I will highlight the issue of respite services in Northern Ireland. Tonight, a 'Spotlight' documentary titled 'I Am Not Okay' will air on BBC1 NI. The documentary is available on iPlayer, so I took the opportunity this morning to watch it. The distress and the pleas for help that I saw and heard are neither new nor individual, and that is an outright disgrace.

Respite care across Northern Ireland was failing our families long before the COVID pandemic: while what was on offer was marginally better, it was still not good enough. Like many in the Chamber, I too often hear stories of families pleading for help, of parents being forced to take legal action and of desperate calls being made to social workers and trusts, all in the hope of getting some form of help. Indeed, the most recent call for help was made last Friday by a new family in my Constituency. The form of help that was offered to them through the trust was a direct payment, so they were forced to look for assistance themselves. The trusts are, in some circumstances, unwilling to give families the help that is desperately needed, because, they claim, they are not able to provide help. They say that they cannot provide the workforce to help those families. How on earth can families be expected to secure that help for themselves at home?

The situation has not developed overnight. There has been long-term negligence in the provision of respite care in Northern Ireland and help for carers across every one of our constituencies. We are at crisis point. Children now need long-term care placement options because families can no longer cope and have been abandoned. That is not a choice that any family wants to make or comes to easily, but there are no options yet available for long-term care placements. We now hear from the Department and the trusts that they are looking for out-of-state care for those children.

That out-of-state care in the Republic of Ireland or the UK could cost upwards of £20,000 per week. It is not about being unable to afford to help those families in their own homes, because we cannot afford not to do it.

Over the years, I have dealt with many families and stakeholders on the issue. I have also brought it directly to the previous and current Health Ministers, both at Committee and through Assembly questions. In fact, in one of those instances, when I questioned the Minister about third-party providers being paid by the trusts to offer services that were not actually being offered, I got a blank face and inadequate answers. That is something that those families face every single day. Those families are not OK. They deserve our help.