Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak here this evening and thank Senator Cox for the full and generous way in which she proposed the Government amendment. It strikes me that I should say a few words on this occasion in response to the debate we heard so far. As Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, my personal responsibility as a Cabinet member is on that aspect of child care which falls within the equality section of my Department. For the first time, €500,000 million will be spent over a period of seven years on a programme on child care provision in this State. I wish to put on the record the contrast between that and the fact that less than €2 million per annum was spent by the Department in the last year of the erstwhile rainbow coalition.

In 1997 the Government was faced with a series of conflicting demands as to where it should place financial resources for the costs faced by caring and coping families bringing up their children. People demanded that we reinstate child tax allowances. Others argued that would be wrong in principle because those allowances benefit those at work rather than those who want to enter employment but find themselves excluded by market conditions. The strategic decision was made that the Government would put an enormous amount of money into the issue of child benefit so it would benefit everyone in the community and not simply those at work.

Senator Cox mistakenly stated the Government amendment, which she moved, did not refer at all to children. In 1997, the State gave parents €506 million in child benefit. Now, it is giving €1.9 billion to parents in child benefit. That is an enormous increase and goes right across the board. It is of equal value to everyone in and out of work, every week and month of the year, regardless of economic circumstances. It is a socially progressive measure to support the cost of child care across the community.

I wish to contrast what this Government does, compared with the previous coalition Government, which fancied itself as having something of the left about it. Let us examine it closely. Since 1997 every household, including those at the bottom of the economic scale, has received a four-fold increase in child benefit support.

Since 1997, the equal opportunities child care programme has been an outstanding success. In partnership with European funds, it has attracted a vast flow of money into this State for the first time. That money is directed towards equality of opportunity based child care. That is socially progressive child care. None of those expenditure programmes existed when the parties of the left were in office in this country. Let us remember that nothing of that kind was attempted. Approximately 40,000 child care places will be created and sustained by the equal opportunities child care programme. Much of this will be directed to the have-nots in our community rather than the haves.

Ireland is changing demographically. This evening's newspaper reported that we have one of the highest birth rates in the European Union. Unlike most EU members we are now sustaining ourselves through our reproductive patterns and that is a good thing. As Senator Ross wisely pointed out in proposing this motion, the participation rate of women in our economy has been dramatically transformed from over 400,000 women in the workplace in 1995 to well over 800,000. This has been a dramatic change in Irish society and carries an important agenda for political action to bring about child care facilities that match the needs of that changing society.

It is easy to come up with "back of a beer mat" and ill thought-out responses to the need for greatly enhanced child care provision in Irish society. For example, we can learn from the experience we had with grants for first-time house buyers, which increased house prices and subsidised the building industry rather than reducing the price of houses. The same applies to naive models for subsidising the provision of child care places through the tax system alone. If we subsidise a finite number of child care service providers through a tax allowance to their customers, the hard-pressed parents of Ireland, the cost of child care will jump to absorb the additional funds but the number of places will be much slower to increase. We must recognise that we need to increase the supply of high quality child care places to those who need it and to increase genuine choice as Senator Norris pointed out.