The number of registered childminders in Northern Ireland has halved over the past two decades while demand for childcare has risen.

The availability and cost of childcare has become a significant issue for many parents and a political priority.

But the Education Minister, Paul Givan, has previously said that it may cost up to £400m to put a childcare strategy to support parents in place.

Parents in Northern Ireland do not get free childcare hours, unlike other parts of the UK where parents are entitled to 30 free hours.

Mr Givan is planning to bring a subsidy scheme for childcare to the executive later on Thursday.

Mr Givan told Nolan Live on Wednesday night that he hoped his package of measures would get support from executive colleagues

Some parents pay for their children to enter nurseries or playgroups, but others rely on childminders to provide childcare.

Most registered childminders work from their own home and look after up a maximum of six children a day.

They are registered in a process including vetting by social services which can take a number of months.

But Patricia Lewsley-Mooney from the Northern Ireland Childminding Association (NICMA) told MLAs on Stormont’s Economy Committee that there had been a big fall in the number of registered childminders in Northern Ireland.

Ms Lewsley-Mooney said that there were now just over 2,000 registered childminders in Northern Ireland compared to 4,383 in 2005.

Parents in rural areas in particular could have trouble finding a childminder, she said, and there was also a need for more childminders in areas like west and east Belfast.

She warned that “due to the demand of affordable childcare, there continues to be the growth and the competition from unregistered and unregulated childminders.”

If a childminder is unregistered and unregulated they may not have been vetted by social workers, and may not have appropriate insurance or received training in things like first aid.

Sinead Daly, 48, has been a registered childminder for 14 years.

She lives in Coalisland in County Tyrone.

She minds eight children per day and has an assistant.

Ms Daly previously worked in retail but wanted to be at home with her son, so decided childminding would provide an income and company for her child.

“I gave up retail at Christmas time, took a week off and then started the following week with all my slots [six including my own child] filled,” she said.

“People are ringing me in dire straits over childcare and unfortunately I can’t help them out,” she said.

“So many parents are telling us they are struggling to find childcare and there’s no doubt in this area demand is certainly outstripping supply.”

Ms Lewsley-Mooney also said the time it took for a childminder to be vetted by social services had increased significantly.

“The problem is the registration process,” she said.

“Before it was taking three to six months, now it’s taking six to nine months and beyond that.”

“In fact, we’ve been 18 months on this and we still haven’t got two people registered.”

She told MLAs that she had raised the problem with the Department of Health.

“They’re saying the amount of social workers that are under pressure right across the board they couldn’t ask to make prospective childminders a priority,” she said.

MLAs were also told that as many childminders did not have a pension they could be working into their 70s.

Ms Lewsley-Mooney said they were an “ageing population.”

“I met a childminder the other day who’s been a childminder for 43 years – she’s minding third generation children,” she said.