Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

As Senator Ross said, choice is the crucial element. I accept what Senators Terry and Ross said about the need to respect the rights and values of parents who make a financial sacrifice to provide parenting in their own homes. If we talk about choice we must focus on the supply of child care places. Senator Minihan proposed that we examine the possibility of increasing the number of child care places in the community through an income tax and social welfare disregard for the suppliers of small scale services. That should be examined as a real way of increasing the number of places. Some people are lucky enough to have relatives who provide support during their child rearing years. However, many do not have relatives or live so far away from them that it is not an option. Yet many people in the community provide child care in an informal way and would be willing to provide it to a higher standard and within the regular economy if the State offered assistance. We have an income tax and social welfare disregard for certain house sharing arrangements and could use a similar approach to the supply of child care places.

Senator Minihan has also championed the provision of school age child care, and my Department has published a report to which a number of speakers have already made reference. Although there is much to be said and done about the first three or four years of a child's rearing, school age child care must be addressed. During the week I had the pleasure of opening a new school age child care facility in Goatstown, Dublin, which is exactly what my Department is seeking to stimulate countrywide. Voluntary groups of parents, in association with school authorities, could use a portion of a school campus to provide child care before and school after school hours. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, through the city and county child care committee network is now stimulating demand for this type of facility across Ireland through advertisements in local and regional newspapers. The enterprising start made by groups such as the one in Our Lady's Grove in Goatstown is an example but there are others.

Many national schools have declining school numbers and some have fought back by providing on-campus child care facilities. This attracts parents who wanted those services, which fall around but not directly through the provision of primary education by traditional means. Many of those schools find they can attract a population of school children and their schools are no longer marginal. Their future position is assured by virtue of the fact that they provide not just primary education from 9 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. but a service which starts at 8 a.m. and continues until 6 p.m. by a combination of traditional primary education delivered through conventional means along with the additional feature of a voluntary school age child care service in close association with it. That is an important development.

I am glad the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is pushing this scheme forward, through the child care committees, to stimulate demand across the country for these services and to grant aid them. I appeal to such groups in the community to realise the huge value and potential synergy that exists in marrying our primary education infrastructure, through a parallel process of topping it up on both ends, that is, pre-school and after school, with a decent service that provides a seamless system of school age child care for parents who need it.

There are tax implications in our present system for many couples. As Senator Ross correctly pointed out, some large firms are now providing crèche facilities and child minding services for their employees. These are not regarded as a taxable benefit-in-kind. However, if one does not work for one of those companies and if one's employer provides off-campus assistance with child care, it is regarded as a benefit-in-kind. That is wrong. It is also wrong that in the case of small scale enterprises, which could not possibly ever organise child care facilities of that kind, it will be a discrimination against their employees in that they are perforce excluded from that type of approach.

Senator Cox suggested there should be tax relief for those who retain the service of an in-house dedicated child minder in their home. I listened to the Senator with interest. I do not like to discuss my domestic arrangements but I am aware of how significant the cost is if one plays by the rules and pays PAYE and PRSI for such a service. However, those who are in a position to do that at present are generally among the better off in society. They have two incomes. Paying a full-time child minder at home is expensive and while consideration can be given to this, we should look to the coping families who are not, and could not be, in that position. They need some assistance. The Government will have to take a more broad-based approach.

I wish to refer to the suggestion that I should thump the Cabinet table for resources for child care. The party I represent in Government has played a very constructive role and I praise Senator Minihan for his part in leading the debate on a new departure in State policy on child care. It is open to Senator Cox and her colleagues to thump the parliamentary party table, when they meet their Ministers, to seek similar success and progress in developing the debate.