Something worth coming home for

By Elizabeth Clarke MBE

My son is thinking about moving to Australia next year.

Part of me wants to tell him to go see the world, have the adventure and take every opportunity that comes his way.

But the mum in me has one question.

Will he come home?

Because with home comes hope. Hope that our young people can go out into the world, experience everything it has to offer, but still see Northern Ireland as somewhere worth coming back to.

I suspect there are kitchen tables across Northern Ireland where exactly the same conversation is taking place.

We have brilliant young people. We educate them, encourage them to aim high and then too often watch them take that talent somewhere else.

I don’t want Northern Ireland to be somewhere our young people are afraid to leave. I want them to travel, see the world and take opportunities when they come.

I just want us to give them a reason to come back.

Can they afford a home here? Can they build the career they want? Can they see themselves having a good life here? And when they need our health service, will it actually be there?

That last one worries me.

I think we are becoming far too accepting of a two-tier health system. Those who can afford to pay privately can often get a diagnosis or treatment quickly, while those who cannot are left waiting.

Where you sit on a waiting list should not depend on what is sitting in your bank account.

We shouldn’t accept that as normal.

Perhaps being less willing to accept things is partly why, after nearly 19 years in public service, I recently did something that I sometimes wonder whether I was mad to do.

I stepped into politics.

As a mum of five, it wasn’t an easy decision. Life is busy enough already but I’d reached the point where talking about what needed to change wasn’t enough. I wanted to put my hand up and try.

I’m new to politics, but most people I know aren’t obsessed with politics. They’re busy living.

They’re raising families, caring for parents, working, paying mortgages, running businesses, sorting childcare and trying to make everything add up at the end of the month.

They don’t expect miracles, and they certainly don’t expect government to solve every problem for them.

But they should be able to expect things to work.

Working hard should mean you can build a decent life. Owning a home shouldn’t feel completely out of reach. Getting sick shouldn’t leave you wondering whether you can afford to get better quicker. And having ambition shouldn’t mean having to leave Northern Ireland to fulfil it.

Northern Ireland has so much going for it, but our greatest asset has always been our people.

We spend a lot of time debating Northern Ireland’s future. Maybe one of the most important things we can do for that future is to make this a place people choose.

So I hope my son goes to Australia next year.

I hope he has the adventure of his life. I’ll probably worry from the minute he gets on the plane until the minute he comes home.

But I do want him to come home.

Not because his mum wants him to.

Because he wants to.

Because with home comes hope; a job worth coming back for, a home he can afford and, perhaps one day, somewhere he wants to raise a family of his own.

We have some of the best people in the world. Let’s make Northern Ireland one of the best places in the world for them too.