Mary Henry (Independent)

As someone who spent all of her salary on child care at one stage of her career, I support this motion. The Minister spoke about the expense of employing a child minder to look after children in the home. This is probably the most economical form of child care today because crèches are appallingly expensive. I regret that there is still no crèche in this House despite the fact I have served here for approximately 13 years. When I first came the House, Deputy Mary Wallace, who had a young child, and I went to examine many crèches around the city. Deputy Wallace's child is now of an age to attend secondary school.

We have spoken extensively about the cost of child care for those in the workforce and the situation regarding parents at home. What about the cost of child care for those who simply cannot afford it? I am very pleased by the Minister's statement that free places will be brought forward for these have-nots. I have been involved for many years with Cherish, the organisation for single mothers which is now called One Family. Certain women interviewed by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency stated that they had abortions because they could not afford to keep a child. We should remember this in our deliberations.

Children in secondary schools who become pregnant can drop out of education and without the efforts of some voluntary organisations, will never get back into it. People in third level education, with which I am particularly involved, drop out of education again because of the cost of child care places. There are insufficient child care places in universities given the enormous increase in the number of students. We need these well-educated young women for the workforce but if they have a child and do not have support from their family or a partner, it can spell the end of their career. I have been forced to find money from various funds for students who were paying for child care outside the university in order to subsidise child care places in other crèches. We must think about the education of these women as well as their children, which is why I strongly support the proposal by Senator Ross about the availability of free places. There are people who simply do not have the money for these child care places. I am involved with places which try to run crèches for nothing or to get money to subsidise payments to crèches so that people can remain in either second or third level education.

Senator Cox and I have spoken about the French system, under which one can buy vouchers, or chèques domestiques, tax free and use them to pay people who work in one's home. I have raised this matter during the debates on many budgets, without any success. I do not know why we cannot adopt such a simple system, which has been shown to work in France over a long period of time.