THE damage caused by the dysfunction that has long characterised government at Stormont is often seen in terms of our ailing public services. This is correct as, to take but one example, our appalling health waiting lists attest. The DUP's continued boycott of power-sharing will only deepen the malaise.
But there are other areas in which the public is being failed. This includes childcare. Already an expense that often outstrips family mortgage payments, nursery fees are expected to soar further as private providers contend with their own rising wage, energy and food bills.
This is the cost-of-living crisis writ large. As Aoife Hamilton from the Employers for Childcare charity points out, this will leave some parents "being forced out of the workplace due to not being able to find or afford the childcare they need".
There are implications for the economy in this and ahead of this week's International Women's Day it must also be acknowledged that mothers are most likely to be affected by giving up work to care for young children.
The current spike in living costs has thrown the scale of nursery bills into sharper focus but the general cost of childcare in Northern Ireland is a long-running and significant problem.
According to OECD figures, average childcare bills in the UK account for more than half of a woman's earnings. In the Republic it is around a third. The OECD average is 17 per cent, and in some countries - including Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic - it is "very low or zero". In the Netherlands, where subsidies and support are already generous, the government plans to cover 95 per cent of childcare expenses for all working parents by 2025.
In New Decade, New Approach, the Stormont Executive did at least appear to recognise the urgency of the north's childcare crisis.
It committed to publishing a strategy, promising to "give immediate priority to developing arrangements to deliver extended, affordable, responsive, high quality provision of early education and care initiatives for families with children aged 3-4".
That was more than three years ago and any sort of strategy is by now long overdue. Even by Stormont's dismal standards, it is difficult to know how this reflects childcare being any sort of priority.
Hard-pressed families having to choose between continuing to work and caring for their children may well conclude that Stormont has once again got its priorities all wrong. It is yet another reason for the Assembly to be revived and to focus on people, not the Protocol.
