read the review and share their thoughts via the consultation online. The consultation takes account of the many issues that we hear about, particularly speeding outside schools and speeding on rural roads. It is a good opportunity for the public to have their say so that we can inform our policy.

Mr McGlone: Minister, I am sure that you will recall previous commitments, including from the First Minister, to introduce school bus safety legislation. Why has that not been included in this year's Executive legislation programme? Can you give us assurances that, in fact, it will be implemented within the mandate?

Ms Kimmins: As the Member is aware, I have repeatedly reiterated my commitment to the school bus legislation to which he referred. I have been working across Departments and with other Ministers on a package of measures to enhance the safety on routes to schools, and school bus safety legislation is part of that. That work is ongoing. As the Member will appreciate, legislation takes time. I am keen to see it being introduced at the earliest possible stage. The Member will also know that I have previously stated that we were looking to see whether we could amend existing legislation to move us forward on the issue much more quickly. I will be very clear on this: I have a team of officials working hard on the matter, I am committed to it, and I am determined to see the legislation introduced at the earliest possible stage.

Mr T Buchanan: Minister, do you agree that the deplorable state of the road network across all our constituencies, with such a plethora of potholes, is surely seriously compromising road safety under your watch?

Ms Kimmins: The Member will know of the "fatal five" causes of road traffic collisions. Those are the key areas for road safety. I take nothing away from the deterioration that we have seen on our roads. The Member also knows that I have been working extremely hard, not just in my Department but with Executive colleagues, to get additional investment to deal with the significant deterioration that we have seen. I will continue to do so.

Mr Carroll: Minister, what assessment has your Department made of how unsafe roads, including those with potholes, impact on people who wheel, such as those who use prams, bikes, rollators or wheelchairs?

Ms Kimmins: Potholes are undesirable on any road. They present a major disadvantage for anybody who uses the roads. We are keen to see any defects in our roads repaired at the earliest possible stage. We work closely with the Inclusive Mobility and Transport Advisory Committee (IMTAC) and other organisations that represent people with disabilities. In fact, I met RNIB representatives just last week. We work closely with such organisations and take into consideration all the issues that they raise.

I am doing everything in my power to deal with the current condition of our roads and to build in sustainability for the future. I am not doing that just for motorists but for all road users. As I have said before, people are central to every aspect of the work of my Department and are my focus in everything that I do.

Ms Kimmins: I can confirm that the business case to provide a new park-and-ride facility at Bellarena station with 214 new car parking spaces, including 10 new disabled parking spaces, has been authorised, with expenditure of up to £3·8 million having been approved. The delivery schedule is under review and is subject to planning approval timescales and prioritisation within Translink’s overall capital programme.

Mr Robinson: I thank the Minister for that answer. Minister, for the past seven years, my colleagues and I have pushed for a car park at Bellarena rail halt. Do you recognise that the delivery of that project is long overdue?

Ms Kimmins: Absolutely. It can be frustrating when things take as long as they sometimes do, particularly when they are in our own areas. We are seeing this case move forward, however. As I said, it is subject to planning approval timescales and prioritisation within Translink's overall capital programme, but I am happy to continue to engage with the Member — that could be through Translink, as well — to keep him updated on where that is at. I recognise the importance of that project, particularly as more people want to use our rail links and other public transport, and the availability of park-and-ride facilities is central to their doing so.

Ms Ferguson: Increased speeds along the Derry line would be welcomed by those who live along that route. Will the Minister provide an update on the Derry to Coleraine phase 3 project?

Ms Kimmins: I have ring-fenced £5·9 million of funding this year to maintain progression on phase 3 of the track improvement between Coleraine and Derry. Those improvements will see 20 miles of track renewals, allowing track speeds to increase and leading to improved journey times.

Ms Kimmins: My Department’s policy for the provision of street lighting is detailed in policy and procedure guide E072. In urban areas, my Department’s policy is to provide street lighting on all adopted roads and footways, with the exception of those pathways that serve only the rear of properties. That means that the majority of roadside school bus stops in urban locations are located in areas where street lighting is provided. In rural areas, my Department uses two main criteria when considering the provision of street lighting. Those relate to the density of development along a road, including public buildings with significant night-time use or where lighting is likely to help at sites that have a significant history of night-time collisions.

While school bus stops are not specifically considered as part of those criteria, the policy ensures that the limited resources available for the provision of street lighting are directed to those areas where they can provide maximum benefit to the public, particularly where road or infrastructure safety is a concern. That includes where bus stops are located in rural communities. It also serves to balance the demand for more rural street lighting with the unwelcome effects of increased urbanisation in the countryside, the environmental impact of night-sky light pollution on people, wildlife and flora, and the financial costs of providing and maintaining additional public lighting installations.

As I said earlier, the safety of our children as they travel to and from school is a priority for me. That is why I have established the safer routes to school programme, which looks at educational, behavioural and, where appropriate, infrastructural improvements, as well as exploring legislative options that could further strengthen safety. Officials are engaging widely on that and are building the evidence to guide the next steps. Street lighting will be looked at as part of that.

Mr Beattie: Seven months ago, we had a good debate on a motion that was tabled by the Opposition. During that debate, Members from every party expressed their concern about safety at school bus stops, yet I still see kids, in the dark of night, walking along grass verges with no street lighting to bus stops that have no street lighting. It is dangerous. That is not even in a rural environment; it is in the transitional area between rural and urban environments. It is not legislation that is required; it is action. Will the Minister tell us, now, that she will take action to put lighting on bus stops so that drivers can see where kids are standing.

Ms Kimmins: Well —.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Sorry, Minister, that ends the period for listed questions. Maybe you could provide the Member with a written answer, if that is OK.

We now move to topical questions. Question 1 has been withdrawn.

Mr Honeyford: Over three years ago, I met the residents of the Carnreagh area of Royal Hillsborough with the Department's permanent secretary to discuss the removal of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) from the village. It was agreed that a report would be done, and I thank the Minister for meeting the same residents last summer,

Ms Kimmins: I thank the Member for his question. As he said, I met the residents, and I heard clearly their concerns. We saw the significance of the problem. As you will know, officials commissioned an assessment of alternative routes for HGV traffic to inform the relative merits of a weight limit proposal, particularly regarding the impacts on road safety in the village and the surrounding road network. The report was completed in December just past. Officials are considering the detail before determining the next steps, after which it will come to me. We will keep Members updated as that progresses.

Mr Honeyford: Thank you, Minister, for that response. Removing HGVs from Hillsborough is absolutely vital for residents. HGVs are making the state of the roads in the village worse. There is an area from the war memorial round to Lisburn Street that has completely broken down; people are getting their cars wrecked. Is there anything the Minister can do by way of a temporary patch for that area until the village renewal happens in a couple of years?

Ms Kimmins: Approximately £7 million has been allocated in the Belfast region city deal to take forward environmental improvement work in Hillsborough, which is expected to start in March 2027. As part of that work, the council intends to install a pedestrian crossing in lower Main Street, with my Department taking forward a crossing outside Downshire Primary School as part of its 2026 programme. Although I recognise the need for resurfacing — it has been well discussed across the Chamber, particularly over the past couple of weeks — the progression of that work ahead of public realm works would not be the best use of resources, because obviously then we would have to come back and do that again. However, large-scale patching in the interim will be considered in the context of public realm work, so we can engage further on that. Obviously, we have been trying to get further investment into the Department to deal with the most significant defects as they arise.

Ms Kimmins: I thank the Member for raising the issue. It is in my constituency, and it is a road I travel frequently, including to Gosford Forest Park, so I recognise the significant concerns that the Member referred to. As he will know, it is probably not possible within the policy to reduce the speed limit, but I am happy for officials to review the assessment for a pedestrian crossing to see whether any changes are required to the original findings. I am also happy to speak to other partners, such as the council and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, as there have been previous discussions about potential measures along that route. I am happy to take that forward to see whether something additional can happen. I am aware of the number of fatalities that have occurred on that road, particularly in recent years. If there are enhancements or improvements that we can make, I am happy to look into them.

Mr Wilson: Minister, thanks for your willingness in that regard. It is something that I will pursue with you further.

There are other roads and other arterial routes where we see lower speed limits. You said that it is not perhaps within policy, but will you commit to assessing that issue afresh? Will you also review the right-turn lanes and existing junctions, with the ultimate aim of improving road safety across the five main junctions that serve the Markethill section —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Minister.

Mr Wilson: — of the Newry to Armagh road?

Ms Kimmins: As the Member will know, the review of speed limits is out for consultation. The challenge with that road is that it is a main trunk road: the main route between Newry and Armagh, essentially. Obviously, there are turn-offs along the way. However, we are happy to look at whether there is the potential to have a right-turn pocket or other enhancements there. There is the potential to work with partners on that. We have stakeholders in the area, and I am keen to follow up. I know that there have been good discussions.

Ms Kimmins: As the Member will know, I announced a start date for graduated driver licensing. We are preparing for its introduction on 1 October, and preparations continue at pace. The subordinate legislation necessary to support its introduction will be sent this week to the Infrastructure Committee for scrutiny, and the Department will soon launch a bespoke media campaign that will focus on the key messages of GDL, including the key risk factors that GDL aims to address. In addition, the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA) will engage directly with relevant stakeholders. It will engage with driving instructors and others on the specific practicalities of the GDL scheme in advance of its introduction on 1 October.

Mr McAleer: I thank the Minister for her response. I commend her for bringing forward that important development, which was agreed by the Assembly in 2016. Does she agree that, given the disproportionately high number of young people involved in road traffic collisions and fatalities, it is important that we do everything in our power to prepare them to drive?

Ms Kimmins: Absolutely, and that is the cornerstone of why we have progressed this important initiative. In 2024, 164 young people were killed or seriously injured where a driver aged 17 to 23 was deemed responsible. That age group of drivers accounts for 24% of fatal or serious collisions, despite holding just 8% of driving licences. It is therefore vital that our licensing process should aim to create drivers and motorcyclists who are safe and not just technically competent to drive or to ride a motorcycle unsupervised. It is my view that GDL will better prepare learners for the practical test and the initial post-test driving period by helping them to understand how human factors, such as their attitude, behaviour and how they feel sometimes, can affect their driving style. It will be a valuable tool in ensuring that everybody who uses our roads does so safely.

Ms Kimmins: Yes; absolutely. Nothing has changed in my plans to deliver the Enniskillen bypass. It is no different from any other major infrastructure project being progressed by my Department, all of which are now being considered in the light of the A5 judgement. As I said previously in the Chamber and in response to questions for written answer, I fully understand the benefits that infrastructure schemes bring to communities and the wider travelling public. However, I must also be mindful of the best use of the limited resources that we have in the Department and make appropriate judgements around that.

We have to await the Court of Appeal's ruling, because I respect the law and the fact that it could have an impact not just on the Enniskillen bypass but on all major road schemes. It would be irresponsible for me to push ahead with something that could end up being legally challenged, which would result in delays and increasing costs. From my perspective and that of the Executive — it is an Executive-agreed scheme — it absolutely remains in the Department's plan, and we continue to push for it. This was one of the first schemes to be agreed by the Executive when they were restored in 2024. That is an important thing to remember in the time ahead. Certainly, the bypass remains firmly on my Department's plans.

Ms Murphy: I thank the Minister for reaffirming her commitment to the bypass, which will be welcomed by many across County Fermanagh. Does the Minister agree that Members in the Chamber and other elected reps need to take responsibility and that, instead of trying to create sound bites and unnecessary public concern, they should take the time to understand the budgetary process rather than mislead the public in an attempt to score party political points?

Ms Kimmins: I absolutely agree. It is extremely disappointing that some Members chose to tell a blatant lie about what is happening with the Enniskillen bypass. Let me be categorically clear right now: there is no detriment or risk to the Enniskillen bypass. I am determined to see that delivered, but, as Minister, I have to be responsible and do all in my power to ensure that there are no delays and no negative implications for it. I have had to consider that across all of the major schemes. I have reiterated to the House — it is certainly my focus — that we must get to the other side of the appeal and then get on with the work that we set out to do.

Ms Kimmins: In response to some of the issues with our planning process that have been identified since it transferred to councils 10 years ago, officials have been doing a lot of work around planning improvement, including with participating councils and Belfast Met to enable trainees to study for a foundation degree in property, housing and planning over a three-year period. The trainees will be fully funded by their host organisations and given day release to attend college. Six trainees took up post in my Department at the end of January following a service-wide trawl. It has given existing civil servants a unique opportunity to become professional planners. The four participating councils ran their own external recruitment campaigns and have appointed a total of five trainees. Officials have developed a learning-and-development programme for trainees to ensure that they are provided with sufficient breadth and depth of experience; are provided with an opportunity for competency development and practical application of skills; and are given progressive responsibility for work-based activities and sufficient reflective practice to gain key knowledge, skills and experience in planning.

The trainee planner programme is one of a number of positive steps that I am taking to address issues with recruitment and retention in the system. It is key to ensuring that our planning system is well resourced and able to continue to attract new people and, thereby, support succession planning.

Mr Boylan: I thank the Minister for that response. Minister, what else are you doing to improve planning processing times for people and businesses?

Ms Kimmins: It affects us all, across the 11 council areas. I am acutely aware of the importance of having an efficient and effective planning system. It plays a vital role in supporting the delivery of sustainable economic development and investment across the North.

My officials continue to work in collaboration with local government and key stakeholders to improve system performance through the planning improvement agenda that I have mentioned. The current phase of the planning improvement programme is focused on key areas of the process, including through changes to secondary legislation; measures to improve the speed and efficiency of local development planning production; strengthening the planning workforce; improving the statutory consultee process; working with NILGA to support elected members in their important decision-making role; and the development and delivery of the independent inspectors project to provide assistance and support to the work of the Planning Appeals Commission. Whilst good progress has been made, it is important to recognise that it will take time for many of the measures and initiatives to bed in and to realise sustainable improvement in system performance.

When we look at the experience of some of those who came through the trainee planner programme in the past, the opportunities that it presents and how it helps to improve retention in our system, we see that it has been really effective. I look forward to seeing how the new group of trainees gets on. The programme will bring so much to our planning system. Hopefully, it also shows my commitment to doing everything that we can in the Department, working in partnership with councils and others, to deliver a more efficient and effective service.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Very quickly, Minister.

Ms Kimmins: As the Member will know, we will allocate it to the different divisions, which will then make decisions based on prioritisation. I have been engaging closely with officials. I know that there are roads that, potentially, would not receive the same priority if you were looking just at the traffic volume on them. However, there are roads that are in a really bad state and have deteriorated rapidly, and I have asked that, where possible, those are prioritised. We also have to be mindful of what capacity is available not just internally in the Department but for external contractors. I have asked officials to explore the area thoroughly with our staff and the external contractors to ensure that there is a fair spread across the North.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: That ends questions to the Minister for Infrastructure.

Ms Nicholl: On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I apologise for not being in my place for question 2 during Question Time to the Minister of Health. I tried my best, but I was not in time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: It is the walk of shame, Kate. We have all had to do it. [Laughter.]

Ms Bradshaw: Minister, you mentioned that claimant and departmental errors amounted to a substantial proportion of the losses. Can you outline what steps your Department has taken to simplify the system to avoid and reduce mistakes in the future?

Mr Lyons: I am determined to tackle errors in my Department as well as fraud. Official error represents 0·4%; customer error represents 0·8%; and customer fraud represents 2·5%. Therefore, official error is not the most significant challenge that we face, but, at a cost of £42·5 million, it is still significant. That is why work is ongoing to put a fraud ambassador in place in the Department. As well as that, extra training will made available to staff so that they can not only identify fraud but make sure that they do not make the same mistakes, because it is public money, and we need to make sure that it is spent wisely. I am more than happy for the Department to be scrutinised, just as we scrutinise those who deliberately misrepresent their circumstances.

Mr Allen: I thank the Minister for his detailed statement. Minister, you referred to the £16·7 million provided to your Department as "insufficient". Can you provide the House with clarity as to the scale of funding that you require?

Mr Lyons: Yes. I require and have requested just under £10 million per year to help to deal with the issue, but that amount should be seen as an investment, because, as I have said before, we can recoup additional money for the Treasury when we invest in tackling fraud and error. Unfortunately, we have fallen behind where we were on that, and we have also now fallen behind the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

It really is a no-brainer. We spend money on dealing with people who are not getting what they are entitled to or with mistakes that may have been made, and we can then recoup some of that money once the agreement is finalised with the Treasury. It is a win-win for everybody involved, unless, of course, you are defrauding the public purse.

Mrs Mason: Minister, figures show that there have been over 9,000 reports of alleged benefit fraud but only 57 convictions. That means that fewer than 1% of reports lead to a conviction. In your answer to a previous question, you mentioned that a significant number of staff work on benefit fraud. What is your assessment of the value for money and effectiveness of that work?

Mr Lyons: It is very effective, but it would be even more effective if we had more people in place. The sum of money that, the Treasury says, could be recouped speaks for itself, but the Member is looking only at convictions. I would rather that nobody were convicted, because it would be better if people accepted their mistakes at an earlier stage and repaid what is due. It is regrettable that some people hang on until the end and fight it in court, meaning that we have to go through the additional expense of that process. However, as I said in my statement, thousands of cases have been reviewed, and money that otherwise would have gone out in benefits has not gone out.

We need to look at the matter in the round, not just at convictions. It is a powerful tool for us, and we should use it. It is about stopping money that should not go out from going out in the first place and dealing with fraud at the earliest possible stage. However, if we need to go to convictions, so be it.

Mr Harvey: I welcome the work and the progress to date. It is absolutely right that, during challenging times for public finances, we ensure that every penny is protected and spent well and that those who choose to commit benefit fraud are not protected by a veil of anonymity. Will the Minister detail the impact of his new policy of naming and shaming those convicted of benefit fraud? Why does he feel that it has made a difference?

Mr Lyons: The figures have spoken for themselves. It is clear that the intervention that I made last year has changed the culture towards benefit fraud. It is interesting to note that some of the most visited web pages on the DFC website are those that highlight the cases of benefit fraud. People are interested in that, and they recognise the importance of dealing with the issue. In some cases, those pages have up to 20 times or more the average number of page hits.

The public are fed up. They are fed up with getting up every morning and going to work when they see neighbours fraudulently misrepresenting their circumstances to get taxpayers' money that they do not deserve. I am committed to rooting that out and ensuring that those who exploit the system face the consequences. Publicising convictions has, of course, raised awareness of the impact and consequences of defrauding the benefit system. That is why we have seen an increase in the number of referrals.

Mr McMurray: Will the Minister provide an update on the negotiations that have been taken place with Treasury for part of the money to be made available in Northern Ireland?

Mr Lyons: This, obviously, stems from the Fresh Start Agreement of 2015, and not much had been done around the issue in the intervening period. As I set out in my statement, I am pleased that we have got to the place where Treasury is interested in the issue. We have put in a business case that is being reviewed, and we have agreement in principle that Treasury will work with us on the issue. That should be welcomed by everybody. It will be a win for the Treasury, the Department for Communities and the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland. I would like to see it move faster, and I think that it could move faster if we were allowed to get it on to the Executive agenda, even for discussion. That would allow us to say that the Executive are united in wanting to tackle the problem and see the value of the investment and the money that can be recouped through it. It would be helpful if the Executive could get on board with me and ensure that we push it even further with Treasury.

Mr McHugh: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis.

The statement outlines a range of fraud prevention and enforcement measures, but there has been no commitment in respect of quantifiable financial returns to the Department. Will the Minister provide an estimate of the additional cost to the Department of implementing all of the measures?

Mr Lyons: That is simply not true, because we have outlined the figures. I have outlined the returns that we can get in the Committee, in the Chamber and in the media. Those returns are not based on my ideas or views on what can be achieved if we work hard on this but on figures that stand up to scrutiny from the Department for Work and Pensions. The return that we get currently is around £8 for every £1 that we invest. However, it is complex work, and we need highly trained staff who will have some incredible investigatory powers. That takes time and costs money. The return, on the basis of the additional investment that is required, will be lower: it will be £5 for every £1 invested, but that will eventually ramp up to £8 for every £1 invested. Those are figures that we can stand over, and they are figures that the DWP can stand over. Let us not pretend that there is a lack of certainty or clarity on this one. It is a no-brainer.

Mr Brooks: The Minister and his departmental officials should be commended for this work. The fact that we see a vast increase in the number of referrals, as was reported this morning on the BBC, should be welcomed by every party in the Chamber. However, it is clear that the Department for Work and Pensions on the mainland has also been undertaking significant interventions. Will the Minister detail the extent of that work and what subsequent Barnett consequentials we are likely to receive?

Mr Lyons: The Department for Work and Pensions has received significant investment in counter-fraud activity, including increased staffing for investigations and compliance, but my Department has not secured parity funding, despite repeated bids. That money, which should have come through, would have equated to around 200 additional staff. The absence of that funding has limited our ability to respond to rising fraud and error risks at the same scale and size as the Department for Work and Pensions and is the reason why we have fallen behind it for the first time in at least 20 years.

DWP is increasing its investment in fraud and error by increasing its number of counter-fraud and compliance staff by 1,400 and scaling up its universal credit review team to 6,000 staff. It has also just announced further funding for an additional 300 staff to deal with fraud and error. On top of that, the Chancellor's spring statement gave funding for an additional 500 staff to address fraud and error.

The parity interventions have given us Barnett consequentials, but they have not been allocated to my Department. That is why we are falling behind and why you are seeing the numbers going up. That is why it is so important that we invest in this way, because, under the agreement that I hope to negotiate, we will be able to keep the benefits of that.

Mrs Cameron: I very much welcome the progress to date and the fact that we have now started to change public perception of the scourge of benefit fraud. That is really important. The Minister has mentioned before that Executive papers to further deliver on the issue appear to have been blocked. Can he provide more detail about that, such as when those papers were submitted and why he feels that they have been blocked?

Mr Lyons: We often hear the First Minister and Agriculture Minister complain about papers not being placed on the agenda, but those are papers that I have had on the agenda since May and September, respectively. We also have a Finance Minister who frequently tells us that we do not have enough money, yet I am presenting an opportunity for us to tackle fraud and recoup money at the same time via that business case with the Treasury.

There are many reasons why papers do not get on to the Executive agenda. Sometimes, there are disagreements and policy differences between Ministers, but I do not understand the reason in this case. I am more than happy for you to ask the First Minister and other Ministers why this has not been placed on the agenda, because, for me, it is absolutely straightforward: we get the opportunity to right the wrong of those who are claiming money that they are not entitled to and also get to invest in a way that gives us a return for Northern Ireland and a return for the Treasury. Consequently, we can give confidence to people who are working that we are listening to their concerns and making sure that the money that they earn and pay in tax is actually being used for what it should be used for. This is not, and should not be, a political issue. It is time for us all to realise that and get on board.

Mr Carroll: Minister, I am concerned that your political and ideological attacks will be a chill factor on people accessing benefits and that nobody will count or monitor that. Rather than attacking people from the anti-poverty sector, maybe you can outline what work your Department has done to detail how much will be saved every year from people who can claim but are unable to claim, do not claim or are too frightened to claim benefits as a result of your attacks.

Mr Lyons: First of all, I make no apology for attacking those who are deliberately defrauding the system or those who deliberately misrepresent their circumstances in order to claim something to which they are not entitled. I am not talking about people who are genuinely in need and those who are genuinely entitled to those benefits. There is a significant difference between the two. I know the difference between the two, and I think that the general public know the difference as well.

We are investing money in the Make the Call service to make sure that people have the opportunity to ring up and find out what benefits they are entitled to. We run advertising campaigns so that people know what they are entitled to. We push out that information through jobs and benefits centres across Northern Ireland. I want to make sure that we are getting support to those who need it and that we are supporting vulnerable people. However, those who are claiming that to which they are not entitled are actually hurting vulnerable people. They are taking money away from those who could do with it. Therefore, I make no apology for doing this. Gerry, I am not on the side of those who are defrauding the system, and I am not here to support or help them in any way. I am on the side of people who need the welfare benefits that are provided by my Department, and I am on the side of those who go out every single day and earn money that pays for benefits, because those people are the ones who are being taken for a ride. They are fed up with it, and I will do everything that I can to deal with the issue.

I will then also be able to help with the other issues that he raises. Poverty is one of the most pressing issues that we face in our society, and I want more resource in my budget to deal with the root causes of poverty. I know that some people in the Chamber do not like it, but I do not want to be in a position in which we are just handing out money to people. I want to give people money in a way that helps. That is why, last week, I brought forward the warm healthy homes strategy, so that we can actually invest in people's homes and save them money in the longer term. That is why I want to use the money that is saved here for investment programmes in jobs, so that we can help people in the longer term. I know whose side I am on, and I have no problem whatsoever in attacking and going after those who are defrauding the system.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you, Minister, for your statement and your action. Despite commentary from others, I know that you have sincere empathy with those who are in need. Can you confirm for the House that your actions to recover money from people who are taking it illegally are being taken with the intention of redistributing it to those who are most in need?

Mr Lyons: That is absolutely right. I have explained that consistently. There is a return that comes from taking action to tackle this, which, as I have said, starts off and grows from £25 million a year. That money may go back into Executive coffers. I would like it to stay in the Department for Communities because, if it does, we can use it on things that actually make a difference, such as investing more money into people's homes, investing money into programmes like JobStart that have a transformative impact on people's lives, and investing in those other measures that we can take to deal with the root causes of poverty.

There have been attempts — this has been talked about in the Committee for Communities — to say that this is an attack on benefits claimants. It is not. It is about ensuring that the people who need it and are entitled to it get what they are entitled to and that those who deliberately misrepresent their circumstances are dealt with. I know, because I have received much correspondence and have heard the views of many people on this, that, whether they are Protestant or Catholic, unionist or nationalist, everybody is concerned about this and wants to see an end to it. There should not be a hint of political disagreement on this. We should all be united and helping those who are most in need. That is what drives me.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The next item in the Order Paper is a prayer of annulment. On 2 February, the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs tabled a motion to annul the Shellfish Gathering (Conservation) Regulations 2026. The motion was scheduled for debate on today's Order Paper. However, since then, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has made the Shellfish Gathering (Conservation) (Revocation) Regulations 2026. I hope that that makes sense to somebody, because I have not got a clue. Anyway, those regulations revoke the Shellfish Gathering (Conservation) Regulations 2026 with effect from 6 February 2026. I can advise the Assembly that the Chairperson of the Committee wrote to the Speaker on Friday to advise him that the Committee supports that revocation. As the Shellfish Gathering (Conservation) Regulations 2026 have been revoked, technically they cannot be annulled. Therefore, the motion to annul cannot be moved and I will not call the Chairperson to do so. Hopefully, that is clear. The motion is not moved. We will not move it. We will move on to the next item in the Order Paper.

Ms Flynn: I beg to move

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: 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. As an amendment has been selected and is published on the Marshalled List, the Business Committee has agreed that 15 minutes will be added to the total time for the debate.

Órlaithí, please open the debate on the motion.

Ms Flynn: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I am pleased to propose the motion on commissioned attention deficit hyperactivity disorder services.

ADHD is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that affects how people think, learn, work and relate to the world around them. It affects children and adults, families, communities, education, employment and mental health; yet, despite its prevalence and its impact, ADHD services in the North remain fragmented, inconsistent and fundamentally unfit for purpose as they stand.

At the outset, it is important to be clear about the current position here. There is currently no commissioned regional ADHD service. There is no single, standardised pathway for diagnosis, treatment and ongoing support; instead, access to assessment, diagnosis and treatment depends largely on where a person lives, their age and their ability to pay privately, which has created another postcode lottery. Provision has developed in a fragmented and inconsistent way across the health and social care trusts. It is not because of a lack of need or evidence but because a regional ADHD service has not yet been commissioned.

For adults, the situation is particularly stark. There is no commissioned adult ADHD service, and, in many areas, there is no clear pathway at all. Adults are often diverted into mental health services that are not designed to assess or manage ADHD, and, sometimes, people are left without support altogether. For children, ADHD assessment has largely been absorbed into an already overstretched child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) system. CAHMS is not an ADHD-specific service. Extremely long waiting times mean that children are waiting for years for their assessment and are losing critical opportunities for early intervention.

As a result of those gaps, many people will seek private assessment out of desperation; yet, afterwards, they often discover that there is still no automatic route back into health and social care treatment, including in cases where they need prescriptions for medications. At the minute, shared care arrangements are in place, which are discretionary for GPs who can decide whether they want to prescribe for patients, but that leaves many people having to either continue to self-fund for treatment or wait in public pathways: the options are to self-fund or wait. It is not just an inconvenience; it has real and lasting consequences. I am dealing with a case in west Belfast of an adult who paid for and received a private diagnosis of ADHD. The guy is in a terrible state at the minute, as is his family, because there are issues with him continuing to get the medication on which he depends. I am sure that we all see at first hand in our offices how it impacts on children and adults.

Children with an unmet ADHD need are more likely to struggle in school and to experience anxiety, exclusion and extremely low self-esteem. Adults with undiagnosed or unsupported ADHD face a higher risk of unemployment and poor mental health, and a lot of them will come into contact with crisis services at some stage. Those outcomes are not inevitable. They are the result of a system failure. I am not putting it directly onto the Minister who is with us here today and holds the portfolio. The system has failed for years, and it is failing at the moment.

The situation is even more challenging for people who have ADHD alongside mental ill health or a diagnosable mental illness. The current system too often treats ADHD and mental illness in silos, leaving people to be passed from service to service, falling between thresholds and receiving no consistent care. That is why the motion specifically calls for ADHD mental health services that will recognise and respond to co-occurring conditions.

There is a clear irony here. We know that the Minister and the Department already accept most of what the motion calls for — the Minister may say that when he responds — and that it is already contained in the mental health strategy, which has a specific section that calls for early intervention, regional consistency and better support, particularly for neurodivergent people. Leaving aside the Department of Health, we know that the children and young people's emotional health and well-being framework already acknowledges the long waiting times, delayed assessments and fragmented pathways. Despite that recognition over a number of years and in different pieces of work, ADHD services remain largely uncommissioned and underdeveloped. That is not necessarily a failure of individual trusts. I spoke earlier about a postcode lottery. At a meeting last week, I discovered that the Belfast Trust is the only trust that has no services for kids over the age of 10. Gaps have developed. That is not to put the blame on the trusts, because they are also in a difficult position and cannot commission new services when they do not have the funding to do so. Nor are GPs commissioned to provide assessments, prescribe or manage people's care on an ongoing basis. Where individual GPs step in to support patients, they do so without a commissioned pathway, and shared care depends on clinical judgement rather than a consistent system.

The absence of commissioned ADHD services does not save money. Where services are not available early, trusts are required to respond through mental health services, addiction services or crisis care to consequences that occur later down the line. That is cost-shifting, not cost-saving, and the impact on people's lives and futures is profound. Without timely assessment and appropriate treatment, many adults will struggle to sustain employment or maintain stability in their lives, and many children and young people will struggle to concentrate in school or to engage in learning and progress to further education or university. Those are not personal failings on the part of those individuals; they are the predictable outcomes of unmet clinical need. There is also a wider picture that cannot be ignored: evidence shows that ADHD is associated with higher risks of substance use and earlier contact with the criminal justice system. When support is delayed or absent, people are more likely to require later interventions by addiction services, policing and the courts at far greater human and financial cost.

The motion does not seek to apportion blame; it seeks leadership. We call on the Health Minister to engage with the health and social care trusts to explore any regional solutions that it might be possible to put in place and any services that will encapsulate diagnosis, treatment and mental health support in a coordinated and commissioned way. Hopefully, that can be explored. We are moving towards a regional mental health service and regional crisis services. The Minister has spoken about his support for the five-trust model working as a single unit, without necessarily putting that formally in place because of constraints in money, time and all the rest. Hopefully, this can be an example of where we can make a bit of progress on that.

The motion calls for:

Too many people with ADHD still face horrible stigma, misunderstanding and inappropriate expectations. Better awareness means earlier identification, reasonable adjustments and environments where people will thrive rather than struggle. ADHD affects families in every community; it cuts across health, education, employment and justice, and addressing it properly requires coordination, commissioning and political will. As we know, the Assembly has debated ADHD many times in recent years, and Members from all parties have raised concerns. Many of our statutory Committees have taken evidence on the issue, and we have covered it extensively in the Health Committee. Throughout that time, families have waited patiently. The time for acknowledgement has passed. What is needed now and what, hopefully, we can achieve is action.

The motion does not pretend to fix everything overnight, but it does something that is essential: it puts the Assembly on record as recognising the need for commissioned, regional and integrated ADHD services. I urge Members to support the motion in order to send a clear message to all those who live with ADHD and their families that they are being heard; that their experiences matter; and that the Assembly is committed to building services that work for them and not against them.

Miss McAllister: I beg to move the following amendment:

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Nuala. You have 10 minutes to propose and five minutes to make a winding-up speech on the amendment. All other Members who wish to speak will have five minutes.

Nuala, please open the debate on the amendment.

Miss McAllister: I thank the Members who tabled the motion, as it allows us to discuss this important issue. My constituency office has had, as, I am sure, most Members' offices have had, queries, complaints and questions from constituents about waiting lists, about the fact that there is no waiting list and about shared care arrangements. They just want answers, either for themselves or their loved ones. Our amendment seeks to add a couple of aspects that, we feel, are important rather than to take anything away from the motion, so I hope that Members can support it.

The first aspect is our call on the Minister:

My colleague Peter McReynolds has called for that many times in the Chamber. In February 2025, the Department commissioned a needs assessment on ADHD to look at the demand for a children's service and an adults' service, with the intention of publishing that report, including its recommendations on important considerations to do with staffing and implementation costs. Unfortunately, one year on from the commissioning of the report, it has not yet been seen. We know from correspondence to my colleague that the Minister outlined that it was to be completed in November and published in early 2026, following consideration by his officials and him. Therefore, we call on the Minister to follow through on that commitment, and, hopefully, the Minister can outline in his response when the report will be published.

Another aspect of our amendment calls on the Minister to work alongside:

I am sure that all our offices have received queries about shared care, not only because of the lack of commissioned services for adults but because children and young people cannot be seen by services. However, we seem to have the scenario where many GP services and surgeries do not offer shared care arrangements but some do. It is different across Northern Ireland, and, indeed, in each GP federation area. It is difficult for a constituent to hear that their friend in a different part of a city or of Northern Ireland was able to get a shared care arrangement when they cannot get one. They may enter a private contract with a private provider who gives them a diagnosis and tells them to go to their GP. The majority of those private providers know why the GPs cannot issue amber drug prescriptions. One reason is the need for the prescription to be reviewed by the private provider, but what does that mean? It means that the individual has to pay again. There needs to be more regulation around that.

We have not included this aspect in the motion, but, as well as asking the Minister to look at the shared care arrangements with GPs, we ask him to engage with the independent and private sector, because providers enter into arrangements with patients who have been diagnosed with ADHD and need medication, and they do so knowing that the majority of GPs do not enter into shared care arrangements.

A shared care arrangement is an agreement between a specialist in the independent and private sector and a GP for the prescription of an amber drug, which I mentioned. Those amber drugs are still undergoing review, because they can cause potentially harmful side effects. We have been told by GPs that they cannot prescribe an amber drug on their own without that review and that a consultant must be the person to make any adjustments to the dosage. GPs cannot enter into a shared care arrangement if they do not have agreement from the private contractor. We need to look into both sides of the arrangement.

As I said, my colleagues and I have engaged with GP representative bodies to understand the barriers to shared care arrangements. We did so just last Friday, ahead of the debate. It is important to acknowledge that, when it comes to amber drugs, there is greater difficulty in working closely with consultants and specialists than there is with other drugs that are not on that amber list. That might be easier for us to understand, but it makes little to no difference to a patient who has just been diagnosed with ADHD or someone whose child has just received a diagnosis, when their private provider has said, "We are going to try x, y and z" but, when that person comes back, they need medication. We have been told by many GPs that no provider who is in the process of seeing a patient and understanding their needs will jump immediately to medication. That is unfortunate for our constituents and patients who have entered into an arrangement with parties knowing on both ends that, at the end of the day, they will not get what they need. The unfortunate reality is that so many people in Northern Ireland are without a diagnosis, without access to a waiting list, without the money to go private or without access to the medication that they need to function on a daily basis. It affects adults and children. It affects children's ability to flourish in education, adults' ability to succeed in the workplace and many other issues such as mental health struggles, anxiety, depression and isolation.

Experts have told us that a commissioned ADHD service is the only way to ensure that people are treated and able to thrive safely and equitably. The issue of the postcode lottery is particularly important. The proposer of the motion spoke of that issue in the Belfast Trust. We have been told by many GPs and parents that, if you are not diagnosed with ADHD in the Belfast Trust by the age of 11, you will not get diagnosed unless you go privately. Unfortunately, the waiting list for many children is now too long and that they will now be without, although that is not the case in all trusts. It is simply not good enough.

We are all aware of the financial situation in the Executive, and any commissioning of services would have an impact. We are not aware, however, how much it would be expected to cost to commission an ADHD service. There is an economic argument for an adult service because of the impact that ADHD has on employment and economic activity. That needs to be properly taken into consideration. It is a case of investing in the immediate term to achieve savings through a more thriving population in the longer term. That is why it is crucial that the needs assessment report and its recommendations are made public.

The other significant aspect of the motion is that it:

That is crucial now but also to ensure the success of a commissioned service. We can all think of a child or adult whom we have seen struggling through education or work as a result of ADHD. Too often, there is a lack of understanding and a resulting lack of empathy with the challenges posed by ADHD. When I speak about the issues publicly on social media or to friends and, indeed, wider society, there will always be people who turn their nose up or beat down on people who have issues when it comes to mental health or neurodiversity and are struggling. One reason that waiting lists are so long is that we have not dealt with the issues effectively in the past.

I hope that the Minister will listen to the arguments today. We will do whatever we can to support any future service. A commissioned service will not be able to see everyone right away. We must acknowledge the reality that we will still have waiting lists, but we need to start somewhere and hopefully ensure that there is a proper commissioned ADHD service for adults — and one for children — that is fair across the board and deals with everyone as an individual.

Mrs Dodds: I thank the proposers of the motion and of the amendment for this important debate. We will support both. This is an important issue and one on which many of us across the House get a lot of attention from constituents.

When I think of ADHD, I think of the impact on people. I think of young people I have met who have dropped out of university, young people who have had a private diagnosis and have tried a number of GPs but cannot get into a shared care arrangement and, therefore, still have no medication for their condition. I think of the people who contacted me over the weekend just to talk about the impact of ADHD and the fact that they could not find in the Portadown Health Centre a GP willing to work with the private consultant to make sure that medication was available. One of my young constituents dropped out of university. Those are sad reflections of the state or lack of the service.

It is important to remember that ADHD has a social and economic consequence for Northern Ireland. ADHD charities that gave evidence to the House of Commons estimated that 40% to 80% of young people who were not in employment, education or training will have ADHD. They were also confident that 40% of those in youth offender institutions will have it. Therefore, ADHD has a real, knock-on consequence for our whole society. That is important. The charities also estimated that the cost to the economy over 10 years might be as much as £11·2 billion in lost productivity and reduced household earnings. Not having a service has important consequences for the individual and serious consequences for our economy. A 2024 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that the risk of suicide or self-harm is much greater for those diagnosed with ADHD. The same goes for drug or alcohol addiction, so we have a really serious issue.

From recent correspondence from the Department of Health — Minister, it is really important that you clear this up — it seems that our health trusts in Northern Ireland have a sporadic approach to ADHD. Nuala McAllister referred to that in some detail. Some have services; some do not. When I asked about referrals in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, I was directed to the mental health service, not to a specific ADHD service. My constituent, who is a young adult, was annoyed, because, as they said, "I do not have a mental health problem; I have ADHD". That sporadic postcode lottery is also important to clear up.

The Department of Health adopted the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on ADHD but has gone no further in providing a pathway for diagnosis and treatment. It needs to address that. I would like more information, Minister, on the needs assessment that, you say, was completed on 30 November 2025 and on the report that will be published in early 2026. We are now six weeks into 2026, and I would like to think that that report, which will give us more information on the needs assessment of adults with ADHD, will be forthcoming.

The other issue that my constituents stressed to me in advance of the debate was shared care. One constituent had paid a substantial sum for a diagnosis, could not find a GP who would participate in a shared care arrangement and therefore is still unmedicated. On asking whether they could transfer to another GP service, they were told that there were no transfers and no opportunity for any. That is a sad reflection of the situation —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Your time is up.

Mrs Dodds: — for adults with ADHD. For children, there are long waiting lists —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Time is up.

Mrs Dodds: — that will have an impact on their whole life. That needs to be addressed.

Mr Chambers: The motion addresses an issue that has been coming through our constituency offices with increasing regularity. ADHD has long existed, but what has changed in recent years is the awareness of unmet need that individuals and families experience. Adults tell us of years spent trying to understand their difficulties without a clear route to assessment or support. Parents tell us of concerns about their children that are raised early and repeatedly yet met with delay, uncertainty or unclear pathways. That uncertainty has real consequences for education, employment and overall well-being.

Members are right to highlight the fact that current provision is inconsistent. Access to assessment and follow-up support can depend on where someone lives, their age or how their needs present.

I acknowledge the fact that the Minister has been clear, from the outset of his tenure, on the need to reduce unwarranted variation across health and social care trusts. In that context, the call for a regional approach to ADHD diagnosis and treatment is logical and entirely consistent with the wider reform agenda that the Minister has set out. Having a regional service would improve fairness, provide greater consistency for clinicians and offer clearer expectations for parents and families. Importantly, it would also support better planning of workforce and resources, rather than a reliance on piecemeal or reactive arrangements.

It is equally important to recognise that ADHD rarely exists in isolation. Some individuals with ADHD experience other needs or challenges. Where services operate in silos, people can be moved between teams or, as happens all too often, fall between them. That is why a model that integrates ADHD into broader mental health services is essential if support is to be effective rather than fragmented. For children and young people in particular, delay carries long-term risks. That is why awareness, early intervention and joined-up working matters so much.

At the same time, it is right to be realistic about the context in which decisions must be made. Our Health and Social Care system is under unprecedented pressure in terms of budgets and future needs. The Minister has been upfront about the financial and workforce constraints that the Department faces. Progress on ADHD services must, therefore, be evidence-based, phased and sustainable. That is why the Minister's decision last year to commission the review — for the first time ever — was so important.

Exploring with our health trusts practical options that are informed by data and front-line experience is the responsible way forward, and improving awareness of ADHD across government, education and the workplace is a vital part of the solution. Better understanding and reasonable adjustments can make a significant difference to outcomes, often without significant cost. There are no quick fixes here, but I welcome the clear direction that the Minister has taken in recognising the need, building the evidence base and engaging constructively with the issue. That recognition is the foundation on which meaningful and lasting progress can be built.

I am happy to support the motion and the amendment.

Mr McGrath: The debate matters, because ADHD is not a marginal condition that affects a small cohort of people but a growing, life-shaping reality for thousands of people across the North. The evidence shows that the system is struggling to keep up. At the outset, I acknowledge the work of those across South Down who are stepping in where that system falls short. I am sure that other MLAs have such organisations in their constituencies that support families, advocate for children and help adults to navigate services that are not designed with them in mind. I think specifically of Autism Support Kilkeel, the Downpatrick Autism Family Support Group and the ADHD hub in Newcastle, although I know that there are other organisations in South Down that help.

Those organisations reflect to me a number of the key issues, including that people wait years for an ADHD or autism assessment; that many of the individuals have overlapping ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression or learning disabilities; and that service provision does not reflect need. Grassroots organisations such as those fill the enormous gap where there is no funding. I hope that the Minister will provide details of any support that will be made available, given the UK Government's disgraceful cut to the local growth fund, which will impact on even more of the organisations that reach out across our constituencies and help people where the system is not able to catch up. One group recently contacted me during Apprenticeship Week to raise concerns about barriers to small employers in taking on apprentices. That matters because many young people with ADHD thrive in practical skills-based environments, but, without a diagnosis, support and workplace understanding, those opportunities are lost and so is the potential of those young people.

I recently asked the Communities Minister how many people with ADHD have been awarded personal independence payment (PIP) in the past five years. In just five years, the number of people with ADHD who have been awarded PIP has more than tripled, rising from around 300 claims in 2020 to well over 800 in 2024. Despite that, almost half of ADHD applications were disallowed at initial assessment last year, with many being later overturned after reconsideration. That shows just how poorly the system understands and responds to ADHD in practice across the spectrum of services. Those numbers reflect real people and families who are struggling, often without diagnosis, treatment and consistent support.

The publishing of the Department's report on commissioning ADHD services is overdue. Families, clinicians and community organisations need to see the evidence, the scale of the need and the options that are being considered. Transparency builds trust, and trust is badly lacking when people wait for years for assessment or have to pay privately out of absolute desperation. Shared care arrangements matter. If GPs are not properly supported and involved, treatment pathways collapse before they even begin.

I want to be clear with the Executive today: ADHD is not just a health issue; it affects education, employment, social security and mental health. It is an issue for every Minister around the Executive table. I hope that Ministers listen, because the community is having to pick up the slack. It is left struggling year-on-year, trying to find the funding to deliver essential services. Given that almost half of ADHD PIP claims are being disallowed, numbers are rising year-on-year and families are forced to go private or give up trying entirely, that is not individual failure; it is a systemic failure. We are letting people down when they need help most.

Ms Sheerin: I will speak — others have touched on it — on the link between ADHD and the mental health crisis in which we find ourselves in Ireland, particularly when it comes to the mistreatment of people with ADHD and how that affects their lives. As has been said by colleagues around the Chamber, we all have constituents who are affected by the issue. Those people are fighting to be heard and listened to. They are fighting for their lives. They fight to get a diagnosis, and, when they get it, they fight to get treatment. They fight to be taken seriously.

The story of a constituent who contacted me a number of weeks ago would break your heart. He has made multiple suicide attempts throughout his life. He has had problems with substance abuse and relationship breakdown. He felt as though he was crazy and the consistent problem, but, after eventually receiving his ADHD diagnosis, everything started to slot into place. He is one of the luckier ones because he has a shared care arrangement, but he is still about £200 a month out of pocket because he has to pay for his monthly medicine reviews.

Minister, I have written to you and the Northern Health and Social Care Trust about constituents with ADHD diagnoses and other comorbidities who have been told that there is no central service for ADHD in the North. We have a diagnostic service for autism, but there is no treatment support. If you were to go to a mechanic with a problem with your car, you would not just be told, "Yeah, the alternator's gone". It would not happen. Where would you go next? There is no support, service or treatment for those people.

If Members will indulge me, I will read a small part of an email that I received from a constituent. My correspondent referred to numerous people whom he knew who had died by suicide and who, he believes, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps had ADHD and could have been helped.

and he gives the date.

I have had other constituents tell me that their GP told them that they had seen a rise in "TikTok diagnosis" — people telling themselves that this is what is wrong with them. People are being minimised and belittled — their serious medical conditions are treated as though they are imagined, which compounds their worries and sufferings. It is not good enough. Another constituent who was in the same position got a diagnosis privately. She then had her medication stopped and was told that she could get diazepam instead.

When we treat all these things in isolation, we do not serve people properly. Members are all saying the same thing: we need to see resolution as soon as possible, because people are losing their lives as a result of this and it is not good enough.

Mr Robinson: I welcome the opportunity to say a few words in support of the motion and the amendment. If you look on the Assembly website, you can see that, in this mandate, Members have asked 262 questions regarding ADHD. That, in itself, reflects the interest in and demand for services related to this clinically recognised developmental condition, as acknowledged by the World Health Organization and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. NICE estimates that ADHD affects 3% to 5% of children and young people and 2% to 3% of adults. On that basis, tens of thousands of people here are likely to be living with ADHD.

As other Members have said, many of those people are undiagnosed and unsupported. All of us in the Chamber will be well aware from our constituency offices of the challenges in accessing ADHD services in Northern Ireland, and I am sure that the Health Minister can testify to that. Constituents routinely report challenges in accessing an adult ADHD diagnosis across trusts. Referrals for their children are sometimes delayed for years, and getting help can depend on their reaching complete crisis point. As a result, those who can afford it pursue private assessments, often at considerable personal expense. For families who are struggling through the cost-of-living crisis, that is simply not an option. All that it serves to do is to create a two-tier system in which access to diagnosis and treatment depends not on clinical need but on the ability to pay. That is fundamentally at odds with the principles of a publicly funded health service.

We have often heard about people paying huge amounts of money that they can ill afford to seek out a private assessment. We have been told at the Health Committee that some pay out upwards of £1,500 for those private assessments. We have even been told of patients who sought private assessments only for the private doctor to close down his clinic, leaving families out of pocket and with no diagnosis or repeat medication. Furthermore, research indicates that the cost of a monthly dose of Elvanse to treat children and adults can be anywhere between £65 and £116, which some have described as an "ADHD tax". Budget will be referred to today, but, as we all know — it is said here frequently — early diagnosis and appropriate treatment are not only clinically effective but cost-effective.

Research shows that people with ADHD who receive prompt support are more likely to remain in education, sustain employment and avoid crisis-driven contact with health, social care and justice services.

Investment in ADHD services is therefore investment in prevention and long-term well-being. It is an investment in Northern Ireland plc. We hope that the Minister can move quickly and begin to address the recommendations in the ADHD needs assessment, which, we understand, is now with his Department. In this case, I do not envy him with the scale of the task that he has ahead.

Mr McReynolds: I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate as chair of the all-party group on ADHD, and I thank those who tabled the motion and my colleagues who helped to draft our amendment.

I cover infrastructure and policing for the Alliance Party, but I have always felt a real sense of the injustice that is taking place against the ADHD community here. I have mentioned it before in the Chamber, but it all started for me when a young man presented himself at my constituency office, looking to talk to me about something that I thought was completely unconnected to ADHD. He told me that he had tried to take his life 17 times. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety — those are common misdiagnoses — but he had been told that he would have to wait eight to 10 years for an ADHD diagnosis. That floored me, given his medical history, and I assumed that there must be some other avenue that he could explore.

I started to look into it, and the more that I did, the more that I found lengthy and inconsistent waiting lists; numbers that one GP told me are essentially a guess, as they are plucked from thin air; postcode lotteries across Northern Ireland; people self-medicating to cope with how ADHD manifests itself in their lives; higher rates of suicide; and people being forced to go private, pay significant sums of money and then pay again for monthly access to medication. The real kicker for me was hearing about constituents whose GPs have decided to withdraw access to medication that they described as "life-changing" and "transformative" and to withdraw from shared care, which sets a timer for when their lives will start to go backwards. I heard that in a phone call yesterday morning with Joanne in east Belfast. She showed me the letter that she had received out of the blue from her GP, which said that the life-changing medication that she has been receiving for the past number of years would run out from 1 May.

For those reasons, I submitted a petition to the Assembly in 2024. Signed by over 4,500 people, it called for the urgent commissioning of ADHD services here. I am proud to have used my role as chair of the all-party group on ADHD to shine a light on the absolute injustice facing thousands across Northern Ireland and the lost generations of adults who have been labelled "lazy", "disruptive" or "unfocused". The fundamental and essential next step will be the publication of the ADHD report, which my petition called for in 2024 and which we included in our amendment. It will tell us what the level of ADHD services would be, what a commissioned service would and could look like, and what resources it could take to deliver them. We in the all-party group on ADHD and, certainly, the secretariat of ADD-NI, are desperate to read that report, to have something to aim for and to give the community hope that change is coming. At present, we are in limbo, with many people being forced to pay for life-changing and transformative care in a service that should and must be commissioned. The community want it, but GPs want it too to be able to support and get the best out of people living with ADHD.

I welcome the debate, and I am grateful that ADHD is staying on the agenda, but we seriously need to get it done. Too many people are suffering, living in misery and having to cope as best as they can. We can make a real difference if we want to do so. I encourage support for the motion and our amendment.

Mr McHugh: I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the motion and the amendment. Like every other office, mine is inundated with people who are dealing with difficulties and problems related to ADHD.

I will highlight one aspect of that by giving one young person's story. That young person was diagnosed with ADHD and had been receiving a prescription from his doctor from as far back as 2017. A number of years later, he left the North of Ireland to attend university in Britain. He registered in Britain to ensure that he would continue to get his prescription, which he received monthly because of the type of medicine that he was receiving. That continued throughout his time at university. When he came home — he never left home; he only attended college in Britain — he found it impossible to get his medication again. His doctor said that he would need a new referral because he had dropped out of the system, and his trust area was not accepting any new referrals because it was inundated with people coming forward with ADHD. That young person is attempting to hold down a job and he desperately needs his medication, but he is finding it impossible to acquire. That young person is not an exception. Many of our young people go across the water to Britain to go to college or, increasingly, to work temporarily and travel back after a few months. If they register with a doctor and are prescribed medication in Britain, when they return to Northern Ireland they will find that they have dropped out of the system and cannot access their medication.

I welcome today's debate because it highlights an anomaly in the system and how people are being entirely let down by the very same system that should support them. I hope that the Minister will look at those issues and provide for that particular cohort of people.

Mr Durkan: I welcome today's motion and the opportunity to speak on behalf of every parent, child and individual who feels that they are failing when, in truth, it is the system that is failing them. In recent years, I have been contacted by more and more people about ADHD, including parents who are at their wits' end; adults who have struggled their entire lives without understanding why everyday tasks are so overwhelming; and children who have their behaviour misunderstood, have their needs unmet and are quietly pushed to the margins of our education system and society. Their frustration is palpable, but what comes through most strongly is the sheer exhaustion. There are families who fight, year after year, for assessments, whose children wait so long for a diagnosis that they reach a crisis point before help arrives, or, in some cases, age out and go into the adult system, which is not much better.

People are being forced to choose between waiting indefinitely and paying thousands of pounds for private assessments and treatment. They are scraping together savings, spending their rainy day funds or securing loans just to get the help they need to function each day. Even if they can do that, the struggle does not end there. Many patients are then told that the diagnosis is not recognised in the NHS system for treatment or medication. Patients are stuck in limbo with a diagnosis on paper but without a pathway to care. That is particularly damaging for children.

We know that around 30% of pupils are classed as chronic absentees. While there are many reasons for that, it would be careless not to recognise the role that unmet additional needs, including ADHD, play in pushing children out of the classroom. When a child feels misunderstood and overwhelmed every single day, school becomes something to dread rather than a place to grow. Worryingly, the reasons for long-term absences are not currently recorded by the Education Authority. That needs to change if we are to get a better insight into the situation. Without a recognised assessment, reasonable adjustments often cannot happen, which means that the cracks grow and more children fall through them. The answers that I have received to numerous questions for written answer confirm what many people know and what we have already heard today: there is no consistent regional ADHD service, the waiting lists are unacceptably long and access varies wildly depending on postcode.

We also know that the Department's report into commissioning ADHD services is yet to be published, despite numerous reassurances that it will be. Families and individuals should not have to pay for private care to get answers; children should not be missing education because the support that they need does not arrive in time; and adults should not have to reach breaking point before they are taken seriously.

In response to my questions for written answer, the Minister has acknowledged that access to ADHD medication is inconsistent and that shared care arrangements remain a major barrier. Constituents regularly report being diagnosed privately, only to be told that their GP cannot prescribe medication because shared care pathways are unclear or simply not in place. That creates a cruel and unacceptable situation, in which people are effectively diagnosed but untreated or forced to continue paying privately for medication that, for many, is genuinely life-changing. Those costs can be crippling, particularly for families who are already under financial pressure.

Challenges around ADHD services exist in other jurisdictions, but elsewhere across these islands there is, at least, movement. Northern Ireland, by contrast, remains stuck.

Mr McGrath: Will the Member give way?

Mr Durkan: Certainly.

Mr McGrath: Does the Member agree that the community and voluntary sector is left to pick up the pieces, and the fact that the amount of money that it has available is shrinking means that we get a double whammy: fewer services available alongside fewer statutory services?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Durkan: I thank the Member for his intervention. I recognise, respect and am so grateful for the contribution of our voluntary and community sector in many areas, of which this is one. Our reliance on it has become almost entire dependence. That is not a great situation to be in, particularly when that sector is facing swingeing cuts with the new local growth fund.

First and foremost, we must see the publication of the report on the commissioning of ADHD services, the commissioning of those services and improvements around shared care arrangements. ADHD intersects with mental health, education, employment, justice and economic activity. When we fail to address it properly, the cost is not borne by only the individuals and their families but society as a whole. We can do better, and we must do better.

Mr Carroll: I support the motion and the amendment, and I thank Members for tabling them. Obviously, I support the call for the publication of the report into the commissioning of services and engagement with GP representative bodies.

We are witnessing yet another example of how privatisation and underfunding create a two-tier health service that punishes working-class families. The facts speak for themselves. As Members have said, there is no commissioned adult ADHD service in the North, despite clear evidence that it is required and NICE guidelines requiring proper provision. Children and adults are left waiting for years for a diagnosis, and some trusts have years-long waiting lists for even a diagnostic assessment. Meanwhile, families who can afford to do so are paying thousands of pounds for private assessments and ongoing care. Those who cannot afford that are left to struggle without any support. That is totally unacceptable. As Members have said, there is a postcode lottery. That creates systemic inequalities between different parts of the North, with some trusts being unable to comply with the best practice guidelines. In the meantime, as the Member for East Derry said, adults and children are turning to social media for guidance and support. For example, TikTok videos with the hashtag #ADHD have been viewed over 20 billion times. That is very worrying, considering that it is a completely unregulated media form.

What are entirely missing here are the services in between the crisis points — assessment, diagnosis, medication, management, psychological support, monitoring and continuity of care — which prevent people from reaching crisis in the first place. Adults in the North with ADHD live seven to nine years less than their neurotypical peers. That is due, mainly, to unmet needs. Being neurodivergent should not be an early death sentence. A system that intervenes only when someone is already in severe distress is not preventative, not equitable and not compliant with our most basic human rights and equality obligations. The human cost is enormous. Untreated ADHD results in higher attendance at EDs, school exclusion and unemployment. We are spending significant public funds on crisis interventions, special educational needs tribunals and emergency care rather than on early and preventative support, which would be far more effective and humane and would be cheaper in the long run.

On top of that failure, we face proposed cuts in education, which will devastate pupils with ADHD who desperately need support in schools. Children with ADHD and autism are excluded from mainstream education, with families paying between £12,000 and £15,000 for private assessments and support and facing financial hardship as a result. Meanwhile, the Education Minister has repeatedly threatened to take away one-to-one classroom assistant support from pupils who benefit from it. That has caused a huge deal of fear and anxiety, and, across the healthcare system, we are seeing public money being funnelled towards private providers while inequality between rich and working-class families deepens. We urgently need the immediate commissioning and funding of adult ADHD services in every health trust, an end to the postcode lottery and equal access to diagnosis and treatment across the North. This is a fundamental healthcare provision, and people have waited long enough for it. I am happy to support the amendment and the motion.

Ms Brownlee: Whilst I am not a member of the Health Committee, when I saw this motion on the agenda, I jumped at the chance to talk about it. It is such an important topic, and I do not think that a day goes by when I am not contacted in some shape or form about it by a constituent, so I welcome the motion and the amendment.

As I said, I am constantly contacted. I think that we have all realised today, although some of us already knew this, that the process and the services are not meeting the needs of our people. Hopefully, at the end, we will have some answers for the people of Northern Ireland so that they know that we are taking this seriously and ensuring that provision will be in place for ADHD services that can support individuals and their families and make sure that they get the right support and medication.

We have spoken quite frankly about a postcode lottery, and we are seeing significant waiting times, including different waiting times across trust areas. We have seen that through a number of different services. It is a stark example of how where you live affects your health outcome. In such a small place as Northern Ireland, it is becoming bizarre that a service can be provided on one side of the street but not on the other. We know that those significant waiting times are pushing more and more people into private diagnosis, and that comes with its own challenges. Nuala alluded to the fact that it is not regulated, but it also creates another health inequality for those who cannot afford to pay for a diagnosis. Then come greater complications, because the private diagnosis might not even be accepted and it comes at a significant cost. As Alan Robinson said, there was one case in which people had paid for a private diagnosis only for the private clinic to shut down and the person running to leave the country. The families who had paid £1,000 to get a diagnosis were left without any support whatsoever. It is horrific that that is happening here in Northern Ireland. I have also been contacted by constituents who are being diagnosed over Teams and Zoom meetings and are not even having that in-depth, face-to-face contact with the provider.

We know that ADHD medication is an amber drug that may be prescribed and has its own risks. GPs are put in a very difficult and pressured situation when it comes to whether to provide that shared care. I had a case recently of a lady who previously lived in Comber. She and her daughter were diagnosed privately and received that shared care, but she recently moved to Carrick, and now that care cannot be provided any more. The fact that that has been refused has left her and her daughter in complete despair. She could get that care up the road in Greenisland, but she is not within the catchment area. There are so many different things in relation to ADHD services that are becoming so frustrating and so challenging, and people are getting really annoyed that there does not seem to be any movement whatsoever.

I welcome the Minister's report. Hopefully, we will see it very soon: it was due in early 2026. Hopefully, we will have a positive outcome at the end of the debate. Issues that we have all discussed are becoming more and more common, and we are seeing more and more cases in which medication has transformed people's lives, but access to that is now being denied.

Waiting lists for young people can be as long as eight years. Children are often not even looked at until they hit the age of six. That is creating a whole childhood without the support that is desperately needed.

I do not want to go too far into the education space in the debate, but those waiting lists create a lack of clinical information that cannot then be added to any type of statement or evidence base to enable the Education Authority to provide the tailored support that children, in particular, need. CAMHS was mentioned. Whilst children are going into CAMHS, when they get there, the service that they get is not really tailored to their challenges, and then they just leave the service and have no further support. The Minister of Health has provided more training for individuals. Three hundred and sixty-five neurodiversity awareness training programmes have been completed. Of course, that is to be welcomed, but it needs to be throughout the system.

I welcome any progress on the issue. It is an extremely important one for us to work on collectively in the Chamber. I hope that there will be some positive moves forward for everyone in Northern Ireland.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Minister, you have up to 15 minutes to respond.

Mr Nesbitt (The Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I cannot imagine that there is a single MLA who is not acutely aware from their constituency work of the strength of feeling on the issue. I thank the movers of the motion and the amendment and everybody who has contributed in a way that demonstrates knowledge of and empathy for the condition.

I recognise fully the impact that the absence of a commissioned service is having; the resulting delays in assessment and treatment; and what that means for individuals with ADHD and their families. We are talking about their well-being, education, employment and family life. We are also talking about the judicial system at times. The uncertainty and long waits have a cumulative effect on parents and carers who are simply trying to do the right thing by their loved ones.

As has been said, the situation is not unique to Northern Ireland. Other UK regions are in a similar position. As Members may be aware, the UK Government recently launched an independent review of mental health, ADHD and autism. The Government want to better understand prevalence, trends and inequities to inform new models of support and pathways in England.

In recognition of gaps here, we commissioned a comprehensive needs assessment in February 2025. We wanted to establish, for the first time, a clear evidence base on demand, capacity and future service options. The assessment covers children and adults. It was designed to determine the demand for a commissioned service and to make recommendations on what such a service might look like, including indicative implementation and staffing costs. It also specifically included consideration of the prison population, recognising its significantly higher prevalence of ADHD compared with the general population and the associated linkages with, for example, early criminality, a greater likelihood of reoffending and aggressive behaviour.

The review was a complex piece of work, reflecting long-standing gaps in data relating to ADHD prevalence and, indeed, future demand, particularly for adult ADHD services. It required extensive engagement and analysis. It included a desk-based literature review, significant information gathering, modelling and analysis, and engagement with representative bodies, clinicians, trusts, the voluntary and community sector, departmental leads and people with lived experience, including carers.

As Members have predicted, I will highlight the fact that any future commissioning decisions have to be taken in the context of overall affordability at a time when we face critical funding constraints across Health and Social Care (HSC). It is a horrible thing for me to say — I get that — but it is an honest assessment. I say to Members that the worst aspect of my role is to sit with people, look them in the eye and say, "I understand your need, but I cannot meet it — at least, not yet".

The needs assessment recommends a phased approach to implementation. That reflects uncertainty around future demand and the need to improve data monitoring and reporting before making longer-term commitments on workforce and service configuration. The report will set out 19 recommendations and provide indicative costings and workforce requirements for the first phase of service provision. Not unexpectedly, it highlights the fact that a fully commissioned service would require significant additional and recurrent funding. The report is clear that there are no cost-neutral options for implementation. Any form of service would require either new investment or a reallocation of funding from other highly pressurised areas. In a way, it is a pity that the debate has come today. It might have been better next week or perhaps in two weeks' time, because that is the timescale in which I expect the report to be made public. You have heard from my remarks that we have, as you might imagine, come close to completing our analysis of those 19 recommendations. I would like to see it in your hands not in months or weeks but, preferably, within days.

I turn to shared care. In the absence of a commissioned service, many individuals have opted to seek private assessments and, in some cases, private treatment at their own expense. The question is why, and the answer is one word: love. They love their children, and they want the best for them. The waiting lists for ADHD services in Health and Social Care are either non-existent or far too long, so, of course, they turn to the only available option, which is to go private and pay for it, whether they can afford it or not, because of love.

It is clear that the use of private clinics to seek diagnosis and treatment has increased significantly in recent years. I find that unacceptable, and I will try to reassure Members by saying that I have opened communications with the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners Northern Ireland because I want to better understand the obstacles to shared care working as, I believe, it was intended. Members have given examples of where it does not work as it should do or as was intended. My Department is not responsible for any arrangements agreed between patients and private providers. However, clinics providing private assessments have been advised that they must advise service users that they will remain under private care until such times as they reach the top of the HSC waiting list.

Shared care arrangements that go beyond just ADHD provision are voluntary; they are not part of a GP's core contractual obligations. GPs can decline if they feel that they lack the capacity or clinical assurance to safely manage prescribing and monitoring responsibilities. An issue that I want to understand with GPs is one that Mr McHugh brought up, which is why somebody who has been on medication for a significant time suddenly finds that it is being denied to them. I have heard of that in my experience as a constituency MLA, and I do not yet understand the underlying reasons why.

Most ADHD medications, as I have said, are classified as amber list. That places specific responsibilities on the specialist prescriber and the patient's GP under the shared care arrangement. Therefore, while specialists can initiate treatment and provide ongoing clinical oversight, it is ultimately for GPs to decide whether they wish to assume responsibility for their part of the shared care agreement. Shared care involves planned, joint management between a specialist and a GP of a long-term condition. It should be supported by enhanced information sharing. In that system, specialist medicines or those initiated by a hospital specialist require complex prescribing and/or monitoring, which is not routinely undertaken in general practice. I recognise that GPs may have reservations about the robustness of assessments carried out by certain private providers, but, where there is uncertainty about diagnostic standards or continuity of specialist oversight, GPs may be reluctant to assume responsibility for ongoing care, because, ultimately, they are responsible — the buck stops with them.

I turn to the wider support for children and young people. Alongside the work on service options, the Department is progressing reforms for children and young people that adopt an inclusive and needs-led approach. For example, my Department published the children and young people's emotional health and well-being framework for public consultation. That closed in September 2025. The framework proposes an inclusive and needs-based approach to neurodiversity that will not require diagnosis or diagnostic labels as a precursor to assistance and intervention. In adopting that approach, the framework seeks to reduce stigma, promote earlier intervention for children and young people and enhance outcomes for young people across the spectrum of their health, education and developmental needs. The development of the framework has been informed by a review of existing pathways across children's autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD. The framework will also seek to clarify the roles and responsibilities of everybody tasked with working to support children and young people who present with neurodevelopmental and emotional health and well-being needs. That will involve not only Health but other Departments, including Education.

The Department is considering responses to the consultation on the children and young people's emotional health and well-being framework, and work is ongoing with colleagues from the Public Health Agency and child health to develop the definitions and requirements that will underpin the pathway and support commissioning going forward.

Before concluding, I will touch on some issues that Members have raised. As I said, it is my ambition to publish the needs assessment within days, rather than weeks. I have touched on shared care, and I will continue to try to understand better the issues to do with it. Members talked about the cost-benefit analysis primarily in relation to the economy but also in keeping people out of the justice system. Mr Durkan talked about the role of the education system in trapping data. That all proves to me that we need a whole-of-government approach, but it needs to be led by the Department of Health.

Mention was also made of the local growth fund. I assure Mr McGrath that the Executive are as one in requiring a rebalance of the 30:70 split between resource and capital. We are asking the UK Government to look at that again. None of us understand why they have gone for such an imbalanced split. When we were in Europe, we had the European social fund. The Shared Prosperity Fund did not replace that. As we stand, the local growth fund will not replace that either. Perhaps those who supported Brexit in 2016 might care to reflect on that.

I want to be clear that I recognise the strength of feeling and the genuine need that we have to do better. The Department has taken important steps to build the evidence base through the needs assessment, alongside progressing more inclusive, needs-led approaches for children and young people. However, any decision to commission ADHD services must be taken on the basis of that evidence and in the context of significant financial and workforce constraints. I hope that Members realise that what I want here is what I want for every Health and Social Care service: a consistent, standardised regional service with no postcode lotteries. I am committed to transparency, continued engagement with stakeholders and ensuring that future decisions are proportionate, realistic and focused on achieving the best possible outcomes within the available resources. I look forward to the publication of the needs assessment within the next few days.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. I call Danny Donnelly to make a winding-up speech on the amendment.

Danny, you have five minutes.

Mr Donnelly: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. This has been a good debate, and I thank those who tabled the motion for bringing this important issue to the Assembly. It is clear that the same issues are being raised in all our constituency offices and that there is a consistent inability across Northern Ireland to get diagnosis or treatment for the condition.

The motion speaks to a reality that far too many individuals and families across Northern Ireland live with every day: services are not working or are barely existing and those with ADHD are being left unsupported to face their condition alone. ADHD is not a niche issue; it is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that affects education, employment, mental well-being and a person's ability to participate fully in society. When it goes unrecognised or unsupported, the consequences do not disappear but simply reappear elsewhere in the system, be it the mental health services, crisis care, schools, workplaces or the criminal justice system, and in people's lives.

We are seeing children wait for up to five years for an assessment, and we are seeing adults wait for up to eight years, often with no clear pathway at all. I submitted one of the 262 questions that Alan Robinson pointed to. Recently, I asked the Minister:

The answer pointed out that there is no commissioned service for ADHD and that, therefore, the trusts do not regularly provide information on their waiting times. The information provided is management information sourced by local trusts' manual returns, not official statistics, and the implementation of Encompass from 2024 has impacted on both the returning of data and confidence in its accuracy. The numbers that we got back were from only two trusts, with around 4,000 adults in those trusts awaiting diagnosis and 6,409 children across Northern Ireland waiting for diagnosis. Those are huge numbers. That is not a sustainable position, and it is not defensible. The result is a system that is fragmented and inconsistent and where access depends on geography or on age rather than on need, and we have heard that again and again from across the House. Individuals are left to navigate complex pathways without being equipped to do so.

We also know that there is the emergence of the two-tier system that has been referred to quite a bit, including by Mr Carroll, Cheryl Brownlee and other Members. People are being driven into private healthcare because of the need to get medication and because of what the Minister referred to as love for their children and family members. Many people, out of desperation, seek private diagnosis at significant personal cost. That is a choice not made lightly, but it is the only choice often available, yet, even when they do that, people find themselves unable to re-enter the public system easily, facing barriers to shared care arrangements and post-diagnostic support. It is important to say clearly that it is not about blaming GPs. Shared care requires clear clinical governance and guidelines for patient safety. Without that, GPs are being placed in an impossible situation, and parents and patients are left frustrated in a system that few can afford. That is an impossible choice between affordability and treatment of their condition.

Our amendment asks the Minister to publish the Department's report, and he has confirmed today that he will do that within days. That is positive and good to hear. People deserve to know what work has been done and what options have been considered.

The motion is not about grand promises but about clear actions: published work, proper commissioning and joined-up pathways. It is also about recognising that the current approach is failing and committing to do better. We urge the Minister to treat this not as a future aspiration but as an urgent responsibility.

I will quickly go through a couple of the comments. The proposer, Órlaithí, highlighted the fragmented nature of care for ADHD and said that those co-occur a lot with other mental health conditions. That is important. She talked about the serious impacts of unmet clinical need. My colleague Nuala pointed to the economic argument for commissioning an adult service. Again, the Minister referred to that in his response. Diane Dodds said that 40% to 80% of young people not in education, training or employment have ADHD and that 40% of those in young offender centres have it. Those are shocking statistics and show where the unmet need shows up in other areas of the system. Alan Chambers highlighted the fact that delays for children and young people carry long-term risks that they will take on into their lives. Colin McGrath pointed out the impact of cuts to the local growth fund, which funds many of the support groups that people rely on.

There was quite a lot to get through there, Principal Deputy Speaker.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you. I appreciate that, Danny.

I call Linda Dillon to make a winding-up speech on the motion. Linda, you have up to 10 minutes.

Mrs Dillon: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I thank everybody who took part in the debate. Sinn Féin tabled the motion because the current approach to ADHD services is failing children, young people and adults across the North. I appreciate everyone's commentary and the fact that we have consensus across the House that the motion and the amendment will be supported. I welcome that.

Over the past year in particular, like so many of you, I have been contacted by a number of, in particular, adults in their early 20s and their families, as they are at breaking point. Adults and children who suspect that they have ADHD are being left in limbo for years. Many are being forced to pay privately for assessments, as Members have mentioned, because of limited diagnosis and/or treatment opportunities in the NHS. Some trusts do not offer any services for adults. Parents are desperate to get support for their children, only to be told that there is no clear pathway, no timely assessment and no consistent service, meaning that there is a postcode lottery to get access to any service. That is not sustainable.

The problem begins with the failure to commission services and then expecting trusts to provide services whilst being expected to reduce their spend and budget. That leads to a hotchpotch approach that causes a great deal of distress to those requiring diagnosis or treatment. The motion recognises the clear need for properly commissioned ADHD services. ADHD is not a niche issue, as we heard from many Members who spoke; it is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that, when unsupported, affects education, employment, mental health, family life and contact with the justice system. The cost of doing nothing is far greater than the cost of getting this right. The Minister is well aware — we accept it — of the financial constraints of his Department. I say again, however, that it is how we spend what we have. It is how we invest at the earliest opportunity and ensure that people get the treatment that they need.

We recognise the need for a regional diagnosis service and specific mental health services for those with ADHD and co-existing mental illness. Too often, people fall between services, being deemed not severe enough for mental health provision yet unable to access appropriate ADHD support. That fragmented approach fails people.

I welcome the amendment, which strengthens the motion, because transparency is essential. I welcome the fact that the Minister has confirmed that we will have sight of the report, which will show us the evidence, the gaps and the recommendations. I hope that we will then understand the plan to implement those recommendations, what we will do to deliver for people and how we will put in place the services that they require to get diagnosed, get treatment and the support that they need. Crucially, the amendment calls for engagement:

The Minister has committed to understanding those challenges, and I appreciate that. He has outlined that he is already having those conversations, but it is now a question of what support and assistance will be given to GPs to ensure that we overcome the challenges. Many people who receive a diagnosis — often privately because the public system cannot deliver — are unable to access ongoing treatment through primary care. GPs are being placed in an impossible position. They are expected to take on shared care without the necessary funding, training or commissioning structures. That is not a failure of individual GPs; it is a failure of the system to properly commission and support that work. If we are serious about community-based care, it must be funded and commissioned properly. ADHD support cannot rely on goodwill; it must be built into the system.

The motion calls for:

Too many people still face misunderstanding, stigma and a lack of reasonable adjustments. Better awareness is not a nice-to-have addition; it is fundamental to inclusion, early intervention and better outcomes. This is about the Department stepping up to its responsibility to commission, fund and coordinate ADHD services across the region, not leaving people to navigate a postcode lottery, pay out of pocket or fall through the gaps of an under-resourced system. We owe it to adults who are waiting years for support; we owe it to parents fighting for assessments for their children; and we owe it to a generation of people whose lives could be transformed by timely diagnosis, treatment and understanding.

There have been common themes during the debate. Danny referred to what some Members said, so I do not propose to repeat what everybody said. We would not benefit from that because we are saying the same things: suicidal ideation; marginalisation,; impact on employment and educational outcomes; substance misuse; families exhausted and at breaking point; relationship breakdown; inability to access shared care; no commissioned services; access to life-changing and life-saving medication being blocked; and ending up in contact with the criminal justice system. The question for all of us is not about affordability but whether we can afford not to put in place commissioned services for diagnosis, medication, treatment and support for those who are trying to navigate this world with ADHD.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: As the business in the Order Paper is not expected to be disposed of by 6.00 pm, in accordance with Standing Order 10(3), I will allow business to continue until 7.00 pm, or until the business is completed if earlier.

Members, please take your ease.

Mr Tennyson: 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 in which to propose and 10 minutes in which to make a winding-up speech. All other Members who are called to speak will have five minutes.

Mr Tennyson: Mr Deputy Speaker, it will not surprise you to hear me say that Brexit has been an abject failure. It has put up new barriers to trade, shrunk the economy and left people and public services worse off. We are a far cry from the sunlit uplands promised in 2016, and the oven-ready deal that Boris Johnson talked of in 2019 has turned out to be a turkey. The referendum campaign was one of the most dishonest in recent political history. The campaign was tainted by dark money and ignored the warnings of businesses and civic society.

Far from control being taken back, the UK economy is now weaker and more isolated than at any point in recent history. A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that nearly half of UK exporters now cite customs procedures as their biggest challenge. The message from business is clear: reduce friction, cut red tape and increase growth. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a leading US think tank, has published a decade-long analysis concluding that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by between 6% and 8%. The House of Commons Library has estimated that, every year, Brexit costs the Treasury £90 billion in lost tax receipts. That is money that could and should have been used to invest in our health service, tackle the cost of living and make life better for the people whom we represent.

We know all too well that Northern Ireland, as a divided society, can function only on the basis of sharing and interdependence. Our people and businesses trade and interact daily on a North/South and an east-west basis. That is evidenced not least in our agriculture sector, where dairy products produced in Northern Ireland cross the border to be processed in the South and return to Northern Ireland before onward sale.

Any form of Brexit, particularly the hard Brexit pursued by the DUP, was going to cause friction and create barriers. The question became one not of whether checks would occur but of where they would occur. Alliance warned that, inevitably, they would be at ports and airports. That is not because we want them to be there but because that is where they could be best managed and their impact mitigated [Interruption.]

Mr Tennyson: Does the Member wish to intervene, or is he just chuntering from a sedentary position? [Inaudible.]

Mr Tennyson: OK; no problem.

There will, of course, be those in the Chamber who try to pin all of the inevitable consequences of the Brexit that they campaigned for squarely on the Windsor framework. That argument not only ignores the fact that challenges are being faced by businesses UK-wide; it ignores the protections that have insulated Northern Ireland from some of the worst excesses of Brexit, with Northern Ireland's economy growing faster now than that of Great Britain. That argument also lays bare the folly of the same Members, who claimed, on the return of the Assembly, that the Irish Sea border had been removed. As I have said many times, that is the political equivalent of driving your car square into a brick wall and then blaming the airbag for your broken nose.

There are also Members who, over the course of the debate, will wax lyrical about sovereignty. Businesses, farmers, hauliers and manufacturers do not have the luxury of worrying about such ideological and academic arguments. Sovereignty does not pay the bills or put food on the table. Those businesses want us to come to the debate with honesty, to confront the challenges and to shape a pragmatic way forward to drive growth and ensure that they can thrive and flourish. That is what Alliance has always offered and what it will continue to offer. That is why we pushed successfully for a comprehensive food, drink and agriculture agreement between the UK and the EU; it is why we pushed for more cooperation on research and youth mobility; it is why we defend our unique dual market access; and it is why we have brought the motion to the Chamber. A UK-EU customs union is the surest and most significant step that the Government could take to boost growth, tackle the cost of living and eliminate bureaucracy.

Not only has public opinion changed dramatically since 2016 as the consequences of Brexit have been laid bare, but the world around us has changed dramatically. We live in a time of geopolitical uncertainty and rising populism and protectionism, with major economies, not least the United States, looking inwards and backwards rather than outwards and forwards. In the face of such instability and economic aggression, it is surely time to reorient our efforts back towards building a stable trading relationship with our nearest neighbours and largest trading partners in the EU. The Prime Minister has said that the Brexit deal hurt our economy significantly and that we must keep reducing frictions and move towards a closer relationship with the EU. A number of Cabinet Ministers have gone further than that in suggesting that a customs union is the way forward to boost economic growth. In recent weeks, it has been reported that the European Commission is open to negotiation. The UK Government must grasp that opportunity.

Of course, as a passionately pro-Europe party, Alliance believes that only a full reversal of Brexit can undo all the tensions, contradictions and limitations that it has posed. For us, our relationship with Europe is about the kind of society that we want to build: one in which we work with our partners to tackle global challenges such as climate change, peace and security, poverty and migration. The motion is about a practical step that we can take to build on the protections in the Windsor framework and to undo some of the damage that Brexit unleashed.

Some of those who shout loudest about divergence in the Irish Sea will, no doubt, oppose the motion. The irony is lost on no one that the surest way to remove the customs border in the Irish Sea would be opposed by the very Members who profess to care about the issue. Those Members have a choice today: do they want to continue with the politics of grievance and fear, continuing to fight a Brexit war of attrition, or do they want to choose a different path, be honest about the folly of the Brexit that they campaigned for —

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Tennyson: — and focus instead on working with those of us on these Benches who want solutions, stability, cooperation and common sense?

Whilst Mr Buckley is not necessarily a virtue of common sense, I will briefly give way before I conclude.

Mr Buckley: "Common sense" is a term used often in the House but certainly not about Mr Tennyson. The Member talks about not wanting to fight the Brexit wars of the past, but, surely, by the rhetoric in his six minutes and 32 seconds of speaking so far, he has done just that.

Mr Tennyson: I believe in a culture of accountability and that, when a politician takes a decision, they have a duty to be honest with the public about the consequences of that decision. Part of the challenge of the Brexit debate so far has been that politicians are not willing to ground themselves in the basic facts. The fact is that, when you come outside the European Union, you create a border. There then comes the question of where that border can be best managed and mitigated. If you want to remove the border, you do it through closer cooperation with the European Union. Therefore, until we ground ourselves in the Brexit laws of physics and unless people are willing to admit that actions have consequences and that trade-offs exist, we will not make progress.

I look forward to the Member's contribution, because this is a practical step that all parties, whether Leave or Remain, should be able to coalesce around in a bid to remove Brexit bureaucracy, support our businesses and remove the checks in the Irish Sea that Mr Buckley so often waxes lyrical about.

I commend the motion to the House and look forward to the debate.

Ms Ferguson: As we approach the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum, it is clear that communities across the North still feel the effects of that disastrous decision to leave the EU. We can take the recent example of the British Government's promise to fully replace the lost EU funding. That was never going to happen. Now, we face a crisis in the community and voluntary sector born out of the lies and deceit of the British Government. Ordinary people are paying the price for false promises and a reckless Brexit agenda. The party opposite proclaimed that it could live with 40,000 job losses: how does it square that with the reality faced by our hard-working community groups and of the ordinary workers who are on the verge of losing their jobs?

It is a fact that Brexit was and remains a disastrous act of economic self-harm of which the British Government and the unionist parties here were well warned, a warning that they blatantly ignored. The majority of citizens here voted to remain in the European Union. Despite Britain's total disregard for that reality, our aspirations for a better future for our people remain our focus. That is why we and other Remain parties in the Chamber pushed to secure dual market access. As a result, we have managed to stave off the worst excesses of Britain and the DUP's failed Brexit agenda. We went on to secure vital assurances that there would be no diminution of our hard-won rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity, as protected in the Good Friday Agreement. We also secured the declaration from the European Council of its decision that, in the event of a united Ireland, we will be given automatic membership of the European Union.

Whilst we recognise the value of this well-intentioned motion, which emphasises the need to reduce checks through custom arrangements, our overall focus remains on looking beyond that and towards a return to full EU membership through unification. At all times, we must be focused on finding solutions to minimise the frictions created by Brexit and maximise the opportunities of dual market access. Therefore, additional support must be urgently provided to local businesses to enable them to operate to their full potential under the terms of the protocol. The immediate establishment of an EU office in Belfast is also a means to deliver that.

It is clear that Brexit has intensified mainstream conversations regarding the need for a referendum on Irish unity. That is the reality. There have been encouraging signs of growing support for Irish unity in successive electoral results, demographic changes, contributions from civil society and public commentary. Whilst Brexit did not have the consent of the people in the North, I am certain that our future return to the EU can be achieved through a new Ireland based on consent. Consent is built by reaching out. A classic example of that was how our Irish president spoke in the city of Derry last week. Others could learn something from that example of mutual respect and understanding and apply it in their own engagements.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Ms Ferguson: I want to finish; I still have a lot to get through.

Whilst Britain can expect to live with the damage of Brexit for a generation or longer, we have a different story to tell. Our destiny is ours to make, and that includes all of us here. History is unfolding. We must now build on the opportunity to progress the reunification of our country and deliver a new, united and fair Ireland for all.

Mr Brooks: Well, well, is it not interesting? Here we are again to debate matters relating to Brexit, the protocol and the Windsor framework. To my shock, the motion was tabled by the Alliance Party, a party that, when unionists bring concerns to the Floor or table motions, is usually found hand-wringing at the repetitiveness of debates or snarking about the predictability. Now that Alliance has brought the matter to the Floor, I trust that it will be deemed worthy of our time. We may even be grateful that its Members have elected to cast their wisdom before us.

The DUP has always been clear: continued barriers to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are unacceptable. They undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom's internal market. We fundamentally reject the notion that trade friction within our internal market was ever inevitable. The UK Government should never have conceded that the customs and regulatory controls needed to be shifted away from the recognised international land border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and placed instead in the Irish Sea. That decision was always going to create deep economic and constitutional harm that could not simply be managed away with technical fixes or warm words.

The Northern Ireland protocol was imposed over the heads of the people of Northern Ireland without the support of a single unionist elected representative. What has been the record of the Alliance Party since then? A record of rigorous implementation. Is anyone really surprised that, instead of seeking to address the internal trade friction in the United Kingdom, it now wants us to focus our attention on an external customs union?

Let us consider the real-world consequences. Great Britain is the source of the overwhelming majority of veterinary medicines used in Northern Ireland. Those products are vital for animal welfare and health, yet the primary market will now be pushed to the bottom of the pecking order, as local vets are given powers to procure medicines from other jurisdictions instead. Why? Because the Government believe that it is necessary to impose EU rules on the marketing, authorisation and distribution of medicines in Northern Ireland. That is not pragmatism; it is displacement.

We believe that the Government should be radical in moving on from the Windsor framework, rather than tinkering around the edges or merely treating the symptoms. The sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement reached in principle between Great Britain and the European Union may help to ease the flow of trade between GB and Northern Ireland, but let us be clear: it is not a silver bullet. It does not address the fundamental problem created by the application of EU law in Northern Ireland. If alignment on food, plants and animal products is now envisaged, the Government should immediately halt the construction of border control posts at our ports. Such an agreement removes any supposed justification for such facilities, yet the work continues regardless. If, as Ministers claim, trust has been restored with the EU through that SPS agreement, it would be entirely incongruous to continue to insist on the costly phasing-in of "Not for EU" labels for products that are eligible to be produced to UK standards under the Northern Ireland retail movement scheme (NIRMS).

We are told that engagement with the EU is improving, but current arrangements allow businesses and officials to be informed of the European Commission's work programme without having any meaningful role in reshaping it. That is not democracy.

Trade diversion is not theoretical; it is real. While the Secretary of State points to purchases from Great Britain in 2023, senior economist Dr Esmond Birnie has shown that, when we compare 2023 with 2020, we see that trade from the Irish Republic has grown at twice the rate of Great Britain.

What of the promised benefits of so-called dual market access? At a recent meeting of the Economy Committee, Members from across the Chamber heard from representatives from Invest NI, who were unable to cite a single example of foreign direct investment (FDI) linked to it.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Brooks: In October 2024, the chief executive of Invest NI confirmed that there was no evidence of FDI as a result of dual market access. More than 12 months later, nothing has changed.

I give way to the leader of the Opposition.

Mr O'Toole: I appreciate the Member giving way, and I am flattered that he used my title. I appreciate everything that he has said and his previously stated party position. I am not moving the motion, but we will support it. However, I am not clear whether he and his party support an EU-UK customs union, which is the main thrust of the Alliance motion.

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

Mr Brooks: We do not support the motion.

It has been proven that dual market access is a myth. Businesses can count the very real costs—.

Mr Donnelly: Will the Member give way?

Mr Brooks: Not at the moment, thank you. I am going to make some progress.

Businesses can count the very real costs of the Windsor framework, but its supposed benefits remain impossible to quantify. No amount of engagement, guidance or signposting can remove the fundamental issue: the people of Northern Ireland do not have the democratic right to make or change the laws that govern them. The barriers faced by businesses are the direct result of EU law, and no amount of administrative smoothing can change that. When will those who tabled the motion stand up for the integrity of the UK's internal market and for the United Kingdom as a whole? We will continue to make the case for the full restoration of Northern Ireland's place in the United Kingdom, including removing EU law from our country and the Irish Sea border that it created. EU law is the problem, and the evidence from hauliers, particularly on customs, makes that abundantly clear.

Ms D Armstrong: There can be few in the Chamber who would deny that we have seen at first hand the disastrous and deplorable effects that the Irish Sea border has inflicted on our economy. We have witnessed reduced choice on the shelves of our shops, increased bureaucratic burdens on those attempting to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and significant harm to our agri-food sector. In the aftermath of Brexit, the people of Northern Ireland were given many carefully crafted assurances from Westminster about our secure and equal place in the United Kingdom, assurances that some Members of the Chamber championed with great enthusiasm, yet, as time has shown, they were assurances only and not guarantees.

From the UUP's perspective, the long-term solution must be a bespoke customs arrangement that removes checks, borders and restores economic union within our country. However, the motion is not that solution; it is grandstanding dressed up in hypocrisy. You cannot present a motion to the House and declare that it:

When we all know that dual market access, as Mr Brooks said, is in practice a myth. What we have is an economy—.

Mr Donnelly: Will the Member give way?

Ms D Armstrong: Certainly, yes.

Mr Donnelly: Businesses in my constituency have told me about the importance of dual market access in enabling them to sell goods into the wider EU market, the South and GB. They can certainly quantify how good dual market access is for them. Maybe the Member has not had that experience with businesses in her constituency: could she confirm that?

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

Ms D Armstrong: Thank you for your intervention. We have had a diversion of trade through the South because of the difficulties in trading with GB, and I will come to that.

We have an economy caught between two regulatory systems that is paying the price for the misjudgements and short-sightedness of others. The claims that our prosperity hinges on dual market access or that we would collapse without it lack evidence and self-awareness. Officials who have appeared before the Economy Committee, again as mentioned by Mr Brooks, include representatives from Invest NI and the Department for the Economy who have repeatedly confirmed that there is no meaningful evidence of job creation or foreign direct investment attributable to so-called dual market access.

The irony of today's motion is striking. We are told that the Windsor framework provides practical and necessary protections to mitigate some of the worst consequences of Brexit, yet it comes from the very party that refuses to acknowledge the genuine, ongoing damage caused by that framework. It entrenches regulatory divergence from Great Britain, imposes layers of bureaucracy, disrupts supply chains and places long-term economic constraints on the people of Northern Ireland. Our industries are suffering; our economy is under strain; and we cannot afford further drift or self-congratulation.

Mr Tennyson: Will the Member give way?

Ms D Armstrong: I am going to finish. Thank you.

It is a complex constitutional and economic issue, and the motion fails to grapple with any of that complexity. It continues to champion the fiction of dual market access — access that would, to widespread disbelief, disappear almost overnight, were a customs union ever to be fully realised. Therefore, why refer to it? The Ulster Unionist Party will always oppose the imposition of any border that divides our country, whether it originates in Brussels, Dublin or London. We cannot support a motion that refuses to face reality.

Mr O'Toole: What a decade it has been of talking about Brexit. Among Brexit's baleful consequences, it brought me into politics. I am sure that many in the Chamber and outwith will say that, yes, that is probably somewhere on the list of negative consequences of Brexit. [Laughter.]

Had Brexit not happened, I would not be here.

We support the motion. It is correct when it talks about the connectivity of the Northern Ireland economy North/South and east-west. It has been long proven not by politicians or pundits but by now backward-looking economic data from a range of sources that the disruption to trade flows was a result of the UK's choice to leave the EU and to do so in a particular manner that severed trade ties in the sharpest and most divergent way possible. That was a political choice by the then UK Government, egged on by the right-wing press in England — a choice, it has to be said, that was endorsed at the ballot box by voters who elected Boris Johnson's Government; insanely, in my view— that has led to the UK being a significantly poorer country. That is proven; it is not up for debate. Economists and the out-turn growth figures for the whole of the UK have proven the negative consequences of Brexit.

The Centre for European Reform had a monthly Brexit tracker that isolated what it called "lower trade intensity" — less trade in goods and services between the UK and the EU. It is the reason why there are tens of billions of pounds of lost economic output and, therefore, tens of billions of pounds of lost tax revenue to the UK economy every year. Eóin Tennyson is correct to highlight that. That, on top of the austerity and public spending restraint of the years before that, is part of the reason why there is less money to spend on public services in Northern Ireland and, indeed, other parts of the UK. We can make rhetorical points, but that is now proven fact. We are years on from those disruptions.

It is important to say that we also have proven economic out-turn data on the relative performance of Northern Ireland versus the rest of the UK. This has happened over a few years. For one of the first sustained periods since, bluntly, the creation of this jurisdiction and partition, Northern Ireland has consistently outperformed other parts of Britain. We are in a remarkable situation. It is in part —

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: I am happy to give way briefly.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. If he has been following that point, he will have noted that there is considerable dispute over those figures, given that the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) data that, I imagine, he is referring to is two years old. Two economists suggest that there is deception in the claim.

Mr O'Toole: I am not sure that there is much debate that the headline economic figures — the GDP — for Northern Ireland are outperforming or have consistently or generally outperformed the UK over recent years. That point illustrates that, even if the data is disputed a bit, it is true that the argument often made by politicians on the opposite side of the Chamber that the post-Brexit arrangements — the protocol, renamed the Windsor framework — have been the most awful, baleful set of manacles tying the Northern economy down is completely disproven.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: I do not have time, butfor the purpose of the debate, I will give way. I am feeling generous.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way because this is an important point. Will the Member square the circle for me that the largest area of growth — the 1% growth — comes from areas outside the grip of the Windsor framework?

Mr O'Toole: The Member is talking about services — demand services. Of course, it is also true that trade in goods and services is interlinked. He will accept that Northern Ireland has outperformed the rest of the UK while we have had dual market access and the protocol, because that is indisputable.

I will turn to the text of the motion. Our party believes in a new Ireland back inside the European Union. We are strongly and passionately pro-European. We are the most pro-European party in the Chamber, and we make no apology for that. We think that Northern Ireland should be back in Europe, and we think that the only plausible route to that end is a new Ireland. However, because we care about relationships across these islands — we also care about prosperity and living standards elsewhere — we think that, yes, the UK should move to a closer relationship with the EU. I think that it should rejoin. On the basis of my experience — I have some claim to know a little about it — it is vanishingly unlikely that that will happen, possibly in our lifetime but certainly for the foreseeable future. I think that a UK-EU customs union is a logical and desirable outcome. Whether the unstable politics of the UK will allow that is another question.

Some of the progress made in the meetings that happened last week involving Commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Maroš Šefcovic, who has been engaged in Northern Ireland, is positive. We encourage that. We also believe strongly in the case for dual market access. We have talked a lot about dual market access and the benefits of it, but I will make one final point as we debate the subject, although we will, no doubt, debate it again, and I will debate it again: the 10-year anniversary of the disaster that was Brexit. I cannot believe that not a single unionist politician can stand up and say that a UK-EU customs union is in our interests.

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

Mr O'Toole: Genuinely, guys, the fact that, at this stage, a decade on —

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

Mr O'Toole: — you cannot wise up —.

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

Mr O'Toole: My God.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Thank you.

Mr Kearney: In the decade since the British Government and DUP's reckless decision to leave the EU, we have all had to grapple with economic uncertainty and political and social instability. Fortunately, the regional economy in the North has been able to rely on protections from the Windsor framework. The regional economy continues to show growth due to the dual market access available through the Windsor framework. That is not to say that our economy has not faced challenges; it has. Businesses have had difficulty navigating the new post-Brexit realities.

Sinn Féin welcomes the attempts by the British Government to reset relations with the European Union, and we encourage the British Government and the EU to adopt every pragmatic measure that will assist in reducing and ending existing trade frictions. That is why we, as I have said in the past, welcomed the Murphy review, which called for the one-stop shop option to help simplify administrative processes for local businesses. Pragmatic and practical proposals have been supported in the Assembly in recent months. For example, Sinn Féin has advocated having a European Commission office in Belfast. That would complement the Murphy recommendation — that is, if the British Government are prepared to support its implementation, and there is a question over that. We have also called for observer status and representation at the European Parliament, and that is with a view to maximising our input to post-Brexit processes on the part of the EU that have an impact on our political, economic and social circumstances here.

The motion calls on the British Government to commence negotiations with the European Union to establish a UK-EU customs union, but, just a few days ago, the current Labour Administration rejected such a measure despite, as one of the Members who spoke earlier pointed out, positive indications of a willingness on the part of the European Commission to discuss working together on developing a customs union initiative. The apparent British Government unwillingness to engage positively with that option once again highlights the ongoing chaos and contradiction caused by the Brexit disaster, and that will continue to be the case for as long as English politicians retain any influence over the affairs of all citizens in this part of Ireland.

Brexit is a by-product of partition. Brexit and British Government decision-making will continue to impact negatively on society in the North. English politicians, whether Labour, Tory or Reform, will never act in the interests of citizens here, regardless of our different political allegiances. Therefore, we have a responsibility to open the most practical and pragmatic route to rejoining the EU bloc. That will be in the best interests of our businesses, workers and families. Unsurprisingly, this British Government are not open to that option, because the British Labour Party has allowed itself to become subordinate to the Brexit consequence of the Tory civil war, which was the catalyst for bringing it about. Brexit was never about new economic options or a nirvana. Brexit was all about ideological divisions in the Tory party, and Cameron's strategy for seeing that off was to go with the Brexit referendum.

In 2017, the European Commission announced that, in the event of a united Ireland, under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement, the entire territory of Ireland would be given automatic membership of the EU. Therefore, we have a definitive, automatic and legal route back into the European Union. That can be achieved through full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. We can do better. We must do better for workers and businesses in the North. That is denied to us by the present status quo. Setting a date for a referendum on constitutional change and commencing the transition to a new Ireland under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement is the key. It is the key to removing the disaster of Brexit, the toxic influence of English politics and the regressive role of every successive British Government in our affairs.

Mr Honeyford: If I were a business person looking on at the debate, I would be in absolute despair at what has been said — the gaslighting, actually — in the Chamber. The Northern Ireland economy is growing. We should celebrate that. We should be absolutely shouting from the rooftops that our economy is growing, people out there have better opportunities and we are bringing in jobs. We should not be arguing about where that growth is coming from. You can talk about services coming from services, but that is not actually true, Jonathan. If you were at last week's Committee and read the members' pack, you would know that the Department, InterTradeIreland and a third one — I cannot remember the third body that was there — said clearly that the fastest growing parts of our economy are life sciences and advanced manufacturing. It is about the units and products that are being built in those areas. Yes, services are wrapped around that, but growth is mainly coming from those areas. That is where we see it.

Northern Ireland's economy is growing. This is a trading nation. It has always been a trading region that works by selling stuff. That goes right back to the early 1900s, when 90% of the economy was based around the greater Belfast area. Now, we are looking at close to single digits in that area. That is how far we have gone. Our prosperity depends completely on selling goods and services beyond our borders. We cannot make money by selling to each other. We have to sell stuff out of here. I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would want to sell stuff only one way and not be able to sell in either two markets or multiple markets, why you would want to limit our business community, why you would want to create more barriers when you have created all the damage of Brexit in the first place and why you would choose now to simply have the UK-EU trade deal. It is just mind-blowing.

I can tell you now that the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI), InterTradeIreland, the Department and business owners here are all looking at this and asking, "Are you for real? Are you absolutely serious?".

Mr Brooks: Will the Member give way?

Mr Honeyford: No, I will not give way, because I have heard enough of the nonsense that you have spouted already. You created friction in the first place —.

Mr Buckley: No, you did.

Mr Honeyford: No, we did not.

Mr Brooks: It was the sea border.

Mr Honeyford: You voted for Brexit. You wanted Brexit. Own it — own it — because you delivered it. Well done. You did that 10 years ago. We will give you a round of applause. You delivered it, and you got what you wanted. The Windsor framework did not create the problems: it was there because of the problems that you created. Own your mistakes. Own what you have done. Do not pass it on to anybody else, because anybody with any common sense knows — [Interruption.]

Anybody with any common sense knows that, if you are selling something and somebody wants to buy it, you sell it to them, and you make that relationship as easy as you can.

The evidence from business and agencies completely backs up everything that is in the motion. Invest NI, InterTradeIreland, the Department, the FSB, the CBI and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry all just want to get on and make money for businesses to grow, create jobs and provide better opportunities, but you bring it all down to a culture war. You bring it all down to limiting opposition because it is not trade in the right direction. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? Imagine a shop owner in any street saying, "I'm not selling to you because I don't like you, but I do like you".

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Honeyford: No, I will not give way. Honestly, I have listened to minutes of speeches and interventions on it.

You have brought it all down to that. You have a slogan of "Making Northern Ireland work". Everybody understands that you have no intention of making Northern Ireland work. You mean, "Making Northern Ireland work for us". You go on about unionist demands, unionist this and unionist everything else: what about the greater good of everybody here and making the place work for everybody and making it better for everybody? In a geopolitical world that is absolutely fragile, you want less, not more. That sums up everything that we need to know about the DUP and your little sister — I was going to say "brother" but it is "sister" here this evening — the Ulster Unionist Party, along with the TUV. We need to secure more markets, not fewer.

Mr Buckley: Often, motions in this place are filled with contradictions. This motion, I would argue, takes that to staggering new heights. There are plenty of roundabouts in Craigavon, but the motion's roundabouts and U-turns are literally staggering. The Alliance Party is a fanboy of and cheerleader for the most robust Irish Sea border and friction to trade. Mr Honeyford, who could win an Oscar for his performance today, wants things to be checked and checked again. However, the real reason for the motion is not Alliance Party hypocrisy — we have come to expect that — but that its support among unionism has gone off a cliff. Alliance has cosied up to its useful lackeys across the Chamber to impose on Northern Ireland the most rigorous checks and friction with its largest trading partner, which is that within its own country. Mr Honeyford endorsed and pushed for those arrangements.

I am feeling generous, so I will give way at any time for Mr Tennyson to talk me through the many contradictions in the motion. Let us start with the first one, which is that:

That is true, but you must also accept that they are not equal, because, traditionally, Northern Ireland's trade within its own United Kingdom vastly outweighs that of its trade internationally, with the Republic of Ireland or with Europe. Therefore, choices must be made. A democratic choice made by the people of the United Kingdom was Brexit. Not all people agreed with it, and many Members in the Chamber did not. It is notable that Mr Tennyson's constituents and Mr Honeyford's constituents endorsed the concept, but that is for another day.

Mr Tennyson: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: Let us look at specific choices. What political decisions have been made since that vote? On every occasion, the Alliance Party has voted against the interests of businesses, farmers, hauliers, manufacturers and consumers.

I will give way to Mr Tennyson on that point.

Mr Tennyson: I thank the Member for giving way. I am impressed by his pantomime performance. The crux of the issue and the reason why Mr Buckley is so uncomfortable today is that, if he had bothered to listen to the FSB — the Federation of Small Businesses — Logistics UK or any of the host of other business organisations in 2016, we would not be in this position.

Mr Buckley: It is not supposed to be a speech, Mr Tennyson. I listen acutely to businesses, and I always have. When you wax lyrical about east-west trade, it is a deception of the highest order, because your party has taken no interest in the concerns of businesses. It has scoffed and laughed continually at the real-life concerns. I sat in the Chamber for an hour and 10 minutes in order to quote them, and I was laughed at and ridiculed by Members of his party.

Secondly, they say that the UK's exit from the EU was reckless and that, ultimately, friction was predictable. Friction was not inevitable but for the very argument that was put forward by the Alliance Party. That party supported and normalised the protocol and, later, the Windsor framework, fully aware of the barriers that they would place within the United Kingdom. It is hypocritical in the extreme to condemn the outcomes whilst endorsing the cause. I argue that that is exactly what the Alliance Party has done repeatedly.

Let us turn to the importance of dual market access, which Mr Honeyford often likes to talk about, but it bears no scrutiny. Why is that? It is because dual market access does not mean equal market access. You have placed barriers within our indigenous market, therefore affecting consumers, businesses and hauliers.

Then we wanted to talk about the economic growth index. Let us look at the composite economic index, which showed that the 1% growth in economic activity across Northern Ireland in Q3 in 2025 compared with 2024. That was driven by an increase in the services sector of 0·6%; for those who are watching, that sector is outside the Windsor framework. Construction provided for 0.3% of that growth; it is outside the Windsor framework. Of that growth, 0.9% of that growth pertains to areas outside the grip of your grubby deals to destroy trade in Northern Ireland.

Mr Honeyford: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: I have already given way, so I will continue.

Then we have the endorsement and the importance of the Windsor framework. The motion goes on to say that, despite those protections, bureaucratic disruption continues. Well done, Alliance. Thanks for finally getting on-message. Those barriers were put in place because of the rigorous implementation of the protocol that you called for. In one afternoon, you voted to wilfully send over 300 areas of law from this place because you cared nothing for scrutiny or for the businesses that were affected. You would rather have a nice green tick beside your name from lining up in the Assembly to vote for motions and policy positions that undermine Northern Ireland's position. You voted against a motion to condemn and reject outright additional parcel taxes on the people of Northern Ireland —

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

Mr Buckley: — yet you come to the House today to say that you do not want that.

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

Mr Buckley: That is hypocrisy in the extreme.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Mr Buckley, time is up. I think that you heard me the first time.

Ms McLaughlin: My God. It feels like Groundhog Day when it comes to debates about Europe in this place. Almost every month, the Assembly returns to similar motions and familiar arguments. We could all go and vote before anybody says a word, because we all know what way it will go. People outside the Chamber are absolutely sick, sore and tired of this tit-for-tat politics. It is pure nonsense. They want less repetition and more delivery. That having been said, the motion reflects a number of important truths, and it is right that we acknowledge them.

We are living through a period of significant global change. The rules-based order that once underpinned international trade and cooperation has, indeed, been badly weakened. Under the Trump Administration in the United States, predictability has given way to volatility, and multilateralism has been replaced by unilateral decision-making. As a result, countries and investors are now reassessing risk. They are diversifying their investments and looking for stability, reliability and access to markets. I believe that, done properly, that shift presents an opportunity, particularly for smaller regions that have, too often, been left behind.

Northern Ireland should be firmly positioned in that context. As investors look again at where they place their money, we should be moving at speed to attract them here. Our dual market access to the UK and the EU single market is a genuinely unique proposition. Very few places anywhere in the world can offer that. It should be one of our strongest selling points, but the reality is we are failing to make the most of it, and that is the truth.

Businesses have told us repeatedly that the Executive are not doing enough to clearly articulate the benefits of dual market access or to actively promote Northern Ireland as a place to invest in. That exposes a deeper problem. How can expect investors to come here when our ability to deliver as a government is so poor? We still do not have a published investment strategy. We still do not have a genuinely plan-led approach to our electricity grid. Our waste water infrastructure remains broken, preventing housing regeneration and economic growth. We continue to tolerate deep economic imbalance, with regions such as the north-west consistently missing out. Too often, Ministers appear more focused on blaming one another than just getting on with delivering for the rest of Northern Ireland.

It does not have to be that way.

Mr Brooks: Will the Member give way?

Ms McLaughlin: I will come back to you.

Across civic society, the business community and our wider stakeholders, there is no shortage of ambition and willingness to help to build a stronger and fairer economy.

Mr Brooks: I thank the Member for giving way. One of the sectors that are likely to grow fastest in the EU in the coming years is defence. Would she welcome some of that investment into the north-west to ensure that the UK and Northern Ireland can play their part in defending Europe, whether within it or from without?

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

Ms McLaughlin: You have just made my point. We need to get delivering for our economy here on waste water, housing and healthcare, but you just want to talk about wedge issues. You are absolutely not at the races when it comes to growing and developing the economy of Northern Ireland. What we are missing is leadership. What we are really missing from your Benches is leadership. We are missing coordination and follow-through from the Executive. There is also no denying the damage that Brexit has done, and to sit and continue to deny it 10 years on is lacking leadership. It is lacking a backbone, and you have not got it or you would display it here, occasionally, in this Chamber.

As I have said many times in the Chamber, businesses in Derry are genuinely struggling. Small traders, exporters and family-run firms are being choked by bureaucracy, paperwork and delays. They are not abstract issues but sometimes are the difference between keeping the doors open and closing them for good. If we fail to address that, our high streets will continue to decline and communities will pay the price. That is why we support efforts to reduce trade frictions, including closer alignment between the UK and the EU and serious consideration for a customs union. You cannot contemplate that because you are so dug into your own trenches that you cannot see over the top. Those measures would make a real difference to businesses here.

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The simple truth is that, if we were to build a new Ireland, we would be placed right back into the heart of the European Union. That is the only way in which the damage done by Brexit could ever be fully reversed. Yes, there are mitigations — the UK-EU customs union, the EU Commission office in Belfast and observer status for Northern Ireland in the European Parliament — but those are all too much for you. You cannot go there.

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

Mr Carroll: Part of the motion is about trade, and seamless trade would be broadly welcomed and my party and I would not oppose it. Also, we need to be realistic and realise that free trade is, essentially, freedom of capital to crush the worker, as somebody once said. People should have the free-flowing access to goods that they need, and much is made about the restrictions and the other issues coming out of EU exit, which, obviously, was not an unimportant event. However, I do not think that enough is made in this debate about the actions, in a general sense, of large multinational companies and their decisions being motivated, exclusively, by maximising profits. Greater profits for them do not mean higher wages for people here.

It is also worth noting the use of tariffs. What are tariffs? They are a toll by corporations and the ruling class to jostle with and outfight each other and to, again, maximise profits and punish the working-class people of other countries, who have the same interests at heart.

In some ways, we are entering — if not in it already — a different epoch in trade, how states interact and how the global North responds to economic difficulties. Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, has said that the rules-based order is over. He had his own reasons for saying that, but I do not think that it ever existed in a real sense, because people guilty of war crimes walk free in America, Europe, Israel and elsewhere. I hope sincerely that there can be a new international system of cooperation, working together in a commitment to peace. Left to the people in charge, however, that is a fanciful dream. The people running the world economy operate in the interests of corporations, polluters and the arms industry. If there is to be a break from that rotten and depraved economic and political system, it can come only from the people who are ground down by it.

For the best part of 40-plus years, we have had Governments in America, Britain and, probably, most of Europe trying to break down barriers to trade to increase trade and open up markets and exploit people but to have trade free-flowing, relatively speaking. Now, we are in a different era, where tariffs can more essentially be the order of the day. That is not hyperbole. Take any newspaper from Britain, Ireland or anywhere in Europe and you will see the drive to war, and tariffs are real and threatening.

The motion refers to "geopolitical uncertainty". It is clear that we are in a time of climate change, financial instability and uncertain economic times — and, as I said, the beating of war drums. The academic Adam Tooze talks about a "polycrisis", a combination or connection of multiple crises. They are not just connected but are intertwined: supply chain disruptions, financial system failures and geopolitical instability are all one part of one fragile, global network.

Going back to the motion, we often hear in the House about the European Union being a key promoter and defender of human rights. Nobody could say that with a straight face when you see the role played by Ursula von der Leyen in supporting Israel's slaughter — genocide — in Gaza. She articulated repeatedly her and the EU's unending support for Israel and paid a solidarity visit to Netanyahu, supporting the flow of weapons to that apartheid state. She also articulated that Ukrainians had a right to resist in opposing an invading Russian army, but Palestinians were told to accept mass slaughter and starvation, but we do not hear anything in the House about that.

We also hear nothing in the House about the EU's migration strategy. What is it? I do not know whether people follow the debate closely, but essentially it is a policy reminiscent of Trump's ICE approach. Keir Starmer, who is Prime Minister for now but hopefully for not much longer —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Mr Carroll, will you return to the customs union?

Mr Carroll: I absolutely will. The motion refers to geopolitical issues, and I am talking about those and the EU's role in those, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will bring my remarks to a close in a second.

That policy is reminiscent of Trump's, what Jim O'Callaghan is doing in the South and Keir Starmer's. What the plan will do — it is important that this is on the record, because nobody raised it today — is deport people from Europe to third countries in which they never lived and with which have no social ties. That is a real rotten, dangerous and, for many, deadly plan. That is extremely important. European leaders often present themselves as members of the civilised garden — leave aside the racial undertones of that comment — but they are looking to ramp up deportations, raids and, rather than stand up to Trump, be a smaller, poorer version of him, and we should resist that.

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

Mr Carroll: OK.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Thank you. That concludes the list of speakers.

I call Kate Nicholl to make a winding-up speech. You have up to 10 minutes.

Ms Nicholl: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. What a joy to be able to make a winding-up speech on the debate. So many new arguments were made. Much of Northern Ireland but especially our economy is built on connections, on relationships North/South and east-west — not borders and paperwork. Businesses here rely on the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain, and for years we have benefited from frictionless trade, predictability around rules and regulations, and the seamless movement of goods and services, but that changed with Brexit. It did, and it created additional barriers. Yes, the Windsor framework made important progress. It has protected dual market access and given Northern Ireland a unique ability to trade into the EU single market and the UK internal market. However, we acknowledge that for many firms, especially smaller ones, the paperwork and bureaucracy are still an issue. That is not good for jobs or for ordinary families who are trying to make ends meet in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

Across the world, reliable and stable trade relationships are really important for resilient economies. When you simplify customs arrangements, align the rules and reduce barriers, businesses can thrive. Ultimately, that is what this motion is about and what a UK-EU customs union would deliver. It is about cutting red tape, making supply chains simpler, reducing costs to businesses and boosting growth across these islands.

Mr Kingston: Will the Member give way?

Ms Nicholl: Go ahead.

Mr Kingston: Does the Member recognise that having a trade deal is different from being in a customs union? The UK has been able to make many trade deals around the world that the EU does not have, including with the USA, India, Australia and New Zealand. Having trade deals is important, but it is because the UK is not part of the EU customs union that it has been able to make those extra trade deals that the EU does not have and that we in Northern Ireland benefit from.

Ms Nicholl: I understand your point, but I am not entirely sure how beneficial those trade deals have been in comparison with being part of a UK-EU customs union.

The deputy leader of my party made a good point about how it is not just about Northern Ireland: this is what UK businesses want. They want us to be back in the UK-EU customs union, because that would make their lives simpler. It is not just for Northern Ireland, and it is not about ideology but about pragmatism. It is about recognising that, in the uncertain global economy, the closer we are aligned to our biggest trading partner, the better off we are.

There is one point that I really want to make. I will say it slowly and clearly, and, if anyone ever repeats it again, I will know that they are being disingenuous. The phrase "rigorous implementers" is frequently used to insult Alliance. For anyone who does not know, the phrase "rigorous implementation" refers to a joint party letter that leaders wrote in September 2020 with regard to the Internal Market Bill and the threat of the UK Government's breaking international law in a limited and specific way. It was about stressing the importance of upholding existing agreements and international law more generally. Without those commitments, the task of fixing the issues with the protocol would have been impossible. The phrase "rigorous implementation" related to the UK Government's threatening to break international law; that is what it was about. If you use it again, I will know that you are being disingenuous and are just using it to play politics.

I will mention some of the other things that were said. The only thing on which I agree with David is that the barriers to trade are unacceptable.

Mr Honeyford: David, that was you, not me.

Ms Nicholl: Not you; I agree with everything that you say. [Laughter.]

Ciara was solution-focused and talked about the importance of maximising dual market access; I absolutely agree. Eóin Tennyson said that the cost of Brexit is a cost to our public services — let us not forget that — and that agriculture is such an important example of how we work. He also said that the motion is just about being practical and taking a practical step to make things better and deal with some of the damage. I have addressed rigorous implementation very clearly. Diana talked about the "fiction" of dual market access and Invest NI's inability to list businesses that have benefited from it. So much of that is because we cannot promote or sell it. In that Economy Committee meeting, officials said that a lot of businesses are afraid to come out and say that they are benefiting from dual market access because it is so polarised and has become so toxic. David loves to talk about the businesses in Lagan Valley that are benefiting from it, so let us do more to encourage more businesses to talk about it and to access its benefits.

Matthew said that he was here because of Brexit, and we are all delighted that he is here. Declan talked about the importance of the economy and said that it continues to show growth but still faces challenges, which is true. The resetting of relationships is important. I absolutely agree with his analysis of the Brexit genesis as being a Tory party issue. David Honeyford gave an enjoyable speech and gave the business perspective. Our economy is growing. We have always been a trading region; we trade beyond our borders. I very much enjoyed Jonathan Buckley's referring to anyone else as having given an Oscar-winning performance, then going on to do similar. I did not agree with a single thing that he said, but I very much enjoyed his delivery.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way, as she always kindly does. A number of supporters of the Alliance motion, predictably, raised the matter of a new Ireland. I am interested in the Alliance Party's position on that. Would the Alliance Party rather have a Northern Ireland that is in a new Ireland inside the EU or a strong, thriving Northern Ireland that is outside the EU and firmly in the UK?

Ms Nicholl: I will answer that question in a way that will give headlines: the Alliance Party is a cross-community party.

Mr Buckley: You are struggling, Kate.

Ms Nicholl: It is so difficult for people who see only through a unionist and nationalist lens. We are a party of people with multiple identities and multiple ideas. Our core focus is on creating a shared future in which everyone can benefit. We want to be back in the EU: we see the benefit of that. The debate always comes back to that constitutional question, however, which is so abstract to me.

Mr Buckley: That is what your supporters were saying.

Ms Nicholl: That is their view. That is not our view.

Mr Buckley: I am asking for your views.

Ms Nicholl: We are a cross-community party. We want our public services to work. We want life to be easier for people. We want our children to have opportunities and to be able to respect and embrace cultures across the board. When Members bring every debate back to that constitutional question, it does a disservice to the actual issues; it distracts from the issues that people face. Right now, the issue that people are facing that we are trying to deal with is the inability of businesses to trade as well they could and the need to make things easier for them. That is not just about Northern Ireland but about the UK in general. We need to move beyond the old arguments and division and to look at what works. Sinéad spoke so well on this: we live in a scary time when there is so much division, mistrust and fear. Building alliances and connections and working with and trusting people are not weaknesses but strengths. We need to do more of that.

I urge Members to support the motion, to move beyond old arguments and to focus on what works: a genuine partnership with our neighbours in Europe that puts jobs, growth and people first. Backing a UK-EU customs union would send a strong message that cooperation and good trade agreements are not weaknesses but are very much strengths.